"punkin catch"

monday night we hit up the pumpkin patch. there are lots of things i should probably blog from july to october, but i'm on a roll so we'll go with this for now. violet kept calling it the "punkin catch." i was surprised how into it she was. we've gone to this one 3 years in a row. what a difference a year makes!

2009

2010

2011

4th of july beach week

wow, i am a loser. 3 months later i am finally posting about our week at the beach! 

adam got tickets to the coke zero 400 which is apparently one of the big races at the track in daytona beach (we were staying in new smyrna, a short drive away). so he, garrett and cameron soaked in a day/night at the track. i'm sure he'll be disappointed i'm only posting one picture but that's ok. they said it was pretty cool and definitely interesting! :)

both my kids had a mini sick day during the week. nothing a little tylenol couldn't cure, thankfully. 

cuzzies mckinley & violet 

olivia's little sicky day happened to be ON the 4th. she was NOT happy about coming down to the beach to take an obligatory, festive picture, but of course i'm a mean mom and tried to make her. looks like the pic turned out awesome, right?! 

ok, i'll let the rest of the pictures speak for themselves.. we had a great time! 

 (so funny that i caught this one.. literally soaking up the sun!)

 love O running to the water in the back ground

 violet's first ice cream cone. she was in heaven, to say the least.

 yes, my then almost 3 year old with a binky. ughhhh

the end.

olivia turned 3!

yep, it wasn't blogged about (until now), but olivia did in fact turn 3 on july 15th. with all the mckinnon cousins in town, we decided to just do a family only party. both of our local families plus the out of towners made for more than enough people... close to 30 i think? we went with a pink flamingo theme and had pizza, pasta, fruit & veggies and a flurry of too many desserts that we all binged on for days and days after the party. apparently my party planning weakness is totally overestimating how much people are going to eat. oops.anyway, here are some (mostly blurry) pics!

 on her actual birthday (we did the party the next day), we were still at the beach so we did some pancakes (her fav) and sang happy birthday.

 chowing down!

blurry iphone pic 

oh look, another blurry iphone pic

 the invitation

 cousin mckinley at the drink station

i ordered that little palm tree cooler from oriental trading... i couldn't resist

i'll let the pics speak for themselves.. including all the ones with violet holding 2 pieces of pizza. the girl loves to eat. olivia, not so much. auntie ashley was nice enough to make some tasty ginger snap cookies to add to the dessert spread because i knew olivia would not be eating her birthday cupcake. she is not a dessert person (wish i could say the same!) but she does love ginger snaps. random, i know!