First Camping Trip

I laugh when I say “trip”, because in reality we only drove about 4 minutes down the road to a state park near the water to camp overnight.  But hey, we’re not dumb, and having never camped in a tent before with the girls, we weren’t going any further than that for our first shot.  😉

Arriving and checking out our spot:

I had to help Mark set up so I didn’t get any pictures of putting up the tent, but it was super easy and turned out to be HUGE!  Granted, I did buy the biggest one I could find because in some part of my brain space = comfort, so the tent far exceeded our expectations there.  We easily fit our queen size air mattress, Kenna’s twin, and Kallie’s pack n’ play, with room to spare.  Awesome!

All the tents pitched:

I just wish I could show you the inside of Laura and Matt’s tent (the short one). We had endless laughs over their super high mattress and the remaining 6 inches of space they had left to squeeze into.  I have a picture of Matt setting it up but he’d kill me.  😉

Part of the gang around the fire:

This whole adventure was Kenna’s treat for finishing up kindergarten last week.  I got her a chocolate/chocolate cake to celebrate:

She picked it out based solely on the little edible “fudge” sign on top, and made quite a production of finally eating it. 

Modeling glow jewelry:

The glow sticks were pretty handy when we went exploring later that night in the dark!

Our night was…interesting.  The girls went to bed at 10 and fell asleep within half an hour.  I don’t sleep at all away from home, so Mark and I were awake until who knows when…a few hours for sure.  At 3:45 Kallie sat up in bed and yelled, “TENNA!!  (Kenna) I have poopies!!” and laid back down and was quiet for several minutes.  Then we all had to go potty haha, so I got Kallie up and discovered she’d had an explosion.  Poor thing, she just cried out to Kenna and then thought she had to be quiet and just lay there.  After that, Kallie serenaded us for about another hour with all of her songs (too cute for words!!) and I think we all drifted back off about 5:30.  We were up a little past 6, and Kallie was strangely the last one to wake up….

Makenna was thoroughly disgusted with the rocks and dirt coating her feet all the time.  😉

Next morning:

Waffles and bacon for breakfast, yummm….beautiful Laura cooking the bacon  😉

Poor Kallie getting wrestled (her teeth brushed) by Daddy:

See, we roughed it!  😉

And sadly, it was time to go…

It was definitely something I look forward to doing a lot in the future.  The girls did so awesome; way better than we even hoped for.  But since Uncle Sam is driving around our new camper right now, I think future trips will have to wait until the temps and humidity improve a bit.  It was so fun though, and I’m so glad we did it! 

Lily is 2!!!

Little cuz Lily girl turned 2 years old last week, and we all got together at Bayview Park to celebrate.  It’s a big park with a few different play and picnic areas that is right on the water, so it’s a pretty cool place.  Mark was out of town so the girls and I had to party without him.

She’s *almost* got the hang of blowing out candles…  😉

Cute goody bags, thanks Katie!

There was chalk in their goody bags, and Kenna set right to work making a big Happy Birthday Lily message on the pavement.

Kallie so kindly helping Lily read her new big sister book.

Welcome to the Terrific Two’s Lily  🙂

First Sleepover

So the weekend before last, Mark and I really needed a break from life to just veg.  My parents reluctantly (haha, more like shouted from the rooftops with glee) offered to keep the girls at their house for the night and we were able to enjoy our very first staycation (vacation at home with no kids, for those of you who haven’t heard of that luxurious term before).  It was the very best thing we have ever done for our marriage, I am so not kidding you.  Now that the girls are a little older and I felt more comfortable with them staying together somewhere else, the freedom we felt to just have a no-curfew date night or lay around and do WHATEVER we wanted was just….pure heaven.  We aren’t really “relaxing” people and ended up being on the go most of the time but still, it was awesome.

The girls looked too stinkin’ cute all ready to go with their backpacks packed.  We missed them for even the short time they were gone.  All in all, I give my Protective-and-Control-Freak-Mom stamp of approval for staycations!!!

Lego Club Creations

As promised, I’m going to try to finish out the school year with a post on each of Makenna’s Lego Club creations.  She has built a bunch of different things and I wish I could remember them now!  Each co-op meeting there is a different theme, and the kids bring a creation they built at home that fits the theme and present it to the club.  I’m so proud of Kenna every time she gets up there and tells about her creation.  There are a LOT of kids and parents to get up in front of!

This meeting’s theme was aviation, and Kenna built a helicopter with some help from Daddy.  They’re pretty into helicopters right now, as Mark got a remote control one around Christmas time.

This meeting’s theme was camping.  Kenna built a tent, a picnic table with food, some flowers and a horse drawn cart…because doesn’t everyone camp with a horse drawn cart?  Haha…

This week’s theme is sports.  Stay tuned!  😉

“Not Yike Dat Duy…”

Kallie was a little shaken up by the hibachi experience, but I didn’t realize how much she really didn’t like it until I started asking her about Daddy’s birthday.  Poor babe.  Anyway, just wanted to get a little snippet (snippet? is that a word?) of her talking!

Snack Cups are Overrated

Kallie loves her goldfish.  Who knows how many tubs of these we have gone through…but the girl can take DOWN some fish.  There’s another goldfish fan in the house and I’m not naming names, but let’s just say they aren’t lying when they say “New & Improved Taste” on the box. 

So Kenna and I were munching on some as we finished up school today.  I recently taught Kenna the sucking-off-the-salt trick to maximize flavor, and after her 2nd refill to her cup, she suggested I just leave the carton out so that I wouldn’t have to keep getting up to get her more.  She’s so considerate.  😉

Naturally Kallie was lovin’ life when she woke up and found the carton.  Since I experience the gag reflex at the thought of toddler hands entering the family’s food supply, I tried to pry it out of her grubby paws….and my ears are still ringing from her screams.  I choose my battles wisely, and she won this one.  But only because they were almost gone.  😉

Happy Birthday to our Best Guy :)

We try to make birthdays a three day affair on my side of the family, so Mark’s was no exception.  We began the festivities on Saturday night with a date to Carrabba’s and a movie.  Then last night we got both families together for hibachi and dessert.  Today was his actual birthday, so he had to work, but I did make his dinner request of lemon chicken.  I’ll admit though, we were fizzling out by today…it’s so hard to celebrate on a work day.  But we tried.  🙂

Makenna and I were actually cleaned up for last night, so we had to capture that on film:

She is proudly showing off her “I Love New York” shirt, with hair done and in full makeup.  😉

A family shot!  And Mark’s eyes are only half closed!!

Ohhh Makenna, my perfectionist child….she was so upset that she wasn’t able to pick up chopsticks for the first time and effortlessly eat her fried rice with them.  The poor child would NOT give in and use a fork.  Every time I pointed out that most of us aren’t good at using chopsticks, she would show me who WAS good with them, and wonder why she couldn’t do it.  By the end of the meal though, she was a pro at stabbing her chicken with them, and that seemed to satisfy her. 

I was very surprised at how nice the restaurant was, and the food was oh-so-good.  But when I made the reservation, the girl told me that our party of 18 would be at one grill…it ended up being 1 huge table around 2 grills, with only one chef.  So the majority of the family was looking at his back.  😦  I felt terrible!!

And lest we forget dessert (or how old Mark is, hehe):

If I was looking at someone else’s picture like this, I would be trying to figure out every single thing they had on the table, just because I’m weird like that.  So for Katy, because I know she’ll care, we had: brownies, vanilla bean ice cream, bunny tracks ice cream, hot caramel, caramel syrup, chocolate syrup, nuts, sprinkles, whipped cream, angel food cake, and strawberries.  We made some pretty great sundaes!

So I say once again, for the 13th year that I have been amazed to have you by my side, Happy Birthday to the only guy I would ever choose again and again to share my life and my babies with.  There could never be another one like you, honey.  🙂

Makenna Lately

I don’t think a day goes by that Makenna doesn’t crack me up with some crazy (usually crazy intelligent) thing she says.  She provides endless blog material, I tell ya.

— She always has an ongoing battle in her head about whether or not she wants to go to school.  We have 2 weeks left of kindergarten, and I’ve always told her that we will re-evaluate at the end of each year and see whether we want to continue homeschooling or start school.  So there’s been a lot of talk about first grade, and she is currently campaigning to go to school (because we’ve mostly decided to continue homeschooling this year).  I was probing the other day and trying to get to the root of why exactly she wants to go to school right now (because other times she doesn’t), and her main point to me was that “I need a chance to try and win that spelling contest like you did in fifth grade Mommy.  I really need to do that.”  Later she was begging Mark about going to school and when he questioned her motives as well, she got all exasperated and finally just yelled, “It is just a part of LIFE, Daddy!!!”

–We were sitting and watching Veggie Tales on the couch this afternoon and she turned to me and said, “I really like that Jonah is a prophet.  I like the important people.”   Hahahaha!!!!

I’m going to have to start doing posts about the crazy things Kallie says soon.  She has had us rolling a few times, and I’m so upset that I can’t remember the things she said.  Ugh!!

“Take this cup…”

I took Makenna to the doctor today for the previously mentioned problem, and of course they wanted a urine sample.  That’s super fun with a 5-year-old!  Luckily I have a very mature and cooperative 5-year-old.  😉  Still, after I got the sample, she managed to spray a good portion of the bathroom (bear with me here…Mom, I know you are mortified).  I spent several minutes mopping up and cleaning the bathroom, after which Makenna yelled out, “Man, that was SO awesome!!  You should put that online!!”

And there you have it.

Food Parlor

As soon as we got our swingset last spring, Makenna immediately dubbed the area under the slide to be an ice cream parlor.  (Yes, she came up with “parlor” herself.)  Apparently business has been good, because the ice cream parlor has expanded into a food parlor (or maybe it’s because I’m always difficult and order a cheeseburger or something non-ice-cream related).  They serve breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert.  The girls play this EVERY time they are outside.  This is another thing I don’t want to forget.  😉

Pardon their random, mismatched clothes.  They’ve also taken a liking to playing in the dirt, so I only let them wear old or too small clothes.

First the customer places their order:

The worker fills it.  This involves picking grass for food:

Delivers the order:

And chow time:

Another satisfied customer:

Kallie’s shift:

They have specatuclar customer service, I tell ya.  🙂