Halloween 2011

Another successful Halloween has come and gone. Tyler and Maleina look forward to Halloween for the entire month, the anticipation of getting to dress up is almost as much as their excitement for Christmas Day. They both loved their costumes this year. Tyler was Dracula and Maleina was her version of Princess Ariel. Both kids got to have their faces painted, Tyler with costume make-up, and Maleina with mom's make-up (without consequences this time...LOL)! I took Maleina trick-or-treating downtown for a little while. Mark took Maleina around our neighborhood. He got off easy this year, Maleina got tired of it after only 30 minutes. Tyler went with his two friends Donny and Conner. They call themselves the 3 Amigos. Next year, I should try to get them to dress up like the 3 Amigos that would be fitting to their nickname. I hope everyone had a great Halloween and enjoyed some of the fall activities.

Fall Time Fun!

The last week has been a lot of fun. First, Grandpa, came for a surprise weekend visit. I took the kids with grandma, grandpa, Uncle Justin, Aunt Emily, Braxton, and Natalia to a local corn maze for the first time. All the kids (and adults) had a blast! The favorite part was when grandpa would hide and try to scare the kids. Tyler didn't get scared too easily, but Maleina and Braxton sure jumped a couple times!





Second, Tyler was out of school for fall break, so Mark took Friday off and we went to the Heritage Farm. The kids loved all the activities there were to do: pony rides, train rides, giant slide, hay jump, rope course, and corn maze. Both kids loved being prisoners in the caboose of the train, and going down the slide. The corn maze was fun and with dad's helped we made it out in pretty good time!











Lastly, after our trip to the farm, we took the kids over to a pumpkin patch so they could each pick out their pumpkin. They loved having so many to choose from. Hopefully next year we will have some success growing our own. But the patch was a super fun substitute!

Cake Pops!

For Mark's birthday this year I decided to make Coconut Lime Squares for him since he is not much of a cake person. But, after all it is a birthday, so for the kids to get to have some cake I made Cake Pops (Tyler and Maleina call them bake pops thanks to some television commercial) and they were super excited. For Maleina, I made Hello Kitty, and Tyler was going to get Smilely face ones. Everything was going along perfectly. I was a little nervous for the dipping part of it, but dipping chocolates is a lot more challenging that it made cake pops easy. When I was all done dipping the Hello Kitty ones, I was delighted in thinking, "now all I have to do is draw on her face." Well, apparently I didn't buy good enough edible markers and it was a PAIN!!!! The eventually turned out okay for my first time and with crappy markers, I can't be too hard on myself. Since the markers didn't work out so well for me I decided to skip the smily faces and just put sprinkles on Tyler's cake pops. They were a lot of fun, and hopefully a big hit for Mark's party tonight! Happy Birthday Babe!!! I love you!

A lot of Firsts!

Where does the time go???? Tyler has started third grade this year and LOVES it! I love it because he is challenged more and has homework to show what he is working on and actually brings home worksheets they did in school. (BIG improvement over last year!!!) He enjoys his teacher and has a lot of friends which helps him enjoy going to school. If he is asked what his favorite subject is, he will respond, "RECESS!!!" What boy doesn't like recess???

Tyler has started karate again (a picture will be posted soon). He just got signed up yesterday after we went and observed the school. He is super excited to learn all different styles. The school he is attending teach Jiu Jitsu, Kung Fu, Kudo, Tai Quan Do, and MMA (my spelling of different arts is a little off). He is super excited and will be attending class three days a week, thanks to help from my mom!!!!!


Maleina has begun preschool. I am shocked at how quickly time passes. It feels like yesterday we were holding her in our arms for the first time. She has grown up so fast and turned into quite a little character. She loves going to preschool and seeing Miss Jill. Her favorite thing at school is playing Barbies with her cousin Ellie.


Maleina as started taking Ballet. She loves doing the ballerina walk (walking on tip toes with hands over her head), and is working on her marching all the time. She also loves to twirl. It's amazing to me she doesn't fall on her head with the number of times she can spin in a cirle!

Summer 2011

Wow I can't believe the summer has come and gone already! The last three months went by so fast for me it feels like just yesterday summer vacation began. We had a lot of fun the last few months.

In June, as a family we participated in our city's heritage days. Maleina ran a 1 mile race with her cousin Braxton. Tyler ran a 5K with Mark and me. It was exercising as a family and working on improving our time from the previous year. After the runs, we went to the parade and carnival.



With Grandma, we went did our annual trip to the zoo for a Zoorassic adventure. Maleina did not enjoy seeing the dinosaurs as much as Tyler did, but we enjoyed seeing the animals and spending time with grandma before she flew to California to see grandpa. When Mark and the kids went to get their picture taken with the Tyrannosaurus Rex, it roared and scared Maleina so bad she started screaming. I wish I was quick enough with my camera to have captured her face, it was priceless!

We took the kids this year up to the stadium for the fireworks in July. Diamond Rio performed and it was fun to see the fireworks that close. My parents' house is only a block away from the stadium but it was still fun to go and see them up there. My brother-in-law, Joe, helps make the fireworks and so many thanks to Joe and his family for putting on an amazing show this year!





The end of July and first week of August I took the kids with me to help my brother move from Nevada to Arizona. Not the best time to be moving....108+ degree weather was shocking considering the temperature was 75 when we left our home. I was glad we were able to go help him and his family. We had a lot of fun lizard hunting each morning when the kids woke up and going to their community swimming pool.

Disneyland/California Adventureland

In January, Mark and I planned a trip to Disneyland for our family and kept it a secret from the kids. When spring break began I took the kids to visit Chris, Shae, and Lucy. Mark flew down on April 8 to join us. The kids were told it was because I didn't want to drive back home alone. On Sunday morning while the kids were eating breakfast Mark said, "Guess what!? We are not going home today!" Tyler's eyes got big with anticipation. Mark continues, "We are going to Disneyland!!" Now you would expect jumping and screaming from excitement right?!?!?! Well, the complete opposite happened. Tyler and Maleina just stared at us and maybe a few tears fell because of fear from the roller coasters. After a lot of convincing and encouragement from us and Chris and Shae (thank you) we were able to get the kids excited. Then I got the picture of the excitement I was expecting at first.


We had a wonderful time at the two parks. Monday night we ate dinner at Goofy's Kitchen which is a character dining experience. We had Minnie Mouse, Tweedle Dee or Dum, Mad Hatter, Aladdin, Jasmin all come to our table to visit with the kids. During our four days we also saw Goofy, Pluto, Mickey Mouse, Pinnochio, Geppedo, Chip & Dale, Donald Duck, Tinkerbell, Rapunzel & Flynn Rider, Snow White, and Aurora.


Tyler didn't ride Indiana Jones until our last day after a lot of pushing and it turned out to be his favorite ride. He loved anything to do with pirates and had a blast watching the shows Fantasmic, Fireworks, and his favorite World of Color.


Maleina was a little daredevil and rode any roller coaster that she was tall enough to go on. The first coaster she rode was in Toon Towne and she even got to ride in the front car. She laughed through the entire ride and the first words out of her mouth when it was over were, "let's do it again!" She also loved dressing up as the Disney princesses Rapunzel and Ariel. (Mom loved styling her hair like a princess also!)

Disneyland Pictures

California Adventureland Pictures

The Toy Story Gang!





The Ferris Wheel in the background we rode our last day. Tyler is slightly afraid of heights but we got him on saying we would only be at the top for a split second. Boy were we wrong!!! Someone lost their cookies while we were on the ride and just happened to be 180 degrees away from us which meant we were stuck at the very top for 25 minutes with no clue what had happened. Needless to say, someone was facing his fear of heights a little longer then expected!

Natural Phenomenon!

On Sat. Feb. 26 while I was shoveling snow my neighbor told me to look up in the sky. The most amazing natural phenomenon occurred around the southern end of the valley. My parent's home is only six miles away and they just had cloud cover so I am grateful for the opportunity I had of witnessing this amazing moment. (I don't remember what the meteorologist called this occurrence.) I know the bright spots are called "Sundogs" and that this phenomenon was possible by the rays of the sun reflecting off ice crystals in the sky.

Snow, snow, and more SNOW!!!!

The first of February spoiled me. It was nice spring like weather. Playing outside with the kids, taking them to parks and in general enjoying the lovely 40 degree weather. Then, the last part of February it dumped on us. The kids loved it and I took them sledding for Maleina's first time, and Tyler's first time of actually liking it.

Last Saturday I spent a few hours outside with the kids in the snow. We made 2 caves and Tyler made a snow recliner. It was a blast, but I must admit I am SOOOOOO ready for Spring to be here!!!!

Maleina's 3rd Birtjday

I can hardly believe that my baby turned 3 last Monday! For her birthday she wanted a purple castle cake. I decided to take it a step further and made the cake pink and purple checkered, thankfully it turned out and made a smile come on her face when she saw the actual cake inside was her two favorite colors.

We were lucky enough to have her birth mother over for a few days to celebrate her birthday with us. Maleina loved the attention she got from everyone and was delighted with her gifts.

Maleina is such a blessing in my life and brings joy to our family that was missing before she came along. I am grateful to her birth mother for allowing her to join our family and the close relationship we have with her.

Ski Trip 2011

I took Tyler night skiing for the Neighborhood Ski Night. He was scared at first and was worried that he would crash a lot. I kept telling him that it's okay to crash as long as he got back up.

Tyler was able to take a lesson that night and the ski instructor was very patient and used food to help them understand how their posture is supposed to look like: smash a grape between your shin and boot, make a pie with your skis to slow down or french fries to speed up! Apparently they didn't work on making S's going down the mountain. I found that out the hard way. I wanted Tyler to ski the whole mountain instead of taking off on the trails. I hyped him up and told him he could do it (he was skiing great). He must have a little of his uncle Justin in him, because instead of making S's he went straight down the mountain! He claimed he was trying to slow down making his pie shape but it didn't work out so well for him. He ended up tumbling in the snow head over heels a couple times, skis went flying off. Luckily he walked away with only a headache....phew! Tyler loved skiing and asks continually to go again!