a week in the Livable Forest

Within our 2 week visit to the Lonestar State, we spent over a week in Kingwood at my parents house.  My mom & I drove the girls from Dallas to Houston & then back at the end of the week.  They did great on the 4 hour trip with only a couple stops.  My mom & I enjoyed the time to catch up with each other while the girls were either napping or riding quietly.

Our week in Kingwood was full of not only coughing & runny noses but also with LOTS of smiles, visitors & play dates. I think it will be best to remember the week in pictures.

Some after dinner smiles in the kitchen with Gaga. We always eat good when we go to my parents house although I guess Eloise feels like she eats good no matter where we are : )



Paw Paw & Eloise watching one of the many Rangers games that sucked us in for an entire evening only to disappoint us in the end. It was fun to steal the 1980's Rangers shirt off my old baby doll Amy & put it on my real baby!



Most of my mom's friends stopped by for sporadic visits throughout the week.  My mom has just the sweetest friends & it was fun to spend some time with them.  I think Mrs. Cox may have gotten the memo that the way to Charlotte's heart is through her stomach.....she brought her this absolutely delicious princess cupcake!

 One super fun afternoon,  me & the girls headed over to Cheryl & Joe's house.  Cheryl & I were college roomies from our first day until the week I got married.  We plowed through nursing school together with more laughs than I could have ever dreamed of.  We were in each other's weddings & then we ended up in Florida overlapping a year while Cheryl was in CRNA school.  She has since moved back to Kingwood & added precious Noah into the family.  Charlotte & Noah first met when Noah was only a month old.  They had much more fun playing this time around!  Charlotte called him "No-nah" the whole time....super adorable! We let the kiddos play & then Joe brought us home some yummy Pei-Wei we devoured while laughing about our college days & sharing how we are all adapting to the new stage of life we are in.  I love this family.



Char & No-nah





Haha, I am really not a very smart girl.  What was I thinking trying to hold a 30 pound kid on each hip? 



My how the times have changed : )



Lisa, Lisa, Lisa. Lisa was my very best friend growing up. She lived next door to me from the time we were 8 years old. Our birthdays are exactly a week apart & we spent an immeasurable amount of time together  as kids.  She makes time to see us every visit we take to Kingwood which I so appreciate! It is always great to spend a few hours together.  She surprised Elo with a new blankie...this is special to me because she gave Char a similar one when she was only a couple months old & she still sleeps with it every night.  I hope Elo will like hers just as much!  I will force her to ; )

 

Beautiful Lisa with Baby Elo



Another playdate during the week was with a couple girls that I grew up with, Karen & Bethany.  Our mom's all live within walking distance of each other & love talking about their grandbabies to each other : ) It was fun to spend the morning together although Charlotte had to miss out because of her awful cough.

Karen & Rachel with Me & Eloise.  Rachel is a couple months older than Eloise & as cute as can be!

Bethany is the mommy in this picture supervising her sweet Hannah who is holding Eloise.  Hannah will be a big sister next month to Charlie! She did a great job being gentle with Elo & Rachel.


Uncle Scott took a couple days off work to spend with us.  He stayed 2 night at my parents house.  This was so nice of him because he knew that the upstairs was full of crying, coughing babies & one exhausted mommy.  We were roomies in one of our old bedrooms. It was fun to stay up late talking....he always makes me laugh really hard.  The girls thought Uncle Scott was quite entertaining with his goofiness & funny sounds!  Charlotte gets really upset with him anytime he tells her "no" & starts crying & stays away from him until he wins her back with his silliness.  Oh Uncle Scott, we loved having you with us!





Happy girl & Happy uncle!



Playing Paw Paw's ukulele.  Just prior to this photo Uncle Scott did a very opera style rendition of "Jesus Loves Me" for Charlotte.  It was hilarious!

I love being at my parent's house. It is so relaxing.  It was a bummer for the girls to be sick but you can't beat having Grandma & Grandpa around to help!  My mom took over bath time for the girls, & my dad took over putting Charlotte to bed for the entire trip.  I think he may have read her about 12 books a night & spent lots of time calming her down for the evening. I enjoyed the little break from our usual routine, thanks Mom & Dad!