Real men wear pink & other events

For Valentine's Day, my friend threw a Pinkaliscious party for her daughter and her friends.  Well Colton and McKinley are good friends with her daughter so he was invited too.  Everybody was supposed to wear pink and as you can imagine Colton owns no pink.  So my super talented friend made Colton this "Real Men Wear Pink" shirt so he didn't feel left out.  I warned Colton that she had made him this shirt and he didn't want ANYTHING to do with it.  I never knew he was so vehemenently against the color.  He did eventually warm up to it and had a lot of fun at this pink party.  He then gave the shirt as a present to his brother Tyler who appreciated it very much!

 

 

                                             "One of these is not like the other one" :)

 

On a very wet and cold afternoon, the kids and their good friends Charlie and Dylan got quite creative with all the things they could find outside and built a fort.  Not sure it would be approved by any homeowners association, but they were sure resourceful.

 

Oh I love two-year olds and dress-ups

 

In February (on Lexi's birthday) we flew out to Phx and look who was there as the welcoming party....

                                      

We can sure bring in a crowd!  Actually there was a family reunion going on of all my many relatives on my mom's mom's side.  It was pretty neat how it worked out because we were only there for two days, so it was kind of like one-stop shopping to be able to see so many relatives at once.    It was also neat because in this group there were four people whose birthday was on that day, so we all got to sing to them and have a big cake.  Lexi felt pretty special.

 

 

One of the things I look forward to every year is our kids' school art show.  The art teacher there is AAAA-MAZING!!  We're always so impressed with what she helps the kids create.  This year's theme was the history of Colorado.  Lexi's class created things that the Ute Indians may have used. 

 

She decided to sew this little doll out of canvas and then she just kept going and adding more and more and more... She made this cradle board and blanket for it and all sorts of other accessories for it.  Lexi also made this little clay pot filled with rice and corn.  She chose to really get in the spirit and dress up herself for the art show too.

 

 

They had a Native American drum group there to entertain as well.

 

They had a place for people to dress up in old fashioned apparel

Tyler's class did metallic paint landscapes of Garden of the Gods (he even included the kissing camel rocks)

 

These lizards were 3D, it was cool looking

 

This was a pastel that the art teacher did.

Birthdays galore!

As many of you know, February is our busy birthday month.  We got to kick off the month with Tyler's 8th birthday!! 

 

 This is an important year for him because in our church at 8 yrs. old you can get baptized if you decide to.  Tyler has chosen to be baptized and has been studying a lot to know exactly what this special promise he is making.  We're very proud of Ty and the great kid he is!

 

Gramma and Grandad bought Ty this slick looking suit.  He's been so excited to dress more like dad at church.  Wish I could figureout how to  flip these pictures on the blog, but he is pretty darn cute!

 

The lego cake Ty requested, complete with lego cangles and the kids' lego creations.

 Tyler got to have a party with friends this year and he chose to go to Skate City after we did cake and presents at our house.  While all the boys were out skating, McKinley was standing on a platform shaking her booty to the music and entertaining all the on-lookers.

 

Not a great picture, but you can see Tyler and his friend doing some "serious skating"

Colton even gave skating a try this time.  This was one of the brief moments he was actually up on his feet :)

 

 

 

Lexi's birthday was soon to follow a couple weeks later.  This year we were actually traveling to AZ on her birthday then on to Disneyland, so we had a quiet celebration at home a day early. 

 

I can't believe my first baby is entering the double digits. Madness!! She really is turning into such a beautiful, intelligent, funny and loving young woman. Now stop growing up, you!!

 

 Here Lexi and Tyler are "jamming" with their paper jam toys they got for thier birthdays.  Lexi got this cool microphone that has all these features like adding vibrato and harmony and even auto-tuning.  So basically you can have the worst voice on the planet and this makes you sound like a rock star.  Ironically, Lexi actually has a beautiful voice without this.  But it is fun to play with!

 

 

Since she got to share a big cake with her aunt and cousins (that share her same birthday) at our family reunion in AZ, I made her a "pizz-ookie" at home before we left.  I kinda wish my kids would request this instead of a decorated cake more often. 

 

 

We were also traveling from CA to AZ on Nate's actual birthday.  My mom was so nice enough to make Nate a cake, though so we could celebrate with them for the few hours we were together. When we got back to our house the next day, we celebrated with an awesome ice cream cake. Thanks Baskin Robbins :) 

 

His big surprise were tickets for Nate and his basketball buddy to go to an Air Force basketball game.  They had great seats and it ended up being one of the best b-ball games in Air Force history with them winning my 1 point at the buzzer.  Nate even caught a ball that they threw out into the crowd.