The Mannifesto

A girl only turns 4 once. However, if you're our girl, you may think it's your birthday all month long. When we were in line at the airport to get on our plane, Makenna says, "I'm turning 4 today!" to everyone she ran into. You wouldn't blame her, though, if you knew all that she did to celebrate her birthday since we left for vacation on her actual birthday, August 3rd.

First, we woke up early to catch our flight, but not before we made Minnie Mouse pancakes for her birthday breakfast. That was the extent of her birthday day.

Second, while in Logan visiting Great-Grandpa and Grandma Mann, she was presented this gorgeous cake, which won her over immediately.
(Can I be honest? The Aerial figurine had a bigger, ah-hem, chest than I remember. Totally anatomically inappropriate, I must say.)

Third, when we got to Grandma Karen's house, our girl had yet another birthday party with her cousins. Totally spoiled by her aunts and uncles! We're now going on day 4 of "It's my birfday today! I'm turning 4!"

Fourth, we've made our way down to Arizona to be with her 2 uncles and Grandma Donna and Grandpa Mike. Grandma, in her infinite wisdom of what tickles my girl's fancy, took her to Build-A-Bear. Upon entering the store, she declares to our helper, "It's my birfday today and I'm 4 years old!" I just smile and nod.

Lastly, we arrive at Saturday, her ACTUAL birthday party. And oh, let me tell you, she felt like a princess indeed. I could not resist when she asked me to have a princess party over 6 months ago. (What can I say? I'm a sucker for anything and everything pink and glittery.)

We started with our invitations that I must admit, turned out pretty darn cute.

Then with both feet and hands full of frosting, I dove into the task of making her requested and much-anticipated Princess Castle Cake. I think this was as much for me as it was for her. I knew when I got roped into taking the Cake Decorating class at Michael's before she was born, I would learn some mad cake skills and then put them to use for countless birthdays to come. And voila!

Next, we invited her closest little friends and strongly urged their arrival in royal attire. Check out little Gavin's knight costume. Way too cute.

And lastly, I had some princess games up my sleeve that our royalty really got into (who knew 4-year-olds could be so competitive? I guess with a stash of dollar-bin prizes up for grabs, you would be too.).

Crown decorating:

Pass the Poison Apple:

Pin the Crown in the Castle:

Then it was pizza, presents and princess cake to end the royal extravaganza. So much fun for her. So much fun for me.

Love our little girl. She's getting ready to start her 2nd year of preschool in a few weeks. I took her for her 4-year check-up. She's still in the 96th percentile for height, the 68th percentile for weight. They tested her vision this time. Though I was waiting for them to tell me she needed glasses (both Drew and I wear contacts, and I'm legally blind), she actually has 20/20 vision! Incredible. I told her to enjoy it while it lasts.
She's such a great big sister to Addison. A fantastic helper around the house, (when she wants to be). She picks up the funniest things that constantly keep us in stitches. I adore her and wish I could keep her this kissable forever. Happy Birthday Month Makenna!!!

If you get through this entire post, you are a better friend than you thought. Just forewarning you...

The thought of documenting our family vacation up to New England for 10 days is so daunting, I hardly know where to start. Of the 754 pictures I took and uploaded when we got home, I painstakingly narrowed them down to just 382. Impressive, right? But I will be kind and not post all 382 on this blog (although I love each and every one of them); it may be something more like 210.

The Birds (my dad's side of the family) had a big family reunion up in Boston last weekend. For the past year and a half, my parents and I had been planning to rendezvous up there for 4th of July weekend and then stay through the week before the festivities began. We had such a blast riding around in our minivan (we conquered 9 states in as many days), feasting on delicious food every day, getting our fill of boats/hotels, and just spending tons of QT together.

And so the photo diary begins...

Day 1: Driving and Danbury, CT
Thanks to our EZPass (why has it taken us so long to partake in the goodness of this lil' machine? 6 yrs. on the East Coast and we've foregone this luxury until now- what were we thinking?) and virtually NO traffic on the way up, we made it from D.C. to Danbury, CT in 5 hours flat, which is incredible. We visited with my aunt and uncle and my fun cousins all day, relaxing at their house to our hearts' content (the calm before the storm). Sadly, not many pictures, other than Addison being obsessed with their kitties.

Day 2: New York City
The only day it POURED on our whole vacation. Instead of taking on the impossible (or rather the miserable) we decided to head to Manhattan and stay indoors, doing the Children's Museum, which was very cool. Addison and Makenna had a blast exploring all 5 floors of entertainment.

Makenna realizing her life-long dream of being a bus driver. We could not pull her away from this.

Cafe Lalo in You've Got Mail (you know, the one where Meg Ryan gets stood up by Tom Hanks but waits with a red rose inside her book?). This was pure excited for no one but my mom and me.

Lunch was at the incredible Lombardi's Pizza, the 1st pizzeria in America. The 45 minute wait was totally worth the thin-crust, mozzarella, kalamata olive, fresh tomato masterpiece.

Day 3: Boston (4th of July)
We drove into the city that morning just in time to see the USS Constitution (Old Ironsides) sail out to see, the one time it goes out each year. We literally just missed the launch by 15 minutes, so we had to kill 2 hours before it came back and we could get our photo ops. Toured a pretty cool destroyer, the Naval museum, then finally saw the ship return. I think I should mention it was close to 100 degrees and humid that day, but our girls were amazing troopers (a few gulps of icy cold Diet Coke may have played for our team that day).

Lunch in Little Italy at Gennaro's (the MOST amazing Italian food eva), then onto Mike's Pastry for some cannoli.

You'd think we'd call it a day so our exhausted girls could lay down and rest, right? Rest, however, was not the name of the game on this trip and we trucked on. After checking into our hotel (a block away from Longfellow Bridge- incredible!) and gathering up all our ~~crap~~ necessities, we headed over to the bridge to stake out our spot for the evening. All I can say is: 7 hours waiting with two kids, 3 and under, on a bridge, with a million people around us and the beer flowing freely...WAS WORTH IT. The Boston Pops playing in the Hatch broadcast over the load speakers, the boats on the water, 1812 Overture blaring with the canons going off and the fireworks accompanying the music was nothing short of INCREDIBLE, and not just kind of incredible, but "take-your-breath-away" incredible.

Day 4: Maine (Kennebunkport and Portland)
There were a few highlights of this day. One lowlight, a much-anticipated lobster roll in Kennebunkport that I need not reminisce about.
Highlight #1: Two Lights State Park, featuring two beautiful light houses, tide pools galore, and enough windy, salty air for your heart's desire.

Highlight #2: Actually spotting Mr. George Bush and the Lovely Laura at their summer place in Kennebunkport. No, really. We drove up to this adorable little town because we've visited it before and loved it. After forcing down the aforementioned lobster rolls, we wanted to scout out the Bush's palatial place. After taking a couple of shots and then being forced to turn the car around, we spotted an intimidatingly black secret service boat following a speed boat with a bunch of people. I raced up with the telephoto lens and spotted a nice-looking lady with short brown hair, sunglasses, and a mint green jacket. See for yourself...

Later in Kennebunkport:

The next morning we sailed Portland Bay on a beautiful Lighthouse Cruise. The weather was perfect; the lighthouses were gorgeous; and our Lil' Miss got to drive the boat. It doesn't get any better than that.

Cap'n Makenna

Day 5: Gloucester/Rockport

First of all, how cute is this little guy and his sailboat? He couldn't have been more than 7, but he and his two buddies all had their own boats and were ripping up the harbor like nobody's business.

Love this girl. I could not have asked for a better little girl. We dragged them both from here to kingdom come and they just grinned and bore it (for the most part).

This is the adorable town or Rockport, MA. It's actually where they filmed a bunch of scenes on The Proposal with Sandra Bullock. I think after spending an afternoon here, I would not so much as blink if asked to pick up and move my family here.

And this, my friends, is our make-shift double stroller. We truly had no room in the trunk to bring our double jogger and we assumed Makenna would walk everywhere, but there were some times where even she was too tuckered out to go another step. And in those instances, we improvised and these girls loved it.

This is Gloucester (this is the town from Perfect Storm, with the infamous fisherman memorial for all those that have died at sea from here)

I also had to include this picture, because he was too hilarious not to. When we got to the fisherman memorial, we spotted a strange man standing on a rock, stock-still in meditation, in the middle of the bay...no joke. Not 15 min. later, he came strolling along the sidewalk, cool as a cucumber. Had to get a shot of him.

Day 6: Salem/Marblehead
This is in Salem at a judge's house where they held some of the witch trials- pretty cool. Other than the volunteer worker at the museum who after every question we asked, shrugged her shoulders and said, "I don't know, could be," or "Maybe it was." Super helpful she was.

Day 7-9: Boston Reunion w/ the Birds
And now to the whole reason we came on the trip: the reunion. Every two years the Birds get together and party. Being on the East Coast, it's been hard for us to join up with them, but we had no excuses since this year it was in Boston at my aunt and uncle's house and we were so excited to go! Except for the tiny part where on the first day I got deathly ill (no exaggeration) and went on a two-hour trolley ride all throughout Boston anyway with no bathroom stops along the way- eek. Other than that, it was super fun.
They moved into a beautiful house on a lake with their own dock, which was so fun! Paddle boat was a hit with out little family.