Young Party of Four

Our Sunday started pretty early. We were watching the weather for the week or so leading up to our trip and didn't know if our Sunday would go as we planned, but we wanted to try to continue with our plans despite it being a fairly yucky, gray, rainy day. We got up early and had breakfast in the lobby. After breakfast we decided to head over to Vicksburg to visit the Vicksburg National Military Park. I have visited this park a few times before and wanted Steven to see it. Plus, I thought it might be fun to go over and have a look at the Old Vicksburg Bridge while we were over there and thought Kenzie might enjoy that. That also lets us show the kids the Mississippi River and let Steven see it in Mississippi (he has seen it in other states before, I think). The drive was uneventful. We left Kenzie in my parents' car again. That means we actually had a fairly peaceful drive as Will slept most of it and we didn't have anyone trying to play 20 questions with us. When we ...

Saturday was the day of my cousin's wedding, but we had the entire morning to do whatever we wanted before we had to get ready for the wedding. We woke up bright and early (through no choice of my own). The kids slept until close to 7 am Central time... yeah... that's still 8 am here and their normal wake up time. We were hoping that they would sleep in since they went down so late and the hotel had black out shades. No such luck. Friday night was an okay night for Will so I guess he just felt rested enough since he slept so much during the drive on Friday and pretty well that night. Goody. Goes to show you that it doesn't matter what time our children go to bed, they are just early risers. Anyway, we started our day with breakfast in the hotel. This was, by far, the best free breakfast I have ever had at a hotel. It was a hot breakfast with made to order omelets and eggs. Being that this is Mississippi, there was plenty of biscuits and gravy to go around. All of us, wi...

If you are reading this, it means that we survived. We made it. The weekend that we were simultaneously looking forward to and dreading has come and gone. We are back in Florida in our own home with two (tired) little kiddos. A few months ago we received the save the date for one of my cousin's weddings. We set out with my parents to figure out a way to make the trip back to Mississippi for a long weekend with both kids so that everyone there could meet them and we could celebrate with my cousin and family. While we started our trip on Friday morning, the planning needed to get to that point was started months ago. We booked a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom and living area suite so that we could share with my parents allowing us two extra people to help with the kids should we need it. We started a packing list at least a month ago. I knew that traveling with one child was a lot different than what we used to do when it was just the two of us... traveling with two (one a toddler and one j...

Dear William, Happy 4 month birthday, Little Man! You are now officially 1/3 of the way through your first year earthside. Holy cow! I can't believe it. It was 4 months ago that you entered this world and took your rightful place in our family. You have grown sooooo very much. I think I say that every month, but it is always just so amazing for me to look back and realize exactly how much you have grown each month. This letter is coming a couple of days late so that we could get formal height and weight stats on you from the doctor. You are getting soooo big! You are 16 pounds, 12 ounces (80th percentile) and 26.5 inches (90th percentile). Your head is still 50th percentile. Doctor C actually said you were big but don't look as big as she would think based on your height and weight because your head isn't also big. We all laughed at your chunky thighs which Doctor C attributed to all the breastmilk. Haha! All that being said, you are entirely out of 3 month clot...

I will be the first to admit... Valentine's Day is a commercial holiday. With kids it works a bit differently anyway though and this was really the first year that Kenzie seemed to understand what was going on and why stores were filled with so much pink and red. It has been fun to prepare to give the kids small Valentine's gifts and celebrate the holiday. To start, Kenzie and I made Steven special Valentine's Day rice krispie treats. Yum! It was a nice, easy thing that Kenzie could help me make since there is very little cooking involved and mostly just sticky mixing goes on. We made our marshmallow mixture pink to give it a more "Valentine's" flair and I used a cookie cutter to make a few into hearts. Kenzie had a blast helping me make "kispie treats" for Daddy. She might have also really enjoyed partaking in a few marshmallows while I melted the remainder of them. (You do what you have to do to keep a toddler occupied...) She was not so into...