12 years old!

 

Happy Birthday Hunter!

It was so special to have both sets of grandparents with us at church when Hunter received the Aaronic priesthood and passed the sacrament for the first time.  What a proud moment for mom and dad that was!

After church we had all of the McInelly's over for a birthday celebration!  

It was lots of fun, as always!

Aunt Bri surprised us by being awesome at BUMP!  She beat everyone, except Hunter, more than once!

We waited until the next weekend to have Hunter's big party with all of his friends, and he has quite the group of friends.

Hunter went to a different elementary school his 5th grade year so he has friends in both places, now they are all together at middle school.  It's fun for him to know so many kids... and he didn't want to leave anyone out!

 They played inside.

 They played outside.

  Jared showed them he's still pretty awesome.

Football in the street... I'm just glad no one got hurt.

Lots of pizza.  After playing basketball, football, and running around having nerf gun wars, they had worked up an appetite.

It was fun watching these boys having so much fun!  The s'mores around the fire pit got them singing camp songs.  They were singing at the top of their lungs and doing silly actions, having a blast!

Lots of boys means lots of shoes.  These were just at the back door, there were just as many at the front door.  

 Movie time!

It was a fun group of kids.  Hunter was worried about all of his different friends from different schools, football, and church all getting along and having fun together.  I was so impressed with how easily they all played and it looked to me like everyone had fun!

Happy Birthday Hunter!  

We love you!

On TV

We were only in the audience, but it was really fun to go to the local King5 New Day Northwest and see what a live TV show is really like, behind the scenes.  

There are 7 different segments. The show started off with Dan Marino and Damon Huard, both NFL football legends.  They talked about their glory days for a bit and then introduced a new wine.  During the commercial break they stayed for pictures and autographs.

This group was on the show to promote the Bellevue Jazz Music Festival this weekend.  

Indoor Kite Flyer Connor Duran performs.  He was on America's Got Talent.

This lady was there to promote Victoria BC and even gave away a trip to a lucky member of the audience, too bad we weren't the lucky winner, but she talked for several minutes which gave Linsey a lot of screen time.

The other segments were about diabetes awareness and cosmetic surgery which were not as exciting for the kids, but they were thrilled with some freebies.

After the show we got some pictures with the host Margaret Larson.

The studio itself is quite small.

I was surprised that this is where the audience sat.  There is room for more rows of chairs, but with all of the construction in the area, they don't fill much more than this.  The cameras have a way of making the audience look much larger.

Because the audience wasn't huge, every time the cameras scanned to the audience, which was mostly before and after each segment, we were on TV.

Lucky for us (and I give the credit to Caleb who wore his BYU shirt which gave us special treatment from an LDS employee at K5) we were invited to check out the news room.  

How cool is that?  Pretty great looking news crew.

 This is where they do the weather.

 Looks like a pretty intense interview.  

We went home and watched the show, fast forwarding to the clips where they showed the audience.  Everyone's favorite part is at the end where Austin is clapping his hands high over his head.  

Happy Birthday Austin

Austin is 5 years old! 

Birthdays are the BEST!  We love birthday parties in our house (who doesn't), and we spend days and weeks planning out the details of the anticipated event.  Austin has been telling me for weeks that he wanted a lego birthday party and his big idea was to invite LOTS of friends and spread legos out ALL OVER the entire house so everyone could play.  

We did something like that.

I've thrown a lot of birthday parties over the years.  With 4 kids 13, 11, 9 and now 5, I figured out that I've planned and put on 28 kid birthday parties.  I'm no expert, but I've learned a few tricks.  Things like scooping out the ice cream before the party and storing it in the the freezer like this.

There always needs to be a little activity or something for kids to do once they arrive, this coloring page was perfect for this group of 4 and 5 year olds.

Jared decorates amazing cakes and has done some really cool ones over the years, but lately I just use my cup cake stand and do something simple like this.  

Hunter made this super cool for dispenser for the party.  I love the creativity.

Here's another trick I learned this year while working at the preschool.  I had a stool in front of the sink which was filled with soapy water all ready for the kids to easily wash their hands after playing with play dough or when they got sticky from their ice cream and cupcakes.  

We played some fun games. 

And here they are playing legos.  It may not be quite what Austin had in mind, but he looks pretty happy.

When you have a lego party, everyone knows you like legos and that seemed to be the theme of the gifts.  Good thing Austin really likes legos.  He was thrilled!

Austin spent hours after the party putting together each lego set.  This was the first time he had a chance to follow the instructions step by step and make cool cars and ships and lots of other cool stuff.  He was in heaven.

A few fun Favorites:

Favorite dinner:  Homemade Macaroni & Cheese (That would be yours Tara!)

Favorite treat:  Spittle Babies (Sugar Babies)

Favorite thing to do:  ride bike around the block and ride on the teeter-totter at preschool.

Favorite movie:  Frozen, Olaf is so funny!

Favorite toy:  Legos and Hot Wheel cars and tracks

Favorite day:   Thursdays - He loves preschool and skittles math.

When I grow up:  "I want to be a taxi driver, til I'm tired of that and then I will be a train driver."

Austin predicts that someday he will have 6 kids, I kitten, and a pug. 

He also wanted me to write down that he thinks Emma is nice.