Our Little Family

Hi. My name is Ainsley Ames

2011-06-03T20:21:00.012-04:00

And I am 12 weeks old today. My mom is a little bit of a slacker and has not posted anything about me yet. We are starting to get a grove going and she has a little bit more time to do extra things. I have been an awesome baby, if you ask me.

I love to smile and talk. Most of the time I am really happy and love to play. I will play on the floor with just a blanket and I couldn't be happier.
Are you looking at me? I am getting really good at holding up my head. The only thing is I really don't like to be on my belly...I don't know why they keep making me do it.
I get really tired..and then...
I get really mad. My mom usually picks me up at this point and calms me down. She spoils me a lot and so does everyone else who loves me. Pretty much I have it made and everyone is wrapped around my little finger. Cause I'm adorable.

These are pictures that my Aunt Alie took of me. She can take amazing pictures and can always get me to smile!More to come later about when I was born and what has been going on the first 12 weeks of my life!

10 Months Later

2009-06-22T16:11:00.004-04:00

Sorry everyone who reads our blog (or who did read our blog) that we have not posted in over 10 months. Our lives are just not that interesting. I promise I will try harder to find interesting things to post about on here. I have a few things to post in the next little while but here is a little something about Matthew.

Our stake did a trek for youth conference this year and they asked Matt to be part of the battalion. It was ridiculously hot that day and everyone was dying of heat exhaustion but he still had a great time.

Mosaic

2008-10-07T22:01:00.005-04:00

01. What is your first name? (Lauren)
02. What is your favorite food? (Mexican)
03. What high school did you attend? (Community College High School)
04. What is your favorite color? (Green)
05. Who is your celebrity crush? (Christian Bale)
06. Favorite drink? (Pepsi)
07. Dream vacation? (Backpacking around the World)
08. Favorite dessert? (Lemon Bars)
09. What do you want to be when you grow up? (Photographer)
10. What do you love most in life? (Matthew)
11. One word to describe you? (Exhausted)
12. Your Flickr name? (lauren pender)

Thanks Erin...I had fun with this.

I HATE MOVING

2008-09-23T19:23:00.009-04:00

Well we did it. For the 3rd time in 2 years, we moved again! Ugh I hope it is the last time for a LONG time. Packing and unpacking and all the tape and boxes, I am so over it all. Here you all go an update of our new home. See the picture mania below. Enjoy!

The ceremonial hanging of our family name sign

Nice butt shot Matthew. Wohoo!

Our front door from the garage stairs.

Nice view of the pool from the window on the left of the previous picture.

before unpacking. look at all the stuff.

Doesn't he look so happy to be alphabatizing his CD's....NO he's not OCD. haha

View from the front of our apartment from the window on the left of the previous picture.

Random Cupcake?

Matthew trying to fix out washing machine and was successful after many attempts. hehe.

Our extremely small laundry room....we might as well just call it a closet.

All of our boxes prior to breaking them down took up our entire dining room.

Looks better now...just need a dining table

View from the window in the prior picture. That is the main road we live off of.

Close up on the design of our curtains. Courtesy of Ikea.

Kitchen before unpacking

And after

Hallway to the bedroom and bathroom (where all the magic happens -added by Matthew). Just past the entry way on the right is our nearly non existent laundry closet.

Bedroom before unpacking

View of half the backyard from our bedroom, the other half is the pool picture above.

And after. To the right is the closet.

View of the hallway. The door on the left is to the bathroom

Close up of the closet. Big enough for the two of us. That is a first.

Bathroom. The mirror is from Grandma Marriotti.

Sweetest shower every. On the left there is a waterfall shower head. The only downfall of the shower you ask....well let me tell you a little story about our water supply. We don't have to pay for our water which is sweet except that it smells like rotten eggs. And you ask why, well we get our water from a well and apparently it makes it smell really really bad. Our landlords have a water filter on the house that they thought was hooked up to our garage apartment but it is not. They are planning on finding us a water filter but until then we have to live with stinky water, it is so bad is makes me gag.

We love you all very much and hope you enjoy looking at our new home as much as we enjoy living in it.

New Home :)

2008-07-14T21:23:00.007-04:00

Just thought we would let everyone know we are moving into a new place in September and wanted to show you what it looked like!

This is the entry way from the garage below.

This is the first window in our new living room.

Now to the best part our big windows that over look the property. You cant really see but the window is covered from all angles by the big trees.

This is the opposite side of the living room.

We are pleased to announce that we finally have a dining room where we can have meals together and invite others over without eating on the couch!

Finally to Laurens second favorite part is her big kitchen with all the drawers she can handle. I am also excited about the storage space above the cabinets.

Through the doorway to the right is the only bedroom and the bathroom.

We cant wait to show more pictures later.

Update of the Office Source Team

2008-04-14T14:34:00.002-04:00

Here is an updated picture of my office as of Friday the 11th. Front from left to right Nancy, Mary, ME!, Laurie, Leilani, Elaine, Andi. Back row...Ted, Kathy, and Jennifer. Not pictured...Cheryl, Jessica, Amanda and Mary Ann. We are the behind the scene workforce that keeps Office Source USA up and running. We have added 3 new people since I started almost 7 months ago and we just keep growing. I love it.

Dating Panel

2008-02-18T16:44:00.003-05:00

Matthew and I were asked to be on a dating panel last night at our Bishops house. It was Matthew and I and 2 other couples. The youth in our ward from 12-18 were asked to write down any questions they had about dating and we "the experts" got to answer them. There were a few times where the panel was blushing but for the most part we all had fun and we got to know another couple in our ward. All in all it was a good time!

It's been a while

2008-01-11T13:17:00.000-05:00

I thought I would post and give those of you who read this still a little bit of an update. Matthew and I have been loving Florida. We have missed our families like crazy but I think we are adjusting well. Matthew was just promoted to a lead position at work and we are both super excited about it. I was also promoted yesterday to the sales lead (key holder) position at my part time job at Ann Taylor Loft. I was told about a month or so ago that I was being considered for the position along with another associate so I was happy to hear that I was given the opportunity. It is going to mean working more hours but it also means more pay!

We have really grown to love our ward family. They have welcomed us into their lives so easily. Matthew is teaching the 14-15 year olds in Sunday school. It is a difficult calling for sure but he is excited by the challenge. I was called to teach CTR 6, Matthew also comes in for class time after his Sunday school class to help keep control. We have 6 boys that are all going to be turning 6 this year and boy are they a handful (hence me needing Matthew in class with me or else it would be complete chaos). They are the sweetest little boys and I have grown to love them in the short time that I have been teaching them. I am looking forward to what this year is going to teach me.

That pretty much sums up our live now...work and church. We spend as much time together at home as possible. We love everyone and miss you all!!

2007-11-28T21:36:00.001-05:00

Christmas At The Penders

On the weekend before Thanksgiving Lauren got the urge to start decorating for christmas so we slowly started with our tree and the decorations we had moved out here with.

Then black friday came alog and Lauren went out at 3:30 to catch all the hot deals and came home with all of my presents.
We went out tonight and bought the rest of our decorations. They include the small tea light holder on the table and the tall smowman on top of our block. We didnt post about our TV so here it is with our new candle holders and our nativity.Most important I pick out the candy and the smowmen.

Spooky!

2007-11-05T09:05:00.000-05:00

Happy Belated Halloween to all!

I tought you all would like to get to know some of the girls...I mean ladies (considering I am the youngest in the bunch, again.) I work with.

From far right to left in the back. Leilani (who started the same day as I did), Cheryl (the overall accounting pro), Kathy (Team leader for customer service), Jessica (other accounting girl), Mary Ann. From left to right starting with Nancy in the yellow shirt, Elaine, ME!, Brooke and Amanda. That is the Office Source USA team!

Accounting department! Cheryl, me, Jessica!

Our Friends

2007-11-02T18:19:00.000-04:00

Meet Sue

Meet Jack

Meet Jack & Sue. These are our 'pets'. They live on the lake outside our apartment and are regularly coming by to visit. But mainly for food from our neighbor, a man who walks around with no shirt! I love the south.

Happy Birthday To You!

2007-10-02T14:30:00.000-04:00

Well it was Matthew's birthday last week. We are sad that we couldn't be with everyone but here are the highlights.

This is the delicious cake I baked for Matthew with my own two hands!

Here he is opening some of his presents. He is so happy. After he opened his gifts we went to dinner at a steak house called Sam Seltzer's, it was delicious.

Blowin' out the candles. All 24 just to be obnoxious. Don't you all just miss that adorable face?

After dinner we went to play mini golf at Congo River. There were these baby aligators and it was so cool. I wouldn't want to see them when they are fully grown but it was neat to see them.

We are artists!

2007-09-17T18:26:00.001-04:00

We have been procrastinating unpacking almost all weekend. We did find the time to paint our painting that we have been planning on for the past month or so. Here is our finished product up on the wall. We had a lot of fun painting it. But it was definately a process. Knowing Matt and I all the dots had to be exactly the same distance from the next and perfectly rounded. It turned out perfectly.

Beach

2007-09-17T18:13:00.000-04:00

We went to the beach for the first time last week. We liked it so much we went back the next day. The water is so warm and the beaches are clean and beautiful. The weird thing about the beaches out here is that they drive on the beach. You can pay 5 bucks and drive your car to where you want to stay on the beach. Makes it nice that you don't have to haul all your beach stuff from the car.

I know some of you may be shocked but I got in the water past my knees! No sharks and no jellyfish.

Welcome Home!

2007-09-11T17:37:00.000-04:00

Welcome all to our new blog. Though we were sad to leave home

we are excited for the new journey we have begun together.

We hope you all enjoy the photo documentation of our trip to Florida. For those of you who weren't able to make it on Friday

before we left this is our going away cake that I made.

The night before we left we had a barbecue at my parents house and we were so happy to see everyone that was able to make it. We miss you all!

We stopped somewhere in the middle of New Mexico at THE Meteor Crater.

The crater was huge, 1/5 of the ridge of the crater takes and hour and

half to walk. It also takes 2 hours to get to the bottom of the crater.

Dan really wanted to take the meteor home with us, however it

weighed more than Matt's car alone.

He also struggles with following the rules.

Note the sign posted on the Boiler "Please Keep Off"

TEXAS!

We met the nicest man on the side of the road who makes snow cones

out of his home along with selling some of the most random items in his front yard.

They were delicious!

USS Alabama

I don't know how they did it, there are so many knobs, switches and buttons.

When we stopped for lunch after touring the ship we decided to feed the

rest of our bread to the seagulls around us. That was not such a bright

idea because the birds decided to swarm us. We were lucky to get away.

We are really thankful that Dan was able to take some time off and

drive with us. Unfortunately he spent most of the drive alone in

Matt's car. Luckily he was able to make friends with the cooler, cd's

and the little blue dog.

WE FINALLY MADE IT!

Thank you all for the support and love that you have shared. We are

really happy to be here and are looking forward to what is coming next for us.