Happy Father's Day!

For Milt's Father's Day gift this year, I promise to not do any of the following things today:

1. Match the girls outfits

2. Make Maddox wear suspenders (even though they make him look so handsome!)

3. Take pictures of the kids in the bathtub (Milt really hates this)

4. Make "breakfast food" for dinner (He really hates this even more, so we had this for breakfast today instead)

5. Tell him to knock it off when he's encouraging the kids' propensity for danger


6. Or do this to his son:


We love you Milt! Thanks for being such a great Daddy!

You're number 1!

And here's just a little snippet of some fun things the kids love to do with Daddy!

And we also want to wish a big Happy Father's day to Big Daddy, Papa Kirby, Papa Ken, and Papa Cub! We're lucky to have lots of great Dads and Grandpas that always inspire us and that we get to celebrate today! We love you all!

Wearing a "Daddy-hat!"

Too busy to blog?

Seriously, can I really be too busy to blog? OF COURSE NOT! I actually have blogged once or twice in the last little while, but they are for our Relief Society (women's church group) blog, and not this one. But then I realized that I am NEGLECTING my children (oh, I mean my parents), by not putting new pictures of them on here. So if you'd like to read my blog contribution about how I learned to make the yummy bread I've been baking every few days (that my children at first refused to eat)....click here.

Yes, the little kids seriously refused to even TRY this the first time I made it! It's the best bread ever, but everyone's a critic here sometimes! And yes, I had to learn to make homemade strawberry jam myself, because my friend Jen isn't here to supply my habit. But I make jam -- I'm growing up!

And if you want to see my first experience at decorating and taking pictures at a Relief Society church activity, click here.

This is the part that I helped decorate...does it look a little like McKinley's room? I stole all of her decorations and everything from her walls! But it sure was "spring-y!"

But if you'd rather just see darling Maddox talking, you can watch this video Milt caught of him "reading." And yes, I could watch this every day for the rest of my life and keep smiling at my boy...he is so cute when he talks!

Memorial Day Weekend "Staycation"

Milt heard a great new term to describe what all of the people who were staying home for the 4 day weekend rather than traveling on vacation were doing -- going on a "staycation." Well, we often choose to stay at home and have fun for long weekends since the kids are so small, but at least now we have a cool new word for it! So here are some fun pictures of our Memorial Day Weekend "Staycation."

On Saturday we got out the pool, and realized that our family of 5 no longer fits in the pool we bought when McKinley was a baby. Hmmm. Guess we'll be getting a bigger pool soon! McKinley wanted Milt and I to both get in with all three kids, and we quickly realized that we could only fit if everyone was standing. But it sure was fun! We then had a picnic on the deck (who needs a table?), and the kids loved laying out in the sun with all their sunscreen on. In fact, Kennedy was a big help to Milt when he needed some on his back, which was surprising since she usually hates getting her hands dirty! And Milt loved trying to lay-out and get some sun too, but Maddox couldn't stand seeing him lying there all alone...he had to hop right on top of his face!

And can we just say that Maddox is such a hunk of manliness walking around in his low-riding swim trunks! He was strutting his stuff all over the place, and we took lots of pictures! His tummy is just the cutest thing ever, and I cannot get enough of him! Watch out ladies...he's 18 months old now and ready to start Nursery class at church!

Over the rest of the weekend we did a lot of barbecuing and cooking, some girl shopping outings, and we got to go down to a breakfast/fun run at Valley Forge on Memorial Day morning for a church activity. It was really fun! So overall we just hung out and enjoyed each other, and realized that we should probably do fun things with the kids more often, since they are so easy to please! McKinley told us multiple times how much fun she was having, so I guess it was a pretty great weekend!

Read-a-thon

When I was little, one of my favorite things was school read-a-thons when you got to go to sit on the floor on a pillow wearing pajamas in class and read for hours at a time. It was always the best day of school. And since then, I've heard people talk about how great it is when their kids got old enough that they could have family read-a-thons and just sit around and read together for an hour (or more!) at home in the evening or on a Saturday morning. I always think about it and I couldn't wait for my kids to all learn to read so we could have a read-a-thon too.

Well, I decided that I didn't want to wait anymore for the kids to all know how to read...so we went ahead and had a family read-a-thon last week, and everyone loved it! The kids were actually moderately quiet for about 40 minutes, which I thought was a great start for our first read-a-thon. Milt got to lay down on the couch and read a book he's been meaning to read, the kids each sat on the other couch with their pile of books, and I got to finish the book I was reading without feeling guilty! Occasionally we did have to remind one of the kids to be quiet, which was probably normal, but they caught on quick that they were just looking through books by themselves (Maddox felt very grown up). Just before it was time to stop, we took a couple pictures and caught this gem of Kennedy:

It's not everyday that you catch one of your kids' personality coming out so clearly in a photo, but this was a golden moment! That face shushing me is Kennedy in a nutshell. And someday she'll make a fine librarian, don't you think? She's a natural!

Desperate times call for...

So this last week I finally caved and decided that Cafe Rio (or Costa Vida..I'm not picky) aren't going to be building a new franchise out here in Philly...so I had to try to make a Fire-grilled Chicken Salad myself! A huge thanks to all of you who have sent me recipes for this stuff. I've had so many people e-mail them to me, and the only problem was that I now have a bunch of different recipes for Cafe Rio and I have to try them all to figure out which ones taste the most like the original! But our first shot turned out pretty well. The dressing was the thing that tasted the most different, which is really sad because that is the main thing I miss (I knew there was a secret, probably illegal, ingredient!!!) But overall the salad looks close, right?

It also took hours to make all of the stuff to go in the salad (homemade tortillas, cilantro-lime rice, black beans, grilled chicken, guacamole, pico de gallo, and crispy tortilla strips), plus it cost way more than I thought it would to buy all of the groceries to make everything. I've decided it is totally worth the $6-7 to just go into the restaurant and order (plus the long lines are even quicker than all the time I spent cooking!) So if you just happen to stop by a Cafe Rio/Costa Vida and get a salad, please feel very spoiled and think of me....slaving away in a kitchen trying to decide how many tomatillos to add to the dressing next time!

And yes, I know I'm pathetic. I'd like to say I'm working on it, but let's be honest--this is one obsession that just isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Nana Visits

This last weekend we got to have my Nana come and stay with us for a few days. She was back East visiting my Aunt in D.C. from Utah, so we got to steal her for a little bit and have some time with her! She is one of my all-time heroes and favorite people to be around, so I loved every second of having her here! Plus it was fun to get to show her all of her artwork hanging up all around the new house and get some decorating ideas from her too. She is one talented lady!


Since she drove Nana here, my Aunt Nancy also got to spend a little time with us, and it was really fun for the kids to get to know her better. In this picture she is letting Kennedy pretend to cut and style her hair with toy scissors (**which made me re-commit to my stance on all real scissors belonging in a lock box at ALL times to avoid the "toddler self-haircut," which always seems to involve having 1 inch bangs...my worst fear!) And McKinley loved having TWO artists here to talk with about drawing skills. She got lots of good tips from Nancy and Nana on sketching eyes and noses and things, which she has been busy practicing ever since.

We tried to make Nana take it easy while she was here, but she cannot help but keep busy. Over the couple of days, I think she read about 50 stories to the kids, helped McKinley color papers to make into plates, and had lots of fun tickling Maddox's big tummy (and the girls' too occasionally).

She also got to have McKinley show her every single art project she's had for the year and LOTS of drawings. Here McKinley is proudly showing her the sculpture she made of a turtle in her art class.

We also got to take Nana down to Valley Forge for a picnic lunch on Friday, and it was so incredibly beautiful there this time of year. There were still some dogwoods blooming, and it was really fun to just eat and walk around and see how green everything was (while chasing Kennedy).

And here is Kennedy with her "Nana Fa-wol." She was very good at saying Nana's name and calling her when she wanted her!

On Saturday we all drove down to D.C. to take Nana back to Nancy's house and Milt was so super nice to offer to watch the kids for a couple of hours so Nana and I could go to the temple, which was really fun because Nana worked there for years back when she lived in Va. So we had a good time just the two of us (while Milt kept the kids happy for two hours!)

After the temple we had planned to go down and see some sights in D.C. before driving back home, but McKinley decided to get carsick and "lose her cookies" in the car. We weren't sure if she was carsick or if she might have the flu, so we came straight back home just in case. Luckily, we think she was just carsick since she felt much better once we moved her up in the car and put the a/c on her. But understandably the car ride wasn't as fun as we had imagined so we've decided we might not take the kids with us next time we head to D.C. The 2 1/2 hour car trip seemed like so much more with them along...but at least they got to spend a little more time with Nana!

Thank you Nana for coming and spending the weekend with us! We'll miss you when you head back to Utah!

Mother's Day Highlights

The best things about Mother's Day this year were...


I got to go to the Washington D.C. temple yesterday with my Nana, while Milt watched the kids.

and I got LOTS of hugs and kisses from the girls:

But one of my favorite things about Mother's Day is that I didn't have to clean up this tonight after dinner/dessert (yes, that is black beans and chocolate cake all mushed together...yum):

(Thanks Nancy for the leftover cake from Relief Society. It was enjoyed by all...except for Milt who had to clean up Maddox.)

And Happy Mother's Day to my Mom and Milt's Mom! We love and miss you guys!

Our Diva

I had to post this. McKinley got this sleep mask at a birthday sleepover she went to, and she SERIOUSLY uses it every night now! It just cracks me up every time I check on her! It would make me so claustrophobic, but she HAS to have it before she goes to sleep. Ugh! Another thing to find at bedtime! Then she walks around in the morning with it up on her forehead, which just looks even funnier. And of course now Kennedy wants one too. I'm so glad Maddox is a boy!

Not-so-extreme Room Makeover

BEFORE

I don't know how extreme it is when you really just have a blank slate to start from, but here are the before and after pictures of Kennedy's room. We were kind of doing "design on a dime" and trying to do what we could without having to buy anything new, and we didn't really do too much painting to the room because we wanted a brick red, and a little red goes a long way...

AFTER

So Milt added beadboard to the top of the far wall and then painted the rest of the wall a nice brick red to go with all of Kennedy's Raggedy Anns and old-fashioned toys. It's pretty country, but I love it for a little girl! And when we have company, we just pull her bed into McKinley's room and it's ready to go!

Panoramic view from door

Panoramic View from Closet

Sorry the panoramic pictures are a little blurry, but I've never really done them before and was really just playing around. At least you can get an idea of more than one wall at a time though!

Some close-up shots, where you can sort-of see some of the beadboard

And here are the pictures of Kennedy seeing her room for the first time! She was very excited, and kept checking to see if the red wall was wet! She loves HER room. We are now doing McKinley's, and it is VERY pink! We'll take pictures when we're finished...

No longer "terrible" -- right?

Kennedy seems to REALLY like the flames on the candles...should we be worried?

SHE'S THREE...we made it past the terrible twos! Kennedy had her birthday on Monday and we had a really fun day (although somewhat hectic!) It's funny how when it's someone's birthday you try to be really nice to them, even when it's your children! It was pretty eye-opening to us how often Kennedy gets in trouble (for climbing, hitting, making messes, and outright disobedience), and since it was her birthday we tried VERY hard to be happily firm with our discipline. Think "tough love with a smile"...that was us!

But Kennedy still had a great day. She really loved eating her "happy birthday" (aka: cake) and opening presents. And McKinley managed to make it through the day without getting presents HERSELF and being the star of the show. Poor Kennedy...I guess the world doesn't revolve around her nearly as much as her big sister, because the whole day seemed just "wrong" to McKinley!

Thanks to all the grandparents for the great presents! Kennedy really loved everything! And we are the COOLEST parents in the world because instead of spending money on toys for her presents we decided to spend our time and money on finishing her room! We spent her birthday money on really fun things like paint, beadboard, and a stepstool for her bathroom (she is our climber, so it really is kind of a cool gift...it was MEANT to be climbed!)

So Milt and I spent the few days before her birthday giving her bedroom a surprise makeover. We moved Kennedy's bed into McKinley's room so we could paint and work on her room at night. We then hung pictures and rearranged the furniture a bit and got it all done pretty cute! Her room doubles as our guest room, so we also wanted to make sure it looked ready for company because my Nana is coming for a visit soon! (We'll add pictures of her room tomorrow).

Besides painting, I also spent every spare second the week before her birthday making Kennedy a family ABC scrapbook. McKinley got one from her Aunt Ashley a few years ago that is the cutest thing ever, and since Ashley is now the busiest lady in the world, I figured I actually had to get creative and make Kennedy's myself. And it took a ton of time and late nights on the laptop, but it turned out pretty cute! Hopefully Kennedy will enjoy it for a long time, and if Maddox eats any pages, I can always just print more! Yea for digital scrapbooking!

Here are some pictures of Kennedy eating her cake and opening her presents. The princess underwear and shoes were a big hit from Nana and Papa Ken (Kennedy is a little too into clothes), and of course she loved the ponies and dress-up shoes from Big Daddy and Nana Jacki and the cool Hawaiian dancing doll and flip-flops from Papa Kirby and Nana Betty and Ashley's family. It's always nice to know that we don't really have to buy toys for her because she always gets plenty from her wonderful grandparents! Thank you all!