Chantel's Shower

Thanksgiving weekend, my sister-in-law and I threw a baby shower for our cute niece, Chantel.  I just have to post a few pictures because they are just that cute!

This was about the cutest cake I have ever seen, pacifier and all!

Some of the yummy food, not including the awesome hot chicken salad we had.

Little diaper cake I made

The favors

My cute niece, Chantel, in the middle with her girlfriends.

Happy Birthday Collin!

Collin's birthday fell on Black Friday this year, so lucky for him he was able to have 2 parties.  One with friends a week before and one with family after Thanksgiving.  (This 2 party business is wearing me out!) 
Collin is a die-hard bowling fan.  Why?  Good question.  So anyways a bowling party has been in his head for about a year.  A month before his birthday, the really nice bowling alley here closed up shop!  So we headed to Banana's and had a Bump-N-Jump party with his pre-school and church buddies instead.

He had a blast!

Loved his racetrack fondant cake!  I only wish I could've made it.  It was amazing! 

These two had a good time too!

Birthday Party #2

All about Collin:

1 - Collin is a very loving, happy, huggable kid, quick to get sad, and quick to forgive.

2 - He LOVES his exercise clothes (track pants, etc) and changes clothes a million times a day!  He's obsessed!  Sometimes he switches into Mackenzie's clothes, I think just because he's bored with all his clothes.

3 - Collin loves all sports!  He plays basketball everyday at the house and wants to buy the local bowling alley that shutdown.

4 - He's 4 years old and 40 pounds and 42" high.  I think he's going to be a big kid!

5 - He loves his vegetables!

6 - He loves Angry Birds!

7 - He loves number - he talks about numbers all the time, asking everyone's ages, wishing he could be 100.

8 - Besides sports, Collins favorite thing to play is race cars.  He could never have enough cars.

9 - Collin likes to use big words and tell me and Tyson off when he's upset with us.  Its hilarious!

Living Room Makeover

It had been a kind of joke for a while that the first thing I was going to do as soon as we bought a house was to get rid of our one-and -only couches we'd ever owned and packed around for 12 years and finally redo the living room.  But when we actually moved in, I think the task of finding something new to fill such a big and somewhat awkward space was so daunting that I put it nearly last.  Now that I finally finished, I have to say I LOVE it!
Before:

Lots of aweful faux paint!

There are those lovely couches...goodbye!

AFTER:

Halloween Time!

Halloween was quite fun this year!  Mackenzie and Collin are at the perfect age for all the holidays to be so real and magical for them.  And with Halloween first, they were excited to pick their costumes, pick pumpkins, and go trick-or-treating!  So first we headed out to the pumpkin patch and hand-pick our own pumpkins.

Decisions, decisions...

One of many Mackenzie picked.  It nearly weighed as much as her!

Sadly we never got around to carving them, but it was fun to have them on the porch so Mackenzie could feel like we decorated.

Halloween Night...

Much to my dismay, they were not willing to be Little Red Riding Hood and The Big Bad Wolf.  I don't think they'll ever be what I want them to.  My days of getting them to do that are over!  So instead Mackenzie was an adorable Strawberry Shortcake and Collin got to be the oh-so-cool skeleton.

And off they go!

Skeleton meets Frankenstein.  Collin loved checking this guy out!

At the end of the night, I had handed out over 600 pieces of candy, and ran out!  So my kids' 2 hours of hard work, running house to house, was put to good use and we handed most of their candy back out.  I was sure glad to see it all disappear!

Soccer Stars!

Time has seriously ran away without me.  My computer and I haven't been spending much time together this last month or so, which has been a great thing in someways, but I've abandoned my blog world unintentionally for a while, partly because life has been crazy and I guess mostly due to Collin breaking yet another computer and setting me back a month or so in all computer related aspects of my life - which are a lot!

So I'm hopefully going to catch up!

So this past Fall, Mackenzie and Collin both played soccer.  It was Mackenzie's second season, Collin's first.  They both were champs and much needed players on their teams!  They ran me ragged for 2 months just trying to keep up with their practices and games, but it was so fun to watch them.  Here's some pics throughout the season.

Mackenzie is in control of the ball and everyone else is chasing her down.  This is how it typically went each game.  She is such a talented player and best of all, she LOVES it!

Oh yeah, she's going to score, yet again!  They would keep track of their goals each game, and end up with the majority of the goals every time.  Both teams went undefeated and Mackenzie and Collin each had a lot to do with it!

When Mackenzie had to sit out for a break in the game, she would tell her coach "I'm not tired though". She just wanted to play the entire time!

Here's Collin headed for the goal. He kept track of this goals and ran to the sidelines each time afterwards and told me his goal tally and asked if he could go now. He was so good at it, but it was too long and usually too hot for him to run around out there. He loved to score, but was always ready to go!

My Sanctuary

Finally all done and put together.  I think I've been working on this little place of mine for almost a year now.  Its always evolving and getting much use, but I've finally got it where I want it for now.

Before:  It is actually a storage room, and who needs storage, right?? :)

After....Ta Da

My Craft Room - the place where I craft, sew, scrapbook, paint, quilt, wrap presents, put together ideas.  You name it.  I can just shut the door on the mess and feel great about it!

My Project Stand - I love this little place, to look at all the fun things I want to make when I get some spare time.

My latest creations

Mackenzie's 5th Birthday!

In the midst of starting Kindergarten and starting up the soccer season again, Mackenzie turned 5 years old!  It's hard to believe!  This year, it seemed like the birthday that would never end.  Don't get me wrong, I love her to pieces and wanted to celebrate, but dragging it out for 2 weeks just exhausted me.

First we had a celebration with all the cousins over in Utah since we were there just 2 days before her 'real' birthday.  It was fun...big bbq, swimming, and a wild cake and presents.  She actually demanded this cake when we saw it in Dairy Queen a few days before.  So we got it, but I forgot to put ice in the cooler until about 1 hr into our trip to Utah, and as you can see, the ice-cream cake didn't fair so well without ice.  Oops!

Next, her actual birthday... = presents from Mom, Dad, and Collin

What she got:  An art easel - she is so into art, its crazy

A bug catcher and net - she's obsessed with that too and has been using my tupperware bowls all summer to catch her creatures.

Princess Celeste - a giant My Little Pony from Grandma that she loves!

Her masterpiece!  This has been a wonderful present, and perfect for both of the kids!

And Finally The Party!!!

This party I stressed A LOT about.  She wanted a rainbow party, so I got looking online for ideas and got way too ambitious!  It was a ton of work, but turned out great!

The Invites

The Decor...

The Goody Bags

The Cake

We had an art kind-of party, everything centered around rainbow colors, with sand art, painting, craft bag making, and a pinata to top it all off.  It was fun and really messy!

Ready to blow out those candles!

A Little about Mackenzie at 5:

~ She has finally out-grown her obsession of the color turquoise - now she loves all the colors of the rainbow.

~ She loves to color, paint, create and craft all day.

~ She is a home-body for sure.

~ She loves to help cook, and especially to bake.

~ She still has to have her 'blankey' attached to her in the house, and along with that is her odd finger-sucking habit that seems like it is never going away.

~ She's not your girly-girl.

~ She loves all animals, all nature, loves bug catching and watching nature shows.

~ She doesn't like dolls or anything remotely close to it.

~ She loves to control and manipulate her brother.

~ She is scared, I mean petrified, of the dark.

~ She is scared of being alone.  If we are not in sight, she usually starts screaming and running frantically through the house. 

~ She loves soccer and is competitive, super fast and athletic (didn't get that from her mom, thank goodness!)

~ She is a sponge right now - loves to learn, ask lots of questions and soaks everything in.

~ She is very obedient and always wants to do what is right, even though that doesn't always happen.

~ She is quite emotionally, very tender-hearted...this can be good and bad at times.

~ She is a sweetheart, our little angel.  We are so blessed to have her in our family!