Kennedy's birthday was a blast

We are lucky to have some family in the area. My mom's sister Sandy and her husband Ken plus two of their daughters live over in Puyallup. They have been a great resource for our move. Today, we headed over to my cousin Sarah's house for her daughter Kennedy's third birthday festivities. Ellie was a bit perplexed about the departure plans. We were trying to explain that the party was for Kennedy, not her. We got on the road and she was quite happy to participate in the day's activities. Sarah and Josh (her husband) went all out for this. Their house has an awesome, large backyard with a built in swing set/playground. Also, they had rented an inflatable "bouncy" playscape set up in the backyard for the kiddos to go crazy in. There were fruit and veggie plates to snack on and then the pizza showed up. And you know how kids like pizza. After a few minutes, we adjourned to the living room so Kennedy could open her gifts. She was a gracious and kind birthday girl, thanking everyone for her presents. After the presents, everybody got a piece of Dora the Explorer cake and some ice cream.

Campbell was kind of a tweener today. There were a bunch of kids over 2 and then a bunch of little babies. But, only as Campbell can do, she got her fair share of attention. She's so full of energy and determination. Honestly, sometimes I forget that she's not even one year old yet (just a few more weeks!!) She wants to do everything Ellie is doing. The past few days she finally figured out crawling. For the past 2-3 months, she's done this elbow/knee thing. She's darn fast at it but it's really funny to watch. This week, she's finally getting up on her hands and knees. And she's figured out how to climb stairs. I used to be able to assume that if she was out of my line of site that she had just found something interesting to play with in the living room. The past two days, I have learned that if I can't see her, there's a good chance that she's half way up the stairs. She's great going up with no worries. But she has yet to figure out that coming down head first is not a good idea. She hasn't done that without one of us there to stop it from happening on more than one stair but I think it's time to break out the safety gates again. Ellie's gonna hate that but in the interest of keeping the little sister safe, we're going to have to limit the big sister's freedom.

Jennifer's sister, Lisa, was in town this past week. The girls and I drove up to UW, picked up Jennifer and then drove down to Redmond to meet her for dinner. Unfortunately, I did not bring my camera so we didn't get any pics. Ellie was up to her usual "guest" shenanigans at dinner so that was an adventure. Campbell was content to sit there and eat steak fries. Typical baby, keep her tummy full and every thing is A-OK. :) Hopefully, now that we're back in the real world, we'll see Lisa and Tim a little more.

We broke in the new grill today

It was finally time to cook something outside. I bought a Kingsford barrel grill a few weeks ago but we just hadn't used it yet. Ellie went with me to the store to get some fixings but as we were on the way home, she was very perturbed with me that we weren't going to the playground. I told her that we'd try and go after dinner. That kind of placated her but she reminded me several times over the next 5 minutes that we were now going to the playground after dinner.

Jennifer whipped up some excellent onion rings while I got the fire going. Ellie was great at supervising. At one point, she told me that the flames were "hot and high." Fortunately, she knows that hot means stay away. Once we got the coals going, Ellie informed me that we needed to eat right then. Jennifer brought out some veggies and Ranch dressing to assuage her. Ellie devoured some zucchini, cucumber and carrots. She's also fascinated with the sidewalk around to the gate. I'm just glad that the latch is up high enough that Ellie can't reach it (for now.) I'm pretty sure that Ellie was eye balling the gate as a potential escape route.

At this point, I realized that Campbell was just going to keep begging to come outside so we moved her bouncy out. She alternately played with a piece of zucchini and nibbled on it. I'd bet that she'd like some Ranch to dip it in but I'm not sure we'd want to deal with the after effect of that experience yet. Everybody sat around our patio table and we chowed down. The burgers and onion rings (at least the batter) were a hit with Ellie. Campbell was content to eat the mashed up sweet potatoes that I was feeding her. Ellie did the typical toddler thing and ate her burger in stages. She started with the cheese, then the bun and then finally the burger itself. I'm still adjusting to the fact that we can sit outside in the summer and the temperatures are only in the mid 70's. There was a slight breeze and it was downright perfect.

Oh, and when we got done, we cleaned up and went to the playground. Ellie was quite thrilled with that.