Memorial Day

What a busy Memorial Day weekend we have had. I can't believe it's already this time of year! School ends this week...three more days! Didn't school just start?! Regardless of how fast this year has gone, we have really enjoyed ourselves. This weekend just capped it all off. We started the weekend with a wedding of some close friends of ours. It was such a beautiful wedding!Mimi graciously watched the girls so Andy and I could attend the wedding without our attachments...wow, I had forgotten how nice it was to be alone together;)

Here we are all dressed up and ready to go

Then on Sunday after church, all four of us (plus the Rasey's) headed off to Williamsburg for the night to enjoy shopping at the outlets and roaming around colonial Williamsburg. This has become a wonderful Memorial Day tradition.

The girls all ready to head out for the weekend

Alley insisting on kissing Kendall - she wants to give kisses every other second...it's kinda cute;)

Alley wanting to help Tom push Garrett upon our arrival to Colonial W'burg (check out that cute froggy "bat-pat" (Alley's word for backpack)

acting like a frog infront of the Wren building

the yearly photo of Alley hanging out on the canon

close-up of her enjoying the view

"I love canons"

a family shot

my two little girls

all three kiddos - it'll probably be years before we can get them to smile and look at the camera together. Of course, in the next couple of years, they will probably be pushing each other and plenty of other things as well;)

the babies - Kendall and Garrett are 3 months apart

our smiley baby - she is such a happy and laidback baby!

what a ham;)

dancing and swinging her arms to music no one hears (occasionally she'll let you in her world when out of the blue she starts sing - I mean yelling - a random song). I love this child!

the Rasey family

another yearly picture...soon Alley's going to get to big for this - plus the other kids will want to do this as well;)

she's so willing to do this...
We had a wonderful trip despite Kendall's decision to act like a newborn. This was the first time all four of us have slept in the same room together. Kendall normally goes to sleep immediately with an occasional cry, but last night was a different story! She was over-stimulated and it was WAY past her bedtime...so we had a rough night - all of us! Despite our lack of sleep, the girls did amazingly well on our trip. Next year they will be older so it should be a much quieter night...right?! ;)
So, to end our glorious weekend, we started Kendall on rice cereal. Since she's a week over 4 months, we figured it was about time to venture into this territory. If we could get this girl to stop smiling, we might have actually gotten some into her mouth! She smiled the.whole.time. It actually was hilarious:) Here are some pictures of this milestone.

I'm about to smile since the spoon is coming to my mouth!

Here we actually succeeded in getting the food in her mouth...she was so cute when she actually got some food. Check out those cheeks - that's a serious holding cell for food!

busy...

...no, not really. If you had been able to peak into our lives this week, this is what you would have seen:

us staring at these big beautiful eyes:)

these two having staring contests

and this little thing wanting to be by herself in her playroom (she had turned on her cd, laid out all the blankets on top of each other, gotten all her mardi gras beads on, sat in a basket and sang along to the cd...wow!)
not so thrilled that I am invading her personal space;) - immediately following this photo, she asked if I would come and sit in the basket too....ummm, I totally wont fit in that basket!!

In the next few weeks life should begin to slow down for me and I will get to enjoy my girls full-time! I can't wait!!!

Best Friends

It warms a mother's heart to see her child find such a good friend at such a young age. One where they talk about each other non-stop, get things for each other when they are away from each other, throw a tantrum one second and then the next they are hugging, and one who's family we love to spend time with as well! Today we had a wonderful play date with Ava Tibbs and her mom "momma Jess". We had a fun filled morning at the playground, library then out to lunch. I can't even begin to express how much fun Alley had with Ava this morning...so I'm going to let these pictures show you how inseparable these two girls are and how much fun they had!

taking her turn on the motorcycle...pretending to be Miss Caren:)

going down the slide together

Miss Hollywood! Precious girl...

deep in thought..."hmmm, these goldfish taste yummy"

some serious concentration on this slide;)

checking out how far down it is

um yeah, this girl slept the whole morning! It must have been too much for her;)

rocking that motorcycle fast!

cheeeeeeese

having too much fun in the tunnel

listening to momma Jess read a story

Alley telling us to "shhh"...look who's talking!!

Triple "F" Night

It's Friday night in the McPherson household and that means only one thing...triple "F" night! It's formerly known as "forced family fun" night but we've decided to rename it to "Family Fun Friday's":) These nights always consist of making pizza and watching a movie before bed. Thanks to Alley it's always the same movie. We have tried to venture away from this movie, but Alley wont hear of it! Tonight we did change it up just a little bit - yes, we still watched the movie...God forbid we change that!:) Instead of making pizza, we had a picnic at the soccer field across the street. It turned out much better than I thought it would! We had finger foods, juice boxes and ate until our tummy's were full. Then we had some after dinner entertainment with Kendall laughing and chatting away and Alley determined to pick up every stick nearby and throw it;) Here are some pictures from Triple F night:

the girls posing in the midst of eating

Alley trying to get super close to mommy (choke choke)

having a very stimulating conversation with Kendall - she was full of it!

Alley and daddy enjoying the movie before going to bed

Mother's Day Weekend

We started Mother's Day weekend off with bang and traveled to Richmond to run in the Race for a Cure with Mimi and Papa. We have done this for the past several years but this was Kendall's first time running it. Yes, this year was much harder on several different levels ...1) we had a double jogging stroller (from a friend) that was mighty heavy, 2) this was the very first time we had run with the double stroller and the brake kept falling down, 3) we had run no more than 4x since I found out I was pregnant with Kendall...like I said, it was a difficult race on so many different levels. But we survived, much slower and in more "old age" pain than usual, but better for it. I am so glad this race is on mother's day weekend, not only because it's a race that raises money to support an incredible organization, but also because it's a race to support my mother. My mother is a breast cancer survivor. I still get choked up as I watch my dad hug my mom before the race and I still run with tears in my eyes that final hill towards the finish line and think of the battle my mom went through to be alive today. It's an emotional run for me. It's a run I make each year to honor my mom and thank her for showing me how to be a woman of God even when the absolute worst is thrown at you. I can't think of a better way to start off Mother's Day weekend than to honor my mom.

here's the family before the race

the girls

the whole gang - our good friends, Tom and LeeAnn Rasey, joined us again this year to support mom and LeeAnn just had a baby (Garrett) 8 days before!

Mom and baby Garrett after the race - showing his support for mimi with an adorable shirt:) It says Mimi's walker - too cute!

I got to spend mother's day with my wonderful friends and family. We spent the morning at church and with the Rasey's and then mom, dad and John came in to town for dinner at granny's house. Who could ask for a better day. The weather was beautiful (slightly cool) and the company was great! Now if only Kendall had decided to sleep...

sleep or no sleep, this thing is cute:)

the mother's on mother's day...LeeAnn and Garrett, and me and my baby girl (minus the child who was kind enough to take a nap)

sweetness all bundled up in my puff-a-lump:)

yes, she has found her tongue and thinks everyone needs to check it out

my big girl after her nap

4 generations (would have been 5, but Kendall FINALLY decided to nap...it was short lived though and totally not picture worthy...grumpy!)

I had a wonderful mother's day and am thankful for the mother's who raised Andy and me as well as the mother's who raised them. May I be as good of a mother to my brood as they were to us! I love you and am thankful for you, mom, Granny and Sally! Happy Mother's Day!