Lucky for you that's what I like

Let's get some blog posts typed up, baby!

Life has been just so darn good lately and whenever there is a lot of great stuff happening, I've noticed that I put off writing it all down in words. So here we go. This was April...

My kids have been picking and gifting me flowers from our yard. It's very sweet and I loving seeing them in the house...And there's also a part of me that sort of wishes they would leave them on the plants so they could last longer.

Not bad, eh?

Happy Easter! The great thing about delaying my blog posts is that I can no longer remember anything that wasn't captured in a picture. So I have no idea what we did besides decorate eggs and have an egg hunt in our backyard. But in all honesty, that probably is all we did. I don't even think I made a big dinner this year.

So this happened one day. I looked across the room from where I was making dinner and was treated to this view.

Every trip to the store in March and April became "let's practice keeping our masks on so we'll be ready for the airplane." I shouldn't have worried, they were pros.

Michael pulled a romaine heart out of the fridge and asked if he could eat it for a snack..."sure, bud, I guess so." and he ate the whole thing.

Found this on the counter from Adaline and I had two immediate thoughts. 1. Aw, how sweet. 2. She wrote something down by choice!

At the end of 2020, my 89 year old grandma who is still completely independent and lives a very busy, full life found herself in a hospital which shocked and scared the crap out of me. She's the kind of person who you just know is going to live forever. The last time I'd gotten to really spend time with her, Adaline was a baby and I was pregnant with Matthew (almost 7 years ago!) She had never even met my younger two kids. After crying a lot and panicking, I eventually booked a trip to visit her during Matthew's spring break-once I thought she'd be recovered enough to host us and crossing my fingers that restrictions would be starting to relax/some of us would be vaccinated. Even though I have a lot of family in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, we originally figured we would only visit grandma Peggy because we didn't want to risk picking up germs and spreading them around by going back and forth to visit different people. Thankfully, by the time we went to Texas, she had long been fully vaccinated along with myself, Andrew (only halfway) and a number of my other family members. So we were able to spend half the week at Granny Peggy's and then the rest of the time visiting aunt Martha's family, my mom's parents, and even my sister and her family. It was such a good trip-the first time we had left home as a family in a significant way in over a year.

The last time I remember taking the kids on a plane was Spring of 2019 when I flew by myself with all four of them and Alex wasn't quite one. This was so. much. easier! The kids each carried their own backpacks, helped pull suitcases, and mostly walked on their own two feet. It was a major step up from the last time!

Idk why he looks so serious? Maybe the 3:30am wakeup call got to him.

I was going to say we survived the 3.5 hour flight, but really the kids did better than that, they thrived! Even after taking them from their beds in the middle of the night, they did such a good job entertaining themselves with coloring, games, snacks, and the excitement of being on an airplane. The next phase of the journey- two hours in the car- was less exciting, but we made it through that as well and finally showed up on Gma Peggy's doorstep just as she was taking a cheesecake out of the oven. My kids were suuuper shy and nervous because none of them remembered meeting her which broke my heart but also made me so happy we were there. Gma had gotten some dress up clothes for the kids to play in (made me so happy 'cause that's exactly what we played with at her house when I was a kid) and between those and being able to run around outside, they were pretty much set. The day after we got there, we had my sister come down, and we had a tiny early birthday party for Adaline. I had previously told her she would get to celebrate her birthday there, so when plans changed we still needed to have a party.

I think I spotted Adaline in at least 4 different outfits throughout the day.

The master cake decorator does it again

Trying out the new skates she had been begging for

Sisters and our little girls

Where are all the pictures of Granny Peggy, you ask? I have no idea!! My best guess is that I took them all on her phone because I know I took some!

The rest of our time there was spent watching golfers from the porch, grocery shopping, cooking, playing games, talking, laughing-so much laughing, catching up, and watching the kids explore. It was magical. I loved seeing my kids warm up to my grandma and explore a house where I played as a kid. In fact, I realized that since my parents moved around a lot, this is the only place they've played where I remember also playing as a kid. They loved riding around in the golf cart, befriending the neighborhood cats, and even getting in trouble for playing in the sand traps (hey, they just thought it was a sand box). The weather was somehow perfect. I remember Texas being hot and humid from the years I lived there and many times visiting, but it sure fooled me. Gorgeous days in the 70s, lovely nights, a couple thunderstorms (oh how I miss thunderstorms and even just rain) and just enough humidity to keep your skin hydrated. It almost tricked me into wanting to move back.

We spent a morning playing at the park and tossing rocks into the river.

I sure miss the bluebonnets

Golf cart adventures

they really utilized the dress ups

Before our trip, Gma and I were planning out a little bit of what we wanted to do, and she had the fabulous idea to have a scavenger hunt for the kids. She bought some silly prizes and I came up with some clues. My kids just ate it up; they love a good puzzle and trail of clues.

They spent the whole time trying to catch this lizard and eventually Michael did.

He's perfection

But seriously. I can't handle it

We found birds' nest in the tree right outside her front door, and the kids insisted we stop using that door so that we wouldn't keep scaring the mama away.

Oh yeah, along with the lizard, they caught about 30 caterpillars

She finally sat still long enough for me to sneak a picture of her. <3

I love this picture because it reminds me of how many random little moments of laughter we had. When I talk to grandma, she makes me feel like I am the most hilarious person in the world

Granny Peggy has her routine of working on the crossword and reading the comics, so Matthew got right in on the action and worked on the puzzles too. He does an impressive job with sudoku.

another day, another collection of caterpillars

Adaline happened upon a basket of clothespins and ended up making a town out of them. I listened in while she explained the whole thing to G'ma and loved all her thoughtfulness and creativity.

not such strangers anymore

Alex got to open a birthday gift early too

And then slept in the cutest position and with all his stuffed friends.

Playing Rummikub and laughing every night.

Goodbyes are the absolute worst.

But also incredibly sweet to see how much the relationship grew

The only thing that got us through having to leave G'ma Peggy's house was knowing that we were headed off to see more family. We got to spend the next couple nights at aunt Martha's, and my grandma Nichols was sweet enough to drive over so we could visit with her for a couple days too! We got a ton of rain so the kids played in the puddles, build forts, explored all of my cousin's toys, and read through as many of their books as they could. For Adaline's birthday, she picked going bowling and the we got to meet up with my grandpa for pizza. He was exhausted thanks to his work schedule, but made the time to come see us and play with my hyper kiddos in the restaurant. It was awesome to get to be together with so much family that I rarely get to see in such a short timeframe.

She has the patience of an angel. I can't make it through this game with my kids.

the master fort builder

When you say you don't need a nap, but then this happens

First cousins once removed and yet they're so close in age

Love y'all! I'm so glad you came down!

Happy birthday to the 8 year old!

I seriously love watching my kids become friends with people that I love

Thanks so much for hosting us on what was already a crazy, busy weekend for y'all. We loved getting to visit!

The final stop was heading back to Dallas to hang out with my sister's fam before catching our flight. We spent all of our time exploring the Dallas Arboretum and we easily could have spent even longer there. Beautiful gardens, engaging kid areas, and the best company.

My sweet niece kept doing this adorable thing where she'd stick her tongue out if she was feeling a little shy and trying to to smile. It had me cracking up

Playing in the treehouse nets

Seeing just how fun math can be

I was proud of their teamwork and planning on this one. they used a grid and magnets to map out a garden and build the life-size version of it by following their blueprints. And they all worked together to do it!

The loved this maze-anything mysterious or puzzling is their jam right now

You can't see it very well, but within the maze she found a little fairy garden

not our best family pic, but the background is beautiful

how funny/weird will it be to look back on all these masked pictures one day?

And just like that it was back to the airport. I think our kids were on the verge of losing it just before we boarded, but I got lucky and managed to save the day with some chick-fil-a nuggets just in the nick of time. Even though it was getting super late (I think our flight landed at what felt like 11pm to us) my kids impressed me again with their helpfulness and general good natures on the flight. The only hiccup was when Michael fell asleep and so I used the baby carrier to put him on my back while we got our checked bags, etc. While we were waiting for the shuttle to take us back to our car, I felt him start to wiggle like he was trying to wake up, but he was sleeping deeply and settled back down. I told Andrew I thought Michael needed to pee, but he was asleep and we were boarding the shuttle, what could we really do about it? Well...two minutes into our shuttle ride he peed all over my back. So warm. I guess the upside was that this was the end of our trip and we had all our luggage and therefore plenty of clothes with us. We both got to strip down and change in the middle of the night in the parking lot. Sorry to whoever monitors the security cameras-or maybe you're welcome?