Happy Birthday McKinley! & other events of April 2012

 Ms. Cutie-Pants is 2!! (has been for a while now)

For McKinley's cake, I decided to make a cake looking like her favorite thing to cuddle...her "wuh-wuh".  It was convenient that I had some left over black and white fondant in the freezer from Lexi's birthday cake ;)

 I was able to whip this one out quickly as well.  Far from perfect, but I'm getting better.

 

Present time!

 

This is her "stink" face.  We sure love this little girl and all her many expressions.  She's spunky!!  She's a smart little cookie and brings us all so much joy.  I love how she says "I wanna hold you"  when she wants me to pick her up.  Her favorite show is Dora (ai-yai-yai), so you can often hear her say (or yell) "Wiper, no WIPING!!!"  (instead of "Swiper , no swiping").  She does it complete with hand gestures and she often does it towards strangers.  You can imagine the reactions we get - priceless!

 

 

Happy Easter!  The Saturday morning baskets (Easter Bunny always delivers by Sat. morning in our house).

 Now for the egg hunt...

 The joy of confetti eggs.

 

 

In April,  I went out of town for a few days to Arizona for my cousin's wedding.  While I was gone Daddy kept the kids busy with lots of fun activities, like hiking and picnics &

  dinners of champions :) Hey, they're not complaining.  Good job, daddy!

At the beginning of the year, Tyler started a break dance class that was so much fun to watch.  He really did improve a lot.  Here's the beginning of a back spin.

 

Here's the cool pose when they're done with their routine.  Don't mess with these guys!

Lexi is 9!! Nathan is ....??

 I might be 6 months late, but I'm finally getting around to posting about some special birthdays.  Here's Ms. Lexi on her 9th b-day. 

 This year she got to have a party with friends and she wanted to do a music theme.  So I played with fondant once again (although I don't have a great relationship with it) to try to make a music note cake.   It ended up cooperating quite nicely- yay! 

 Piggin' out on pizza at her pajama dance party.

 All the girls playing "Just Dance" on the Wii - so cute!

 I guess she was excited about that present

 Hooray!

 What's a party without a little twister?

 

 

A few days later, it was Nathan's turn to be birthday boy.  Although not as much "hoop-la", he's still just as special!

 

 What's a birthday without .....pants??!!

 Daddy's ice cream cake, I guess McKinley wasn't fond of it.

Here's the annual school art show that impresses me every year.  I wish you could have seen what some of the older grades did.  Wow!  Lexi's picture is the one in the middle with the sidewalk.

 

Tyler's picture is the top middle

 

This was one of Tyler's writing examples that was hanging on the wall from the beginning of the year.  I think it's funny because he doesn't have a cat or a dirt bike.  And he doesn't actually even like cats either.  Haha :)

 

 Lexi joined the school choir this year.  They only had one performance and they were joined with all the other elementary school choirs  and one middle school choir in the district. 

 Can you tell Lexi's choir did a pirate song? :)

 The lovely singer!

Tyler turns 7!!!

February is kind of a crazy month in our house.  Tyler got to kick off the month by turning seven!

Tyler loves his video games, so decided he wanted a cake representing that.  I suggested I make one

 that looks like a Wii remote or some kind of device he actually uses, but he dedided he wanted to go old school and have a game boy cake.  He's never actually used a game boy, but whatever the birthday boy wants! He also said he wanted me to make it red and this was as red as I could make it, so he had to settle for more of a coral color (yeah, it was pretty much pink) :)

 I also ran out of birthday bags so he had to settle for a big bag that said "baby".  He's a good sport!

 Woo hoo!  Some roller blades from grandma - score!

Instead of a party this year, Tyler decided we should go to the Denver Aquarium to celebrate.  Unfortunately because of unforseen circumstances he ended up having to wait almost an entire month before we could go.  But we finally made it (even if mom had the flu when we went) and it was so neat!

 Super cool green eel

 I thought the face of this fish up in the left corner is crazy, almost not real looking.

Shark right above McKinley's head

Sword fish

 I think this type of jelly fish was called "Moon" something.  Anyway, what beautiful specimens.

 One of the highlights on our trip was the mermaid show.  It was very entertaining, then the kids got to meet them afterwards, except Colton & McKinley were totally freaked out.  Poor kids are so confused.  Just when they were told mermaids weren't real...

We ended the evening at the sting ray "petting pool".

 TJ - the survivor!

January 2012

In January, Nate was able to take Lexi & Tyler to an Air Force basketball game and the kids had a blast and met a giant blue bird :)

On our day off we took the family to Manitou Springs to the penny arcade which we haven't done in years.  It really is such a fun little place with some neat antique arcade games, some dating back to earlier 1900s.

There are dozens of kiddie rides to choose from...

and crazy giant sculptures of bikes.  I think it's a pretty good fit, don't you?

The kids had way too much fun with the paint one night...

Later in the month, Kinners had a nasty fall and ended up with quite the boo-boo on her lip.  There was plenty of blood, but luckily no ER visit.  Now you can only see the scar if she smiles real big.

This was what remained of our mailbox after New Years Eve.  Good news is I have a handy husband!

At the beginning of the year, Tyler decided to give break dancing a try.  He liked it so much we decided to enroll him in the class.  This video clip was from his first class during the "freestyle" circle.  He has since learned so much.  It is super entertaining to watch these 6-10 yr. olds do their tricks and the teacher is awesome.  Nate and I fight over who gets to take Tyler each week.