Cousin Adam's Birthday

We had the best time celebrating our cousin Adam's birthday!
And it was so fun to have him visit for a few days.

It was a fun party with cake and cupcakes! Yum.

And the slip-n-slide was a huge hit.

It's a miracle no one got hurt.

See what I mean!

Even McKenna wanted to try it :)

This team is quite the dangerous duo!

And there's the big 5 year old!

He had a great birthday!

Hot Air Balloon Festival

There was a hot air balloon festival just down the road from our house. I know, so fun, right?
Can you spot all 6 balloons in this picture?


All 10 balloons took off five times over the course of the weekend. We got to see them twice. The first time we could see them from our front yard. It was beautiful! The second time they were supposed to take off in the evening right around dinner time. But the whole thing was delayed by rain clouds, so it was almost dark when they finally floated away. That's why the pictures aren't that great.

It was really amazing!! A fun experience for the kids and for Ryan and I too!

Abby's Dress

I loved this dress on Abby and I love it on McKenna too.

I have very strong, specific memories of Abby in this dress. I remember what we did on the day she wore this dress. I remember conversations, etc. Not quite sure why those memories are seared in my mind, but I know I felt sad when I saw McKenna wearing the dress. Sad that Abby's so far away. Sad that she's going to be a grown-up first grader. We miss that girl terribly and her brother and sister too.

I'm hanging out with this crew today!

It must have been good!

Chase

This is McKenna's new favorite game and the reason she can't wait for Daddy to come home every night.

"Here Ducky, Ducky"

Picnics with a Happy Meal in hand are the best!
And they're even better when you get to hang out with your brother and about a hundred ducks!

I thought that black one was going to get her, but he didn't! Thank goodness!

Christian had to tell me the story about how Nathan fell in this duck pond over and over again. He was even about to reenact it at one point. I'm glad I can laugh about that story now because it sure wasn't funny at the time.

And yes, McKenna did say "Here ducky, ducky" over and over and over again. She LOVED feeding those ducks.

Desperation

You know things are getting bad when all the sudden your baby doll's binkie seems appealing. Ha!
She might look happy here, but it's been a little rough giving up the binkie. She seems to get frustrated very easily these days and we've had lots of major discipline issues the past several days. And that's just not like my McKenna. Usually she's the easy one. So this is a hard transition, but I haven't given in even once! I'm proud of her. I know she can do this. And next up she'll be moving to a big girl bed. And then potty training again (...we gave up on that because of some medical "issues" she was having). She might not like "big girls" but she's becoming one!!