TEXAS : megamom, reunions, and nice weather for days

 

YEAH IT IS!

many months ago my sister asked if i would be interested in coming to watch her kids for a week while they went on a cruise for their 20th anniversary. after talking my boss into letting me work from home that week and deciding that this would not only be a great way to see my babes but also my dear friends ashlie and leandra (who happen to also live near dallas) i said yes! yes i will! 

fast forward to january 19th and all of the sudden i was on a plane to texas. 

(but let me interject to say that on the night of going to texas eve we made breakfast for dinner which i normally hate but surprisingly loved and john got flowers from his lasik eye doctor which was happy yet confusing/uncomfortable) 

annnd we're back. 

saturday was spent catching up with my sister, getting last minute pretend mom stuff at walmart, eating chinese food, following the sollis sister tradition of having frozen yogurt together, and lots of chat till late in the night time since i'm really good at talking my sisters ears off, or anyone's for that matter.

(red hots!!!!)

 

anniversary lovers left bright and early sunday morning so by the time we got up they had left and we were all alone.

thinking about this moment stressed me out on saturday but i felt fine about it when it actually happened. i'm not sure if this picture really shows how foggy it was but we could hardly see anything.
 here i was driving a 12-passenger van with all these little kiddies to church without really knowing where we were going or able to see where we were. it was an adventure.

luckily we got to church (early even!). i didn't love watching the baby engaged couple in front of me love on each other the entire time but i did, however, enjoy the kids telling me what they enjoyed most at church during our ride back home. it was a really nice day outside so after eating lunch and taking naps the girls walked and the boys rode their bikes for a stroll around the neighborhood. we also adventured to a little stream which was a fun time. 

if i foresaw us walking on a dirt path i probably wouldn't have let him wear his slippers..

are they not so cute? 

the younger ones and i went around the block another time or two while the older girls started dinner (they were super helpful and made this whole pretend mom thing a breeze). we ate, facetimed with mama jan and papa tom, played some games, read scriptures together, prayed, and went to bed. i'm not used to such a family filled sunday and was completely content spending my afternoon and night with them and felt happy we still had a whole week together!

thanks to mlk ashlie didn't have school on monday so her and pearson came for a visit! it was delightful to see her (after not seeing her for probably a year and a half!) and meet baby p. it was so nice to catch up with that ashlie friend of mine!

every night looked a little like this with madi dutifully reading us the scriptures from her kindle and the boys being good for about two seconds and then turning crazy. 

and then the "now take a picture of us doing this!" game happened..

and then haylee made everyone their own bowl of popcorn because apparently this family really loves that stuff

and then in between all the regular day-to-day stuff i just got to spend nice moments with the babes.  and when i say babes i mostly mean sam since we had a lot of time alone together with the others being at school all day. that little guy is so funny and stubborn, i love him. 

and perhaps one day after seeing sam off to his speech school i decided to lay on the sidewalk and bask in the dreamy texas weather because wtf it was 81 degrees that day!!

 and maybe i only made sam get dressed for the two days he went to speech school and let him be in pj's all the other days. 

by thursday i was looking like a full blown (stereotypical but probably not true) stay-at-home mom, robe and all. perhaps it was the climate change but i got sick pretty quickly and didn't feel too awesome so i blame that. and sorry everyone that sam doesn't have a car seat - we were just going down the road to drop madi off at her piano lesson and i just need you to not judge me right now. 

also, please don't judge the fact that friday i stayed in my pajamas all afternoon and had to stop working so i could watch a boy meets world marathon. i was still sick okay! 

i took sam to the park everyday until thursday and then it stopped because he went crazy and wouldn't ride his bike home and i had to carry him then force him on the bike and put his feet up so i could push him and they wouldn't drag. ugh. it tires me out just thinking about it so needless to say (because i already said it) that was the last day we went to the park and hopefully the last day i let him out of the house without wiping his face off too. 

and look who it is! leandra call who is my best uvu 06 - 07 institute council friend. catching up with her was a delight and we might have eaten 14 totinos pizzas and let our kids (my two fakes and her one real) run wild in the kitchen while we enjoyed each others company. 

..aaand this week/moment gave me a glimpse into how i'm probably going to be that mom, which i'm completely fine with.

saturday we successfully navigated ourselves to the chinese buffet restaurant that none of us actually knew the location of (because if we did i probably wouldn't have gone because it was woops! thirty minutes away) that everyone loves. the highlight was teaching the girls how to eat their ice cream with chopsticks and having a very serious discussion about baby names with the older gals. 

after lunch we decided to get real crazy and go to the $2 movie theater in denton (which happened to be another thirty-forty minutes away haha) to celebrate ben's birthday (that was actually thursday but who wants to celebrate their birthday on a school day? so we changed it to saturday instead). the older girls wanted to see some show that i can never remember the name of and i knew the little guys would hate it so we parted ways and went into our separate theaters. 

we had about 20 minutes to kill before the girls got out of their movie so i was feeling a little stressed about how to spend those twenty minutes until we realized someone had put money into the race car game and didn't use it! so the three youngest took turns racing probably 7 or 8 games worth and then as soon as the money ran out the girls movie ended! it was seriously a random game room in the middle of a theater miracle. 

we had someone take this photo of us at church so as to have a before and after shot. we definitely look a little more tattered our second sunday together BUT for waking up at 7:50 instead of 7, rushing out of the house by 8:05, and still getting to church on time - i think we look pretty freakin awesome. 

i still made them take pictures with me when we got home and i'm so glad i did.

 i need more photos like these with my babes, they are precious to me.

at lunch (not pictured) i made them all go around and say things they loved about each other and it was sweet to hear all the things they had to say. i look forward to the day slash hope that when i have kids they are friends. 

sunday night was spent with the lohner family. we probably sat in their kitchen for two or three hours just talking and laughing and (of course) watching a few videos. i was SO happy to see all of them and feel that them living 20 minutes from my sister is one of the luckier things that has ever happened to my life.

monday morning was fairly lazy, i don't think i got dressed till probably 1 or 2pm. tricia and i just talked and talked and talked while sam (finally) wore his big boy underwear and played with toys. it was so nice to just be with my sister. i don't think people who have never moved away from home can fully appreciate how nice and fulfilling it is to just be with family, i definitely can say i don't take it for granted. 

i needed texas, and it came at the perfect time. the weather and company were so good for my soul and the time i had to think about my life,  a mom's life, my blessings, friends, family, etc was so good for my heart. i already miss singing top 40 hits while cleaning with my nieces, taking sam to the park, having an excuse to watch the disney channel, hanging out with my sister/babes,  seeing good friends, etc but i'm mostly just grateful it happened.

(aaand that i got to wear that sweet souvenirfromthecruise cowboy hat back to boston, of course)