Patience

McKenna is not very patient. Not even a little bit. It's something I need to be very purposeful in working on with her. So today when we got in the car to drive 20 minutes to Will's well visit check up, I told her we were going to practice being patient.

To start things off I asked her what she thought patience was.

McKenna's definition of patience: It's when your mom is on the phone and you're not allowed to talk!

So apparently I tell her to be patient a lot when I'm on the phone. ha! That girl is always interrupting me.

So I explained that patience is when you have to wait or take your time and you're happy and not fussy about it.

Then I whipped out a package of marshmallow peeps. Oh my word she wanted them. I promised her that I would absolutely give her one, but that she was going to have to wait AND BE PATIENT for 2 minutes. During that 2 minutes she could not ask for one or ask me if the 2 minutes was up yet. At the end of 2 minutes, if she didn't mention the peep I would give one to her.

She failed in under a minute. So we had to start over again. The second time she made it the whole 2 minutes without asking or mentioning the game and she was rewarded with her precious peep. I think this might be our new car game. She is always wanting something in the car ...a song, a toy, a snack and it's the perfect time to practice patience.

Next time I tell her to be patient, I think she'll have a better idea of what I'm expecting her to do! Let's hope.

She wanted bangs...

 ...so she took matters into her own hands. It could have been so much worse!

Don't tell her I said this, but she actually did a pretty decent job. You can't even tell that it was a 4 year old who cut her hair. Thank God she didn't cut it right at her scalp, then this would be a different story.

The part that worries me, is that in hindsight I don't think I handled it well. I fussed at her about it but didn't really discipline her (I was too busy getting my camera...oh the life of a blogger). This is one of those offenses where the punishment should have been pretty serious and since it wasn't I'm worried she might try it again. Let's hope not!

A Pinkalicious Party

 McKenna turned 4 yesterday. This was supposed to be the year of NO party, but then Pinterest happened and I started finding all these adorable ideas that I just HAD to do, so we ended up having a little lunch get together with a few of her friends.

 McKenna wanted a Pinkalicious, ballet, Hello Kitty, Strawberry Shortcake, Barbie party. Hmmmm..... so we just went with pink and lots of it!

 We put a spin on the rainbow cake that's been so popular and we made ours different layers of pink.

 My favorite thing is the tulle pom poms!!! I made tons of them.

 They are so easy to make!! Check out this tutorial HERE, this girl has the easiest directions!

 McKenna thinks we should leave the pink up all year long :)

 

Fun favors for the girls!

 It's such a blessing that McKenna has such sweet friends to share life with!!!

They all had such a fun time together!!

Happy Birthday to my precious pinkalicious girl!!! We are so blessed that Jesus gave you to our family!!!

four

Big Sister

 

I looked across the room and spotted this sweet scene the other day.

Seriously, how cute are they??

It's taken McKenna a little while to figure out this whole big sister thing. She's been pretty loud, wild and rough with Will from the start, but she's starting to calm down and really be responsible with him. She ran to me sobbing the other day because she thought Will was choking. He did have something in his mouth that he shouldn't have (that happens about 20 times a day) but he wasn't choking. I was pleased with how she handled it. She made the right choice to recognize that it was a serious situation. I'm proud of the big sister she's become.

Oh Great! ha!

Just guess what the name of the new 2012 American Girl doll is???

Any guesses??

I got two emails about it already this morning.

I'll give you a hint. We happen to have someone by the same name in our house!

You guessed it....MCKENNA!!!

Until I saw this I was perfectly content to never own an American Girl doll. The knock-off dolls that Target sells for 1/5 of the price sounded good to me.  And they're super cute and come with adorable accessories. But "McKenna" is only available for one year, then she'll be discontinued, so I should at least buy the books...right? Oh geez...you know we're going to have to get her. Do you think McKenna is too young for a real doll?  She still plays with baby dolls and is loving her doll house right now. Maybe it's a purchase that needs to be made for Christmas next year.

Maybe my mom will read this and feel inspired to splurge on McKenna :)

The World According to McKenna

She took her skirt off in Target today because it was itching! No worries, she had tights on. But still!

She insists on getting herself dressed everyday. She usually chooses red pants, a red shirt, red sock and a red hair bow because it "matches." This is what she does with every color under the rainbow. Black on black on black. Or her favorite...pink on pink on pink.

She wants her own iphone. She's been begging for one for 2 days now.

"Mom, take a picture of me saying ballet."

And it's not uncommon for her to change her clothes during the middle of the day to a "twirling" dress so she can dance.

Case in point:

Watching her dance all around the room while jumping over Will is pretty much typical of the kind of day I have every day.

Blessed.

Ballet Parent Night!!

 Ryan and I got to attend "parent night" at ballet. I was so excited to finally get to go into McKenna's class and see what she's been doing (parents don't get to go into the classroom ever...which I understand but I hate sitting in the waiting room having no clue what she's doing). Unfortunately McKenna was in a grumpy mood that night and although she listened and did everything her teacher asked, she barely cracked a smile. I think it had a lot to do with the fact that there was a room full of parents there.

The class lasts 45 minutes and during that time McKenna raised her hand three times and this is what she had to say:

1. Miss Barb, Lilly isn't staying on her spot.

(Nice of her to tattle on Lily, while Lily's mom is in the room).

2. Miss Barb, I'm hungry.

(Ok, the class is only 45 minutes what in the world! She ate before she came for Heaven's Sake).

 3. Miss Barb, is it time to go yet. I'm tired.

(Glad to see our daughter has such an awesome attitude about ballet).

Having McKenna in ballet this fall has certainly been interesting. I only intended for her to take ballet for about 2 months. She's only 3 and I didn't think it was worth the financial investment at this age. She just needed something special to do since Christian was going to Kindergarten, it helped her to have something special of her own to talk about. 

Four months later, she's still in ballet. 

Despite her bad attitude on parent night, she really loves it and is actually really good at it.

I was shocked when her teacher said "releve" and McKenna hopped up on her toes and knew exactly what she was doing.  Her favorite song right now is "We Need a little Christmas." She has the dance her teacher taught her memorized and dances around our house all the time.

So it looks like we might have a real little dancer in the making!

Her Duck

McKenna was running around quacking like a duck and waving this paper in Will's face. Then she whipped it around and showed it to me. It was a duck. A duck that actually looked like a duck. A duck that my 3 year old drew all by herself. Crazy girl...I never know what she's going to do next.

Christmas Parade!

 McKenna got to be in the Christmas parade with her dance group!

We were a little nervous about whether or not she would make it to the end, so Ryan was a good sport and walked with the entire way with her! She got to dress up like a Christmas present.

 We waited and waited for McKenna's group to come down the street. As soon as we saw them we spotted we saw quite a sight!

Let me zoom in a little..... McKenna's sweet little friend took a tumble & could not get back up. She wasn't hurt, so it was actually pretty hilarious! I didn't even realize I captured it on camera until I got home later that morning.

You can't see McKenna, but you can see Ryan. Ha! He just loved being front and center with the dance team! I thought he was just going to walk along the side to keep an eye on McKenna. I had no idea he was actually going to be IN THE PARADE!

It was a great way to kick off the holiday season!!!

Pinkalicious

McKenna has a new obsession...she loves the book Pinkalicious and Purplicious and Goldenlicious. So we made pink cupcakes, in pink wrappers with pink frosting!! So fun!!! McKenna and her friend Addie loved this project and it was tasty too!

Hot Rod!

We have some friends who have a Mustang Convertible. This summer Christian saw it in their garage and immediately told me that he wants one of those when he grows up :) So our friends came and picked up Christian and McKenna one evening to take them out for ice cream and for a drive. Christian was THRILLED...in fact "thrilled" doesn't even begin to describe it. McKenna was a nervous wreck. ha! McKenna had a great time. She still talks about how loud it was. And I still feel blessed that God has given us dear friends who care about and love our kids.

Wordless Wednesday!

For the First Time Ever....

My THREE kids sat and played a game together! It was so sweet. They bascially just rolled the ball back and forth with Will. He loved it. They thought it was hilarious that he would try to bite the ball everytime he got it in his hands. This moment only lasted for about 5 minutes, but it made me smile and gave me a glimpse of fun family times to come.

Cooker Girl

This little sister misses her big brother. Although she also loves a little peace, quiet and unlimited access to his DSi. She rarely leaves my side during the day, so we are finding lots of fun activities to do together. Her favorite thing is cooking (even if it's just a rice krispie treat cake). She told me that when she grows up she wants to be a "cooker" like me. I hate to tell her, that her mom isn't really much of a "cooker." I actually like setting the table way more than I like cooking. I know...weird. I lay in bed at night and think of ways to set a beautiful table and am always on the look out for napkins, tableclothes and other decor on clearance. But I think it would be great she aspires to be something I'm not.

Grammy's Girl

McKenna loved having her Grammy here for a visit! They played games (for the record Grampy was a great sport about playing Candy Land too)! They did their nails several times and went for walks and sang songs. McKenna adored all the special attention Grammy gave her! She couldn't wait for her to wake up each day and pretty much didn't leave her side! It was a special time for both of them.

Hurricane Party!!!!

Thanks to Irene, we had an impromptu hurricane party last night :)

My sister lives three hours east of us and is expecting to get some serious rain over the next 24 hours. Apparently she's not the only person worried about the power going out and her sump pump not working because there was not one generator available for sale anywhere within a five hour radius of their house. So they arrived last night at 10:30 to borrow a generator and they left this morning before 8:00am. The kids stayed up until midnight giggling and having a grand time and today we are all very, very sleepy!

Preparation

Christian is not excited about kindergarten. He doesn't like new things and this is no exception. So in an effort to make kindergarten seem super cool, we paid a visit to his school. We hiked around the environmental center adjacent to his school and then headed to the playground.

I'm not sure if it helped him feel excited about kindergarten, but he sure did have a good time. I know he's going to love school, he just needs to get through the first day. We've decided to have a special celebration dinner the night of the first day of school. I've told Christian over and over that it's to celebrate how "great" his first day of school will be, so he will start planning on it being "great." He gets to pick the meal. He's picked "pizza that the man delivers in his car" and "birthday cake that's frozen with ice cream." So Papa John's and ice cream cake it is!!! And now he's looking forward to the first day :)

Paparazzi

Whenever Will does something new (like roll over for the first time) I'm not the only one running to get my camera. McKenna runs to grab her toy princess camera and Christian gets his DSi, that he can take pictures with. It's pretty hilarious as the three of us stand there taking pictures of our bewildered baby :)

The woods

There's nothing like a shady walk in the woods on a hot summer day!