somehow the planets and stars aligned and things happened to work out to have nicole and atlas come stay for a week, then drive with us back to arizona at just the time we were needing to drive out there without ryan (i'm definitely not sure i could make that drive alone without having to stop for naps about every two hours).
we loved having nicole and atlas come to stay! we didn't get out to do much since bonnie and atlas always seemed to be sleeping at different times, but we still had lots of fun.
we picked them up friday evening in dallas and then got home late after the drive. once we finally all got up in the morning, we decorated our easter eggs. its a good thing ryan is around to instigate this kind of stuff or i'd just skip it all together until everyone is older.
bonnie was fast asleep through all the action and atlas happily explored our toys.
david and julie came up for a pre-easter dutch oven dinner. we did chicken and potatoes and cobbler and it was all so delicious!
the kids, of course, loved doing an easter egg hunt and were so good about splitting up the candy well.
bonnie hasn't been out in the grass a whole lot, so it was a bit of a new experience for her and atlas. you can see she was trying pretty hard to keep her feet off the strange grass.
i had so much fun making an easter dress for bonnie, but that's a post of its own. since she got a fancy new dress, i decided a bit last minute that the boys should probably get something new too. they love wearing sweater vests, so these were a perfect find - and matched bow ties from a few years ago!
even atlas matched the boys' colors and fit right in.
nicole and atlas
mom and bonnie
church is always a bit exhausting, so we all usually take a bit of a nap. i came in to the bedroom to find this sweet picture of cody holding ryan's hand while they slept.
the boys decided to make 'cookies' from playdough all afternoon. seriously, for hours it seemed like. no complaints here. they were having a great time!
atlas somehow managed to get this great vantage point while the boys played a game. he cracked me up.
cody is starting to be able to read a lot more words, so he is much more prone to just sit and look at/read books to himself, i think to see how much he can actually read. he's usually nice enough to let isaac snuggle up with him. they are such buddies.
we got all four kids in the bath for a few minutes. it was a little overwhelming to atlas, who is obviously used to a much calmer bath time at home on his own - although nicole reports that he splashes much more now that he's seen what bath time can be.
we had several nights with this view for story time before bed.
we left for arizona bright and early on the 1st. we figured that if either of us was up with a kid after 3 a.m. or so that we'd just get ready and go. i think we ended up leaving around 5 after atlas was up for some reason. we pushed through bonnie throwing up, several stinky diaper stops, an accidental mall stop (to get chick-fil-a for dinner), and a bit of sad babies (mostly because of the aforementioned diapers) and made the drive in one day. about 17 hours when all was said and done.
nicole and i just chatted the whole time pretty much, with a few periods of sitting between the babies to soothe or feed. it made the trip quite pleasant.
audiobooks have been life changing for these two - mostly cody. anytime it was turned off for any reason, it was only a matter of minutes before he was asking to listen to the story again. there was much less complaining of hunger, fighting/arguing over toys, and no movie requests (we did watch one just to switch it up)! we will definitely be finding books for trips more often!!
nicole - you are our hero. it takes a lot of love to come out to visit us for a whole week just to get in the car for 17 hours to drive home when you could have flown. thank you! thank you! we could not have made it without you!
No comments:
Post a Comment