AZ Girls Week

We spent last week in Arizona at my aunt's house having our 2nd annual desert girls week. Just like last year, we had so much fun.

My niece, Ryan, was a great playmate for my girls. The 3 of them ran circles through Pam's house playing tag and pretending to be puppies. It hurts my heart that they only get to play once or twice a year, but they sure do make the most of their time together. It was wild and hilarious watching the 3 little girls play nonstop every day.

Beatrice learned how to swim in Pam's pool! She is always so confident in the water and has never shied away from jumping in, so it was time to take the floaties off and teach her how to swim properly. By the end of the week, she was swimming strong and never put the floaties back on.

Our week was pretty chill. We swam and shopped and cooked and ate. Most days started slowly with coffee and bagels before we eased our way into the pool until nap time. The little girls rested while the big girls tanned, shopped, and caught up on our reading. No one bathed until dinner time and we wore makeup maybe 2 times all week. It felt like a vacation.

It was hard to say goodbye. My girls cried the first 30 minutes into our drive home. We love this tradition and hope to continue it for a long time (and add to our girls - Jenni, Erin, get yo-selves to the desert next year!).

Pool Days

Our neighborhood pool opened last weekend and I think we've been swimming everyday this week! The girls are little fish, they love to swim and are brave to jump off the side of the pool into the coolest belly flops ever seen. It's going to be a great summer with these two!

Full Heart

Hey hey hello! We just returned from a 2 week visit with our family in Tennessee. There are only a few reasons I will get on an airplane and new babies are at the top of the list.

That's Rosie, my little brother and sister in law's new baby girl. She's pretty much the most perfect baby ever to be born in a living room. Jenni had her at home on a Monday night. We flew in early on Tuesday and went straight to their house to smooch on our littlest family member. She's tiny and sweet. I love her.

Our visit was different from past trips because we split our time between my older brother's house, JD's parents, and my mom's house. It was great, although a bit of an emotional roller coaster when it was time to leave one house to go to the next. It felt like we had to say goodbye just when we got settled, but then the excitement of being welcomed somewhere new snuffed out the sadness. It was fun! And sad. Like I said, emotional roller coaster!

2 weeks was the perfect length of time to be away. We were busy every day visiting family, old friends, and former employers. JD mentioned after one long day visiting 3 different homes that this wasn't his idea of a relaxing vacation. I told him we can relax at home, we came to see everyone and if we don't triple up some days, we'd never get to everybody!

It was his first time back to Tennessee since we moved 2.5 years ago. He enjoyed seeing our old stomping ground, but we both agreed it no longer felt like home. As much as we hate being so far away from our loved ones, we really love Southern California and were excited to get back.

I'm thankful to have the time with our family the last 2 weeks. My kids loved playing with their older cousins and mothering their younger ones. We didn't get to see everyone as much as we hoped to, but that happens when you have a huge family and lots of friends. Plans are being made for lots of visitors coming our way this year. Until then, I have a heart full of memories and love to carry me until we see them all again.

Party People

We had a New Year's Eve party last night. It was a raucous good time. There were balloons, noise makers, bubbly drinks, party hats, games, and music. Oh, and did I mention 183 rounds of hide and seek? We partied hard until the ball dropped on Eastern time (don't tell the girls it wasn't midnight here in California).

We told the girls they could stay up late for a party if they were very obedient all week. They were good listeners so the party was on after nap time yesterday.  They were so excited. I didn't have much in mind in terms of a party, but they loved every thing we planned. I cut little strips of paper with different activities printed on them and taped them to balloons. Every 30 minutes or so, we would pluck a balloon off the wall and do the activity. The girls loved it, we all did. We went outside to count stars, we played games, we ate cookies, we had a dance party, we were busy! The ball dropped around 9 Pacific time, we toasted sparkling cider, threw confetti, and had the girls in bed by 10.

What a night! Happy New Year!

185 Days

If you have noticed the absence of someone on the blog lately, you are probably wondering what in the world is going on. Where is JD?! Since mid-May, he has been working in Saudi Arabia. For 185 days, the girls and I have missed our daddy, our boy. Last night he returned home to us.

A lot of people asked me how I managed being a single mama to 2 little ones for 6 months while JD was away. I never quite knew how to respond. There were a lot of hard moments, lots of times I struggled and outright sucked at everything I was doing, but I found a way to do what needed to be done. There's no choice to do anything else but handle everything by yourself when little kids are involved. You can't really lay down and give up when 2 little girls are like, "hey mom, we're hungry and we want to go to the park. Stop being weird and take care of us."

In hindsight, I suppose I managed everything with the help of friends that knew when I needed them, family support (even if it was from 2500 miles away), and lots of prayer. Thankfully, there weren't too many bad days in a row. There were always a few really great days that followed the terrible ones. And when all else failed, we operated in survivor mode. Dinner picnics at the park trumped dining table meltdowns, princess dresses to the grocery store seemed like a reasonable compromise in the midst of clothing battles with a 2 and 4 year old, and iPads in bed totally counted as a nap on those days when the girls refused to nap but I needed a break.

Some things didn't change at all with JD's absence. We never missed church, we utilized the same bedtime routine, and did chores as usual. It was important to everyone that things were basically the same around our home while JD was gone. The things that were different were both blessings and curses though. Knowing that I didn't have to cook every night or keep our living spaces as clean as JD likes them was liberating and depressing to me. On the days that I ignored laundry and left stickers on the walls, I cleaned everything like a crazy person the next day. I never realized how much my domestic duties made me feel like a wife until I wasn't required to do them for a time. I felt married and unmarried at the same time. Every day around 4 o'clock I would get so sad knowing that it really didn't matter what I served for dinner. The girls were just as happy with scrambled eggs as they would be if I served them chicken piccata. I missed my food-loving man.

The girls did pretty well without their daddy. I don't mean to be insensitive when I say that, but they are little and honestly probably won't remember the past 6 months without him. Not much about their daily routine changed while he was gone. We Skyped and FaceTimed with him everyday so they got to "see" him and we talked about him constantly. They did great, but obviously life is better with a daddy. They were so excited to bring him home with us last night.

I was really nervous about re-acclimating to each other again. He's been a bachelor for the last 6 months and I've been a single mom. So many things about our routine had changed and were about to change again as we worked ourselves back into family life. None of that mattered when I saw him last night though. My scruffy, jet-lagged man looked so good to me walking off that airplane, all I wanted to do was smooch his face off. All of that other stuff will work itself out in time.

JD had a great welcoming at the airport. Along with us, his office people were there with signs and balloons and hugs. The folks waiting to board the plane at the gate where JD deplaned applauded as we reunited with our daddy. It was emotional, my heart was bursting with love for my guy.

He's home now and we're not letting him go anywhere for a long time!