Happy Birthday Maleina!

My baby girl turned 5 this year!  I cannot believe that she will be starting school in the fall.  Maleina is still full of mischief and loves to get into things that maybe she shouldn't get into.  She has learned her ABC's and is working on all the sounds that go with them.  She wants to start reading like her 'best buddy Tyler'.  She still loves all things pink and purple.  Although she has expanded her favorite colors to now include blue and red. 

 (Unicorn Castle Cake)

Turning 5 is a big deal in our house, it's the first time Maleina gets to have a friend birthday party.  She has been planning her party since August. She invited a  few (11) of her friends over.  She wanted a unicorn party.  I searched high and low for unicorn stuff that didn't cost a ton of money.  I had no luck, so I made my own stuff.  I made a unicorn poster for 'Pin the horn on the Unicorn' game, unicorn sugar cookies to place around her castle cake (again).    Maleina had a lot of fun with all her friends over.  I managed to survive having 12, 4&5 year olds running around the house. 

We also had a party for family that night with her favorite kind of pie, Banana Cream Supreme!  She is a well loved daughter of God.  We are so blessed to have her in our lives.  She is a joy to be around and we love her so much!  Happy Birthday Maleina!

Fun in the Mud!

A lot of snow has fallen this year, much to Maleina's delight.  She loves to play in the snow and can play for hours outside.  One day, we had a fairly warm day and she was outside.  I could see and hear her.  I was checking on her periodically.  The last time I checked on her, I found her jumping in the mud puddle created by the downspout coming off the roof.  She was having the time of her life!  My little princess who hates sticky, messy fingers when eating dinner, just loves to play in the mud!

Holidays!

 We had a fantastic Christmas this year.  My parents came up from California and stayed with us for just over a week.  Tyler and Maleina loved having them over.  They hadn't seen them since September, which is a long time for them.  Nine Christmas's in our house and we finally put lights up for the first time.  The kids loved them! 

 Mr. & Mrs. Claus came to the McNeil family Christmas party.  The looks on their faces tells the story.  Tyler is doing it to make mom happy, while Maleina is very attentive and listening to everything Santa has to say to her.

  was invited to an ornament exchange party at my friend's house.  It was so much fun.  I made salt dough music notes for it.  Sprayed them black and them put a gloss on them.  I made a few extra and my little artist had to make some her own way.  Maleina loved painting them. 

Christmas morning the kids enjoyed opening their gifts.  Highlights of their gifts were a snowboard and New York Giants hat for Tyler.  Maleina got roller blades and an art kit.  They loved their gifts!  Santa was very good to them. 

It doesn't matter how long the Christmas break is, it is never long enough.  We sure loved having family over and spending time with them.  New Year's Eve we had all my siblings and their families over.  I started a new tradition with a New Year's tree and it was a huge hit.  I will definitely continue this each year.  Although the gifts inside the balloons will have to change I'm sure.  Every hour starting at 8:00 pm the kids picked a balloon and popped it to get a prize.  I was impressed that all the kids ages 3 and up stayed awake until well past midnight.We even had Grandpa & Grandma Jensen on the phone and rang in the New Year with them UT time.

Happy Birthday Tyler!

Tyler turned 10 this year and is all about video games.  His favorites being Minecraft and Skylanders.  He is growing up way too fast.  He loves to hang out with his friends.  I wish I could say he loves going to school but that is not the case anymore.  He enjoys his teacher this year (mom likes her too!!!), he completed his first project on the Black Tailed Jackrabbit, and has started doing monthly book reports.

Tyler's birthday landed on a Sunday this year so he got a three day celebration.  To kick it off, he had a friend party on Friday.  His cake was a Creeper from the game Minecraft.  (Talk about a challenge. I swear I punched out like 1000 small squares out of fondant, in 6 different colors, to give it a pixelated look.)  I had pictionary to play with them.  Let's just say I should not have planned anything.  All they wanted to do was go downstairs and mess around. So that's just what they did until the pizza arrived.  Then they ate pizza, opened presents, ate cake and ice cream.  For the party favor, I made marshmallow popcorn balls with sprinkles and placed them on a ice cream cone filled with M&M's and Reese's pieces.

On Saturday, we took Tyler to Chuck-a-Rama his favorite restaurant.  We had them sing to him for his birthday and he loved it!  (Seriously, he really did!)  Finally on Sunday, we had Mark's parents over, Justin, Emily, & kids, and Mik & Joe.  I made his favorite foods: lasagna, garlic cheddar rolls, and cupcakes.

Summer Time!

I can hardly believe that the summer is just about over.  I love having Tyler home and spending the days with him.  The older I am getting the faster time is flying by and summer just seems to go by twice as fast. 

In June, Tyler went with my parents to California for a couple of weeks.  He sure had a lot of fun getting to spend time with grandma and grandpa.  They spent their time swimming, playing, and homework from me. Each day Tyler has to do a math, English, and multiple choice page to help maintain all the skills he learned from the previous school year.  I know....mean mom!!  (Or one who cares a lot depending on your perspective!) 

Tyler got back on July 3 just in time to watch the fireworks go off when they came out of the canyon.  I was sure happy to have him back home.  Maleina couldn't wait either.  Every morning she would wake up and ask me how many more days until her best buddy came home.

Then on  Friday, Mark's brother got married on a lakeside beach that is about an hour from where we live.  It was a gorgeous evening and he married a great girl!  All the grandchildren looked so nice all dressed up for Joe and Melinda's wedding. 

Tyler stayed the night at the cabin they had rented while the rest of us had to go back home to let the dogs out.  We drove back up the next day and spent some time at the lake.  We are so lucky to have such a beautiful place just a short drive away!

On July 8, we traveled with my brother, Chris, down to their home in Arizona.  They men decided it would be fun to have the boys in one car and the girls in the other car.  Nice of them huh?!  The girl car had two little troopers ages 2 (almost 3), and 4.  They were so cute together and were excited for a week of fun.  Along the way we picked up a girl who was going down to stay with her sister for awhile.  Thank heavens she was with us.  She was able to help keep the little girls happy when they were having moments of stress. 
Finally we arrived after a long, long drive! 

Our time in Arizona was filled with swimming!  The first day there we went to their community pool twice, once in the morning and once in the evening.  It is a wonderful pool.  The kiddie area is perfect for kids of all ages and Tyler and Maleina had a blast.  While we were down there, Wet n' Wild was running a deal where if you bought 1 full price ticket it would act like a season pass the rest of the year.  That was awesome, especially since we had planned on going there anyway.  So we went there three different days and spent several hours there each day.

We had a fantastic time with Chris, Shae, and Lucy!!  They were wonderful hosts and we had delicious food each night!  Unfortunately all vacations come to an end way to quickly.  On our way home we decided to go through Vegas and stopped over at Lucille's for lunch.  If you're ever in that area and want some delicious BBQ food I highly recommend going there.  Similar to Texas Roadhouse only better!

As you have noticed there are no pictures.  I am saddened that once again I don't have pictures from our summer fun.  I just don't take cameras/phones to water parks or places with water.  I don't have the best of luck with phones even though I try super hard to be careful bad luck seems to follow me.  The day after we got back from our trip, I was with my sister in my parents' car which decided to have serpentine belt break while we were driving.  Of course, we didn't know what had happened or if the car was drivable so we just pulled off to the side of the road and waited for my brother to come help us out.  After he determined it was okay to drive it to the dealership to get fixed, I followed him there in his car.  I got out of his car and my phone dropped some how, landed facing up, and still I ended up with shattered the top glass on my iPhone.  So I don't take my phone where I can even chance getting it ruined by water. 

Bear Day Camp

Mark got called to be a the Bear leader in cub scouts so he was able to go to day camp and get some fun pictures of Tyler and his friends.  I love the attitude the boys are trying to portray in the photo above.  It makes me laugh every time I look at it.  Tyler loved having dad go with him and having him as his leader.  He turns 10 soon and is already sad that his dad won't be his leader anymore.  It has been a great experience for Mark to spend time with Tyler and his friends.  Mark has this connection with the youth/cub scouts in our area.  They are always joking around with him and yet they know when it is time to buckle down and get to work. 

 Target practice.  

 Bead work and leather stamping.

Balance practice.

A New Shed and a LOT of mud!

In April, Mark had a contractor build a shed for us in the backyard by the garden area.  I decided we should have a pathway leading up to the shed for the day (several years down the road) when Mark gets his riding lawn mower.  Tyler loved being able to help the adults pour the pad and sidewalk.  I kept Tyler home from school so that I could get his and Maleina's hand prints in the sidewalk.   

 One night, my mom came over for dinner.  After dinner the kids went outside to play.  Mark had the hose running to water some of the new trees we had planted this past spring.  Next thing I know, my mom is telling me to look outside at the kids.  Tyler (who does not like to get dirty) was holding the hose in the dirt creating quite a mud pool.  Maleina, as you can see from the pictures loved it!  She cannot stand being sticky or messy from eating food, but apparently loved being free to get muddy.  They had so much fun together! 

This is our new shed!  I love having a much cleaner garage!  Quite an undertaking to make a simple building but the end result is nice!