Still in the Holiday Spirit?

I couldn't post these before Christmas, or people would see what presents were headed their way. I had to post these gifts eventually though.

My mom did some vinyl lettering Christmas boards for some friends, and family boards for some cousins. I didn't get pictures, but they looked like these.

She also did Guess Who games for some family members and some neighbors.

(Yeah we included Jimmer... bottom right.)

Another fun, personal gift she gave to a few people were these stars. She has saved Christmas cards from close family friends through the years, copied them, and modge podged them onto some metal stars she got from Tai Pan. She also made one for our family, I love it.

Sometimes my mom sets the bar too high! ;)

Coming Home for Christmas

My mom is awesome when it comes to Christmas! I came home to decked halls, homemade gifts in process, and candles burning. I love my house!

This isn't even half,

Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year was great!

Started off with the Muppet movie. Really, I don't know why we still see G rated shows when 25/30 people we go with are over the age of 15. Yeah we go with 30 ish people. My family is huge, I love it. This was with my mom's side of the family. All I know is when these little kids are over the age of 16 they better come to cartoons and musicals with my future little ones. It is a fun tradition though.

I may of gained five pounds Thursday because after the movie, we ran to Gavin's grandparents house for our first Thanksgiving meal. We filled our plates, watched a lot of football then headed to my grandma's house for a second meal. That was with my dad's side of the family. There was at least 30 people there too, poor Gav. At my grandma's we just joked about how we are all too stupid to be going to BYU (except for AJ, maybe that's why Grandma let him sit with the grown-ups?) and we watched more football there.

We went to Walmart at ten to see if there was any good deals but we had to park far away and even if we did find good deals, it wasn't worth waiting in line for. Freaking mad house! I made up for it though with all the shopping we did on Friday :) Thanks Santa!

In seminary in 9th grade, my teacher challenged us to give a prayer of only thanks on Thanksgiving. I have kept up that tradition and did it again this year. If you missed it on Thanksgiving, try it tonight! Just pray and thank our Heavenly Father for everything He has given us! It is perfectly fine to ask God for things, but just try saying one prayer without it because it helps (me) realize how much we have and how much we ask for and receive on a daily basis. I have so much to be grateful for! My life has been bliss! And unlike Alex on Modern Family, I'm not mad at my parents for it.

Jordan (to Jake): What should we do tonight?

Jake: We could find a good lookout spot.

Neature Walk

The cousin date! Here we have the McCleary quad- Megan, Me, Lexi, Adam. Adam had one of his friends take each of us on a little neature walk after watching the football game.

Here's the whole group!

Our picture inside Hogwarts.

You can tell it's an Oak tree because of the way that it is.

Hide your kids, hide your wives, and hide your husbands cuz they raping everybody out here.

Thanks guys for a fun night! and thanks Rick for carrying me up all those stairs!

Competition

So I really don't like my English class. I don't like it because I like writing and I don't want to know if anyone else doesn't like my writing. Today in class we had to write a short little story, then everyone voted on the best one. If I would have known it was a competition, I would have put a little more heart into it. I didn't win.

Do you know what else I'm taking as a competition? Maddy made police beat at USU. I am quite jealous.

Recent funnies:

I was singing "tonight" to myself. "We're dancing on top of the Hollywood sign."

My 7 year old sister proceeded to correct me on my top 40's lyrics. It really goes "dancing on the edge of the Hollywood sign."

Mom (texting my brothers while they were at a hotel in Vegas): What have you been up to today?

Jake: playing hide-and-seek

Mom (wondering how much damage in the hotel she was going to pay for): What do you mean hide and seek?

Jake: I turned the lights off and it took like 5 minutes for Jordan to find me. There are so many cool places to hide in this room!

Jordan is 17, Jake is 15.

I was compared to chocolate cake- as in really good, but bad for you.

Yesterday Hillary and I were playing lacrosse in the courtyard. That turned into soccer with more people which evolved into Taco Tuesday with even more people. This guy, Rico, drove us to Taco Tuesday at Rubio's in his topless jeep. I love jeeps but my hair was going everywhere and was a mess! I asked if anyone had a hair elastic and Rico just pulled out a bag of hair elastics for me. He said he learned that if he had a jeep, he should probably invest in some elastics too. FPOD.

Reunion

I got to spend last week with my mom's side of the family. The itinerary said games at the park, a luou, a talent show, and a movie in my grandma's backyard.

Apparently, when they say games at the park, they mean games at the park!

And when they say luou, they mean luou.

And when they say talent show, they mean talent show!

And when they say movie, they mean movie!

They also took very seriously a hike, a 5k, and family pictures.

Gotta love the summer family reunions!

Broken

Like sister, like brother.

Maci (13) : soccer

Jake (15): biking

Maci blocked a boy's goal. Her middle finger touched her wrist. The boy didn't even apologize.

Jake was found unconscious on the side of the road in a pool of blood... according to Grandma. He just fell on his bike and had to get stitches in a few places. Not to make the story any less cool.

SoCal

What to do on vaca:

1. Replace a boogie board with an air-mattress. My family was the coolest family at the beach.

2. Ride the accelerator at Knott's Berry Farm.

3. When getting on a ride, don't look at the person who was in the seat before you were. It may or may not freak you out.

4. If you plan on showing up at a restaurant with a group of 27, call ahead of time.

5. Buy It's its at the grocery store. 350 calories of ice cream in between 2 cookies covered in chocoloate- so worth it.

6. Watch Baby Mama and quote it even more.

7. Boys remember- 5 hours of golf for you does NOT equal 2 hours of shopping for us. 5 hours of golf = at LEAST 5 hours of shopping.

8. Wear sunscreen. and lots of it.

9. Embrace the humid-curly hair with the no-makeup face.

10. 1 huge family, or 3 big families, or 5 families. However you look at it, it means 6 cans of sunscreen, repeating every story 8 times, 10 boxes of Its-its, 12 boxes of soda, 15 bags of garbage, getting everywhere 30 minutes later than expected, and at least 100 laughs.

Pics and videos to come!

Travelling with my team vs. Travelling with my Family

Stickbags and gymbags vs. Tupperware boxes,

Jammin to music vs. no one agrees on what music to listen to,

Talk about boys, roommates, and random questions vs. What are the people in the front talking about? I'm in the back and no one wants to listen to each others stories anyways,

Does anyone have clothes I can borrow vs. Who stole my clothes?

Bonding vs. Recording fights.

I love my family. I am excited to spend a week with them in California. But I may have really overestimated myself by agreeing to be in a full car with them for 12 hours.

Utah, see you next Sunday!

Introducing

My Family!

It's a big one, so it's a long post!

They are such a huge part of my life, it disappoints me how little I blog about them. So. In order to tell stories about them, I will tell a little about who they are.

Dad. Some call him Matt.

Anyone who knows my dad knows his love for sports, especially golf and basketball, but really anything. He is and always has been so supportive of his kids' teams and has coached all of us in one sport or another. He graduated from BYU in accounting, worked at Arthur Anderson for a while, then partnered with someone he met at KPMG to create an accounting firm- King and McCleary. He has been so great to let my sister and I work there when we are in need of jobs!

Mom. a.k.a. Raelynn.

She IS supermom. No one gets it- how she does as much as she does as perfect as she does it. I could go on for a few pages, but really, supermom sums it up.

Me- I won't write about me, this is just where I fit in :)

Megan. She is a sophomore at BYU. She likes to act like she is kind of high maintenance and demanding but those who know her best know that she is super sweet. I am jealous of how talented she is at sports and how great she is with little kids.

Jordan (17), Everyone else calls him "D." I like to brag that my little brother is a basketball star at Riverton high school He has always been a natural at any sport he tries. I hate it when girls dressed like skanks take him on dates. I love it when cute and nice girls do. 

Jake (15) is one of the funniest kids I have ever met! Seriously, the one liners he mutters under his breath, I don't know where he gets them from. He was class president for 2 years at Oquirrh Hills Middle School. I love seeing him read his scriptures and say his prayers at night!

Maci (12). There are no words to describe the energy that Maci has. Always. She is the feistiest, spunkiest little thing. She either loves something or hates something and is obsessed with it either way. Since day 1 she has just tried to compete and keep up with her older brothers and needless to say, they are pretty threatened by her. She loves sports, kids, the boy down the street, Jimmer, and cute clothes. As an 11 year old, she created her own business and has more income than most of us. Check out her blog!

Morganne. She is the cutest little girl, and probably the most spoiled too. After 3 iTouch's our parents realized that she is indeed, 7. The past 4 years she has gone from being a dog, a cheetah, a lion, and Morganne pretending to be a dog, cheetah, or lion. She has hundreds of stuffed animals that she plays with every day and she watches animal planet every morning. This little girl is evidence of karma- our parents never got us a pet.

Anyways, these people make me so happy! They are so much better to me than I am to them and I love them so much!

""

Ryann: Ooh did you see those boys?!
Me: Nope. That's the difference between me and you.

Coach: First one to 15 wins.
Girls: Why 15?
Coach: Cuz that's what they do in ping-pong.

Morganne: Do you think I am in the love zone with Chewy?

Morganne (To the tune of I believe I can fly): I swear I can fly...

One-liners that won today.