back in the game

holy cow!  i can't believe we've already been back for an entire week!  that's so crazy how fast it has blown by!  we got back sunday evening and i feel like i've just been trying to catch up since then.  no playdates or hours at the library this week, but hopefully we can do it all next week!

monday- we stayed home while i did a million loads of laundry.  normally this wouldn't be an all day event but for some reason i woke up at 7:30 super energized, and was dead to the world just two hours later.  soooo tired all day long and i was 100% dragging.  but, eventually laundry got done and put away so we'll call it a success anyway.  the initial plan was to go grocery shopping as well, but that definitely didn't happen.  not a huge deal though because i'd left two unopen gallons of milk in our fridge (that i'd gotten just a few days before we left town) and had at least a dozen eggs as well as bread, cheese, etc. so even though we didn't really have any fresh produce, we were fine not to immediately rush to the store.  and that was really really really nice to have that option.  my biggest win of the day though was that brady slept til noon and i didn't get him out of his crib til 12:20!  can i just say that we put the kids to bed at 7 the night before so that kid must have been exhausted?!  17 hours of sleep!

tuesday- abigail had preschool so i dropped her off and made a quick stop by the library to return a book and pick up a book i had waiting for me on hold.  then we made our way to walmart and shopped there til it was time to get abigail again.  the rest of the day was pretty standard with naptime/quiet time and then honey came home early and we went to texas roadhouse for dinner.

wednesday- i had my 28 week appointment so we went to that (side note... one time we got chick fil a chicken biscuits and ate them as a little picnic on the hill outside of our doctor's office.  when we walked past that hill on the way to our car i thought to myself "mmmm chick fil a" at the exact time that abigail said "mom, maybe we should go to chick fil a for lunch."  ha.  but also, after our previous appointment, we'd met honey for lunch at costa vida, so when i got to the car i kept thinking "mmm, should i call honey and see if he wants to meet up at costa vida?"  happily for my waistline, i did neither.) and then stopped by our neighborhood playground on the way home and played there for a long time while i talked on the phone with grandmother and then with mom.  it was such gorgeous t shirt weather... probably sunny and 55.  brady went down the big green slide by himself a bunch of times.  and then went down on his belly and busted his lip.  poor guy.  ; )  we had lunch and nap time and then at the end of quiet time, abigail and i went outside to play on the driveway for the rest of quiet time.  so i brought my book and she played.  lucy and presley came out and decided to come over and join us.  so i pulled up a camp chair for stephanie and we had a blast talking about the joys of parenthood while all our kids played and covered themselves in their homemade paint (when you combine sidewalk chalk with fistfulls of snow melted and rubbed on top) and it was just perfect.

thursday- abigail had school again so we dropped her off and brady and i headed to costco.  we ran into kylee in the parking lot so that was fun.  and even though there were no samples at first (and only a few later), we had a pretty good time.  brady spent the first while whining about what i thought was a basketball? which confused me because we hadn't seen one but he kept pointing back where we'd been.  eventually, i stopped and focused on what he was saying, realizing it wasn't working to just brush him off and he wasn't going to let it go, and found out he wanted a hot dog like he'd seen on the big menu at the front of the store.  so once we decided to share a hot dog at the end of our shopping trip, we were golden.  $300 and a hot dog later (but i need to write down for my memory that brady kept calling me "mommy mommy" any time he wanted another sip of lemonade "i need more juice please, mommy mommy mommy."  why he always did two or three mommys... who knows... but it was making me laugh out loud), we were off to pick up abigail from preschool.  the biggest plus to running errands, but only making one stop, during preschool is that we're always ten minutes early to pick abigail up.  the rest of the day was kind of down hill since abigail lied about going potty and then wet her pants during story time.  but honey came home early because he was in the area for a meeting that got cancelled, so he picked up abigail and took her with him to walmart to fix his broken glasses and to hobby lobby to frame a painting we got in brazil.  meanwhile, i talked on the phone with emmy and she gave me parenting advice from a book she's been reading.  brady woke up and i sent him outside with honey and abigail.  we survived the rest of the night just fine but it wasn't the best.  why have i been getting soooo tired lately?!

friday- the house was in major need of some love so we stayed home.  the kids got up late i think... maybe close to ten?  i got them up and we read books in abigail's room for a while (apparently we were having a princess party and she had decorated so we just needed to read books???) and then headed downstairs for breakfast.  but it was so late already and one of the kids asked for cereal so i decided we could all enjoy a bowl of cereal.  and then we all thought it would be a great idea to turn on a dora show while i did laundry and cleaned the kitchen.  lucy came over around 12:30 and presley came by not too much later.  so that wasn't really going well for brady's nap, but the kids were all having a great time playing together.  eventually, sometime after two, the girls all decided to go to lucy's house and even though brady got his shoes and tried to put them on by the door where the other girls were getting their shoes on, he had to stay behind and nap.  so brady and i enjoyed some bagels and cream cheese... in the great room at the end table since i'd just swept the kitchen and had taken the chairs all out in preparation for mopping... and then i put him down for nap.  i did laundry and put all the sheets and blankets back on our bed and gave the kitchen a thorough mopping on the counter tops and cabinets and floors and got brady up at 5.  and then honey came home and i picked abigail up from lucy's and we all went to texas roadhouse.  i ordered my steak medium rare (as i've been doing for a few months), but this time it was a super thick steak and it was more rare than it's ever been.  it tasted great, but honey kept making faces at me because he either thought it was gross or was worried our baby would die from rare, diseased meat or something.  came home and put the kids to bed and we were out.

saturday- honey went skiing.  the kids and i went to the library and treated it like a normal weekday.  we had eggs and cutie for lunch and then naptime and quiet time.  i struggled to stay awake.  honey got home sometime after 3.  quiet time finished around 4, and right on cue, lucy, presley and kalia came over to play.  brady semi played with them too.  he wants to be involved but a lot of times just isn't interested enough if they're playing something complex with a lot of pretending.  we hung out, played outside a bit, ate paninis for dinner (with costco rotisserie chicken and provolone on french bread) and both kids downed theirs... and the remainder of mine, as well as too much avocado.  man, those kids know how to eat!  and then we went to bed.  so so tired.

pictures from the weekend

brady spiked a fever.  that morning he fell asleep in my arms/lap while i was sitting in the baby pool with him so i should have known something was up.  but on a happier note (i know i've said it before), it makes me feel so amazing that i can feel that he has a fever just by putting my cheek on his face.  i can't do it with my hand, but i put my face on his a million times a day so i automatically can tell when something is off.  i loooooove that.  i'm a real mom.

my budding photographer is starting to feel the necessity of taking pictures of everything.  now i know how my honey feels about me.  just put down the camera already and let's play dollhouse!

closeup of naptime.

seriously made me laugh out loud.

tiniest phone ever.

when i'm feeding brady, she seems to think that's a good time to bring me books to read.  when i tell her my hands are full so i can't hold the book or see the words...

she does this.  we've read many many books in this manner.

taking pictures of brady.  can't remember what time it was but i was still in my swimsuit because naptime kept having interruptions and i never got out to mow the lawn and/or shower.  hence, evening time swimwear.

saturday 

we all went to walmart together.  we each took one kid and i enjoyed getting texts like this during my shopping experience.

i'm loving the cheap produce!  honey and i decided to go meatless this week (well, until the weekend since we'll have his grandparents with us) and so i stocked up on a whole ton of stuff challenging myself to get it all eaten before it goes bad.  ps- the prices are all written out because that's how i do price matched stuff on my grocery list.

 sunday

this made me laugh.  we currently have four wards plus the stake offices in our building.  hallelujah that we're only a few months away from our new building being finished!  even though there will be at least 2 wards in our new building... maybe three.  the church is thriving out here.

she calls these "lines" and i really don't correct her when she tells me that she's going to open the lines or look out the lines.

this little guy went from not sitting for two seconds to being able to sit for a whole minute or so.  on our trip, nothing.  came back, he can sit!  also, i still love that his mouth is always open.  like he's in awe of what a great mom i am.  i'm sure.

monday

this was less than an hour after she saw me put a new trash liner in the diaper pail and commented "wow!  you're AMAZING!"  since then, the compliments have only continued.  "that looks really good" "you're doing great" "that's cute"  and on and on.  anything i've ever said, i'm getting it right back.  i love it.  

not like she doesn't already have a million sippy cups, but i loathe them all.  so i got baby girl this water bottle and we both love it.  my favorite part is that she's a little more enthusiastic about drinking water now.  i swear i will make all of my kids enjoy drinking water.  not like my mom didn't try her hardest, but where i see a glimmer of hope, i will charge full steam ahead (too much thomas?  yes.)

i was so impressed with her creativity.  i can't remember the name of these wrenches but we had a million extra from our costco cubbys (each one came with two wrenches) so i set them aside to put in our tool box.  in ten minutes, baby girl had created at least five different designs/shapes/pictures/whatever.  it was impressive.

i keep finding more and more horseshoe crabs in our books!  

i mean, really.  we had this book checked out before the beach but never had time to sit down and actually read it until earlier this week.  a whole two page spread on the horseshoe crab!  books are so incredible.  i love them with all my heart.

one of my fb posted a link on her status saying she got this book for free for her phone.  so i did too.  and then i looked around the kindle store and got a million other books for free too.  mostly more jane austen and similar (like little women) and related (like tea with emma).  i'm excited for them all.

weed, i saw this and it made me think of you.  because you're my favorite ginger ever.  and that one picture of you holding that cake makes me think of i love lucy.  totally threw my ten year old self (or however old i was... emmy, do you remember?) for a loop first time i heard she was a redhead.  

 and that's a wrap.

an ulterior motive

i know i've said it a million times before, but brady could not have asked for a more adoring sister.  ever.  she is so sweet to him and tolerant of all the inconveniences of having a high maintenance baby brother.  she uses infant directed speech and constantly gives him kisses and hugs and tells him that she loves him (for the record, she has not ever not even one single time told me that she loves me... but brady and pooh bear get that luxury daily) and is willing to do anything that will count as service towards him like throwing away his diaper (she won't throw away her own anymore... just his) and bringing me his burp cloth or binky.  seriously, she is the most amazing big sister ever (except for my two.... love you liza and emmy!) in the whole universe.  so tonight he was hanging out on the floor when i turned around to see him surrounded by baby toys.  two minutes later baby girl came to me with this question...

"when brady gets bigger he can turn on thomas for me?"

and i said yes.

all this time i thought she was just being sweet... turns out she may have ulterior motives.

other notables from tonight:
"brady cries a LOT."  as we attempted to eat dinner while brady screamed in his swing every 5 seconds after his binky would fall out.

"don't throw it in the blocks!  i told you not to do that!" after she found brady's burp cloth in her big bin of legos.  and then she just kept telling me "i told you not to do that!" over and over again.  whoops.  i guess i made a mistake.

so we can conclude that abigail is only nice to brady because she wants him to grow up and turn on thomas for her (i can't blame her, i want him to grow up and kill spiders for me), this little boy is still very angry at life, and i discipline my child too much and she's ocd enough to call me out when i don't follow my own rules.  awesome.

if you give a mom two kids

we're pretty crappy about having an actually family home evening on monday nights.  we definitely spend time together as a family... but it normally doesn't include a formal spiritual lesson.  well, we actually had one a few weeks ago.  honey shared with us two mormon messages videos.  one on being a mom and one on being a dad.  it turned out to be pretty prophetic... at least for me.  especially because when i thought things were really going to pick up with brady, he sprouted a tooth and his nighttime sleep regressed, daytime sleep regressed, and fussiness increased.  if he was an only child, this really wouldn't be a problem.  and as it is, it's still not a huge deal because my life is still so blessedly easy.  but the thing is... it's frustrating to me.  it's frustrating that i used to be able to do more and that i want to do more... but there is literally not enough time in the day to do everything i would like to do and save my mental sanity.  blogging is my therapy and right now... that's what i'm doing.  between popping a binky in brady's mouth every four seconds.  dude, we both know you're gonna throw a fit the second that thing leaves your lips... so keep it in your mouth!

y'know those laura numeroff books?  if you give a mouse a cookie, if you give a moose a muffin, if you give a pig a party, if you give a dog a donut... those.  that's been my day.  around noon, brady was sleeping and it was gorgeous weather so i thought it would be fun for baby girl to play outside.  well... it took a while.  took a while to go potty, get on appropriate play clothes and shoes, get an easter treat to take outside with her, and gather up the trains she wanted to bring, and probably at least five other things i can't even remember.  it's a process.  during this time, my honey texted me with the location of the pants he needed me to fix ("hanging in the closet" still took a lot of looking) and baby girl insisted on helping me find those before going outside.  so finally she got outside and i had pants.  i set myself at the kitchen table to i could watch her play in the backyard and then i realized i didn't have the right thread.  so i came back with the right thread, got it cut to size, hadn't even gotten my needle out yet and... i hear brady waking up on the monitor.  makes sense because he naps for about 2.5 hours and it had been 2h and 23 minutes.  i just hadn't expected it to take so long to get pants and baby girl outside.

so i told abigail that i would just run upstairs to get brady and be right back.  i sat back at the kitchen table and told her again, "it'll just take a few minutes for brady to eat and then we can all go to the front yard and you can ride bikes on the driveway!"  she was very pleased.  well, when brady was mostly done eating, he started pooping.  and it went on and on and on and on.  "don't worry baby girl!  i'm just going to run to my room real quick and change brady's diaper... want to come?"  so she came.  but as soon as i unzipped his sleep sack, i knew this was a job that needed to be taken upstairs to the changing table.  it was maybe his worst blowout yet.  it was of epic proportions.  so then i had to fill up the bathtub and bathe the kid.  i got him in a fresh diaper and new clothes and he spitup and of course it got on his bath towel and new clothes and even his freshly washed hair.  got him cleaned up again and took a load of laundry downstairs while brady cried upstairs.  then i got him and went downstairs again before realizing... he's already been awake for an hour... he's going to get fussy and need to nap soon and now it's 1:30 and abigail will need to eat lunch so that she can nap too.  after explaining to baby girl that there was no time for bikes on the driveway, i got her bike from the garage and put it on the patio.  i went back inside to get brady and somehow she was riding her bike on the grass.  noooo idea how she got it down there by herself.  especially so quickly and without getting hurt.  so confused.  so we all hung out outside for five minutes and then i got her set up with her bike on the patio again and i worked on stain treating brady's clothes and getting everything in the washer.  while i was doing that, abigail decided she wanted to hang out with us instead and helped grab brady a binky because he was crying again and my hands were covered with poop and stain chemicals.  she's a great helper.  then i grabbed her a banana and a sippy and sat her at the table to eat while i took brady upstairs to nap.  that took a number of attempts and when i came back down, baby girl was already running to the stairs saying she was ready to nap.  i asked her if she finished her banana and whatever and she threw her arms up at me and said "take me to sleep!"  man, i guess she was tired because we did her whole nap routine (while periodically giving brady his binky and thankfully he eventually went to sleep) and she went right to sleep... didn't even play for a minute... or get naked.  so i came downstairs, heated up a taquito from last night, ate that, brought my sewing stuff to my bed and was pulling up the scriptures online to listen to while i was sewing when... i heard brady crying.  he frequently wakes up at the 45 minute mark but goes back to sleep right away with a binky.  not today.  after several attempts i just grabbed him out of his crib.  i couldn't help think of how my day seemed like that mormon messages video.

so i brought him downstairs to my bed and i nursed him while i watched the mormon messages video... and cried.  i guess really i just listened to the video while i looked at brady.  he was so intently looking into my eyes and he was holding my finger with his hand on my chest and was just precious and calm.  i love when nursing him is like that... not him arching his back and screaming and kicking... because we still get plenty of that too.  it was a precious moment.  elder holland's words are so encouraging.  also they made me think of what my christopher said to me on monday after i was almost in tears telling him that aside from keeping the kids alive, the only thing i'd accomplished in the entire day was a trip to walmart... which was so depressing because it took my whole morning to get ready, a ton of time while we were there, and then all afternoon to recover from the trip, kids getting late naps, and groceries not even getting completely put away.  he told me that he was impressed with what i had done that day.  that a trip to walmart was a great thing.  he said that keeping the kids alive every day is the only thing i need to accomplish every day and "everything else is just gravy."  i go back and forth on my feelings on this but i know it's at least part true.  there's too much i consider "absolutely necessary" when really, there are actually very few things (like keeping the kids alive) that fall into that category.  i constantly feel like i'm not doing enough when i know it's not for lack of trying (i helped set up, clean up, and speak at our new beginnings program when i freaking had the flu with a fever of 101 and the worst full body aches of my life).  i feel like been learning and relearning this lesson about every five or six days for the past few months, ever since brady was born.  which speaking of... he's finally asleep again... and now i can go fold that laundry in the dryer.  after that maybe throw together something edible for dinner, pick up the house a little bit, finish icing the cake i made for our neighbors (let's all pray they'll be home this time!) and maybe shower or at least get clothes, hair, and makeup done before my friend's baby shower tonight.

seriously, how am i supposed to have five kids when i already feel like such a failure with two?  i need another pep talk with my dear weed.  although i did talk to her a bit last night... it may have been about nasty cherry vanilla coke concoctions, bad math and losing two cents on a deal, quick trip, racism, and a husband carrying his amputee wife into a QT... among other things.  maybe i'm only hanging in here because of that phone call and talking to my sister emmy and skyping with my wonderful carolyn.  yes, sara snow, it's the little things.

and one last thing because i can't figure it out for the life of me.... how do moms with toddlers get bored?!  like all those mom's that pin ideas of things to do with their toddlers because i guess they've got just so much time on their hands?!  i was totally bored when abigail was a little baby... but not now.  i've gotta be missing something because i can't even seem to get my kids outside for a few minutes... much less make super cool forts and creatures out of cotton balls and pipe cleaners and homemade playdough.  ohhhh, someday.

easter festivities

today was another awesome day.

maybe the sun was a little too bright.

makes me look like one of those bloggers that doesn't post pictures of their child's face.

baby girl was all up in this tree... got every last egg.

we went to the egg hunt in my in laws neighborhood.  it was legit.  skittles, starbursts, these sugar coated lifesaver gummis...  loving the eater candy.  baby girl liked it too dangit.

easter bunny

honey and i posed for this family picture sans brady.

for some reason baby girl didn't want to actually bounce in the bounce house but she loved standing at the base of the slide and watching the kids go down.  she looked precious in a sad sort of way.  made me laugh.

happy easter from the hilliers!  we're starting to look like a real family!  just wait til we add our next five kids.  juuuust kidding.  three more will probably suffice.

abigail likes to know what the words say on all of her clothes and brady's.  chris was unaware of this tonight when i was at the young women's broadcast and he was at home with the kids... apparently a humorous and confusing situation went down when abigail repeatedly pointed to brady's shirt while telling chris "it's you big guy!"  "it says it's you big guy!"  ha.

 

 

 

mother son picture.  i know it's silly but having a son makes me feel so special.  not sure why but it 100% does.

hard at work

 

 

 

baby girl came to me sooooo thrilled that she put on her shirt all by herself!  (she's been dressing herself more and more lately and is getting really good at it!)  she excitedly looked down to show me thomas and... umm... immediately became frantic that she couldn't see him.  ha.  

don't worry.  i helped her remedy the situation.

and we all lived happily ever after.  ps- i got her these pjs in 2T for christmas.  they shrunk a lot after the first washing.  luckily they went on clearance and i picked up bigger pj's for $3.  let the pj love live on!

honey woke up at 5:30 or something insanely early to play drop in hockey this morning.  then he took a nap this afternoon and then he fell asleep tonight sometime around 8 30 while i cleaned up the kitchen and got baby girl to bed.  i may have been slightly annoyed that he went to bed before our kid (to his credit, he actually got brady to sleep tonight before i got home from the yw broadcast!) but i thought it was no big deal since i was about to put abigail to bed anyways.  well, i was telling my sister emmy about this the other day but baby girl's ocd is getting a little out of control lately.  especially when it comes to bedtime.  tonight i made the trek up our stairs probably FIFTEEN times in the space of an hour.  our bedroom is downstairs and it seemed like as soon as i got in bed, i'd hear her on the monitor again.  the main issues of tonight were...

i need another hug

i need another kiss

my sippy cup is making noises (this accounted for at least four or five of the trips upstairs)

i have boogers, i need a tissue! (and then after i wiped her nose it was "throw it in the garbage!!!")

say goodnight!!!! (i literally walked in, said goodnight, and walked out again)

i have tears.  i have two tears.  (needing me to wipe her tears with her blanket... or just instruct her to do it herself)

i need my nightlight on! (because it's been sooo long that the timer reached its limit and the light went off)

the other night i went up and down those stairs three times at 1am with baby girl's random requests and then two times again at 2 am for brady.  i told emmy, this would all be severely annoying if i wasn't laughing at the humor of it all.  i used to go up and down those stairs four or five times a day.  now, it's got to be at least THIRTY.  and when it's between the hours of 9pm and 9am, you just can't help but laugh about it.  i mean, what other option is there?!

here's to another night!

potty training... like this?

baby girl is growing up fast.  part of this is exciting because she just keeps getting better and better.  but part of this is so sad because i feel like i can't keep up and i'm once again experiencing the anxiety that comes with not being able to freeze time.  

i started potty training baby girl two months ago.  at first she used a little pink stand alone potty.  then she ditched that in favor of the thomas seat.  then a week ago, when elle came over to play, she saw elle use the potty without anything else, so lately that's what she's been doing 95% of the time.  it's all always changing.  like how she went from being okay with underwear to hating it to loving it.  and how she'll go from loving to go potty and wanting to try all the time to hating it and throwing a tantrum every time to just getting it done like it's no big deal and accepting it as a normal part of life.  or how she went from just doing her thing to NEEDING me to watch her to going to the bathroom by herself and shutting the door.  or how she went from having me place her on the big potty to climbing on by herself to using a step stool to stand on so she could sit on the potty and now just standing on her tip toes to scoot her little bum up there.  always always always changing.  it happens so fast and it's hard to know when it will be the last time. 

one part of it that i don't want to forget is actually something from the days of throw a fit about it/climb on the potty/need mommy to watch/take forever to get things done.  those days were sooo frustrating sometimes.  when it was nap time and i just wanted baby girl to be in bed but i was, instead, standing in the doorway of the bathroom for 30 minutes watching her climb ever so slowly on the potty, sit for two seconds, say "i did it!" when nothing happened, hop off, and do it all over again.  i'd tell her to get back on and she'd say "i did it!" in this voice that i wish had it's own font.  and i'd say "no you didn't!  try again!" and she'd say "i did it!  i tried!  i triiiiieeedddd!" it was funny and hard not to laugh but it was also annoying and hard not to pull my hair out.  one thing that almost always got me what when she came up with "like this?"  my christopher and mom and emmy know what i'm talking about.  i'd tell baby girl to sit on the potty so she could wait for the pee pee to come out.  and then she'd prop herself to one side and say "like this?", and i'd quickly say no and she'd prop to the other side and say "like this?" and i'd say no, and then she'd cross one leg over the other like she's just hanging out, drinking a soda at a diner in a norman rockwell photo and say "like this?" and then i'd normally just lose it and bust out laughing.  

and then it became a game that she'd do when she was eating or getting dressed or cleaning up.  like this? like this? like this?  it makes me almost cry right now just thinking about it because two weeks ago she was doing it all the time... and now she doesn't do it anymore.  it might not be lost forever quite yet but i couldn't chance not writing it down.  

 

 

 

if you come to our house and find the soap sitting directly over the drain with just a small stream of water pouring over it... you'll know baby girl was there.  it's her trademark.

never before did i anticipate that this bathroom could become one of my favorite and happiest rooms of my house.  just "like this."

back to our party of four

i'm so sad.  mother and emmy went home today.  we all woke up early and were out the door by a little after 8:30.  both kids ate breakfast in the car on our way to the airport.  we dropped em off and then headed to cousin sara's house for a delicious coffee cake, bacon, and watermelon brunch.  we hung out for over an hour just catching up and baby girl was in heaven playing with lizzy and eva.  they all got along so well it was like they'd known each other forever.  then it was back to the airport to drop mom off and we were home before one.  the weather could not have been more glorious and we played on the driveway for a while... baby girl riding her bikes and brady lounging in his carseat, smiling for my camera.  something about good weather always makes me feel like "it doesn't get any better than this" which was definitely a good thing since i don't do well with the end of vacations or family leaving town.  the sunny t-shirt weather was my therapy, helping me cope with the loss of the last of the party.

brady and baby girl took naps while i did a few loads of laundry and attempted to get the house cleaned up a bit.  i still have a long way to go.  not like it's trashed (how could it be with my mother constantly doing my dishes and putting things away for me?!) but i have a lot of organizing to do... and i still have to wash and change the sheets on two more beds.  two down, two to go... i'm halfway there!

my honey got home a little after seven and honestly, it felt like he was getting in from out of town... i feel like i've barely seen him or spent any quality time with him in a week since i've just been so focused on hanging out with my family.  and i only spent a few minutes of my time with him telling him how much i'm going to miss waking up in the morning with mom and em and how i was totally spoiled that they would get abigail up and dressed and fed and play with her while i was trying to roll out of bed or get brady up and ready for the day.  spoiled that they're not cooking (i gained three pounds this week), cleaning (mostly my mother), and entertaining my kids and me every second of the day.  i'm wondering how long it'll take baby girl to stop asking about grandpa, grandma, and emmy... where they are and how much she misses them.  i'm kind of wondering the same thing about myself too.

i don't transition well with stuff like this.  i was in mourning for over a week after i got home from my trip to atlanta last september.  this will be hard too.  despite the pain, nostalgia brings, i will attempt to write catchup posts from the last... ummm, two weeks?  yikes, i've been sucking lately.

and fyi, sucking = busy.