girls road trip to LA

now, that's a girls road trip to Louisiana (LA) ... not the other LA!

Kendall & I drove to McKinney to meet up with Naomi & her 2 girls, Avery & Abby so that all of us girls could ride together to Shreveport, LA to visit Lauren & her fam for a few days.  This will be our last little get-together with school starting up very soooooon, for all of us!

on our way ... Abby and Avery

Avery gave up her seat so Kendall could sit near the front ...
Kendall still rides rear-facing so she was happily
entertained by Avery & Abby anytime we drove around! 

riding in style ... these girls enjoyed several movies
during the drive to & from LA

ready for a nap ... thumb in mouth & "Bear" in her arm!
this girl LOVES her "Bear"!

We got to spend Monday evening - Thursday morning at Lauren's and everyone had a great time ... the 4 oldest girls played soooo well together, Kendall loved walking around & playing with new toys & getting attention from the older girls, and Cole tried to play as the only boy, totally outnumbered by 5 girls (plus 3 Mommys)!  I did a terrible job of remembering to take pictures during our time together ... I didn't get 1 picture of us 3 (uhhh!), but Naomi got a few of the girls, so here they are ...

Girls just wanna have fun ... and that is definitely true
about these 4 girls!  Abby, Emie, Avery & Bree ...
they had a great time playing the entire time we were there!

Avery & Abby   and   Emie & Bree

We enjoyed spending time at a couple of their church's children's ministry events (that Lauren was in charge of) ... one afternoon, we left all 6 kids with a babysitter so Naomi, Lauren & I could enjoy a nice lunch out & an afternoon movie ... and one afternoon we went swimming at a neighbor's house.

Kendall "tubing" ... I forgot to bring her pool floatie,
so we had to get creative ... ha!

an afternoon in the pool & a break from the
hot LA weather ... Abby, me & Kendall 

We had a fun few days spending quality girl time together and a little get-away for Kendall & I ... although we both desperately missed Daddy & were very excited to get home to see him!  This was the 1st time we've been away overnight for this many days! 

Kendall did very well on our trip ... and we worked really hard on increasing her food intake, as she'll be dropping formula & bottles next week ... and then we had an awesome sign language breakthrough while we were there ... Kendall started signing for "more" ... she does it really for "more food" or just for like "I want food", instead of just "more" of whatever, but I really don't care at this point ... I'm just soooo excited she's got it ... and that she can tell me when she wants to eat or eat more!  We've been working on this for a while now (and I have to admit, I started trying to teach her "more" and "all done" (or "all done done" as we say in the Rogers fam, thanks to our 1st niece Hannah) very late & I really haven't been very consistent in working on it with her, until very recently), so I'm thrilled that she's understanding it & showing me, in her own cute Kendall-adapted way ... I LOVE to see new developments in her!


I also wanted to wish a gigantic HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY to my sister, E!  Soooooo wish we could have all been together to celebrate this big 3-0 with you!  Sooooooo excited you are coming to visit us in a couple of weeks for some sister fun!  Kendall also wishes her Auntie E a VERY happy birthday!  We Love you, E!