House Project

I have a list of projects I want to do on the house. A few completed, and a ton more to go. So far I made shelves in the basement storage room, Josh did a work bench, and we did some stone edging in the yard. But my favorite project by far has been our entryway. 

I found a stencil online and painted it on the top portion of the wall. Then we put wainscoting on the bottom. Neither of us had done a project like this before so it was fun learning how to do it together. It turned out even better than I thought it would. 

Ta-da! Isn't it beautiful?! I love that it makes such a bold statement as soon as you walk in the front door. 

McKay Turns 3

Somehow my baby Mac has turned 3. He is the sweetest little boy. He lights up our home and family and just listening to him talk with that sweet little voice could melt anyone's heart. He is very good at showing everyone and anyone affection and love. He still will kiss or hug me on demand any time. I hope it never stops. His favorite things to do are play with Lyla, go outside and drive his car or ride his bike, play with his cars or swords, playing with grandpa, playdoh and basically anything that is one-on-one playing. This year I have really seen his imagination come to life and has been my favorite part of watching him grow up. 

Although we already had his big part last weekend, we still had to celebrate on his actual day. 

We did the tradition of a donut and balloon first thing. He popped his balloon in the van on the way home :( but he is trying to hold it up. 

Devouring that delicious donut 

Later that afternoon we went to the mall and rode the train

In the evening we had my parents and Cindy come over to celebrate. It was a nice, fun day for him. 

McKay's 3rd Birthday Party

 For his party this year we went with superhero's. We had it the weekend before his actual birthday because the Green's wanted to be there and that is when they were able to come into town. It turned out great, and I spent forever planning it, so there are a ton of pictures :) 

Superhero cape water bottles! 

I made a cape out of felt for all the kids who came 

The cake. For the superhero symbols I used fondant for the first time. Learned some tricks on using it, but overall liked using it for a detail on the cake. 

Gotham city in the background and batman shadow cones for chips

Superpower fruit and veggies 

Not very good lighting, but I made a spiderman hanging from the chandelier and shooting a web out over the ceiling. It was my favorite part, and Mac's too :) 

We started the party out with playing some games. One of the games was a Hulk game with "Hulk hands" and a wall of boxes to punch 

 

Another game was to shoot silly string at "the bad guy"

All the kids that came. It was a great turn out! 

About to blow out his candles

Opening presents 

Party favors

Back to Everyday Life

It feels like Oct-Dec are crazy busy, so when January comes it slows down and we get back to normal every day activities. 

Using their new bath crayons they got from Gma Green

We made some blue gak to play with and I went upstairs to get Rockwell and Lyla came up telling me she got it stuck in her hair! Good thing its basically just corn starch and glue, it washed right out but was funny anyway. 

Out for girls night. Every few months the girls on the street get together for dinner. We have a great time talking and laughing for hours on end. 

 Every once in awhile I will put a matching shirt on the boys for church. Tried to get a picture and of about 20 pictures, this was the best I got. 

Field trip to the dinosaur museum with Lyla's preschool. This is her "ah! the shark is eating me" face

Went to the new children's museum at Thanksgiving Point and snapped this 

picture of them in this cool "old" plane 

Christmas Vacation

We stayed a few days after Christmas to spend time with the family. Mike wanted our Christmas vacation to be as fun as possible and planned for us to go 4-wheeling the day after Christmas. Lyla took some convincing to get on, but Mac was a little nervous, but still got on right away. We had a ton of fun and was a great day. 

 The next day we went down to the river and threw rocks and explored. We got some great pictures of the kids

Cute cousins

Christmas

 This year I was super excited for Christmas. Lyla finally started to really understand what Christmas meant and it made it so magical. It was super fun having a full house at the Green's and staying up late getting everything ready. 

The tree waiting to be discovered....except Emmy snuck in there somehow? haha

Found the Santa gift. It was so fun watching them light up and get so excited. 

Reading the note from Santa, and seeing his bites out of the cookies they made. 

Lyla is obsessed with Frozen this year, so most of what she got was some sort of dress up or Frozen doll. Here she is in her Elsa dress:

  

And Anna dress: 

I looked over and she was checking out her dress, feeling so pretty. 

Frozen figurines. So excited 

For Mac this year it was all about "boy stuff". Most everything in the house right now is dress ups, dolls and pink. So for Christmas we made sure to stock him up on super heros, guns and swords. He recently started naming all the superheros and loves them, so it was a perfect thing for him. 

Showing Julia his superman, batman and spiderman :) He was so proud of them

Rockwell was happy with chilling on the floor playing with the wrapping paper. Here he is with one of his gifts, and already giving it the chew test. 

Look at that happy guy

Playing with Mac's new swords!

 Trying out the new car in the cul-de-sac. They loved it 

The annual post-Christmas pic

Later that day I came in to the living room and found Mac's superheros, guns and mask all in the car. I thought it looked so cute with all the "manly" stuff all together. Mac is a great combination of an all boy get in the dirt kind of kid, but so soft and sweet at the same time.