Just a little ray of sunshine

Just a little ray of sunshine

Friday, June 3, 2016

TX >> KY >> GA

I've been blogging in spurts lately, which is somewhat annoying, because it means the posts aren't exactly spread out. I don't really understand my relationship with blogging. It's a love hate relationship for sure. It takes everything in me to sit down and actually do it, but once I do, I enjoy the process. So why it's such a process to get myself to do it, I will never know. Even though I enjoy it, I still see it as a chore, and I need to change that mentality pronto!

Anyhow, I've been feeling the pressure now to finally blog about the trip I took in early April to Kentucky and Georgia with just Maeve and it's probably because I'm about to take my next trip in two days to Duck, North Carolina. It'd be pretty embarrassing if I couldn't pull off doing the one post about the former trip before taking this next trip, considering they're two months apart, ha. Slacker!

In February, my mom texted me saying that my sister said I should come to her house in KY in April when my mom was going to make her way over there to babysit. My mom then mentioned she was going to drive to Georgia with my dad at the tail-end of that trip to see my brother's place and I thought I would jump on that opportunity, since I'd never been to his neck of the woods. I mentioned it to Adam and he said "sure why not!" and two days later I had booked my ticket! And that's one of the best perks of being a stay at home mom with a baby - that I can impulsively decide to do something like that and suddenly have a trip booked only 2 months in advance. Boom baby.

It was a fun trip! I spent 9 days in Kentucky and about 4.5 days in Atlanta. We left on Wednesday the 6th at the crack of dawn (literally) - I had to wake Maeve up at 3:45am. Our flight was at 5:25am and I thought for sure there would be no line, so I showed up with probably 30 minutes to get through the airport. To my dismay, I was wrong - on a Wednesday in April at 5am there was quite the line. I was definitely sweating, but we literally made it to the plane just in time. Maeve was a champ during the traveling. From what I can remember, the worst thing she did was whack the lady beside us with the one of the pamphlets from the seat pocket in front of us that she was playing with. It was actually kind of comical because what can you expect from a baby who is not in full control of her limbs yet, but I did feel bad!

It doesn't look like it, but she actually is asleep on me in this pic. Had to document the cuddles. 
Intrigued! She loves looking out the windows.

My sis and her hubby left to go to Utah later in the day after we ate dinner that first day I got there, so for the first 6 days it was my mom and I with all the kiddos. During that time, with 5 kids, we decided staying in would be best and basically only got out to go to Walmart one day and church on Sunday. Both happen to be across the street from my sister's house (seriously, you can see the church parking lot through the trees in their back yard and you can also see the Walmart sign in the one spot there are no trees near her neighbor's yard) - go big or go home right! To keep things exciting though we had the American Idol finale to watch, the wii and other games to play, and Little Rascals to watch for movie night. We even got Little Caesars on night! It was a party, for sure. Maeve "enjoyed" being knocked around by her cousins (which really means they constantly loved on her oblivious to the fact that she was trying to push them away when they hovered for too long ha!) and I think most of the trip her and Zach were exchanging sippy cups back and forth. Zach's method of affection towards Maeve was hitting her, but luckily she remained pretty oblivious to that probably thanks to her layers of fat provided cushioning against the blows. He also completely sat on her and smooshed her at one point. These are things she gets to look forward to doing to her future siblings once she's the older one. Monday the kids went back to school after their break and Monday night Rach and Kev got back late. Here are some pics from this part of the trip.


Just fitting right in with the boys. 
This is precisely how Maeve feels upon waking up when I don't immediately put my phone in her hand. 

Cutie boy 
I mentioned this in Maeve's 11 month post, but this when she decided it would be fun to wake up at midnight and stay awake until 3am. Yay.
Her pants! Hahaha! 




I decided enough was enough when she'd managed to get to Tess's tiny butterfly clips aka choking hazards! 
Those sweat pants though!
Zachy (almost 2)
Tess (4)
Liam (6)
Bennett (8) - this boy killed me at church when Maeve spit up and he went to go get a wet paper towel for me to wipe it up. For some reason he wanted to put it in his pants pocket but didn't want to get his pocket wet so he took the time to wrap the wet one up in a dry paper towel. Hahaha!
Stealing Zach's cheerios! 

Mr. Handsome
This pic makes me laugh - she's so happy to have the brush!

That profile though
Yummy! 
Creating a disaster wherever she goes 
The bigger the screen the better

I love Tess's hand on Maeve's - these two love each other!

Curlers and Hello Kitty! This girl would look too cute with short hair.
"Let me down!!! I want to be where the fun is with the big kids!"

Some highlights of the three days we had with Rach around included doing a spin class at the gym (my first time! two thumbs up, although she gave me a hard time because I wasn't sweating enough afterwards -- apparently I wasn't pushing it hard enough ha!), playing outside and swinging on the swings, going to Tess's dance class, and going to a LuLaRoe party (which was helpful for me, but that's for another post). At the LuLaRoe party, I actually ran into a girl that I used to know in high school through a guy I dated in my stake back then who now lives in KY and is friends with my sister's sister in law. What are the odds! It was pretty funny. It was a quick final 3 days. My dad arrived on Thursday night and we left Friday morning to head to Atlanta. Pics below from this part of the trip.

These two sweeties though! None come sweeter.

That leg and that tongue!


That's quite the straight face.. 
Tess at Ballet!

Great form!
Cool baby! In sunglasses and wrapped in a blanket like it's winter... 
This picture cracks me up because she looked so cute at the time but for some reason it did not translate into picture form... ha!

Cutest sippy cup drinker. That lasted about twice until she would no longer drink out of that cup! 
She was seriously in Heaven on this swing! Notice the sweet moment between Rach and Zach in the background in all of these photos to come. Too cute.




She kills me!



She loved Kate, Tess's friend!
Small talk 
Kiss on the forehead 
Going in for the real kill!
Seriously how is she so chunky and happy??


On the way to Atlanta, we stopped in Tennessee to see my Aunt Deb briefly so that my mom could give her some of her old clothes. My Aunt Deb did not know that Maeve and I would be with my parents and she'd never met Maeve (we wanted to surprise her) so she was pretty blown away and excited to see us! Maeve gave her some smiles and she loved it and it was fun quick rendevous. Once we got to Atlanta, we ate dinner at Chick fil A and then spent the rest of the night chit chatting with Josh and Tiersha and shopping Tiersh's LuLaRoe inventory. It was such a cute little area that they lived in and their complex was even nicer than ours! I could totally live in Atlanta.

The girls got balloons at Chick fil A!



Saturday was a fun filled day. Their complex was doing an omelet breakfast, so we went to the main office and it was seriously a feast! Our complex here in Texas needs to step it UP! Not only did they make customized omelets for us, but there was also a bunch of fresh fruit, pastries, muffins, and juice! It was delicious. We ate outside and unfortunately it was really windy. So windy that once my plate was almost empty (key word being almost) it flew towards me and hit me in the face! A strawberry flew off it and also hit Maeve in the face and she did not like it one bit! Sadly, a poor ending to a great breakfast, ha. Anywho, we then started a little tour of the city, which included the MLK District (Museum, his house, a church), the CNN Building, and the main park. It was fun to see it all and the best part was probably listening to a guy who recited MLK Jr's I Have A Dream speech and literally sounded just like him. It was crazy. We ended the day with dinner at Chuys and man it was quite the experience. My love for that place was already pretty intense, but this visit really blew me out of the water. We said we were celebrating my mom's birthday which was the week before and our waiter ended up giving her Tres Leches cake but then also gave us a container of the salsa to take home that was literally the size of a container of salsa that you'd buy at the store. I could not believe my eyes! We also got two smaller containers of creamy jalapeno to take home and plenty of chips. It was insane! My dad tipped him pretty much the amount that the bill was because it was such awesome service.

MLK's house



That happy face at the park in the tunnel! 

My dad took this photo - too cute!
This cracks me up of Charlotte on the monkey bars!

Sunday we went to church and then walked around the temple grounds afterwards which happen to be right next to their chapel. Pretty awesome. We took plenty of photos and enjoyed the nice weather. We relaxed back at their apartment for a bit while Maeve napped and then went on a drive to see my mom's old house that she lived at when she was a child living in Atlanta. We saw that an old lady still lived a few houses down from hers so she went and talked to her and sure enough she had lived there way back when my mom was a kid! She even remembered my Grandma! How crazy!! It was a cool trip down memory lane for my mom and fun for us to see too. We had some BBQ for dinner and called it a night.

Temple grounds 
Bad lighting but there's the temple!
Cheesing it!
But do I have to take pictures??
Fine...
This is dumb!
I'll just give a straight face like my Dad! 
This about sums up how Maeve felt when anyone else tried to hold her the entire trip. Total complete breakdown.
Yes she fell asleep with her finger in her mouth! Ha!

Monday we did a little bit of shopping before we were all supposed to leave and then I saw that my flight had gotten cancelled because of the weather in Dallas. This happened at Christmas time for us too and I think it's something I'm going to have to get used to with the crazy weather that can happen here in Texas! Luckily I'm not tied down to anything so it isn't really an issue for me! I wasn't able to get another flight out until the next day at 5pm. My parents ended up still shoving off so Maeve and I just kicked it with Josh, Tiersha, and Charlotte. It just gave me more time to shop in Tiersha's house and see her run her business up close and personal. I even organized her inventory for her by style and size! On Tuesday we went on a walk to a little cookie shop and ate dinner at a little sandwich shop. My flight ended up getting delayed a little bit, so on our way to the airport we ended up stopping at the aquarium, which was a definite bonus! Maeve loved it and this video definitely proves that!



Here are some other pictures from Monday and Tuesday!

A LuLaRoe shipment came in the form of an angry baby!
Apparently she does not like being inside boxes...

Goofball! 
She's getting so big and long! Growing up before my eyes.
Glamorous 
Because hangers are more fun than anything else really. 
It was killing me how high her pajamas were on her waist!

That bum!
After preschool and dance! That bun was so cute. 


Aquarium love!



All in all it was a good little trip, but Adam definitely missed his girls. It was good to get home and get back into the grind. Here are some other little videos from the whole trip... some of them are seriously too good!!!















And that's a wrap folks. Over and out.

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