Shaylie is Six!

Shaylie was so excited to have a real "friend party."  She put a lot of thought into what outfit to wear for her party.  Predictably she chose the one with the pink, glittery scarf.  She wanted my birthday cake specialty, a "piled up cupcake cake with Skittles."  The kids each mixed a different color frosting and applied the Skittles.

I realized too late that I was out of candles!  So we made due and quickly stuck in some pink flamingo stir sticks, which Shaylie was kind enough to pretend to blow out.

Grandma helped the girls mix glitter into their playdough.  They also wore some homemade face glitter to fancy themselves up a bit.  

She loved the new pillowpet!

The girls dressed up and then had a dance party.  They liked playing the Freezedance game, where they had to freeze whenever I stopped the music.  Here they are dancing to Pokerface.  Can you tell it's Shaylie's favorite song EVER?

What a good girl to pitch in and help clean up afterwards.

Happy Birthday, Shaylie!

Adventures with the Loughneys

Amy's girls come up and spend a week or two with Grandma every summer (why didn't I think of that when Grandma lived far away from us?!)  We joined them for some fun activities, like fishing in Melba, a trip to the zoo, the MK Nature Center, and Discovery Center.

Did you ever see a real live anteater?  Crazy looking critter!

The favorite animal that we saw that day at the zoo was a wild little raccoon hiding in the shade near a picnic area where we ate lunch.  It sure was cute.  

Andrews Family Reunion 2011

We had an awesome time up in McCall for the Andrews family reunion, as well as lots of cousin play-time back at home and at Roaring Springs.  I took about a half a million pictures, so I'll try to resist the urge to post all half million.  We are so blessed with incredible extended family on both sides.  I absolutely love seeing my children grow up with close friendships with all their cousins.  What a great big, awesome family!

We had a girl sleep-over at our house, with all kinds of girly silliness...

Jordan and Sierra taught us all how to make friendship bracelets.  Here are a bunch of the girls sitting around working on them.  

Another great "Ripsnorter" with Grandma.

We went exploring and drove for a looooong way on a tip from a local guy about a good fishing spot.  But the drive was pretty, if dusty, and the kids loved getting to take rides in Uncle Justin's boat.  

Jared caught a water snake! (Don't show Grandma!)

All the grown-ups were lounging in the shade for a time, watching the kids play in the lake.  Right after this we played a rousing game of kickball.

Kyler was thrilled to get a turn riding Uncle Greg's kayak.  The best part for him was when 

Greg taught him how to break free and then flipped him!

Little boy construction site.  I wonder how many of these little guys will grow up to build real things??

Birds of Prey

Our family took a little day-outing over to the the Birds of Prey Wildlife Refuge and visitor center.  What a neat place!

Baseball (2011)

It's baseball/softball season!  Makenna and Kyler had a terrific time playing with their rec center teams.

I thought this one was funny.  (below)  Kyler loves playing baseball, but sometimes loses focus during boring stretches in the outfield.  On this day Kyler had a lose tooth, and every time I looked at him, he was out there just a wiggling it!  

This was the only picture I got of Makenna, I guess I didn't bring my camera very often.  She doesn't like feeling all eyes on her when she steps up to bat, so she gets that super-serious face that comes on whenever she's in the dreaded spotlight.  But Makenna has some great skills, especially catching and throwing.

Guess Who's Four! (2011)

For Brennan's birthday, we invited all his local grandparents (and great-grandparents) and had a nice little picnic party in the park by our house.  Brennan got this new bike, which he was very excited about.  

It was super windy that day, kind of a bummer.  But Brennan was in love with his "piled-up cupcakes cake," with Skittles.