Please pardon my frantic yelling at the beginning…Kallie almost dumped our brand new camera in a puddle of water.  😉

I got nothin’!!

Things have been oh-so-boring around here…it seems Kenna picked up a nasty cold the week of vbs and I watched the rest of the family go down one by one throughout the next week.  Except me (knock on wood)!  I credit my dodging the bullet to: massive amounts of apple cider vinegar, vitamins galore, religious handwashing and shallow breathing, and a fierce determination to stay well, haha.  It almost got me for a couple days there but I was victorious.  😉   Anyway, we’re nearing the two week mark and they sound just as awful as when it started.  I don’t know why things always seem to hit us so hard, despite our pretty healthy lifestyle.   I just keep reminding myself:  we’re building up those immune systems!  😉

So consequently, I have no fun pictures to share.  I had one very cute video but I can’t get it to upload for anything.  So sad, because it has Kallie demonstrating almost all of her adorable vocabulary, which is growing by the day. 

Us laying around after one fever broke and another one started…poor babe, she was so miserable!

I wish that when I was sick, I still felt like going down slides headfirst…as demonstrated by Kenna, who got herself a nice fat bloody lip, haha:

You should have HEARD the blood-curdling screams when that lip started gushing.  It was awful but I was trying so hard to stifle how hard I was laughing.  The drama from this girl is unreal!!

Oh yeah, in the midst of things we celebrated 10 years!!!  We did manage to get a date night in that weekend thanks to Grammy and Baba.  🙂

We’re back at it this week though, so hopefully I’ll have some things to share soon.  🙂

VBS

Last night Makenna headed off to her very first VBS.  To say she loved it would be an understatement.  She’s in her room happily taking a NAP right now in preparation for staying up late again tonight, so that should explain EVERYTHING.  😉

Museums

We’ve been having a good old time lately exploring downtown and finding fun FREE things to do.  Saturday we took advantage of Mark being home and we all headed to the farmer’s market to get some veggies and flowers.  While we were downtown, we decided to stop by the history museum, since I’ve always wanted to take the girls but didn’t want to make a trip with just them in case it wasn’t worth the trouble.  It ended up being SO fun!!  A perfect way to spend the morning, especially since we were the first ones there and had the whole place to ourselves.  There is an adorable kids area that is an interactive village from settlement times, and the girls just LOVED it.  I was having just as much fun as they were, since I love anything portraying life in earlier times.  It’s so interesting!

Naturally I forgot my camera, so the only pics I got were from my phone and not so great…

Makenna commanding the ship that landed on our shores…(notice the rats lining the deck, haha)

This little trade store was the BEST!!  The girls loved being behind the counter pretending to sell things.

On another floor, they had little derby cars that you could race down a really long track that was the length of the room.  So cute!

I am a museum freak.  I owe that to my high school teachers, who took us on sooo many field trips to different museums and Broadway shows in Chicago every year.  I would give anything for the girls to grow up near a major city and experience the things that I did.   I think exposing them to museums and different kinds of arts and culture really gives them a love for learning.  I hope that one day we will have those resources at our fingertips, but for now I’m trying to make the best of our museums, which you can walk through in about 20 minutes, haha…it’s ok though, that’s actually what you need with small children!  😉

So today we headed back downtown to the art museum, which is running a children’s exhibit on “The Monkey King” from China.  Yeah…….not really our cup of tea.  I knew it wouldn’t be something I would love, given the heavy Buddhism roots and constant references to demons and spirits (just some light kids entertainment, haha!), but the girls enjoyed all the interactive stations a lot.

This puppet area was their favorite.  There was a light shining behind a silk screen, and you could move the different characters to create a really cool puppet show. 

We got through the art museum pretty quickly, so we headed back across the street to the same museum we went to on Saturday, but this time the kids area was closed for a private party.  We raced some derby cars though, and then headed out for lunch with Daddy and Matt.

Kenna was in a very photogenic mood:

Kallie insisted on getting in the picture, but wouldn’t look at the camera, of course.

It was a fun morning.  🙂

Memories

This video makes me all teary eyed…

Our Second Home

What to do when your holiday Monday gets rained out?  Yep, back to the air museum again.  This time we met the Skinners and the Kiggins and wandered around for a while.  The playground was overrun with kids so we stuck to the fighter jets this time.

Kallie enjoying being the ONLY one in the plane, while Lily looks on and Kenna begs for a turn:

I love huge, open areas where the girls can run like crazy and won’t get skinned knees if they fall…

The love of cousins:

I knew it was going to be fun when all of us kids got older and started having our own kids, but I can’t get over HOW fun it is to watch these two grow up together, being that they’re so close in age.  We have so many priceless pictures of them together already, I’ve been thinking I need to do a Lily and Kallie photo gallery.  I’ll have to work on that.  😉

Fun on the Fourth

For the Fourth this year, we had a laid-back day at Mark’s parents’ house and then fireworks, of course.  We had surprisingly awesome weather with a nice cool breeze that was strong enough to keep the mosquitos away.  Perfect!

Sorry honey, Makenna’s too cute not to use that pic!  😉

Kallie mostly wanted to roll around on the blankets and snuggle her face in.  I totally understood, because that’s all I ever want to do too.

Kenna had every imaginable glowing, flashing, blinking, shining device ever invented on her body:

My sis and Mark’s sis, the 4th of July mascots:

Any attempt at one of those sweet “we’re in awe of the fireworks and have no idea you’re taking a picture of us” pictures ended up like this:

Me looking drunk and windswept, and no one really watching the fireworks anyway, haha…

I love how Kallie’s hands are clasped in the picture above!

Some more of the crew watching the show:

It was a fun night.  Kallie loved the fireworks and wasn’t scared at all.  Lily was a bit nervous at first but ended up being a trooper and did great.  We even got right out of there afterwards, instead of getting stuck for over an hour like we did last year.  Good times.  🙂

Oh, to sleep that deeply…

This goes in my famous archive of video monitor pictures.   I can’t remember what it feels like to sleep so deeply that your leg is suspended in the air.  I only wish she would sleep like this around say, 3 a.m., her new favorite wakeup time.  Oy…..

Happy Birthday to my Mom :)

Yesterday was my mom’s birthday, but we celebrated the night before with a yummy dinner and our traditional massive birthday dessert. 

I love my mama and my girls love their Grammy!  Here’s to another beautiful year, Mom.  🙂