Happy New Year!!!!!

I DIDN'T MAKE IT!!!!

My one and only goal was to hit 200 posts this year... and I failed.  It is now 12:20 AM on January 1st and I missed my goal by 3 posts!!!!

I am so disappointed, but at the same time I am proud I got as many done as I did!!!!  YAY for me:)

Just for a quick review of last year... (not even adding in pictures)

My precious baby girl, Nicole was born.

Tim graduated College ASU magna cum Laude (or one of the hoity toity smart peoples group) :)

Arlo started kindergarten

Cohen started preschool

We took the boys to Disneyland for their first time

Tim hiked Kings Peak in Utah

The boys played soccer

Tim and I celebrated 8 years of marriage bliss!

We are actually some of the lucky ones; because when I look back on my year, there are too many good times to remember, to many happy moments to count and not enough space in this blog to say how grateful I am with the life I have been given and the choices I have made to bring me to the moment I am at!

So, with that sentiment out of the way... HAPPY NEW YEARS, HERE IS TO ANOTHER YEAR AS WONDERFUL AS THE ONE BEFORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's a Hard Block Life!!!

Happy Birthday to my biggest, littlest boy... COHEN!!!!!

I love you baby and I hope your birthday was just what you wanted!!!!

Cohen's 4th Birthday Party...

My poor Cohen (not really) has never had a real birthday party.  His birthday is right on/around Thanksgiving we usually just mash them together.  But this year Cohen wanted his own party, and because he has never had one, I let him decide what he wanted.  I was not surprised at all when planning with him that he wanted a MINECRAFT party!  With a piñata!  

So, I got on pintrest and basically stole every idea, but in the end it turned out to be an awesome birthday!

Because I am so proud of my stolen Minecraft birthday ideas, I will take a minute to brag!

First the decorations...

We had spiders...

and nether realm portals...

and more spiders (they were everywhere, i did not take pictures of them all)

This is the girl who helped me with it all.  The best babysitter any mom could ever ask for, Mia!

Then we have the food...

The food table, complete with grass and label cards...

mooshrooms... large marshmallows covered in red candy coating with white choco chips as the dots.

  Coal... unwrapped Hershey kisses

fish... Swedish fish

carrots... carrots

lava blocks... cheese cubes

sticks... pretzels

dirt clods, sand, water... left overs from cake

the strawberries did not have a label card, but I figured we needed some kind of fruit to go with all the junk:)

The chips at the end of the table were labeled pork chops and chicken, because for our main course we had square pizza (the deep dish from Little Cesears)

This is the hot lava (copied from pintrest) pure sugar... so very delicious!!!!  I made it a little different from the recipe on pintrest, because the recipe called for store brand strawberry soda and store brand vanilla ice-cream/orange cream sherbet mixed together.  My store only had the dryers version which was twice as expensive as buying two cheap ice creams so I bought one vanilla ice cream and one orange cream sherbet and threw half of each in the bucket, poured the strawberry soda on top and walla... a Minecraft certified lava bucket!!!!  I also had a water bucket as well, but who wants to see a picture of water?

The Cake... Cohen picked out and was very specific...

This was the cake before the party started...

Then this was the cake after he opened his birthday presents... can you tell what he got?

I am so mad, every year I make a special birthday cake for my boys and then I take a picture of them with their cake... this is what I got for Cohen's picture...

Can you say creeper?????  (get it... from the game????:)

Of all the cake parts, the jello was the first to go... I don't get it, give me chocolate any day... but Jello? gross!!!

For our party entertainment we had...

presents...  we did presents first, for a few reasons.  #1 I do not like making all my guests stand around watching my kids open a billion presents (it is not that fun to watch) so we opened right before the party was about to start.  #2 we did not have guests bring presents (for reasons that I do not care to explain right now) #3 When he opens them first thing he has the rest of the party to play with them.  #4 they were all minecraft presents.  #5  I needed some of the presents to put on the cake:)

Piñata... I decided to do a pull string piñata... total bust!  did not work.  the toys inside were to heavy, so I had to tape the flap shut so the toys would not fall out.  But with the tape on, the kids could not pull the flap open.  But the Ghast piñata still turned out cute.  (once again it was because of Mia, our babysitter).

and in the end, a piñata is still a piñata... which all kids love, no matter how or who opened it. 

This is my ONE AND ONLY original idea for the party... 

life sized Minecraft building blocks.  

And our main present to Cohen.  Minecraft is a game about building with blocks.  So I bought 100 10x10x10 blocks, covered 80% of them in green tissue paper (for grass blocks), covered 3 in diamond wrapping paper and left the rest all brown (for dirt clods) and I let them go to town building with them.  They built fort after fort and Cohen with his new creeper jacket would go into the fort and blow it up and then they would all destroy it and build something new.  It was a great activity!  The kids loved it, and it got the kids outside working together and it took up a lot of time!  It was awesome!!!  

Plus, the fun continued on for weeks afterwards!  What kind of kid does not enjoy a good cardboard box????

This is Cohen later on after the party... he loves his minecraft figures!  He now plays with the figures more than the game, which I will not complain about:)

Since his party was a few days before his actual birthday.  On his birthday I usually have my kids wake up to 50+ balloons in their room.  But, they were getting tired of the balloons, so I thought I would try something different.  So this year, I surrounded his bed with green (his favorite color) streamers.

And then I did this to his door...

I realized I had to get into his room to wake up arlo for school and I did not want Arlo to break down his brothers streamer door, so if you look closely, I left about a foot and a half open at the bottom.  Enough for me to climb through to get pictures:)

My Life is Complete...

The ultimate goal has been reached... I can now officially say, "Hi, my name is Shiloh and I am a soccer mom!"  No minivan... but I have two boys playing soccer!!!

Cohen is playing on the preschool league and his team name is the ROCKETS.

Arlo is on the beginner league and his team name is the TIGERS.

Even though the boys were on different teams, we got lucky and got their practice on the same field at the same time.  So, instead of soccer 4 days a week, we only have soccer 3 days a week.

Arlo was born for soccer...

He loves it!  He was on the same team as his two friends,

 and he is good at it!  At one game he made 3 goals.  We are so proud of him!

Cohen on the other hand, I think might have been a little young (if not in age, then in mind) and I say that very lovingly!!!!!  He was so excited for soccer.  This is his first activity that he has been a part of.

And then we got to his first game and when we went to put on his uniform (that they handed out at the first game) he melted down, and this is how his first game went...

It did not go well, so for the next game we were ready with.... a bribe:)  And this is how his second game went...

He did so well!  We were so happy and so proud!!!!  But let me get one thing clear, this is the only game he played like this.  For the rest of the season we battled with tears or we watched Cohen standing on the soccer field playing some imaginary game in his head or running at least 5 feet behind the last player.  But, he did have fun.  

The season came and went so fast!  And both boys were on leagues that do not keep score, and everyone gets a trophy.  So, here is Arlo receiving his "good work" trophy:)

And here is Cohen at his last game and him with his "good work" trophy.

And, I had to put up one picture of the cutest cheerleader out on the field!  She went to 95% of the boys' games and practices and she was the best trooper!