The best day of his LIFE.....

You might want to sit down for this because this is shocking information. The best day of Christian's entire life (according to him) was Sunday! That might have been an ordinary day for you, but in Christian's life it was just amazing. This news flash was a little surprising to me, but it also showed me the depth of his love for his cousins.

After church on Sunday we all went to the Lego store at King of Prussia Mall. This was so exciting for Christian. We've been wanting to take him to a Lego stores since we went to Florida this fall and he was not disappointed. He LOVED that place. I think they all did. McKenna stood there for at least 30 minutes and built Lego mini figures. Christian and Nate both got to fill up a Lego cup with any Legos they wanted from the Lego wall!

As if the Lego store wasn't excitement enough, Mimi's (my sister Amy) house is also really, really cool. You're allowed to slide down the stairs in a sleeping bag, over and over again and no one makes you stop. And the kids at her house are allowed to put posters on their walls (apparently this is very important when determining just how cool a place is). And they eat pizza and ice cream cake at their house. It's amazing really, every kids dream :)

 

In all seriousness, the relationship these cousins share is priceless. Abby spent the entire weekend trying to give McKenna her stuff.

 "Oh look, these slippers don't fit me anymore. McKenna can have them."

"I don't really play with this anymore. McKenna do you want it?"

Abby is a precious girl and such a sweet friend to McKenna. Nathan and Christian were just wild every moment they were together. I don't think I've heard Christian laugh that hard ever.

Will stayed at home with Daddy, which was a first. I was so sad and missed him big time. But it was definitely the right decision. This trip would have been much more difficult if Will had been along for the ride.

I've been asked over and over again how many more "sleeps" until we see our cousins again. So Mimi, if you're reading this....you need to get back to me about that ASAP before I loose my mind with all their questioning!!

Let me get this straight.....

Now that is hard to believe!!! I've been thinking about Nate all day....praying that his first day of Kindergarten is just as "awesome" as Christian's was!!

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!

For Amy

We had a family get together this past weekend!

Amy had to work, so I promised her lots of videos of her kids.

And here they are:

Nate on the slide :)

Abby on the slide :)

Emma on the zip line :)

Silliness

A Wednesday Recap

Wednesday started off bright & early.

Nate & McKenna played games (much to Christian's great dismay).

My kids, Cousins, and friends....this was the gang I hung out with most of the day.....

plus this cutie.

Lunch. The new Pepperidge Farm Fish bread was a huge hit....no crust :)

Hurt finger.

Three wild guys. And "wild" is a mild adjective to describe their behavior in the pool :)

BFFs

A little piece of the wildness.

Some surfing by Abby! She's amazing! I'll share a video later :)

Then off to our fav. place for dinner.

Topped it off with a little ice cream.

Choc Chip cookie dough & Cookies and Creme

I adore the toothless grin. When I saw it for the first time he said "Now Chrish and I match."

Ended the day with a few fireworks.

A day of great summer memories!

It's all fun and games until....

McKenna was having fun eating a snack and watching all the cousins have bike races!

PopPop and Grandmom's driveways was full of racers.

Christian and Emma decided to have one final race.And just about the same time, McKenna decided to "race" Abby down the driveway.

This is the last picture I took.

A minute later, as Christian and Emma were speeding back up the driveway a "steering challenged" biker veered into Christian's path and Christian plowed right into McKenna, knocking her onto her knees then completely running over her with his front bike tire.

It was bad. Her knees weren't that bad, but her side was. She basically had a nice bloody tire burn on the side of her tummy. I had to remind her to breathe. Grandmom had to find a huge bandaid and that was the end of the fun. Everyone was sad.

She's recovered now for the most part, but she's going to be sore for awhile. Poor girl :(

A Surprise Visit

Does anyone even recognize this girl????

What about this one with the missing teeth??

Or this grown up guy???

Back at the beginning of May (whew..I've got some catching up to do) we had a huge surprise for Christian. Grandmom and PopPop were going to go visit Emma, Abby and Nathan and I secretly asked if Christian could tag along. We kept it a secret until the last minute because McKenna would have been heart broken if she had figured out where he was going. The night before we told Christian he would be leaving in the morning to see his cousins and I wish I had it on video. He jumped off the couch and stood there with his mouth open unable to speak. Like he seriously almost couldn't breathe he was so excited!!

The grandparents purpose in visiting was to see Emma's orchestra concert!

She's up there somewhere :)

There's my long lost sister!!! We should start an email petition to make her start blogging again don't you think??

Christian had the best time with his BFF Nathan! They got to spend the whole day together on Friday! Just the boys!

Grandmom got to visit Abby and Emma at their school for Grandparent's Day!
It was so good for Christian to see his cousins. He loves them so much and we can't wait for their next visit!

What is wrong with this picture?

Well, let's see. 8 out of the 10 cousins are smiling and trying to do their best for the picture....and then we have my two! Click on any of the pictures and you will see Christian frowning and McKenna crying. Lovely! Just lovely!

Cousin Time!

I cannot even begin to tell you how much we've missed Abby and Emma!
And Nathan is now Christian's most talked about "best friend."
We were so thankful they could come for a visit, even if it was just for 24 hours!

All the knight gear came out...

Even Abby got in the action.

Imaginations were running wild...

and pretty soon they were off to slay something.

These two were so happy to see each other. Christian went running out to their car as soon as they got here and Nate shouted, "Hey it's my best friend Chrish."

Do you notice anything different about Abby? You guessed it! Two missing teeth!

PopPop and Grandmom joined the party too!

McKenna just loves time with her Grandmom.

Of course we tried for the picture of all five and once again it was a bit of a disaster. It probably would have been decent if McKenna had some pants on, but that's her new thing...she loves to take off her pants and diaper which always creates some interesting times.

I just have to talk about Abby for a minute. She is one of the bravest girls I know! She takes fear and sadness and deals with it in the most mature way. I took the kids to the dentist while they were here and Abby was watching Emma get her teeth cleaned and I could tell she was getting more and more nervous by the minute. She went from standing next to Emma watching it all unfold to practically sitting in my lap, squeezing my hand. But she didn't cry, she didn't say a word about being afraid. She didn't ask to leave. She climbed up in that chair when it was her turn, opened her mouth and squinted her eyes (preparing for the worst). And she did great and was so proud of herself when it was over.

And then it was time for Abby to leave. (That's when I took the above picture). Abby cried her heart out. She loves her Grandmom and PopPop so much. She loves Christian and adores McKenna. She loves being with all of us. She just loves family and I know she feels the same way about the other side of her family too. It was so hard for Abby to leave. She always has a hard time with goodbyes, which makes the rest of us have a terrible time too. But Abby's joy remains ... always! There is a spark in that girl that can't be quenched and I am so thankful for the work Jesus is always doing in her life!

---

Thankfully there are a few big birthdays coming up in October, so we should have some cousin time again pretty soon.