Super Bowl

Tyler's favorite football team made it to the Superbowl this year....New York Giants. He was super excited so I went to the mall and bought him a shirt to support a team. Tyler made a few bets with friends and one with his Uncle Chris. When the Giants were down he was sweating it big time and worried that he would have to pay his friends money and wash Uncle Chris' car. But never fear, the Giants came out on top and he was jumping up and down so excited that he would get lunch with Chris when we go to visit them this summer.

Ice Skating

One of Tyler's favorite activities is to go ice skating. He loves it and tries to get better all the time. This year, I put Maleina on ice skates and she had fun for the most part. The ice arena has a hot cocoa club where you go and for five minutes Maleina got some instructions from a teacher. It helped her confidence a lot to have someone besides mom try and teach her how to skate. Both kids are doing great. I think their favorite part is when they are done I get them a hot chocolate from the concessions and they love it!

Christmas 2011

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. The kids loved all that Santa brought them and spending lots of time with their cousins. We are so blessed to have family living close by and those that don't were able to come up for the holidays.



Maleina loved her Dream Castle that Santa brought unfortunately the elves were in a hurry and didn't make sure it all assembled well. So we took it back to a store and exchanged it for a Barbie Townhouse which stays assembled much better and she plays with it all the time now.



Tyler's favorite gift was his iPod touch. He loves all the games he can download and play.

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!