My First Wedding Cake!

I suppose THIS cake should have been posted before the other one, but I thought I had already posted pictures of it! I was talking to a friend at church one week and somehow it came up that I like to decorate cakes. She told me her parents were getting re-married (to each other) and asked if I thought I could do a simple wedding cake. I had always wanted to do a wedding cake, but have never been asked....so I said yes! (I also added that Jack would probably not be very excited for the stress it would place upon my shoulders...and family haha!) I figured it couldn't be too hard or stressful if her mom didn't even want a wedding cake, but was doing it to please the guests, and it was going to be very simple! So, I present to you my very first wedding cake! It was (if I remember correctly) white cake with raspberry filling- covered in marshmallow fondant, and I also made chocolate cupcakes with raspberry filling to go along with it.

A wedding cake on the fly!

"Hello?" "Hi Tiffany, I have a favor to ask you." "Okay?" "Would you be able to make a wedding cake for someone?" "Sure, I'd love to! When do they need it?" "Well, actually...tomorrow" "Umm...okay...."

And with that a wedding cake was done in one day! Thankfully someone else made the actual cake and I only had to assemble and decorate it....which made it a lot more doable. It's definitely not my best cake (and a horrible picture!), but hey, it was done on the fly!

And with that summer was over...

School started a couple weeks into August! I couldn't believe I had a 1st grader already!

It all started with a bang...Tyler and I were rear ended on the way home from school shopping...joy. The ironic thing is that on the way there, we were discussing car accidents and he just had to say "I hope I never get in a car accident my whole entire life." Thanks for the jinx kid. We were relatively okay, but the 19 year old who hit us was a wreck...I would have been too if I was driving my grandma's car and was a teenager. The two bottom pictures make me laugh because I view it as a 6 year old's traumatic experience of a car accident;) The car was in the shop for 2 weeks, and we've been going to the chiropractor for a few months.

 He looks traumatized doesn't he?

Our first day of school pictures! Tyler's teacher is Mrs. Collins this year and he is in the same classroom as last year. We had quite the rough first few months of 1st grade in this house....Tyler had the worst attitude and hated(s) getting up "early" (fyi...his school starts the latest in the country I'm pretty sure). I started getting pretty worried about his behavior and had a stack of parenting books I was reading, but after about 3 months he got much better....he still is what I call my "6 year old teenager" but oh well.

Jacob has the same teacher as last year and is loving preschool. His speech has gotten so much better over the last few months because the new speech therapist at the school is amazing and Jacob gets so excited the days she comes to his class!

Girls Camp

I have had the amazing oppurtunity to serve in Young Womens at church (the organization at church for the 12-18 year old girls) for 4 years now (in Omaha and here) and have LOVED every second of it! This was the first year I was able to get away from the family and go to part of girl's camp with them! I grew up LOVING girls camp and have so many fond memories of it, we had amazing leaders...and now I appriciate even more the hard work that went into planning it now that I've seen some of the behind the scenes work! We have some great girls in our ward (local congregation), I was glad to go for the last full day and stay the night. They had girls camp at a YMCA camp in Winter Park, CO, and stayed in Yurts. The first half of the day was beautiful...but we had a great view of the storm clouds rolling in....and the second half of the day was cold and wet! We prepared dinner under the bathroom shelter, and everyone had to eat in their yurts! The theme was  "Keep It Real". Each day they were at girls camp they had a color, theme, scripture, and quote that went along with the day. The day I arrived it was Red day, and the theme was "R.ead E.very D.ay...and don't forget to pray" Each yurt was supposed to dress up and then the priesthood men that were there voted who won....the leaders won a few times I heard! This first picture is of us crazy leaders!

Katy turns 2!

I can't believe Katy turned 2 this year, and its amazing how much she has changed since her birthday too! Time sure flies...and I'm sure I'll never stop saying that! We had a pretty low key birthday party for her. We invited some of her favorite people over for some Strawberry Lemonade cupcakes....and man were those cupcakes delicious!

For her birthday this year we gave her a little shopping cart with play food, from some of her friends she got bubbles, paint, magic marker coloring pages, I know she got other stuff....but sadly we can't remember! (That's what I get for being so behind on the blog...) She had a lot of fun being the center of attention, and loved having her friends there!

Summer Activities

Among our many camping trips, T-Ball, and family visits we had lots of fun doing things like bowling, swimming, water gun fun, golf, playing LOTS with the neighbors, and grilling some yummy food, to name a few!

Jack went golfing a few times with a coworker this summer, and took Tyler one time....we kept it a secret until they arrived at the golf course, he was SO excited!

 We saw some beautiful Sunsets, and amazing storm clouds, I made some crafts, of coursed played lots of Wii, Jack and I actually did something for a date besides just eating out- golf.....

...We ate lots of morning pancakes, ice cream bars, Popsicle's, we had lots of fun family time- these pictures were from when we went and played mini-golf....Katy was quite the pest to all of us as we were trying to play because she kept taking the ball, or golf clubs, or hanging on the pole. We all got a good laugh and had a good time in spite of her shenanigans!

July 4th Fun!

After our Family Reunion, Valeriane, Sean and their kids stayed for a few extra days to spend Independence Day with us! The kids had a lot of fun playing together....there is one particular memory the boys have STILL not forgotten and bring up often. The kids were all in the backyard playing, probably waiting for us to go somewhere and the adults inside decided to play a little trick on them. While they all stopped playing and were sitting in the middle of the lawn jack turned on the sprinklers, of course the first in initial reaction for them was shock...then they thoroughly enjoyed playing int he sprinklers! The boys still ask us to "surprise" them by turning on the sprinklers!

 We decided to spend July 3rd downtown exploring. We went to the Aquarium and had fun seeing all the sea creatures, and a few things we didn't expect to see like a tiger and mermaids!

After we were at the aquarium we decided it was only right that we should visit the REI Flagship store....one of our favorite places! They have a beautiful walking path outside, and a little kids play area upstairs! There's just something about looking at all those camping gadgets, tents, sleeping bags, hiking boots...I could go on, but won't. (I remember when I was young REI was our absolute favorite store to go to as kids too...at least it was my favorite haha!)

Valeriane and Sean happened to hear someone talk about a fireworks show/symphony concert that was going on that night in Civic park, so we all decided to go....even though we did not plan at all for it...which sometimes does not work out well with young children.... in the end we had a ton of fun listening to the concert and hope to go again next year! I absolutely love hearing symphony concerts, and of course fireworks shows are always fun! We were lucky too, because on 4th of July all the fireworks shows were banned because there were so many wild fires in our state at that time, we hardly had ANY rain this summer!

On the fourth of July we had a fun cookout, full of delicious food, fun, and family!

Another day they were visiting with us we went north of town to an indoor water park that was part of a community center- the kids had a blast! Valeriane also kicked my butt and took me out of my comfort zone (my neighborhood) and took me for a bike ride around the reservoir. It was great to have her coach me a bit, it really helped me not be as afraid to leave my neighborhood and be among other cyclists and pedestrians haha! (I'm hoping to be ready for a more intense year of cycling next spring/summer!)

We're so glad to live close to the Wilson's so we can see them more often, like when we lived in Tucson! Now....to get the rest of the family to move closer as well, and join us in our fun.....

Play Ball!

This year was Tyler's first season of T-Ball, and he loved it! Jack also got roped into being Assistant Coach and had fun teaching all the little boys and girls how to play. We felt like our life was SO busy because they had either practice or games 2-3 times each week- and we usually all went. The team was mostly boys, with a few girls, and they were quite the handful. As with most T-Ball teams, I am sure, there were a handful of kids who could care less about being there and spent most of their time squating down making sand piles. We were lucky enough to be on the same team as some friends from church, so we got to see plenty of them this summer, and we loved every second of it! The majority of these pictures are from our friend, who is a professional photographer....we lucked out on that one! Thanks Kelly!!

These are pictures from his opening day in mid-May

Here are some more fun pictures of the rest of the season!

and some action shots!

I can't go without making note of his biggest fans...Katy and Jacob. They were such great sports about being dragged to almost all of his practices and games, there were some pretty hot days, windy days, stormy days, and it was just down right boring to watch T-ball for a 4 year old and almost 2 year old.

Overall it was a great season, but we were all glad when it was over....we at least got a little break before soccer started! Tyler is excited for many more years of T-ball....I'm not sure how I feel about adding another kiddo and his T-ball schedule next year to the mix....we'll be busy to say the least.

Hopefully I'll get around to updating this post sometime soon with his team photos that I need to scan!

McKaskey Family Reunion 2012 (Part 1)

OKAY- I've had this post ready for quite a while now and was just waiting for more pictures from others....but I figured I'd might as well post it as "Part 1" and add more later! This has A LOT of pictures...and there are many more I'm missing, so enjoy family!

Last year around this same time I felt the need for our family to ALL get together for al ittle reunion. I decided to take on the task to plan said reunion...and decided that since I was planning it, why not have it in Colorado! Colorado seemed like a good "central" place too, since my siblings all live in a different state. I decided to do my best to keep it low cost, so I decided on camping. Camping seemed to fit our family anyhow, camping is a fond memory of mine from childhood. After doing a lot of research and asking around I decided on the East Portal Reservoir Campground in Estes Park, CO. Which was the same place we camped with our friends (that trip was our "test" trip for the reunion since we kind of needed to know the area well enough to tell my family about it!

I can't believe how fast the date seemed to sneak up on us for the reunion! I was planning it for a year then BAM! it was here! The weeks leading up to it were a little nerve racking because a HUGE fire was spreading quickly just north of where we were going to camp, so we had to start looking for Plan B options...and well, since it was the weekend right before 4th of July we couldn't find anywhere that was available! Thank goodness we didn't have to come to a plan B and things worked out just fine.

EVERYONE was able to make it, which was SO fun! Even Grandma Barbara was able to make it, we were so excited to have her join us.
We had SO much fun....after the first 2 hours that were spent in a NASTY thunderstorm. Get ready for an overload of pictures....I will attempt to squish as many in as I can through collages! 

These are pictures from our first evening there, once everyone had arrived and set up camp. It was still cold and drizzly after the big thunderstorm that came through, so it was very conducive to cuddling with the many options of Aunts and Uncles!

We went on a family hike the next morning. Most everyone came a long, except for a few that opted to go into town and take a look at all the fun shops. We hiked around Lily Lake, it was a lot of fun to watch the cousins have so much fun exploring nature together....and fighting over who was the current leader of the group.

Meal time was the most difficult to figure out with that many people. We basically left it up to each of the 4 campsites to figure out Breakfast and Lunch and then we ate all together as a family for dinner. Because our campsite ended up with just our family and my brother we ended up being the "kitchen" campsite....which then led to jack stepping in to be the cook. It's what he does best anyway- he is a pro at muli-tasking and cooking for a crowd.

When we weren't hiking or exploring town we mostly just hung out at camp. The kids all loved to explore the woods around our camps, play at the small playground, climb trees, and hunt for chipmunks. I think their most favorite thing was when Grandpa brought them each a hiking stick to decorate and keep for themselves! Katy and Miles kind of stuck together and had a love-hate relationship.

The most eventful part of our family reunion was the nice visitor we had at camp in the middle of the night...the big furry type of visitor you are constantly warned about...yes, a BEAR! Eek. I know I was blessed with a deep slumber that night so I wouldn't pass out in fear. Which is funny because I normally NEVER sleep deep while camping because I'm either too uncomfortable or worried about the kids being warm enough.
If I remember the story correctly- this bear visitor was apparently walking around all our camps in the night. Daniel heard it right outside his tent at first then a bit after got up and bravely started making some noise with their pots to get it to go away from our campsites. Early in the morning my mom got up and saw that the bear had torn apart the campsite RIGHT next to ours. These genious neighbors left their cooler out in their truckbed. The bear got into everything and made a mess of their campsite. My mom said that the bear ate their entire bag of dogfood, the ground beef, not the bacon, not the lettuce, and miraculously opened their egg case and "layed" the eggs in a perfect little line as if to say "I was here!". Sheesh people, be a little smarter next time, especially if you are going to camp right next to my family!

 The time to go home came so quickly. The last night we had a "Cousins Talent Show". It was SO adorable. At first the kids were shy, but then we couldn't get them to stop! "Wait, one more! Wait one more! Wait, I have another talent!" It was a night full of laughs for sure.

Part 2 (hopefully with videos too) to come soon-ish.

Cooling off, having fun!

We played at the pool and in our sprinklers a lot this summer! We played with squirt guns, rode our bikes, practiced jumping rope, mastered hoola hooping, and ate many popsicle's and fudgecicle's!

These popsicle/icecream cone holders are the BEST find of the summer.

 

 

More exploring!

As we were heading back home from our first trip to Estes Park we decided to stop by the Tramway to take a quick ride to the top of a peak and see some nice views. I totally did NOT take into account how windy it was that day and, well, really wished I had half way up. Let's just say I feared for my life. Jack didn't, but he's fearless I guess. Katy would have rather been anywhere else but on that tram and made sure to let her feelings be known. Funny enough after we paid for our tickets (sheesh, a little costly!) we happened to run into Liam's family again, this time it was unplanned! The views from the top were amazing! We were even able to see the smoke plume from the High Park fire (I think that was the fire). As we got off the tram there was a pathway that led around a little building to the trails....we had to hold on tight to the kids to keep them from being pushed by the wind. scary. We met up with Liam's family and they let Tyler have some peanuts to feed the chipmunks, which he thoroughly enjoyed!

Scaring their mommas climbing a little too high.

 And this last picture just cracks me up, it was for sale in the gift shop at the top of the tramway...

"John Wayne Toilet paper: Its Rough, its Tough, and it doesn't take crap off anyone"

The tram was fun, and I'm sure the hikes at the top are nice too, but we didn't want the wind to get worse before we could make it back down so we didn't stay up long (even the tram operator said they'd probably be shutting it down soon, that's how bad it was!)....and we probably won't pay the money to do that again.

And we're off to Explore!

As soon as school was out we started packing up for our first summer adventure....CAMPING! We met up with some friends in Estes Park, CO to have some outdoor adventures and to scope out the campground our McKaskey family reunion was going to be at. It was our first time camping with 3 kids, and with our new larger tent. I unfortunately came down with a nasty cold the day we were heading out so it created a not so pleasant experience for me in such high altitudes. The drive back home was quite the excruciatingly painful experience! Despite my cold we had great fun. The first night was a bit rough with the kids, I woke up with every noise they made making sure they weren't freezing to death. Only to find out from Tyler half way through the night he kept getting out of his sleeping bag because he was hot! Once the boys reassured me they were fine without my assistance every 10 minutes I slept much better the next 2 nights!

Estes Park is a stunning place. We did a small hike over by Lily Lake that the kids really enjoyed, it was challenging for them, but easy enough for them to do on their own and feel adventurous.

When we were visiting Omaha in May I stopped by Tyler's friend Liam's house to pick something up. While chatting with his mom, Liz, we discovered we would be in Estes Park the same weekend. We decided to surprise the boys by "running into each other" at the ice cream shop. It was so fun to see their faces and let them goof off together (because let's face it, that's what these two do) for a few minutes.

 

Our hiking/camping group! It was so fun to get to know these families a little better and to enjoy nature together. I'm sure we'll be camping with them a lot more in the years to come.