Julianna is 5!!!

Julianna is 5!  How times flies.  She is such a sweet and sensitive little girl.  Julianna is finishing up her final year of preschool.  Next year she will hop on the bus for Kindergarten!  Crazy!  

She is really into Legos right now.  Just like Jake so we basically have two rooms with Legos everywhere.  She has built quite a few sets and she doesn't even need much help.  I am amazed at how fast she can put together a 200 piece castle.  I mean look at this!  She is just 5 years old!

Julianna is also quite the artist.  All she wanted was a painting party for her birthday.  So I found this cute little place called Farmhouse in the City and they have a petting zoo, face painting, dress up and painting.  It was perfect.  They made her feel so special.  We all had the best time!  This is her version of Elsa. 

She is also quite an athlete.  Her second soccer season she opened up and she scored 4 goals.  The second game so many people were there to watch her she said she was going to score 5!  And she did...plus two!  So glad Nana, Papa Chuck, Grandma and Poppy were there to see it!  

Julianna is also still taking ballet, her recital is at the end of May.  Their costumes are adorable.  They are fairy princesses with magic wands...could that be more perfect?  She is also still taking karate a couple times a week.  I need to get her into gymnastics too...she is cartwheeling everywhere!  

Julianna loves to play with friends.  Her teachers say she is so sweet to her classmates.  We are so fortunate to live on our street with 5 little girls for her to play with!  She is never bored...and also never far from her BFF Lily!  Yes, BFF's love to match!

Julianna is an amazingly talented, kind, fearless, and loving little girl and we couldn't be more proud of her.  Happy 5th Birthday Julianna!  We all love you!  

Jake is 7!

Jake is 7! 

Look how grown up he is!  He just lost that front tooth last week.  And he has two more that are about to fall out.  Poor kid is going to have a hard time eating!  Jake is such a great kid.  Right now he is totally into Legos, which are everywhere in his room.  It's like walking a mine field to get to the bed.  But he loves to put things together so who cares about a little mess?

Jake loves sports too.  He played flag football in the fall, basketball in the winter and will start baseball in the next few weeks.  Not sure he has found his sport yet but he is giving them all a chance.  He also still goes to karate class 3-4 times a week.  He is definitely getting more into it.  Let's see he has been taking swimming lessons and doing well.

School is going great.  He is excellent in Math and Reading.  His teacher says he is a joy to have in class.  Best part he is once again in his best friend, JP's class.  They have a great time together.  Pretty much every weekend Jake and JP are playing Wii, XBox, basketball or legos.  We are so lucky for our neighbors!  I know I say it a lot but its true!  We have made the best of friends here.

This year for Jake's birthday party he wanted a Game Truck.  What's a game truck you say?  It's a trailer full of TV's on which the kids can play any kind of video game imaginable.

Jake and a bunch of his classmates and friends spent 2 hours glued to the screen.  We decided halfway was when we would do pizza and cake.  So they came in at 1:00 and inhaled pizza, sang to Jake and then scarfed down the cake. 9 minutes later they were running back to the truck (I timed it).  They had such a great time!

Happy Birthday Jake!  I can't tell you how much we love you!  You are the greatest big brother to Julianna and Grace.  We couldn't be more proud of you!  We love you buddy!

February

,What a month!  After we got back from New Orleans it has been one thing after another!  Such a busy month!  Jake finished up his basketball season.  His team was not stellar but he had a great time with his friends. He is really good at defense.  He follows his man around and always has his hands up trying to get a steal.  I think he learned a lot and with some practice in the off season hopefully he will win a game!

The week after Valentine's Day we had two "snow" days.  Meaning they cancelled school Saturday night for Monday in anticipation of a nasty snow storm.  Well needless to say nothing happened Monday BUT it was so cold and rain was coming they thought kids should be out Tuesday as well.  I guess at least it did rain.  However, rain in 45 degree weather does NOT make ice.  Just saying.  But it did give me time to get ready to go to Orlando!

My sister turned 30 this year!  And she is an avid runner.  She wanted us to have a sister weekend for her birthday and it turned into Orlando and both of us running in the Princess Half Marathon.  Yes I have been training for months so I could at least finish the 13.1 miles.  I was also pretty excited about a weekend to explore Harry Potter world at Universal Studios!  Not going to lie, I love Harry Potter!

It was so fun walking thru the town and seeing all the shops.  They had rides and trains.  Even sold Butterbeer and magic wands.  The butterbeer was delicious!  But most fun was hanging with my mom and sister.  However that fun was over Saturday night when we had to go to bed at 9pm to get up at 3am!  Yes!  We had to be at the race by 4:30am!  I guess I was excited because I didn't really mind.  I was in the last corral so I started WAY behind Lyndsay (whose bib number was 86...meaning 85 people turned in a faster time.  24,000 people ran in this race).  Unbelievable!  Anyway. I was not number 86.  I was 16,281.  So slightly slower.  I finally started my run about an hour after she did.  Which was great because she came and met me at mile 11 and I was struggling.  But I persevered and made it to the finish and claimed my pretty medal!

And drank my delicious beer (thanks mom!)

Gotta say thanks to my sister for making me do this.  I actually found that I really like running.  So now I am looking for my next race.  Hopefully I can come back to the Princess 1/2 next year because I would really like another fun Princess medal!

Only bad part about my Orlando trip was it fell on Brian's birthday.  But he was a trooped and his Mom and Chuck came up to help him with the kiddos.  They were excited to have his presents hidden in theirs closets for him.  I have to tell you Julianna was with me at Target in the chip aisle and said "I want to get Daddy wood chips so we can eat the together."  Julianna calls pork rinds wood chips.  No idea why but she does.  And she wrapped them up for Brian for his birthday.  So silly!

I flew back in Sunday in time for Jake's birthday on Monday.  Wouldn't you know it snowed Tuesday morning and we had a snow day, it started as a delay so a couple kids were at my house waiting for the bus. Then they called school off and it was time to make snowballs!

Such fun playing in the snow.  Then it cleared up but it was cold and supposed to snow again...so naturally they called off school Wednesday and then again on Thursday!  At least the kids got to sled this time!

Just wanted to thank everyone again who supported me the past few months in training.  It really was a wonderful feeling of accomplishment and I am so glad I did it!  And I got to go to Disney World...Disney is always a good idea!

January

It has just been crazy busy here in the McNeely household.  Between basketball games, swimming lessons, karate, school and vacations we have been going a mile a minute!  But that is how we roll.

The last weekend in January, Brian and I and our good friends Meegan & Andy and Troy & Heather went to New Orleans.  We all celebrate various birthdays and anniversaries.  For some reason January/February is jam packed with events!  My mom came down to watch the kids and stayed for a week!  She was such a help to me and she watched 3 kids for 4 days!  I assure you its no easy task!  But everyone survived, my mom needs a vacation now!

Before we left we we got to spend a few days running around shopping and running errands.  One day we ate lunch with Jake before he was the mystery reader at Julianna's school.  I can't tell you how excited he was to surprise her.  She kept saying I know it's you mommy because Daddy goes to work and Jake has school.  Jake would look at me and giggle.  And when the day finally came she was super excited!  She sat down next to him and kept scooting her chair closer and closer to him while he read.  Warmed my heart to see how much they love each other!

Then we were off to New Orleans.  New Orleans is such a wonderful city, so full of life and energy.  And Cafe Du Monde has the best beignets and coffee!  I am going to dream about those for a long time.  Makes my stomach ache to think about all the food we ate.  And we even saw a Mardi Gras parade and were on the balcony on Bourbon Street.  Quite an adventure!

Christmas 2014

The holidays are over and we are getting back into the swing of things.  We had such a wonderful Christmas and I hope you did too!  Picking up where I left off after last post we followed up our Santa visit with lots of school parties.  Julianna had her 4 year old Christmas program.  To say she was excited would be an understatement!  Her beautiful Christmas outfit was all picked out the night before and she practiced her songs in the car for weeks.  I posted the videos on the YouTube channel.  She knew all the words and sang with lots of joy!

We also went down the street to the annual Decker Gingerbread House contest.  Lots of fun and Brian took over building the house, I think the kids helped off and on...and might have just help to eat the decorating candy.

Julianna was also super helpful at Grace's school party.  We made snowman cheese sticks and snowman cups for popcorn.  She passed out snacks and napkins.  So much fun for us to visit Grace's class!

That was the last day of school and we had a nice long break!  Which meant sleeping in and wearing pajamas and playing with friends.  It was so nice to just relax for a couple weeks.  Meegan and I took Julianna and Lily to see the Nutcracker.  They might have been a tad young to sit through a ballet but we made it.  And the girls had a great time!  Maybe next year we will see the Rockettes!

Finally it was Christmas Eve after going to church and eating a yummy dinner, the kids went to put cookies and milk out for Santa.  We may not have had any carrots but they were easily convinced green peppers were a reindeer's second favorite and a welcome change from all the carrots they would be getting!  Yes, once again Grace ate more cookies than she plated but that is to be expected!

 
Christmas Eve might just be my favorite day of the whole year (and not just because kids go to bed with ZERO arguments!)  I love finishing up the wrapping and putting out all the presents.  Stuffing stockings.  And its so quiet!  This year I told myself I would have everything wrapped and ready to just bring to the tree.  Well that didn't happen.  Oh well next year I will be on top of it!

Thankfully the kids slept until after 7am (which was great because I didn't make it to bed until 3am!)  Once everyone was up they were able to go downstairs and see what Santa brought.  Jake got a new bike, MarioKart 8, Ghostbusters, a walkie talkie and Marvel Live tickets!

Julianna finally got her dollhouse!  Santa didn't bring it last year and she was so sad!  I think Santa redeemed himself this year!  This one even has a pool!  She also got a nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty and some nail polish.

Grace didn't want anything but food.  That made it challenging for Santa.  But her came through with a new easel, huge Olaf, Dumbo and lipsticks.

After we went through all the Santa gifts we headed to the living room to open presents.  The kids got all kinds of fun stuff...and useful stuff too!  My favorite presents are the ones the kids pick out for each other.  Julianna takes this very seriously and will spend an hour at the store looking at every toy before she settles on anything.  This year she bought Grace an Olaf tea set and Jake two Super Hero figurines.  Jake picked out a spin art set for Julianna (she is quite the artist) and a jumpy thing for Grace.  Grace just kind of points to something and doesn't think too much.  But she got Jake a Lego book and Julianna a set of princess books.  They were all happy with their gifts and super happy to see other opens their gifts.  

Julianna's school still has a Santa shop and she picked out presents for Mommy and Daddy.  The day she shopped she jumped in the car and was sooo excited!  She said "I can't tell you what I bought you but its beautiful and I got Daddy reindeer socks and he is going to be so excited to wear them!"  It is so adorable how excited she was for us to open her gifts.  I love that her school does this for them!  

It was a wonderful day.  Jake ended up with tons of Legos!  Which he spent hours and hours putting together in his room.  We skyped with Grandma and Poppy while we opened their gifts.  The girls even got a Frozen karaoke machine!  I have to include this picture of Grace.  She is standing on a table with her microphone singing into the mirror.  Future singer/actress?

Brian's family came for the weekend.  We had a great time playing and enjoyed having everyone here...even if half the family was sick by the time they left.  But the kids loved spending time with family and cousins.  I just love this picture!

New Year's came around and we rang in 2015 with our neighbors. 2014 was crazy busy but we had a great year!  I am sure 2015 will be even better!  We already have plans to got to New Orleans at the end of January, I am heading to Disney World in February to run a half marathon (yes you read that right! Pray for me!), for Spring Break we are headed to Wilderness at the Smokies (an indoor water park resort), hitting the Beach in July, will go to Cincinnati at some point this summer, and we have a week break in September so we will be in our favorite place...Disney World!  Lots of fun already on the calendar!  Looks to be another fantastic year!  

Happy New Year!