Christmas Treats

All the snow we had last week really put me in the Christmas mood, so last Saturday Amanda came over and we made Christmas cookies...Andies mint chocolate chip and sugar cookies. We didn't have any cookie cutters so we had to cut out our fun shapes by hand. It was like being kids again!

It was a lot harder than we remembered coming up with fun ideas for decorating the cookies. Amanda won "Cookie of the Year" with her "don't eat yellow snow" cookie.

Mya wasn't too into making or decorating the cookies, but she really enjoyed eating them!

All in all, a very successful baking day. And some great sister/aunt bonding. We love you Aunt Amanda!

Our little chatterbox

With each stage comes new and exciting milestones. Mya is 16 months, walking eveywhere, getting into everything, yet what I love most is listenig to her talk! She is quite the coversationalist. She has about a dozen real words and numerous "other words." I am sure that being first time parents we are more amazed at her development than if we had experience with other children, but it just blows me away.
When I pick her up from daycare all I have to say is, "how was your day? What did you do at daycare today?" And she will tell me, in what I assume is great detail, because it takes the whole 15 minute ride home. Mixed in with the ball, baby, mommy, daddy, Holli is ba, da, oh. She is so excited and animated with her story telling. I always wonder what she thinks she is telling me. Whatever it is she must have had a lot of fun.
Her new thing is "my daddy" and "my mommy." My sister was staying with us for awhile and she has a boxer named Halle. When Mya first saw her, her eyes got really big and she said, "hi doggy!" Which made me wonder, what did she think Rambo was? She had never said doggy before. I try to video her little monologs, but as soon as she sees the camera that is all she wants. One of these days I will get one captured and posted.
God blessed us with such an amazing little angel. We couldn't be more thankful...even at 6am when she starts telling us its time for breakfast!

Loads of Fun!

Mya is a great little helper and laundry is one of her favorite chores to assist with. Usually her favorite part is putting the clothes in the dryer, but today daddy let her ride around and play in the hamper too. She was all smiles until it was time to get out.

How to Carve a Pumpkin

How to Carve a Pumpkin

by Mya Grace Malson

Step One: Select the size and shape of pumpkin to best fit your design Step Two: draw your design onto your pumpkin
Step Three: cut a hole in the top (mommy has to do this step)
Step Four: assess the situation to see how big of a bowl you will need to put the "guts"in

Step Five: using your hands, scoop the guts out of the pumpkin...

...and place them in the bowl provided to you by mommy

Step Six: cut out the design drawn on in step #2 (as demonstrated by Aunt Amanda)

Step Seven: place a small candle or tea light in the bottom of your now hallow pumpkin and put the lid back on

Step Eight: pose for a picture to document this year's artwork

Step Nine: place outside and light the candle!

The Pumpkin Patch

Not knowing how much longer the nice weather would hold out, Amanda & I took Mya out to a local pumpkin patch on Monday evening. She was very curious about it all. She checked them all out. It was so cute to watch her thump on 'em and try to pick them up. The pictures say it all so I will just leave it at that.

Playing Catch-up

Binge Blogger Malson is back! But I am caught up now. I started with July and had planned on only posting one month a week so everyone had time to read them without getting confused, but Mya took a long morning nap, so I figured I would put my free time to good use. It starts with September and works back to July. When you get to July it will have another intro, sorry for the redundancy.

Playing Catch-up - September (BSU Football)

ESPN's College Gameday came to Boise State for the home opener against Oregon State and we were there to enjoy the festivities. It did make for a long day of tailgating though.

Boise State opened their season against Virginia Tech in D.C. and since we are saving to buy a house we decided to pass on this trip. We still cheered for our Broncos at Mark and Carla's house with the rest of the family. Go Broncos!!!

Playing Catch-up - September (Trouble)

Mya has learned that we keep food in the pantry, not just paper bags and the broom. She also figured out how to open up the saltine cracker box.

Look who figured out how to open the dishwasher. Now if I could just get her to unload it while she is in there. Needless to say we keep it locked at all times now.

Playing Catch-up - September (McCall)

Over Labor Day weekend we joined the Malson family at the cabin up in McCall. This was the first time Mya had been up there and she had fun hanging out with her cousins, playing in the water, riding the boat, and going for walks. Mya's favorite part of the whole weekend was playing in the stairs. We do not have stairs at our house and she thought she was in heaven with 2 diferent flights of stairs to crawl up and down.

Our hous is pretty quiet in the mornings, so she enjoyed playing with Jayten in the morning while we made breakfast.

We lucked out and Saturday was warm enough to play in the lake. The water was too cold to go swimming, but we played on the beach and built sand castles.

Mya and Jayten did get to hang out in the tube for a little bit. She was very upset when I made her get out.

Playing Catch-up - August

If you watch the news on a regular basis you are probably under the impression that the sky is falling and the economy will never recover. Well August proved to be quite different in our eyes. On August 13th Robertson Supply officially opened The Pump House. A seperate location here in Nampa dedicated just to selling pumps...irrigation pumps, home sprinkler system pumps, you name it-they got it pumps. They had a HUGE grand opening celebration and several hundred people came out to celebrate and congratulate them on their new venture. I am so proud of Jared and all this hard work helping get this project off the ground.

Contrary to popular belief, the real estate market is doing quite well too. As a business development rep, I am usually out of the office more than in it, but in August I spent a fair share of my days in the closing room helping people sign their packages. With the combination of low interest rates and realistic home prices now is the time to buy and people are starting to realize it. It is fun to be busy again! To top it off, my event planning business is starting to take off and I had a wedding in August too. I love this thing we call life!!!

Playing Catch-up - Mya's 12 month photos

Looking for a family photographer? Check out www.maggiemalsonphotography.com!

Playing Catch-up - First Birthday!

Mya Grace Malson turned the BIG 1 on July 28th, but we celebrated with a backyard BBQ a few days later. It was also a celebration for Jared & I, for surviving the first year of our first child. Lord knows the learning curve was high, but he always gave us the grace and wisdom (and ability to go to work with no sleep) right when we needed it. Thank-you to all our family and friends who laughed both with us and at us as we stumbld through being new parents. It is so worth it. We love you Mya Grace!!!

Mya has made the best little friends at daycare and they were there to help her celebrate the milestone. Lots of family made it over too.

She really enjoyed ripping into the wrapping paper and shredding the tissue in the bags.

"You Grow Girl!" was her birthday party theme and mommy had a little too much fun going all out for the big day. Our friend Melissa made a giant cupcake for Mya and daisy cookie cupcakes for her guests. As you can see below, Mya knew exactly what to do with it.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!