Just a little ray of sunshine : September 30th - October 5th, 2020: Family time central

It's been a while, but that only means we've been too busy having fun to stick with our normal routines! 🤗 I'm not dropping off the face of the planet yet. We spent General Conference weekend (Oct. 2-4) at my sister's house in Kentucky, which I think I already referenced in earlier posts since it was all Maeve could talk about leading up to it. She sure loves her cousin time and of course Rach's big yard with a trampoline is just a dream. I was so busy on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday before we left because right after we got back from her house, my in laws came to our house-- they showed up Monday evening and we were having so much fun in KY that we decided to leave Rach's house bright and early Monday morning so there was very little time in-between to get settled back in for them! So I knew I wanted to leave the house pretty much ready for them to come so there wasn't so much to do before they showed up. So, I don't have a whole lot to report about Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday up until we left since they were just busy days doing our normal routines plus extra cleaning. I did write down just a few noteworthy things from those days though...

Wednesday the 30th:

I took Rowan to get a haircut! I caved and decided it is just not worth it to cut his hair myself for the time being until he can cooperate better for haircuts. He gives strangers no problems whatsoever, so to the salon we went, and will continue to do so stretching out time between haircuts as long as I can possibly stand it... 😅

Thursday Oct. 1st:

👇 I know it sounds like the Maeve show below, but I guess Rowan and Nolan slid under the radar that day and didn't do anything out of the ordinary...

~Maeve told me that a boy in her class told her she looked pretty. 👀😱 Ironically she waited a couple days to tell me this, but I guess he told her that on Tuesday. And so it begins, at 5 years old.... Heaven help me!

~At Maeve's school, the different classes are divided into different houses and she's in Lumiere. They accumulate points for positive behavior, and she was excited to tell me that her house got the most points, so she earned extra recess. 🥳 Party time!

~Before going to bed, Maeve was picking out clothes she wanted to wear for our trip to Rach's house as well as for the next day at school. She REALLY wanted to wear her celebration shirt (it says Cupcakes, Sprinkles, & Confetti on it and she wears it specifically on birthdays and any other day she deems celebratory which I think is just the cutest), but did not like any of the pants options that would go with it. Momentarily, she decided she hated all the pants options enough that she wanted to pick a new shirt, but before putting the shirt back she kissed it and whispered "I'm sorry" before very gently placing it back in the drawer, as if it was worth a lot of gold. 😂😂 She kills me. Don't even worry, she got over her stubbornness and quickly settled back on that shirt when all was said and done. Picking out clothes with that girl is no joke!

Friday Oct. 2nd:

As always, we hustled to get locked and loaded and ready to head out. Adam worked a half day from home and we left at 1pm. I feel like my brain always runs 100 miles a minute on days we are getting ready for trips until we're officially out the door and it's just craziness. It's unfortunate because there are no rules on roadtrips as far as screen time is concerned, but since I don't really have time to find good ways to keep them occupied while I'm getting ready to leave, they also end up on screens a lot during that time too. Apparently Rowan is capable of getting his fill though because I asked him to get back on if he wanted to get back on his tablet at one point when he was in my way and he said he didn't want to. Which is kinda ironic because there are plenty of other days where he begs and begs for extra screen time. 🤦 Kids! I think they just like the feeling of "getting away with something" and once they aren't anymore, the appeal is gone.

Anywho, Nolan thought it would be fun that morning to add extra work to my list by kicking his bowl of oatmeal out my hand so that 3/4 of it splattered all over the floor. 😩 I was pleased with myself though that we still managed to make it out the door by 1pm, which was my goal. We went and picked Maeve up from school early and hit the road from there. Not too long into the drive I found out that Adam did not put any shoes on Rowan before loading him into the car and he was going to wear that pair of shoes the whole trip, so he literally showed up barefoot without socks. 😂🙈 Rach was able to bail me out with an old pair of shoes that were his size, but his foot was too chunky to fit in them so she made a couple slits in them and he went out in public a couple times in these bad boys looking real classy. 😂😂 It gave us a good laugh, that's for sure.

We all made it there in one piece, but it sure felt like a long 3 hours, probably because Nolan just wouldn't give it up and take a nap and ended up super cranky. I gave up and dare I say that I took him out of his car seat for a bit because he was just that upset, but honestly it didn't help a ton because he still didn't want to sit still on me. 🙄 The curse of mobile babies. Maeve was a real helper at one point during his crankiness, when I asked her to give him a toy and instead of waiting for him to grab it out of her hand, she took it and without even taking her eyes off her tablet screen just dropped it on him. 🤦 Heaven forbid those eyes leave the screen for 2 seconds.

It was a fun filled couple of days at Rach's house for sure - we managed to have lots of great food, including lunch out at a local pizza place and homemade donuts, we went to an awesome playground, had a bonfire, shopped for some home decor at At Home, and watched all of conference together. The highlight of the trip was certainly hearing Rach repeat "Will somebody come get this baby?" about 30 times a day after Rowan said that once in reference to Nolan who was about to mess with his toys. She thought it was hilarious and couldn't help herself. We joked that that would be the last sentence to come out of her mouth on her death bed. 😂😂 Another highlight was nearly laughing to the point of tears over these 2 pictures 😂😂😂 - I just can't even! They're so good.

Liam straight as a stick and Zach's face! 😂😂 Over the top.

We also watched a number of hilarious episodes of Kickin It and I may or may not have to watch it on my own even though I don't have pre-teenage boys in my house that want to watch it. It was kinda that funny! 😂 It's always a party at Rach's house and we were sad to leave on Monday morning. The drive home was so smooth and all 3 kids stayed so content that it didn't even feel like 3 hours. 🙌🙌 It was nice after the 3 hour drive that felt like 6 hours on the way there.

I'm gonna stop there and share highlights of this last week with my in laws in a separate post. I need to go to bed! But here are some more pictures: