Morgan's 10th Birthday

Morgan's birthday was 'A great decade birthday.' (Her words, not mine.) I woke her up for the traditional breakfast in bed. This year, she chose baked oatmeal with raspberries, scrambled eggs, and orange juice. After breakfast, it was off to school. (It was a good thing that she had school that day...it gave me time to finish getting ready for the festivities of the evening. In my defense, I would have been more on the ball if I had not had sick children for most of the week...) While the girls were at school, I tidied, wrapped presents and prepared food. That night, my parents and grandmother came into town for the party. Morgan chose cheese fondue for dinner and chocolate fondue for dessert. It was delicious. Thanks to the Blackham Family for the great recipes.

Good Morning Mary-Sunshine! Here is Morgan with her breakfast in bed. -This was about the 6th picture I took that morning. Every other one had varying degrees of eye closure. When I commented that she kept closing her eyes, she said, "Sorry. It's hard to open my eyes right after I wake up." True. I had literally just woken her up and shoved the camera in her face. I wonder how many more years I will be able to get away with that...

So, it's not all about the presents, but on your birthday, it kinda is. Especially when you are a kid. I had fun wrapping them this year. 10 was the year of polka-dots.

Morgan showing off a gift that came in the mail from AZ. It arrived that afternoon as I was wrapping the presents. I had to wrap it to match the others...Thanks Aunt Amy, Uncle Brian, Hailey, Ian, Jenny and Bridget for thinking of Morgan on her big day! I especially like this picture because Morgan is clearly so excited about her birthday and her presents, and everyone else is totally into the fondue. It was really yummy...

Rachael and Grandpa. Too cute. Had to include it.

Here is Morgan with her main gift for her birthday. It is an American Girl Doll Bitty Baby. Yes, she did just turn 10. I LOVE that she asked for a baby doll. I think it means that she is not growing up too fast. I know that the requests for gifts are going to change to older things all too soon. Anyway, she has another lovely American Girl doll, Elizabeth. However, she and Rachael are constantly playing house with babies. Morgan got her baby doll when she was 2, so she really wanted a new one. We figured that since she was older, we should get her a really nice one. Notice Kate's expression. When Morgan opened this doll, Kate squealed with delight and crawled across the room at full speed. Kate received a baby doll for Christmas, but not a doll like this one...Anyway, as soon as Morgan opened her doll, Kate had to hold it. She now wants nothing to do with her doll whenever this doll is around. Rachael has asked for a doll like this for her birthday. I think that Kate will need one too. Better yet, Rachael and Morgan need for Kate to have one so that they can play with their dolls... (If you had seen Kate's expression and delight with this doll, you would agree with me 100%, and would not think that I am spoiling her in the least. Honest.)

Tennessee and Flat Hailey

My brother recently moved to Tennessee, making him within a reasonable driving distance for a weekend visit. It is really great to have him live relatively close after having him live in Korea for 4 years. The girls adore their Uncle Clint, and love any chance we get to see him. Chris had a free weekend, so we decided to take a quick trip to go check out his new house. We had a wonderful visit.

A new angle that made our trip extra special was the addition of Flat Hailey. My niece Hailey is currently doing a Flat Stanley unit in her class at school. -If you are not familiar with Flat Stanley, you can learn about him here.- For a different spin on this story, Hailey's teacher had the students make flat themselves to send off in the mail. Flat Hailey arrived the morning of our trip, so we just took her along with us for an adventure in Tennessee. It really was a lot of fun coming up with different pictures to take with Flat Hailey. Even though it was just a piece of paper, it was sort of like having a bit of the actual Hailey with us on our trip. Thanks for visiting us Flat Hailey!

Road Trippin'! Kate did quite well in the car despite the 5 hour drive. It is amazing what a difference having two helpers in the back makes...Morgan and Rachael both took turns playing with Kate for me, freeing me up to visit with Chris. They were still able to relax and watch a movie too. Pretty much the best of both worlds...

Flat Hailey in front of the Tennessee welcome sign.

Rachael showing off her Magna-Doodle skills.

Kate rocking out on one of Uncle Clint's drum sets. I say one of because he has three set up in his basement. The girls all had fun playing with his drums. It was really sweet of him to let them play them.

Of course Flat Hailey had to have a turn on the drums as well...

Rachael drummin'. The picture is kind of blurry, but it is the only one that I have that shows the sheer size of this drum set. It is difficult to tell, but the set is made out of maple and is really quite beautiful.

Uncle Clint with Flat Hailey in front of a speed limit sign. Speed Limit 24 mph? What?!? Have you ever seen that before? We sure hadn't...

Morgan and Flat Hailey at the Grand Ole Opry House.

Couldn't resist the Flat Hailey sized guitar. How cool is that?

On our way home, we made a few historical stops in Kentucky. First, we stopped by the monument to Jefferson Davis. He was the president of the Confederate States during the Civil War. -This one we came upon by accident. We missed an exit and ended up on a state road in the middle of nowhere Kentucky. We noticed signs indicating an upcoming historical site in honor of Jefferson Davis. Neither of us recognized the name, so we didn't think much of it. The next thing we knew, we saw a rather large obelisk right in front of us. 351 ft. tall, right there in the middle of nowhere. Of course then we had to google this guy to find out who he was. (Oh, that Jefferson Davis...) It turns out he was born the same year as Abraham Lincoln, in the same state, just about 100 miles away. Go figure.

Flat Hailey needed her picture taken in front of this monument for sure. It is not every day you happen upon a 351 ft. obelisk in the middle of nowhere Kentucky.

Our last stop on the way home was at the Birthplace of Abraham Lincoln. This was actually really cool. We watched a 15 minute little video about the young Abe and checked out a replica cabin to the one he was born in. The monument is located on the spot where the original cabin once resided, and there are 56 steps leading up to the monument; one for each year of his life. It is a beautiful monument.

Rachael and Morgan at our last stop. They have learned about Abraham Lincoln in school, so this was a neat stop for them to make. Completely worth the time it added to our trip home.

Flat Hailey in front of the monument. Rachael and Morgan are in the background, having just climbed the 56 steps for the picture.

It's From the 90's!

Each night at dinner, we all take turns talking about what we did that day. Tonight as Morgan was telling us about her day at school, she said the following:

Morgan: "Guess what? Today, we watched this old cartoon movie about Paul Bunyon. My teacher said it was from when she was young...it's from the 90's!"

Nice. I am from the late 70's. What does that make me?

MLK Day + No School= Breakfast in Bed

Chris happened to be off on Martin Luther King day this year. How cool is that? After we put the girls to bed last night, they secretly stayed up late making these menus. They then surprised us this morning by coming into our room and presenting them to us. We placed our order, ended up having scrambled eggs with sausage, blueberries, and orange juice. It was a very sweet surprise. Thanks girls!

Sledding

We have lived in a place where it snows in the winter for almost 10 years, and have not purchased sleds. Can you believe that? Figuring it was time to remedy that situation, we ventured out and picked up some pretty cool sleds this weekend. Chris and the older girls had to go test them out on a pretty great hill not too far from our house. Here are some pictures from the excursion. *A few of the 'in motion' pictures are blurry, but the look on the girls' faces is too fun to not post.

Morgan heading down the hill.

Rachael heading down the hill.

Taking a break in the snow.

31 Trash Bags and 1 Step Ladder

Like most other 15-month-old babes, Kate is into everything. Our house is baby-proofed, so I let her get into anything on her level. Some of her favorite places to explore include the Tupperware drawer, the pots and pans drawer, the towel drawer, and the cupboard under the kitchen sink. Today, she was exploring under the kitchen sink and discovered that you can pull plastic bags out of a box under said sink. They just keep on comin' as this is a Costco sized box of 200 trash bags. The funny thing is that not 5 minutes before this picture was taken, I noticed where she was playing and thought, At least she's not taking out the trash bags...I wonder when that will happen. Final count of trash bags pulled out before I redirected her attention: 31.

This step ladder is currently Kate's favorite place to be. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and consequently, so does Kate. She will crawl over to where it is kept and try to pull it out. I set it up at her counter and she explores drawers, plays with magnets on the fridge, or plays with toys set on the counter. I have to admit that it is quite fun to have a little helper with me in the kitchen again.

Just Clownin' Around

Chris got off work early today! It is always such a bonus to have him at home when the sun is still up. Sad you may say, that this is such a rarity, but this is just the reality at the Runyan house right now. He is one busy man. (Thankfully, he will not always be this busy.) He and the girls celebrated by working on their balancing skills...

Morgan. She is touching the ceiling. When did she get so tall?

Rachael. Not touching the ceiling. Way to balance girl.

Kate. She is not quite ready to balance on her feet yet...

Where Have I Been?

So, I have been here, just not here. -On the blog that is.- Things got a little crazy with 3 family birthdays in October. From there is was the holidays. Add to that a husband who is a second year surgery resident and insanely busy. Three lovely daughters to raise and a house to run. I am not superwoman, and something had to give. So, give the blog did and that is that. Life is finally settling down enough for me to catch up. Here goes. My goal is to do a month at a time. So, in just a few days I will be all caught up...

*I am going to tweak the post dates on my update posts so that they will still be in chronological order. That way when I print the posts one day, they will be in order of occurrence.*