Spring 2014

Audrey and her friends right after the spring choir concert.

Cousin Eleanor's 1st Birthday. Audrey did a great job on this cute little cake for her.

Our new addition to the back yard. I can barely keep the kids off of this tramp even when it's raining. They love it sooo much! Three months with no injuries and counting.

Joey's eighth grade Science project... Mouna Loa the Volcano. This is completely 100% Legos. Even the infrastructure inside. 

Many of you may already know, but through many tender mercies and prayerfully seeking the Lord's will, we "adopted" a young woman into our family this spring. Her name is Carissa, and she is wonderfully sweet! We are very happy to have her be a part of the McNames family. 

Shortly after getting Carissa moved in and settled I took her and Audrey on a special "Girls Trip" to Salt Lake City to see the live session of Women's Conference. I had this trip planned for a long time knowing that Audrey was turning 12. It was the perfect boding experience for us three girls. 

Temple Square was gorgeous.

While in Utah it worked out that Karli's finial production as a Senior at BYU would be the role of the incomparable Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. It would be an understatement to say that Pride and Prejudice is me and Audrey's favorite book. It was meant to be is all I can say!

I love you Grandma!

Ok, here goes 2014...

So we waited until Christmas died down a bit and Quinn had a big group of his friends over for a "Disney Infinity Party"!

Because Disney Infinity is so new, we pretty much had to come up with everything on our own. Joey did the drawings on the white board for me... he actually helped a ton with this party,

This cake/ cupcakes was one of my all time favorites to do. Joey sketched the characters, and then I made them out of fondant. So fun!

Goody bag treats.

Stella started gymnastics. This is one athletic little girly girl.

This year's Valentines Day cookies. I think we had a record this year between the four kids classes, it was well over 150 cookies.

Quinn's first Pinewood Derby. The Bat-Mobile.... classic!

One of many many many Scout camp-outs. This was at Ape Caves. Joe went with Joey so we got a couple of neat photos of that place.

This beautiful owl is some of the wild life we see every day up here on the ridge. This was on a walking path about 1/4 mile from our house.

Dad's turn with Quinn, but this time it's the..... SOUNDERS!

This is a cake I did for a little girl in our ward. She was having a "My Little Pony Party".

Winter 2013

Husky game for Dad and Joey!

Joey with his friends at his Choir concert.

Audrey's winter piano recital... knocked it out of the park!

Christmas morning... Sara and Daddy both got new Brandi Carlile t-shirts. More to come on what happened to that t-shirt 6 months later.

Christmas wouldn't be the same without a visit to our special Santa in Lynnwood.

Quinn turned 8 on December 23rd. and it was wonderful to have so much family in town for his baptism!

A very special day for our family.

Townes turns 2!

Again.. he has to inhale that cupcake.  :)

Fall 2013

Cupcake Wars Party at the end of Summer.

First Day of School! Audrey is now a big Middle School-er with Joey.

Stella's first day of Kindergarten, and below the first time she's ridding the bus!

Walk-A-thon day!

Quinn loved loved loved his 2013 soccer season!

Stella's 5th Birthday... she had a "Garden Party".

A little frog came to visit her flower shop.

It was fun to incorporate sugar cookies into the cake!

Audrey and I had a blast making these Halloween cupcakes. But they weren't half as cute as thee kids... 

For Thanksgiving this year our family teamed up with Aunt Sara and decided that we wanted to go feed the homeless in Seattle before we sat down for our own awesome dinner. It was really her idea to begin with, and she took the lead on this awesome project!

 In preparation for this, I was surprised how difficult it was to find a shelter or soup kitchen that was first open on Thanksgiving, and second would let children help serve. 

So we decided to take matters into our own hands and made a bunch of extra food and then did an assembly line where we made 60 extra Thanksgiving dinners, wrapped them up cute, had the kids color best wishes notes and attach them to the water bottles, and then we just hauled everything down to Pioneer Square and began passing it out to those in need.

It was such a special experience to see the way this impacted each one of my kids. And to be honest me. I couldn't believe how quickly we handed out those meals to very thankful, kind people on the street.

Needless to say that special holiday had new meaning for all of us. 

We ended our special outing down by the pier giving out toothbrushes and apples. Such a great day!