Young Party of Four

This past weekend we celebrated Kenzie turning FIVE years old. I can't believe that! Crazy. I wrote her normal birthday letter which you can read HERE if you are interested and haven't read it yet. I also wanted to recap her actual birthday party some including the decor because I had quite a few people ask me about some of the things we did for decorating and what not. I admit, a lot of what I did was inspired by others. I'm also thankful for Google Images and Pinterest when birthday party times roll around. This year Kenzie actually spent some time vacillating between a Moana birthday party or a Rapunzel one. In the end, the daughter of the chief won out and we set about to create the perfect island for Kenzie. This year we kept the party outside (and Will's is going to follow suit though his will at least be a more comfortable temperature in mid-October) as this turned out so well last year. It kept our house much cleaner and made for a fun party because we cou

July 30, 2017 Dear Kenzie, Happy happy birthday, Sweet Girl! Today you are officially 5 years old! A whole hand! A big girl! I can't believe it. It's so strange to think that when someone asks you now how old you are, you are going to say 5 and hold up an entire hand full of fingers. You are getting ready to go to elementary school aka "big school" and I'm a bit of a mess. To me you are still this 7 pound, 6 ounce baby that we brought home from the hospital terrified that we were going to do something wrong and seriously injure you or something. Five years ago today you entered the world in your truly dramatic fashion and none of that drama has ceased over the last five years. You have gotten so big. You are seriously tall. I think I say that every time I write you a letter but it remains true. You are around 44.5 inches tall (87th percentile). You weigh around 44 pounds (77th percentile). These were measurements taken by Daddy and me because your 5-ye

Well, it's over. We are officially home. I am sitting on my own couch, using my own Wi-Fi connection, and watching my own TV after taking a shower in my own shower. And I'm happy. Yet also sort of sad. It's always sad when a trip has to end and reality has to set back in. But I'm happy to be home in our house with the kids fast asleep in their own beds with a ton of new, fun memories to dream about. I'll miss listening to them giggle as they fall asleep together though and I think they were sort of sad tonight to not get to sleep together. Kenzie even said she could sleep in Will's room tonight if he wanted her to. Sweet babies. Anyway, as far as today goes, this post should be fairly short and sweet because we spent the majority of our day driving. Today actually ended up being our earliest wake up call for the kids. I think they were both up around 6:45 or so but we were okay with that because we knew we didn't want to be too late leaving the hotel so we

Today might have ended up being our most “relaxing” day yet. We mostly drove and did small things along the way. The good news was that the down time spent in the car let Kenzie have some “rest time” sort of similar to what she might have at home and let Will actually nap. We started our day waking up about 7:15. That is almost downright late for our kids. What was really funny was listening to them from our bed as they conspired how and when to wake us up for the day. We both were awake and could hear them having a conference about whether or not it was morning. One would say, “It is morning. Can’t you see the light coming in through the window?” or something of the sort and the other would suggest waking up Mommy and Daddy because it was daytime. We finally gave in and let them climb into bed with us for a few minutes before we started our day. Breakfast went better today than it has any day on this trip so far. Except maybe when they went with Grandma and Grandaddy on o