Travel is exhausting

As is running with your siblings!

By far, the highlight of our trip (at least for me) was getting to run with my husband, brother and sister in the 8K Turkey Trot we all did. It was awesome.

Sweet girl

Sweet girls

I love my family

The once a year entire family photo!

Also the elusive mama & girls photo

Sorta

The big girls

The big girls and big boy

Big girls, big boy, baby girl

See a theme here?

Big girl, big boy, baby girl, and baby boys

That looks about right

I don’t think we’ve had a picture like this, well, ever

Just missing cousin Rosemary (and now baby Caroline!)

These two, watch out. T-R-O-U-B-L-E

We need a bigger kids table

Nothing like a little turkey day coloring contest

Like I said, trouble.

A little post turkey eating football nap

Or maybe a nap instead

Yet another person finds out the way to Eliza’s heart is with brownies

Or just triffle

Love this sweet boy!

Poor Marme, there’s always mouths to share food with!

Demanding mouths at that

Big pimpin. And with that, we left!

Maybe I’ll get Christmas up before Valentine’s day…

Bebe let Marion play with her jewelry

Always a surefire way to make her happy!

And I got sweet, sleepy Raleigh smiles

Because you can never have too many pictures of a man holding a baby

We also had time for a playdate with one of Belle-Mere & Grandman’s friends and her two little kids

Not that we ever need an excuse to visit Piedmont Park

But having friends to play with

And leaves to enjoy

Certainly added to it

Big girl

And those that know me from my Atlanta life will know just how proud this picture of her rock climbing makes me

Daddy on the slide!

Eliza Jane has finally gotten over her suspicion of the swings

Although she remains suspicious of group photos

No better ending to a day at the park than lunch at The Varsity!

Complete with a fried pie, of course

That is one satisfied baby

With room for one more bite of pie, naturally

The grandparents also treated us all to a horse drawn carriage ride through the park in the evening!

It was so much fun we couldn’t capture it in a photograph!

I promise you, it was a lot more fun than this! (I just couldn’t resist posting this picture, as horrible as it is. It’s just a perfect summation of a moment in the life of a toddler.)

And then mama had to get creative! We did a lot more walking than anticipate and Eliza was tired (and heavy) so I used my pashmina to make a wrap for her. Babywearing FTW!

Why yes, we did feed our kids gelato at 10:00 p.m.

Because you can’t visit Atlanta and not visit Paolo’s!

And on our final morning, breakfast with Bebe

Where Eliza learned to drink straight from the syrup bottle

Which made her super cooperative for pictures! And the drive back to Mississippi, haha!

One of the things I was most looking forward to about back to Atlanta was getting to take a long run on my favorite running trail, the Silver Comet Trail. Twelve miles has never felt so good.

Meanwhile, Marion got to play with some cousins back at Papa & Granny Chris’s house

Granny Chris quickly learned the quickest way to Eliza’s heart is through food.

Eliza was big into trading kisses for bites of Granny’s brownie!

Three silly girls

And now, Marion never wants to leave Atlanta!

Meeting Aunt Linda’s horse

Let’s be honest, Mama never wants to leave Atlanta now either!

Sweet horsie

What a big girl!

Eliza got a turn this go round

And proved to be quite the horsewoman!

She was, dare I say it? Even more excited about the horse than Marion

And so ends what was quite possibly the best day of the girls’ lives, haha!

It might have also been one of the best day of Granman’s and Belle-Mere’s lives too, having all their grandchildren under the roof for the first time!

Hello houseful of children!

It was worth every single minute in the car to snuggle this sweet boy for the first time! Welcome to the family baby Raleigh!

We have made the trip so many times that we have a routine set in stone, including always stopping at the same Chick-Fil-A for dinner.

Crazy traveling hair

Sad baby when we told her we had to get back in the car!

Eliza Jane also got stuck in the sun most of the trip but we ended up solving that with a cleverly placed crib sheet. Which is now a necessity for us to pack every road trip.

So happy to see this skyline!

It was all worth it to see Titus the cat. And Grandman too!

Grandman’s iPad was a huge hit too.

And Nanuq never wants to leave Atlanta because he gets to lick an ice cream bowl every evening!

One worn out girl for sure!

Take one diaper box. Cover in wrapping paper and/or contact paper (optional)

Take one wipe box and remove the lid

Insert wipe container into the short end of the diaper box (it’s a snug fit)

Fill with all kind of goodies and snacks. The wipe box is the perfect size for holding one sippy cup and one snack trap. They don’t tip over or get lost in the chaos of the back seat. We packed some of Marion’s favorite books, a ziploc of crayons and an empty sketch book, as well as some new coloring books, a new dinosaur and the trusty travel sized magnadoodle.

The magic box in use. It fit perfectly between the two car seats and was easy for her to get things in and out of by herself. It (mostly) kept things neat and organized and easy for her to find things herself. Plus, it made packing and unpacking the car easy as well.

Not going to lie though or make myself out to be some sort of toddler whisper because we used the DVD player an awful lot as well

A quick recap, we went the first time when Josh registered for the race and I was merely pregnant with Marion. We thought a baby wouldn’t be a big deal, you know, like every first time parent. Which meant we ended up taking a six week old out for a weekend, which also means Josh got about 0.75 hours of sleep the night before the race.

The second year, Marion was sleeping through the night regularly and was a happy little 14 month old. Until she got hand, foot and mouth Saturday morning, 24 hours before the race. Which meant that year, Josh got about 2.50 hours of sleep before running 13.1 miles.

In our second time parent wisdom, we skipped taking a newborn and a toddler to San Antonio and decided to wait a year and take two toddlers instead. Third times a charm and we know what we’re doing this go round.

Until Eliza woke up from her nap on Friday afternoon with a temperature of 104.7, resulting in an emergency appointment to the pediatrician and a diagnosis of an ear infection, of course! This year, we stayed in a hotel (we normally rent an apartment) and had grand plans for sleeping arrangements. Which meant that Marion slept in the king sized bed most of the night by herself and Mama slept on the sofa with Eliza. After Eliza and I got settled down, Josh was able to sneak into bed with Marion and this year, got a whopping five hours of sleep!

It was enough for him to set a PR of 1:38:19! Imagine what he’d do on a full night of sleep

Again, in our parental wisdom, we decided to only spend one night in San Antonio, figuring one night away from home was enough for the girls. So we left Saturday morning, got stuck in traffic due to a closed interstate, and neither girl slept a wink on a five hour trip that should have just taken three hours. Oh well. We got there eventually!

Marion in front of the Alamodome

It was so fun this year to take Marion. She knows what a race is now and she got very excited seeing all the fanfare around this race; she knew it was a big deal!

My super speedy husband was in the first corral

Eliza got to run some energy off

Her outfit makes her look a little bit like an escaped convict

Daddy and his girls

Yoga mat, check. Foam roller, check. Pack n play, check. What packing for a race looks like these days.

Making herself useful

We had a corner suite with a balcony. Pretty awesome. And not at all dangerous.

A little trip down memory lane if you don’t mind:

2008

2009

2011

A brief moment of quiet

Between all the stroller pushing

And squirrel chasing these two were doing

I tried (and failed) to get a photo of the girls together

Then tried (and failed) to get a picture of just big girl

Sounds about right

Then nighttime

And race preparations. We had some serious spectating to do!

Eliza finally passed out on the couch

And then everyone was up bright & early!

Hugs and

Kisses for dada

Although all Eliza wanted to do was to steal his visor

Not a bad spectating spot!

This is how we roll

And this is how we cheer

Josh felt good enough to smile and give us a wave at mile 3

He was a bit more focused at mile 8

And too fast at the finish for a good picture!

That, and we were too busy cheering our hearts out. He had such a great race and I’m so proud of him. It takes a lot of dedication to train for a half marathon through the heat we had at the end of this summer and into the fall, but all his hard work paid off big time. And I’m sure having the cutest cheerleaders out there didn’t hurt either

I think it’s safe to say that we won’t be trying to make the trip again though!

It was Eliza’s first flight and my first flight with both girls, flying solo! While the world isn’t kind to a mom traveling with two little ones by herself, I’m happy to say we survived and no one asked us to get off the plane!

Although several people probably thought we couldn’t get off fast enough when Marion puked on the landing of our flight into Jackson.

Me and my girls

Riding the moving sidewalk. This pretty much rocked her world.

Her surprise toy for the plane – color wonder markers, such a lifesaver

And how baby girl spent the flight, thankfully!

Unfortunately, travel does not wear big girl out, so her early as always wake up was tempered by some Mr Rogers on the laptop. This means I got another 30 minutes of sleep, yay!

Marme had lots of fun activities planned

Cookies!

Eliza Jane wants to be big so badly

So proud of her work

The best part of coming home – a pile of babies!

And a pile of clean girls!

All this visiting wore Beans out

We fit in a visit to the Ag Museum as well, mainly for mama to scope out where the girls’ are having their birthday party!

I don’t think there’s a kid in Mississippi that hasn’t had their picture taken in this chair

Watching the trains

Pap and the girls

Highlight of the trip do you think?

What’s better than one horsie? (Or donkey I think) Two, of course!

Okay, so having the pig smell her hand (Pap was very careful to show her how to put the back of her hand up against the fencing!) was a close second for her favorite thing

And no visit to the Ag Museum is complete with a stop by the general store

Where mama bought (probably not my wisest decision) maracas for the girls!

Naturally, no visit was complete without a great visit with Mamaw!

Apparently this was a visit filled with highlights as playing in the hose was definitely a fun time

It wasn’t as hot in MS as it is here back home (currently on our 24th day of temps over 100*) but the water was still much appreciated

Even Eliza enjoyed it

In fact, Eliza might have had even more fun than big sister (and if you watch that video, you probably are going to want to turn your volume down. I go home and I get real Southern, real loud.)

And well, since this was at my dad’s, we kept it classy with a homemade slip n slide. This is why you keep tarps just hanging around.

Truly, there’s nothing funnier than watching a baby try to crawl uphill on a slip n slide.

Unless it’s watching a baby eat a pickle

She really is like a Dr Suess character come to life

Then all too soon it was time to come back home – vomit free, thanks to a healthy dose of dramamine!

Mr Brown Dog, an old pro at this flying thing!

In summary (as if I can actually do such a thing) my parents have a fishing house (let’s call it) in Norfork, Arkansas. Technically, between Old Joe and Norfork, but whatever. It satisfies my dad’s requirement to fish every 24 hours or he’ll stop breathing. The town of Norfork puts on this great (reportedly) fishing derby every year, the second Saturday in June, where they stock up kiddie pools with fish and every kid gets a prize and it’s so much Americana you sneeze red, white, and blue. And fish.

Anyway, having fond memories of many fishing trips with my dad and catching my first bass on the iconic Snoopy rod & reel, I decided last year, probably the second Sunday in June 2010, that I wanted us all to head up to Arkansas this year for that fishing derby and Marion’s first fishing trip.

So a family trip for the four of us turned into a family reunion / kick off BB&R’s trip back to Alaska / last vacation as a family of four for Al’s crew / John Paul’s first road trip / matching personalized t-shirts for all the kiddos. Some might call it a little out of control.

Then mother nature got mad she wasn’t invited. And rained. And rained, rained, rained, rained. In fact, it rained so much it flooded the parking lot where the derby was held and so the derby was cancelled.

Great start, right?

It ended fairly much the same way. With the birth of my newest nephew, Samuel Brooks Apparently pregnant mother nature was upset we left her off the guest list as well. Brooks made his arrival a full month early but is doing perfectly well and will one day be forgiven by his grandparents for being such a surprise and making them miss his birth. Out of the nine grandchildren my parents have, Brooks is the only birth they’ve missed. Including one born in Alaska and two in Texas.

Anyway, since I’ve proven my inability to sum up in a few words, I’ll let pictures do the rest of the talking. One of the best parts of going to Arkansas is playing in the creeks and streams and dams (when they aren’t flooding) and so that’s what we did. Lots.

{ blanchard springs 2009 }

{ blanchard springs, 2011 }

For starters, I had grand ambitions (always) of making my own Easter skirt this year. Which, I actually did! And before 2 a.m. Easter morning to boot!

And once again, we played around with our travel times. This time, we left after Marion got out of school on Thursday afternoon. It worked out pretty much perfectly, seeing as how she passed out as soon as we hit the highway.

We also got to see sunset across the bayous

It also meant we were all well rested for the festivities on Friday!

Festivities that included a whole bunch of little kiddos

Grandparents and great-grandparents holding babies

Resurrection Buns

And lots of really pretty eggs!

Of course, Easter egg hunting as well

Seven kids all kinda sorta looking at the camera (or at least in the same general direction, even if it wasn’t at my camera)- score!

Josh hunted (and found) a pretty sweet tan line from a 40 mile bike ride on the Natchez Trace

Apparently the Easter bunny hunted Eliza

And found her!

We were able to spend Saturday afternoon with Mamaw, which is always such a treat

Eliza is obsessed with sticking her fingers in people’s mouths now; Mamaw is no exception

Easter morning prep

Marion got a new bunny friend

A friend she immediately smothered with love

Eliza wasn’t left out (but since she doesn’t exactly get the idea of holidays now, mama gets some leeway on completion dates)

My sweet girls

Daddy and his girls

A rare picture of me with my babies (and proof my skirt was finished!)

Marion and Belle are up to absolutely no good as we got the house ready for John Paul’s baptism celebration

My little string Bean

Amanda and her butter Bean (John Paul is four months younger than Eliza and outweighs her already. I see him paying for his mama & daddy’s retirement with football in his future!)

And a hysterical series of pictures that speak for themselves

And thanks to my brother Al for the family picture (these are rarer than even the elusive mama & babies picture)

WIDE awake at 5 a.m. and ready for the trip back

And anyone that knows me knows a road trip is not complete without a stop at Waffle House! Which, by the way, this trip was tame in comparison to others. We only made one stop by the House. I think we set a record over Christmas with eating three meals in a row at the welcoming (if a wee bit sticky) booths of the House.

My kids are such road trip pros and (usually) such good sports about it

Eliza is seven months old and this was her third road trip of 8+ hours

I’m a road warrior!

And finally home, to a welcome from our garden!

Right after Thanksgiving, Josh and I decided that we didn’t really have anything that we wanted for Christmas from the other, so we decided to give a little family present this year. So we decided to head over to Galveston to see the Festival of Lights, visit the Aquarium, go to Dickens on the Strand and spend the night at Moody Gardens.

We had an absolutely wonderful time and it was just a great way to kick off the holiday season. We drove down Saturday around lunch, visited the aquarium and checked into the hotel. That night we went to the Festival of Lights and then, after the girls were in bed, Josh and I had snuck in a little date night. Which with sleeping girls, means sharing headphones while we watched a movie on Netflix and ate ridiculous amounts of chocolate cake.

Sunday morning, we started out with a family fun run on the Seawall, followed by breakfast at Starbucks and then visiting Dickens on the Strand, which, I guess the best way to say it is that it’s another Texas thing we can cross off our list. It was an interesting experience and some of those people really go way out on their Victorian costumes. It makes for great people watching, that’s for sure.

We didn’t get a lot of great pictures, but we had so much more fun than pictures could capture anyway

The best part of staying in a hotel, in Marion’s opinion, is running up and down the halls!

Bed races – absolutely hysterical!

Flipping seals (or is it sea lions, I can never remember!)

Very excited about watching the seals (or sea lions, whichever.)

Watching the fishes (alternate title, Eliza has the hiccups)