14th Wedding Anniversary

He's still my favorite person. :-)

First Day of Preschool 2014-2015

Palmer's 3rd Birthday: Pool Party

This year, we decided to have a little pool party for Palmer and all her friends. What good is it to have a birthday in August if you can't have a pool party?? :-) Palmer enjoyed bouncing around and playing in the wading pool with all her buds. We had a picnic lunch and cake in the park afterwards. She said that her favorite part was the rainbow cookie cake. :-)

Palmer's 3rd Birthday!

Although Palmer's real birthday isn't until tomorrow, we celebrated today with a family party. Our a/c is on the fritz so we decided to BBQ at the lake. It started out nice and cool thanks to an early-morning storm and just started really heating up when we were leaving. Perfect! 

Although she went back and forth for weeks, Palmer ultimately requested a rainbow cake. It was a labor of love as I ended up baking and frosting her 6-layer cake with the thermostat registering at 90 degrees inside our house yesterday (ac is broken). Hello, hotness! 

Grammy, Granpy, Aunt Mo, Great Grandma Pat, Grandma P and Grandpa P came to help celebrate our special girl. 

Daddy brought some water balloons and naturally...Link, Palmy and Mo thought that I was the best target! :-)

I asked Palmer what her favorite part of the day was. She said that it was blowing out her birthday candle. 

As I reflect on her first three years of life, I marvel as how much her personality has changed. She is a firecracker with a sweet spirit. She knows what she wants and isn't afraid to voice it. But she is also quite agreeable, flexible and laid back. The littlest things excite and make her happy.  She is independent, always wanting to pick out her outfits, put clothes on by herself and tell me how to do her hair (she prefers to have it braided every day!). :-)  She loves playing with her big sister...whether it's dress up, role-playing "mom and baby", or endless hours playing with their "little people". 

We love this little soul with all our hearts. Happy 3rd birthday, sweet Palmer!

Linkan First Solo-swing :-)

Linkan learned how to "pump" this week. She is so excited about this new skill! She is finding great joy in swinging around the clock. Oh, to be 4 years old again. :-) Love her. 

Eagle Banding

We joined Ben today for baby eagle banding at Clinton Lake. Ben climbed up 100 ft trees, sat in the nests (they are enormous!), put the babies in a bag one-by-one and lowered then down where the KDWP and Army corp folks took measurements and banded the birds. Then they placed them back in the bags and raised them back to Ben where he put them back into the nests. 

These particular babies were very close to the age where they will start flying. The male baby got very nervous when Ben got to the nest and jumped out! We watched him glide and then take his very first flight as he flapped his wings and flew into the trees. He wasn't totally ready to the fly and landed on the ground eventually. The other folks ran into the woods and were able to find him and bring him back to safety. Thankfully, the eagle didn't break any wings on his way down. 

Mike said that it had been about 20 years since he saw a baby jump out of the nest. We felt pretty lucky to be able to see this beautiful bird's first flight. 

Linkan and Palmer were totally fascinated with the eagles and asked lots of great questions that the KDWP guys enjoyed answering. They both got to pet both babies as they were banded. They got to choose the band color too! They thought they were pretty special!

Ben worked real hard a did a great job handling the birds. It was a really fun afternoon. :-)

South Park

We visited Daddy today, on the job. He was building raised beds and planting flowers at a local catholic grade school. South Park was right across the street and it was a perfect day. Truly, I pushed those two on the swings for a solid hour. They were in Heaven. My arms are dead. :-)