Weekend with Mercy

Daniel's parents are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary (which was actually Feb 14th) by taking a weekend trip away together...that means Mercy gets to come play with us!!

Kenna has had a lot of fun with her Aunt Mercy and can often be heard saying "come on Mercy" as she takes her to a new toy to play with. This is Kenna's new "cheese" smile yesterday morning before breakfast. Daniel and Mercy have had some stiff bowling competitions on the Wii (she usually wins...she's really good).....

...and we have gotten to enjoy the beautiful weather by playing on the slides!

Kenna loves the big slides...I can see that we are going to be spending a lot of time at the playground this spring!!

Mercy and I even took a girls trip to the movies to see Alvin and the Chipmunks while Daniel and Kenna stayed home for nap time.

Mercy, we are so glad you came to visit!!

Hungry Elmo

Just thought I would post a few random, funny pictures from the last few days.

We were helping Kenna pick up her toys before bed the other night when she told me "Elmo hungry." I wasn't sure what she was talking about as she had already put Elmo on top of her toys in the toy bin. I went to put another toy away and found that Elmo had a goldfish cracker in his mouth. Kenna was so proud of herself for feeding Elmo and laughed and laughed. She has also talked about Elmo and the goldfish for two days now. One of Miss K's favorite games is to run away when we are trying to take off her clothes and then wait for us to chase her. She has two places that she "hides" and giggles waiting for Mommy or Daddy. Her other favorite is to put her wet diapers in the trash can. Last night she combined the two games. Daniel didn't quite get her shirt all the way off her head before she was up and running. She thought her hat was very cute and she kept giggling and running and talking about her "at." At one point she did slow down a bit because she wanted to put her diaper in the trash can. I caught her in all her glory! Don't you just love that belly!?!

I love this age....she is too funny!!

Michael's Wedding Weekend

Daniel's brother Michael is officially a married man!

This weekend we got to spend a lot of time with family and friends celebrating Sarah and Michael...and what fun we had!

Friday night, we had a little party after the rehearsal dinner. Michael works in construction so we had to go with the construction theme for decorations. Thankfully, Daniel was willing to loan me all of his tools to use as centerpieces! JD donated some of his Tonka trucks to the special occasion!

Kenna was trying to be helpful and was straightening the tablecloths for Mommy before everyone came to sit down.

Kenna kept herself pretty entertained while I was helping decorate and her Daddy was practicing for his duties as the Best Man. She pushed her baby in the baby stroller (along with the baby's calculator) up and down the halls of the church building. I bet the girl walked five miles :) (She was too busy talking to someone down the hall to actually look at the camera).

Daniel was the emcee for the event and did a great job!

The construction hat centerpieces quickly became favorite accessories for most of the kids.

Saturday was a gorgeous day to have a wedding!! Unfortunately I did not get enough pictures of the festivities. Sarah looked beautiful as did all of the guys....of course, I was a little partial to the best man. :)

JD and Kenna had some time to kill before JD had to put his tux back on to be the ring bearer so they decided to play "ring around the rosie" over and over again...it actually worked pretty well for a game they could play that kept them moving but in one place!

And that is the only picture from Saturday that I have. By the time I went to get the camera after the actual ceremony, my little princess (who missed her nap due to all the fun activities) was not in the mood to smile for the camera...she was much more interested in seeing what she could get in to! Not to mention the fact that she had stepped on the tulle lining the inside of her dress as she was going up some stairs and ripped the front (any thoughts on how to fix that?) and had smeared marshmallows from the chocolate fountain all over the front of her Daddy's tux (good thing I don't have to clean that one) so we never did get a picture of my family all dressed up!!

After we got everything cleaned up, Daniel's immediate family (minus the newlyweds) came over for some leftovers and chill time. It was soooo great to see everyone who lives in different states!

Congratulations Michael and Sarah!!

Meeting Anson

Daniel, Kenna, and I made a quick trip to Lubbock/Muleshoe this weekend so we could meet the newest addition to the family, Anson. He is a whole two weeks old now and is absolutely precious!

We got there Friday night just in time to join all the extended family for dinner to celebrate my sister's 30th birthday (which is actually next week). Kenna and Abbye loved being able to run all over the restaurant (we were in our own little room) and eat whatever/however they wanted with Mimzi and Poppy while all the parents were at the other end of the table. Daniel and I just fought over who got to snuggle with Anson next! :) Kenna liked looking/touching the baby and it only took a little while for her to quit calling him Baby Meg and start calling him Baby Anson. After that she was ready to run around with Abbye.

Saturday we just had fun shopping/relaxing/hanging out and letting the girls play. Daniel seemed to win the battle over cuddling Anson - he was always coming up with things for me to do that meant I had to hand him the baby (Kenna's hair, etc.). Good practice for when Dane arrives in a few months! Kenna did great in the car and was quite the trooper for staying there so long considering she only slept for 45 min on the way home. Can't wait to see Anson again.

Kenna-isms

Okay, I know I have been a horrible blogger recently and, while I still do not have pictures, I will at least fill you in on some of Kenna's more recent comments.

-As she was picking up her blocks yesterday, she was praising herself every time she dropped a block in the bag - "Good job Kenna."

-She is becoming very independent and wants to do it all by herself. When she wants to do it, she says "Kenna do you." Apparently that means Kenna do it.

-Kenna and I were playing blocks the other night. I guess I put the block in the wrong spot because she looked at me and said "No ma'am Mommy."

-She loves to sit in her booster seat in the living room floor. She will set herself up with a drink and a snack and will play, read, or watch TV while she relaxes in her chair. I will try to get a picture of this soon...too cute!

-Kenna has convinced her daddy to give her peanuts and she absolutely loves them. The problem is that when she asks for them it comes out like "kleenex." Yesterday she told me she wanted "Kleenex on her monkey plate" and then took them to the above mentioned booster seat.

-She loves to listen to songs on the radio. For some reason with me, she always wants to listen to her kids song CDs but will listen to the radio with Daniel. Her favorite song right now is "Imma be" by the Black-eyed Peas (she also likes "Down down down" and "na na na na - replay"). If any of her favorite songs come on she will immediately say "Daddy finger"which means he needs to start snapping his fingers.

-She loves to sing "Ring around the Rosie" and "Wheels on the bus." These are her two favorite songs to sing when we are playing in the living room.

-She doesn't really understand about the new baby yet. Anytime we ask about Baby Dane, she starts singing "baa baa black sheep".... you know - one for the master and one for the dame. Makes sense in her world, but she may be a little disappointed when he is actually a baby instead of a sheep.

-Occasionally when she drops something, she will respond with "oh man!"

- Kenna has discovered how great presents can be. She loves getting mail and thinks anything that comes in as a package or large envelope is for her. Even when I come in from the grocery store, she starts asking for a "Kenna pesent" hoping that she has a present in all of those sacks.

We are loving this stage in her life! She definitely keeps us laughing!

Cousin Excitement

Kenna's cousins provided lots of excitement and entertainment yesterday!

We started the day getting to tell her about the arrival of her newest cousin, Anson Charles Turner. My sister was officially due on Valentine's Day, but Anson decided to arrive a day earlier than planned. :) Here is a picture of the happy parents. Big sister Abbye loves her "An-non."

Congratulations Turners! We can't wait to meet him!!!

Yesterday evening, JD and Meg came over to play for a little while so their parents could go out on a date. Well, Meg didn't do much playing with the other kids, but she will soon enough! Supposedly Daniel was going to take care of Meg for a bit while I entertained the toddlers....guess they both got a little comfy!!

Kenna and JD had a BLAST together. The only time I could get them both to slow down long enough to take a picture was when they stopped to have some raisins. Other than that, it was full on play time!

I really wish I would have taken a picture of my living room after they were through playing. Every single toy we own was scattered and I'm not sure there was much of a place to step without falling over something. It took me 3-4 towels to clean up the bathroom floor after bath time. Apparently there was a lot of splashing going on! JD was living it up as the entertainer and Kenna would just walk around going "funny JD" and laughing. Of course, that would just start the cycle all over again! I'm so glad they enjoy spending time together!

Thanks to all the cousins for filling the day with fun!

Snow!!

Yesterday we all woke to a nice white covering the ground...I love snow! Unfortunately, we do not get to see it quite as often as we would like here in Texas! We left work a little early so we would all make it home before the roads got too bad so I got to come play in the snow with Kenna and Daniel.

We got Miss K all suited up and ready to go and took her outside. At first, she was not too sure about all that wet, white stuff. It didn't take her long to realize that she liked it much better when she was in Daddy's arms just looking at the snow. When we would set her down, she would start asking for a towel saying that her boots were wet. :)

It took a few tries before she figured out that she really could touch the snow and it would not hurt her at all. She still wasn't too thrilled about it being wet (which is really funny coming from the girl that I cannot get out of the bathtub at the end of the day).

She eventually did decide that it would be okay to touch it a little bit....

But this morning, she decided that she liked it much better when she could sit in the window and look at the "no".

She had to stop and say 'cheese.'

I can't believe we got almost twelve inches of snow in about 24 hours at our house!!

We have our own little winter wonderland!

And even better, because of the snow, I got to stay home and play with Miss K today! (Of course, Daddy had to go to work...it always works out that way!)