Labor Day Weekend

Every year on Labor Day weekend, Darren's mom Linda (the grandkids call her Grammy Mac) treats the whole family to a day of activities, food, and fun. This year she got a room at the JW Marriott and she was nice enough to let Darren and I stay in it for the night. We met up with the family for lunch at Jason's Deli, went to the Sun Coast to bowl, then spent a few hours at the hotel pool (cabana and all!). After that we had a delicious dinner at Olive Garden. We had a great day with the family and are so thankful for Linda. We love you Grammy Mac!

Arriving at the hotel

Darren enjoying the view from our hotel room

Kate doing some bumper bowling. She rolled every ball sooo slow it's amazing they actually made it to the pins!

                                          Johnny being funny as usual

Kate's 4th birthday

For Kate's birthday I threw her a girls princess party. All of the girls brought dress up clothes and we even had a special guest princess (aunt Kari) show up to surprise them. My nanny (who I call my "sister wife" because she is pretty much the kids' second mom) came to use her talents and help makeover the girls.  

                                                 princess pizza lunch

                                 Christine making McKenna beautiful

LEGOLAND

The day after we went to the beach, we went to Legoland . It was my first time there with Johnny and Kate, but Darren and Jules had been before. I actually liked it better than Disneyland for the ages of the kids, because the lines were shorter, and there were a lot of places to sit down and rest while the kids played. It was a really fun day!

                                                             Oh Kate!

A real police man, and a police man made out of legos

                                                            Just her size

                                                           I'm on a boat!

We also got to spend a couple of hours at the water park there. It was a nice break in the middle of the day to cool off and relax. We can't wait to go back!

Family Vacation

We wanted to take the kids to the beach at some point during the summer, so we decided to head down to San Diego the first weekend in August when Darren was on vacation from work. We left on Saturday late morning and the kids were so excited to get to the beach, that we checked in to our hotel and went straight there. We weren't exactly sure where we should go, so we drove down the coast until we found a good spot (or at least what we thought was a good spot). We found a close place to park and the kids ran to get in the water. The sun was beginning to set, we set up towels and beach toys, and started eating sandwiches that we stopped and got for dinner. I started looking around at the other people there and thought "hmmm... a lot of people brought their dogs". Then it dawned on me that we were at the DOG BEACH! Yuck! The kids were too happy playing in the water already to drag them somewhere else, plus the sun was going to be gone soon, so we decided to try not to think about pee-pee and doo-doo while we were eating, and watched very closely where we walked.

The water was pretty cold, so when they got out they were freezing. Look at Kate's face lol

build a bear

We took the kids to the mall to buy new OUTFITS for their current bears......

..........and walked out with 3 new bears

Birthday Boy

It is very hard to believe that it has been 5 years since I gave birth to my first child. Johnny has been such a blessing in my life and I feel so lucky to have such a sweet boy. He is always giving complements and is very sensitive to others' feelings. He can be a total boy too, and we have to remind him to not constantly joke about farting and private parts. He is always thinking and trying to figure things out and he loves to make people laugh by making jokes or trying to scare them. We love our Johnny boy.

We had his party at Chuck E Cheese this year. It was a super easy place to go. Although it's kind of hectic there, it is sure nice not having to clean up before/after a party. The kids loved it and that's what matters most :)

Little Kate looking so cute

Johnny and his good buddy Bryson 

His cute super mario cake

My parents, Vanessa, and James

It was literally the first time Johnny didn't FREAK OUT at the sight of Chucky. He kept bragging about the fact that he wasn't scared of Chucky and that he gave him a "high five"

The cute guests

                                                            Me and Steph

The "ticket blaster". The lady that put him in there forgot to explain how it works ( you have a minute to grab as many tickets as you can), so he just stood there playing around in the tickets as they flew by. We all had a good laugh.

The 3rd and 4th of July

The 4th of July is my second favorite holiday. Halloween is my number one. When the weather starts warming up I get anxious for the 4th of July festivities to hurry up and get here. The reason I love it so much is because it's an entire day of fun. It starts early in the morning and goes until late at night. I love waking up and going to a parade, swimming and barbecuing during the day, firecracker (bomb-pop) popsicles, patriotic colored clothing for the whole family of course, and a firework show at night. This year was a little different because the 4th was on a Sunday, so the parade was held Saturday morning. Kristen and Dave were great and saved us a place curbside for the parade. My parents and Vanessa even came. Summerlin puts on a good parade. Darren had to work, but the kids and I went to my parents' to swim and barbecue after that. They always have the best food and decorate like a department store for every holiday.

When it got dark my brothers busted out the, ahem, "illegal" fireworks. Lets just say there was a breeze that night and we had a few close calls.  We went to church on Sunday, and then to Linda's for family dinner. It was Johnny's birthday month so he go to help blow out birthday candles with the other July birthday people. They made a darling flag cake for the day. Then on Sunday night we headed out to Boulder City for their spectacular fireworks show. It was a fun weekend, but splitting it up into 2 days was a little different. It is always sad when the 4th is over. For me it's like the feeling you got as a kid when you finished opening up all your Christmas presents and then immediately realizing it would be another year until you got to do it all over again....