Three Years Old, Hot Dog!

It's true that your youngest child gets stuck in baby-dom.

This little monkey probably gets away with a lot more than she should because "she's just so cute!" my husband and I gush to each other as we have turn our backs to a boundary-testing temper tantrum or are fighting to hold back even the tiniest grin as she stomps her little foot in defiance. Yet, even in the throes of two-dom, Kendall's still as sweet and genuine and cuddly as ever. 

With her birthday being so close to Christmas and all of the craziness that's been going on here at the house lately, we celebrated a week early with friends and family at the park. Alex has been swamped with work, so he wasn't able to make Kendall an elaborate cake like McKenna's princess castle from a couple of month's ago, but the birthday girl was just as happily satisfied with a Princess Tiana sheet cake, sub sandwiches and Doritos that she picked out from Publix.

Love her sweet soul. I still can't believe she's three!

'Twas the Night Before Preschool

Zero more days.

Tonight McKenna cut the last link off of the paper chain countdown that we made last week.

In less than 12 hours, she's off to preschool!

(WHY did I write "Back to school countdown" instead of "First day of school countdown," I do not know; just going to blame the recent lack of sleep over the whole thing here...)

Thankfully, McKenna's gone from "excited, but just a little nervous" to "reeeally excited" after having met her teacher, Mrs. Murray, last Wednesday and then on Friday visiting the classroom. We've been reading books about going to school, talking to all of our friends about how awesome it's going to be and role playing teacher/student here at home. I couldn't be more happy (and also relieved) that she is so excited about her first day tomorrow; she's going to love it and I can't wait to hear all about it when we pick her up!

McKenna's 4th Birthday

Four years old.

We officially have a preschooler on our hands!

McKenna's birthday was on a Wednesday two weeks ago, so we celebrated our big girl turning 4 by having Chocolate Chip Pancakes for breakfast, hanging out at Play Plus for a few hours, and then for dinner and dessert, we ate Caesar Salad and ice cream - "with sprinkles! LOOOTS of sprinkles." - all per the birthday girl's request.

"It was a really great day," she said as we tucked her in that night :-D

Alex was able to take off of work on Friday so that we could get our house cleaned up and put together (e.g. finally hang up the picture frames that have been sitting in the corner of our bedroom for the past year or so) before our company arrived for McKenna's party on Saturday, but more importantly to get a head start on THE CAKE.

Every ounce of credit for this goes to the Mr! I simply crumble under the pressure of birthday cake making.

Alex got started ]around 5PM, however, following the pattern of years past, we still didn't turn in for the night until around 4AM.

Both of the girls happened to wake up just as Daddy had finished his masterpiece and they absolutely LOVED it; McKenna hurried excitedly over to the playroom to grab the camera that she got for her birthday last year so that she could snap a few pictures of her own -- "It's so beautiful!"

Our family arrived a couple of hours later early Saturday morning and then we all headed over to the park to start setting everything up for our Princess' princess party; other than the cake, though, we kept everything pretty low key - a couple of decorations, and pizza and Capri Sun to serve to our guests. The kids played to their heart's content while the grownups laughed and mingled and simply enjoyed each other's company.

Everybody had a really great time, especially our sweet birthday girl.

<3 <3 <3

Wordless Wednesday - FOUR

FOUR YEARS OLD TODAY, hot dog!

Growing Pains

In a little less than a month, McKenna will be off to preschool. While we've started crossing things off of her school supply list and she already has her backpack and lunchbox ready to go, it's still something that I haven't fully processed yet. I'm having such a difficult time wrapping my heart and my head around the fact that the first chapter of my little baby's life is coming to a close. She's growing up. Wasn't it just yesterday that she was crawling around in diapers?

A couple of weeks ago while the girls and I were out doing our grocery shopping, we picked up a few things from the supply list. McKenna couldn't wait to show off her new folder, pencils, crayons, and glue, all packed up in her Disney Princess backpack, ready for the first day of school, to Alex when he got home from work. When she brought out the Kindermat that she's going to take for nap time, I fought hard to hold back the tears.

How in the heck am I going to handle dropping her off on the first day of school? I hope I don't bawl when or if she does; I hope I don't lose it when or if she doesn't want to let me go. I need to be strong for her on this nerve-wracking first day of school... At least until I make it out of that classroom door, turn around for one last wave and a blown kiss goodbye. Ugh, parenting is hard.

I told Alex, "What am I going to do all day!?"

"You still have another one at home," he said with a wink and a little boop on the nose. But Kendall's wondering the same thing, too...

On our way over to a friend's house, McKenna and I were talking about her going to school soon and Kendall chimed in, "I'm going to miss you, M'enna" to which M'enna replied, "I'm going to miss you, too, Kendall; but don't worry, I'll be back." My heart melted like a popsicle on the Fourth of July!

I know that McKenna is ready for school and I think she'll do great; she loves to learn and enjoys making new friends. She's excited, but "just a little nervous."

She sounds so grown up when she tells me that.