Thankful.

 

 

This Thanksgiving went nothing like Clay and I planned but it turned out absolutely wonderful because I unexpectedly spent it with both of my brothers. The three of us haven't been together in years. Literally years.

 

Things in my family will never be how they were or how they're supposed to be, but Luke, Cory, and I are still close and bonded and forging memories and traditions that work for us, and for that, I am incredibly thankful.

Let's Go On An Adventure

Our house has been overrun with kids.

 

A couple of neighbors have their grandkids visiting for weeks and weeks and since there are limited toys at gramma's, our house has been the hotspot. I love that my kids have so many other kids to play with, but at any given time there are at least seven kids under eight running from room to room leaving wakes of destruction in their paths.

 

We couldn't do another day of it, so Clay and I decided to get up super early Sunday morning, load up the car with only our kids, and head somewhere. Anywhere.

 

After a couple hours of driving, we ended up at Michigan's Adventure. 

 

As luck would have it, my brother- and sister-in-law had been planning a trip on this very Sunday so we spent the day with family, riding rollercoasters and water slides and picnic-ing and winning prizes and it just what we needed.

 

 

Best spontaneous summer-vacay trip ever.

Swing Batter Batter!

 

Narls' baseball season just wrapped up. 

 

Since May, Clay and I have had a ball game and/or a soccer game for both kids almost every single night of the week. It's been crazy.  And what's especially crazy? I've thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

This is Narls' first year playing in the 8 & Under division and it's super cool to see everything these kids have learned in teeball and 6U start to make sense to them. They're making plays and tagging runners out and throwing to first and hitting hard. 

 

 

They're playing like real ball players.

 

They have had great coaches, including Clay who was on the field every game, who taught them a lot.

 

Narls played a good rotation of infield, outfield, and even catching, my old position.

 

I think my favorite part about his games though, is just being there. Sitting in the field with sunshine on my shoulders as Em plays on the slide and Lainey and I watch our boys on the field.  The simpleness and goodness of it all. Before things like standings and RBIs and divisions really start to matter. Seeing Narls get an amazing hit and smiling as the first thing he does after he runs home is come out to me with the biggest smile on his face and ask if I saw it. Watching Clay throw balls to the team with his worn old glove, as soft as butter, and with this almost magnetic draw that pulls all their wayward balls right to it.  Feeling Lainey's tail wag on my feet every time she hears Em's laugh or Narls' yell. Getting waffle cones of superman at our favorite ice cream place on the way home, win or lose.

 

Those are the reasons I love these baseballs games so much.

A Full (and healthy) Heart

At school, Narls has been learning about ways to keep his heart healthy, which is something very near and dear to my own heart. Heart disease is prominent on both sides of my family; my mom had a heart attack and a quadruple bypass before she was 50, and my dad had a heart attack and stroke by 60. I remember talking to one of my mom's heart doctors who said if you have heart disease in your genetics, you are 40% more likely to have a heart attack. Forty percent. And that's not even taking anything else into account - that's starting at square one.

 

 

The threat of an unhealthy heart was a huge motivator for when we started eating clean a couple years ago. Our diet is still a big topic of discussion in our home; Narls knows all about proteins and healthy fats and over-processing and Red 40 (he even mentioned the dangers of Red 40 to his teacher when he found out M&Ms were a topping selection at the valentine ice cream social). That's not saying he didn't eat the M&Ms, because he totally did, but he ate less of them and with a bit of 7-year-old understanding about the composition of the things he's putting in his body and how it affects his health.  

 

  

Heart disease is a huge motivating factor when it comes to exercise, too. The kids see Clay go to basketball and me to yoga and the whole family often goes swimming together at our gym. Even something as simple as taking Lainey for an evening walk is important, which I don't do with Clay & the kids enough.  It's a struggle for me to exercise every day because honestly? I kind of hate it.  But I hate being overweight even more. And I imagine I'd hate having heart disease most of all. So I do it, even though it doesn't come natural to me like it does Clay, so that it will always be a way of life for Narls and Emerson, so it will always come natural to them. 

 

And it's beyond awesome that these same goals - healthy diet and daily physical activity - are being echoed in Narls' classroom.  The school recently held a Jump Rope for Heart where the kids spent the entire afternoon at different jump rope stations being active and energizing their hearts. Parents came and we helped and cheered them on. The school also encouraged the children to raise money for heart disease and Narls took it upon himself to collect donations.  He set a personal goal of raising $25 and do you know that boy collected $121? Almost five times his goal.  We're so proud of him. And he's proud of himself!

 

We're teaching and we're learning and we're trying and we'll get there.

We have to.  For healthy lives and healthy hearts.

Happy Birthday, Little Brother

Sixteen years ago I fell head over heels in love with the most beautiful baby boy.



 

I'm still in love and that boy is still beautiful, only now he's a foot taller than me AND HE CAN DRIVE!



 

We love you, Lucas Jeffery and we're so insanely proud of you.

 

Happy, happy birthday!

Happy Thoughts

 

Happy thoughts, good vibes, prayers- we'll take them all today as my brother-in-law undergoes surgery to remove cancer in his colon.

 

You can read more of his story here.

 

We love you, Scott.  You will win.

Creative Homecoming Invitation

My amazing little brother spent the weekend with us, and he and I worked on some super secret craft stuff.

He highlighted and bedazzled a soccer ball for his girlfriend, who is a pretty sweet soccer player, and used it to ask her to their sophomore homecoming.

When he left my house, he went to meet her. He picked up some flowers on the way and was waiting for her after her soccer tournament with them and the decorated ball, and he asked her in front of her father and of course she said yes.

I mean he's handsome, resourceful, and romantic! What girl wouldn't???

Love you, Lukey! And so insanely proud of you.

♥ ♥ ♥

Building Memories

I am a very do-it-myself kind of girl.

 

I grew up with a dad that could literally fix anything.  Seriously. The first car I ever owned, an old Ford Escort, was totaled when a driver ran a red light and crashed into my passanger side door as I was making a left turn. My dad found another Escort, one with a great body but no engine (which was two years newer and cherry red), and proceeded to spend a weekend removing everything under the totaled vehicle's hood and putting in into the newer vehicle. I drove that "new" car for three more years and it drove like a dream.

 

As a parent, I want to cry just typing that memory. I understood the impact of his actions, but now as an adult with my own kids, it's even more profound. The things we do for our children. 

 

You could go so far as to say that I measure love with projects such as my dad's, which is why I'm very hands on with my kids. This will be the first Halloween that they don't want me to make them a costume and it's killing me. We ordered Em's from the Disney store and bought Narls' from Meijer and they are literally coming apart at the seams with happiness over their mass produced same-as-every-other Princess Sofia and Patriotic Ironman out there. Sigh. Oh well. I know they loved their homemade costumes too, and much like me with my dad, they'll appreciate my actions even more when they grow up and have their own babies. 

And I realize I'm being a bit overdramatic. I know that the full extent of one's love cannot be measured by projects alone. I married a very non-diy guy, but our children and I know he loves us more than can ever be shown by fixing a broken dishwasher. Which is a true story, our dishwasher broke, and Clay had a new one ready to buy.  I looked up the symptom's online and fixed ours it in a couple hours. Runs good as new, didn't cost us a penny, and I didn't even chip my nail polish.  He's getting better though.  He recently changed all four of my SUV's brakes himself, and you guys, talk about a turn on...  

But back to doing and building.  The Home Depot runs a kids' workshop on the first Saturday of every month and it's a perfectly executed event.  It's something I know my dad would love to take his grandkids to if he could. It makes me feel close to him despite the thousands of miles between us.  So Clay and I take them. And it's fun. We build something together. We've been doing it for over a year and no kidding, my kids are good with a hammer.  Even Clay has gotten better with a hammer ;)

 

Narls and Em leave with a project they built, that they're proud of. 

 

 

And I leave knowing I just helped instill in my kids that there isn't anything they can't fix or make, just like their grandpa instilled in me.

A Quest for Fun

I don't know if you know this about us, but we are the Griswolds incarnate. Bible. Perfectly planned trips get plagued with strange disasters and weird situations that turn us all into hot messes losing our shit everywhere, which is probably why Clay and I have never attempted a real family vacation before this week.

And truth be told, we wouldn't have done this vacation, this amazing perfect life-changing trip, if it wasn't for the urging of Clay's brother, Scott, and his wife, Kelly. They convinced us to join them at their vacation home in Orlando, Florida, and they never let us say no, and it turned out to be the best thing ever.

So we packed our suitcases, loaded up the kiddos, and the four of us flew like it was no big deal. The kids handled the long drive to the airport and airport crowds and TSA like tiny bosses.  The flight was a breeze and we landed in Orlando at midnight on Saturday.

We woke up on Easter morning to blue skies and sunshine in the most amazing villa right on the golf course at a gorgeous resort which is exactly how I picture Heaven to be. Our villa had 3 bedrooms - each with its own bathroom and flatscreen TV, a fully stocked kitchen, a dining room, and a livingroom. I'm not kidding you guys, paradise.

Aunt Kelly had plastic Easter eggs filled with candy hidden throughout our villa's backyard so Narls and Em had a hunt that morning, and then the resort had a Easter scavenger hunt and a build-a-bunny event later in the afternoon.

I drank wine all day, and we all went out for Chinese for dinner. I couldn't have asked for a better Easter or a better start to the week.

 

Monday morning I woke up and had my coffee on the patio. I think that alone might be the highlight of my entire trip- it was so perfect and serene. All of Monday was pretty chill and relaxed in fact, with us spending the entire day at the resort's waterpark.

Later that evening Kelly made an amazing chicken dinner and I drank another bottle of wine and we all stayed up late talking and laughing.

 

We got up bright and early Tuesday and headed to SeaWorld where I think I cried no less than seven times. You really can't take me anywhere, but THERE IS SOMETHING SO MAGICAL ABOUT THE PLACE. The dolphins, the whales- they're nothing short of amazing. I did have a mini freak out when we first got there because I don't do well in crowds, especially with my kids, and calling this place busy was a complete and utter understatement, and I pretty much said there was no way I could do Disney, but Scott and Kelly helped us a ton, they even took the kids so Clay and I could ride a roller coaster, and before I knew it I wasn't even bothered by the crowd and then it was 10pm and the park was closing and I just had one of the best days ever. Like in my entire life. It was that good.

My absolute favorite part of the day was Scott playing a basketball hoop shoot game to win Kelly a stuffed turtle, and after three attempts finally winning it only to have Emerson's face light up like he just climbed to the moon and brought her back a star. Seeing Scott hand that turtle to Em was classic. So then Clay had to play to win one for Narls, and Scott had to play again for Kelly and he ended up winning her the biggest dolphin ever and I know I'm babbling here, but perfect- everything was just perfect.

 

Kelly and Scott kept the kids for a bit on Wednesday so Clay and I could explore the resort.  We ended up on the rooftop pool, which overlooked the entire place, and I literally could have spent the whole damn day up there.

But I couldn't, because Scott and Clay were super excited about going on an airboat ride through the Florida everglades and scoutin' out some alligators. Personally, I wasn't excited about this. At all. I'm a bit clumsy and if anyone is going to fall overboat, it'd be me. Plus, swamps and mosquitoes don't quite compare to having poolside cocktails on the rooftop, but I went because I'm a trooper, and actually had a lot of fun. And I didn't fall out of the boat! Narls and Em even got their own sharktooth necklaces.

 

Ok, so I thought SeaWorld was magical, right? And I cried there, remember? Well that was nothing compared to being at Disney with my husband and our children. I was a mess. In a good way! I looked at my kids so many times throughout the day and saw their happiness and their perma-grins and died over and over.

The only bad part of this day was that it was supposed to rain allllll day. A couple tornadoes were even predicted. Clay and I didn't let that stop us; we're not scared of tornadoes. Ok we totally are, but we had already bought our tickets so it was a now or never kind of deal. The weather actually worked out in our favor because the morning was beautiful but the crowds were super thin which warmed my anti-people heart.

Then the rain came. There was a moment during the afternoon where it had been pouring for an hour, we just left the Country Bears Jamboree (lame, but it had a roof), the kids were whiny and Clay was losing his cool, and I pretty much thought that was the end of our Disney trip. We got in line to meet Tink mainly because it was in doors, and once we met her, I don't know, it was like instant happiness. I get that she's not the real Tinkerbelle, even Narls commented that she's just a person dressed up, but I cannot explain how easy it is to get wrapped up in the magic of the whole thing. Of every thing. So, yes, she was awesome, and we were happy, and we went outside and found that the rain had stopped and the sky was a gorgeous blue, and we got some Dole pineapple whip, and all was well.

I was immensely proud of us for turning the day around, something we're not always good at. Only  we didn't just turn it around, we made it awesome. We rode more rides (the crowds were even thinner after the rain), we ate, we met up with Scott & Kelly for the fireworks and I cried. Because I'm a crier and that's what I do, but also because I watched Narls face lit up at seeing Tinkerbelle zip across the castle at the start of the fireworks and because I heard him shout "now that's the real Tink!" and because Em fell asleep snuggled in my arms and because I was just so. damn. happy.

Friday was bittersweet because Scott and Kelly left that afternoon and we knew it was our last full day in Florida. We spent most of the morning being lazy and packing and doing laundry, and then after our family left, the four of us headed to the mall four for some shopping and to get our Florida Starbucks mug and a bit of froyo.

Afterward it was back to the villa for takeout pizza and some cuddling on the couch all while watching TMNT. After the kiddos fell asleep, Clay and I had some much needed quality time and then we were in bed by midnight so we could get some sleep before our 5am trip to the airport.

So now we're home and our cat made it through the week without us and our dog did great at the doggy daycare and the kids are happy and Clay and I are happy and this vacation was just what we needed. I know it sounds incredibly cheesy, but it fed my soul. I came back home even more in love with my husband and children, which I didn't even think was possible.

And we didn't have even a single Griswold-esque mishap.