A Kentucky visitor

We had a visitor at the beginning of September. Gram flew in to celebrate Landry's 1st birthday and I'm the slacker that just now getting around to posting about it.

She came the perfect time for me. I was so so overwhelmed at the beginning of the year and needed an extra hand. Dinners were cooked several nights and she was nominated to be on my party planning committee. She was a lifesaver!

  Miss Landry loved all that attention and loving that she got from Gram. 

We took a moment to enjoy the birthday present that we got for Landry. Her very own swing on our play ground. I think we made a good choice.

 

I needed a weekend like this, just family and time to just play. Life has been so insanely busy lately. I soak up every moment that's like this because I want my life to have more moments just like these.

 It seems like since we bought the swing for the kids, our playground has gotten a new level of attention. Campbell has FINALLY learned to swing by himself since starting Pre-K. I thought I was going to see that boy belly swinging forever. So now it's a race to the swings after school every day.

Sister even took a ride down the slide for the first time. I think she'll be out there running around with her brothers in no time.

 This was my favorite picture of the day. I love Julie's face in this and my allergy-ridden Nolan having a sneeze attack mid picture. He's usually the one who's looking away because of his over-reactive allergies when I'm looking for a nice family pose.

Thank you Gram for all that you do. You have no idea how much a cooked dinner can do for an overworked and exhausted mommy like myself. We can't wait until your next visit!

Waiting and waiting

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, 
not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. 
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, 
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there. 

The children were nestled all snug in their beds, 
while parents and grandparents were waiting and waiting about to lose their heads

What's wrong with this picture? It's 8:45 a.m. and I wake up realizing it's Christmas morning. Our children however are still fast asleep. Finally with parents and grandparents being the impatient ones, we couldn't take it anymore and had to wake the boys up at 9:00 a.m. That's probably the last time that will ever happen.

 

Santa didn't disappoint. I just love that they're still in that stage where they want to play with their newest unwrapped toy before moving on to the next. I think we opened gifts for two hours but I'm glad it wasn't over in 10 seconds after all that work.

The train was a huge hit with Campbell. It's a pretty miraculous toy to keep his attention for more than 10 minutes.

Santa was so tired and had so many hiding spots all over the house that he almost forgot where he put Ninja Knockout...whew, that was close!

Best decision ever was having the kids open presents first and then the adults opened presents. We actually got to see what we got each other this year and the kids were as busy as could be playing with their toys.



I think Pop had the most fun with the toys...



Justin's parents and sister stayed with us for a few more days and we fit in lots of games (I highly recommend the game HedBanz), some scooter rides, movies and even a movie at the theater.



I'm now in my insane organization mode right now. I get this way after every Christmas. Let's just say the boys' school and the church nursery will get a big donation from the McDonalds!

Packing it in

Packing the memories, that is. Anyone else feel like you were non-stop with Christmas events? There was some serious jam packed memory making these past two weeks. Justin's parents and sister came in from Kentucky. Now that they're retired it was nice change of pace and have a Texas Christmas. It felt so weird not packing, traveling, and unpacking during the holiday season. Although I was sad to miss a white Kentucky Christmas, it really was wonderful having a Christmas at home.

Since we knew that Santa wanted sugar cookies, we put Gram on that project Christmas Eve. We don't want to disappoint the man in the red suit after all. I was still worn out from our last batch of cookies.



Campbell hasn't quite understood the concept of making one impression with the cookie cutters. He usually made it with about 8-10 cuts into the dough.

Nolan loved it...every.single.lick



Christmas Eve ain't Christmas Eve without the candlelight service at church. Put a candle in my hand, sing some Silent Night and you might as well call me a blubbering idiot.



And for the first time since our wedding over eight years ago, both of our parents had dinner at my parents' house after church. I'm talking homemade-enchiladas-beans-rice-and-tamales-lick-your-plate style. One of my proudest moments to be Hispanic is when my mom can rock one of her homemade meals. Feliz Navidad, baby!


My parents have maybe two square feet of wall space that isn't covered with Christmas decorations. In fact, one year my parents' tree had so many decorations on it that it fell over. As if that wasn't funny enough, my dad held the tree for three hours for my mom to come home to help him.

 So you can imagine that my children think that going to Grandma and Granddad's house is the same as going through the enchanted candy cane forest by the North Pole. My dad's a giant kid when it comes to Christmas and completely lives vicariously through the boys with his love for trains...Polar Express style.

Since everyone was all dressed up when we finally made it home, we had to get a family pic. This is what we got...lovely.

After some laughing (and threatening) we finally did a couple of decent shots.

 

We had the boys open their staple Christmas Eve present that's always jammies. At this point, we're creeping past 10:00 and realizing that Santa still has a lot to do to get ready for the next morning. So the next five minutes included throwing on jammies, slapping some cookies on a plate, and Justin chunking reindeer food in the yard as the boys watched. Not exactly as low key as our Christmas Eve last year since we were snowed in.

And this is just Christmas Eve people. Told ya it was jam packed.

906 miles

906 miles. That's what separates us from "Deep in the heart of Texas" from "My old Kentucky home."  My in-laws made the trek down for a visit for a little over a week from Bluegrass country. They're both officially retired!  And let me tell you, there are some definite perks to having retired grandparents.

1. My mother-in-law made us dinner more times than I can count. And I'm talking barely any leftovers kind of dinners.

2. Campbell spiked a fever at school while they were here and they picked him up for me from school and gave him a full dose of grandparent lovin' to help him heal quicker than he's ever healed before.

3. My father-in-law is equally magnetic to children as playgrounds are. It's in his aura. Good news for me after a long day of work to have a much-needed break, but exhausting news for him.



When grandparents are around, the backyard is officially a playground...more so than any other day. Rocks are suddenly amazing...

 
Birdfeeders are meticulously checked...

And even a little taste testing. What? Oh, like your kid hasn't eaten birdseed.



And there's nothing like a good ol' game of Ring around the Rosy.



4. Last but certainly not least, my mother-in-law not only cooked us dinner, she rolled out dozens of sugar cookies for me for Nolan's party. She really did do all the hard work.

But enough about how their stay affected ME, what it did for the boys was just solidify their relationship with them that even 906 miles can't sever. I wish that money, time and geography would allow us to see them more, but it really does confirm quality versus quantity is what truly matters to our boys.



What would I do without Gram and Pop? Well, I think Campbell's face says it all...I just don't know!


Thanks for such a wonderful trip Gram and Pop! We love you!

Kentucky summer

I'm so out of order with my posts from this summer. But it reminds me how ADD I can be. 

After our pit stop in St. Louis, we packed up and keep on truckin'…a total of 8 hours that day. With kids, stops are inevitable. I'm thankful that we haven't attempted to potty train Campbell yet because that diaper saved us a lot more stops.

Our next pit stop was to see Justin's grandmother, Rosie, in Louisville. The exit to her house was literally on the road we were already on so it's would have been just plain rude of us not to stop if we were that close. It was good timing because once again, the boys needed a car break. And just like every time, she had treats and snacks ready for those boys. Their love for her grew even more.

Rosie is amazing. She's about to celebrate her 90th birthday in November and has more energy than I do. We video conference with her and she's up on the blog. She and my grandmother are some the hippest techie grandmothers I know!

Campbell played us a little diddy on the piano and then we headed out to our final stop…Lexington.


Justin and I had our anniversary night. We went and saw a movie and checked in to a historic hotel in downtown Lexington. We walked around downtown and had a delicious dinner. I mean a lick-my-plate-like-a-dog dinner but it was upscale so I refrained, but it took everything in me to do that.


Later when I was trying to fall sleep, I kept hearing a door slam over and over again. Then Justin casually mentions how the place is haunted. Awww, the romance.

Next, we had some catching up to do with the family. After what felt like 40 days and 40 nights of rain, we knew our boys had enough of being inside. So we parked our ark right by a park and let them run like crazy.


There was frisbee throwing, swinging, climbing, sliding, and see-sawin' to catch up on.

We even had time for adult conversation!

We weren't there but an hour, but I loved that time. Letting the boys be boys and be loud and rowdy, being with family and being outside without too much sweat. It really is the small things that we remember most.