Snapshots of our Jackson Hole vacation

I have been wanting to write about our vacation to visit my parents in Wyoming for weeks now, but have felt overwhelmed by events and the amount of things I wanted to share.  Because of this I have decided to share some snapshots of the fun times we had and will work on posting more details soon.

When we first arrived it was cold (as you can tell from the coats and hats).  It even snowed.  We went out walking around down town and had a nice lunch at the Wort Hotel.

Here we are swinging at the bottom of a mountain.  Behind us is the bottom of the ski lift.  The girls loved to be outside so we went to the park a lot.

This is really the first time they crawled around on play equipment, and they loved it.  The stairs were their favorite, as they were too little to make it up the tunnel.

There is a great children's museum in Jackson that the girls loved.  They had a a special room just for toddlers with a slide and stairs

They had these really fun chairs that Emma loved to sit on.

Jackson has this great square in the middle of the town where people can sit and enjoy the outdoors.  E and C loved crawling around and playing in the dirt.

It was so fun to spend time with my dad and see him spend time with my daughters.

C felt comfortable on the grass and tried out a head stand.

E spent over 20 minutes playing in the bark.  She loved running it through her fingers.

We went to my grandparent's house for dinner one night and took family photos in their backyard.  Yes, this is their backyard!  It is so beautiful.

With Grammy and Grandpa.

I just love this picture of Charlotte.  I think that her face just looks so happy.

The sun came out!

Here are E and C with my grandpa and grandma.  It was so important to me that they were able to spend some time together.

The whole gang (minus my uncle Gerry who left a little earlier)

Again, such a sweet moment.  My dad helping E to walk in the grass.  The background is amazing too.

Here is C and her dad practicing walking also.

My mom, my husband, the girls and I all went to a local burger place to eat lunch.  Here is Charlotte drinking from a straw.  It was probably the highlight of lunch for her.

My mom and I.

Our family in front of the famous elk antler arches at the Jackson Hole town square.

This was a daily occurrence.  C and E love to help unload the dishwasher.

On my birthday (and the last day we were there) we went to a gymnastic gym and let the girls crawl around for a while.  They had a great time sliding, bouncing, swinging, and climbing.

Daddy helping E down the slide.

Daddy helping C down the slide.

My birthday cake!  It was a white cake with maraschino cherries in the batter, pastry cream in between the layers, and chocolate ganache on top.  It was an amazing cake.

Overall an amazing trip.  Well worth the three plane flights to get there.  We are already planning our next trip.  I think we are going to try and drive it next time.

A sweet moment

I went into the playroom this morning and found both E and C sitting together laughing on this chair. It was really sweet and was a special moment in a busy day. E has taken some steps and C is not far behind, so things are about to get challenging.

Look where I have been!

My alma mater!! What a treat it has been to be able to walk down memory lane and visit the place that was so important to me just a couple of years ago. My husband and I had the opportunity to walk around and reminisce about the days when our love was new. I met my old roommate and dear friend here this week. I had not seen her in over a year. We had a fun morning walking through campus showing our children where we used to live. Hurray for old mizzou!

I am still here!

Gosh, I have fallen behind on blogging. This partly due to the fact that we went on a long trip, and partly due to the fact that I now feel overwhelmed about blogging about said trip. It will happen, but in the mean time I will share with you this funny picture. We went over to a friends house this morning to do some crafting. There were a lot of kids there and so C and E roamed around playing with them. All of the sudden E crawled in with these ice cream cones that she had found and was making a snack out of them. I was so embarrassed but everybody there laughed. We are entering the stage where they are wanting to get into everything and throw a fit when they are told no.

What I have learned from fire ants

The last couple of days have been really rough. I feel like it has been one of those times that as a mom I really had to dig down deep to find the strength to keep going and get what I needed. On Wednesday I accidentally stepped into a nest of fire ants when getting out of the car at a friends house. The ants hurt when they bit, but the bites didn't get bad until Wednesday night. They were so excruciating that I couldn't sleep and continued that way until today. Benadryl and cortisone cream were not helping. What made this even worse is that my husband is out of town. I made it through Thursday but after another sleepless night I knew I needed to go to the doctor. I felt overwhelmed at asking others to help me, but came up with a small list of people to call and was able to find someone to watch the girls. The doctor immediately looked at my foot (with its 10 swollen bites) and said "these are infected, I think it is a staff infection." No wonder they were hurting so badly. She took a sample to get tested to find out for sure, and sent me on my way with antibiotics, steroids and painkillers. Tonight I can already tell the steroids are starting to work. I am not limping as badly and the swelling is going well. So... here are something that I learned from fire ants.

1. Wear sandals outside in Mississippi at your own risk.

2. When in doubt, go to the doctor. I wasn't sure if I should go or wait it out, and I am so glad that I did.

3. Being a mother is much hardest when you don't feel good, and it is hard to take care of yourself when you have others to care for.

4. It is ok to feel disappointed about missing out on fun activities because you are not feeling well. It is important to take care of yourself and be realistic about what you can and can not do.

5. Even though it is really hard, it is important to ask for help when you need it. It is not fair to assume that people will just know when you need it. I don't know why it is so hard for me to ask for help, but I think it has something to do with not wanting to admit I can't handle something by myself or inconveniencing others. What I realized today as I relied on people to watch my children, bring us food and care for us, was that everything was so much easier and better with the support and love from others. I am extremely thankful that we have such kind friends and neighbors here.

Hopefully I am on the road to recovery and will be back to myself in no time.


Sent from my iPhone

Using the learning tower

C and E got this learning tower from my parents for Christmas.  What an awesome consignment find!!  The idea behind the learning tower is that it creates a safe way for young children to access the counter and sink.  C and E are finally stable enough when standing that I decided to try it out at the sink.  They are still pretty little but are able to reach the water to wash their hands.  They like being able to do it themselves and I am excited to see what fun things we can do with this as they get bigger.

* I look at these pictures and just marvel at how big my girls are getting!  It is exciting to see them doing things for themselves, but also makes me miss their tiny baby selves. *

We have been spoiled!

For the last week and a half my family and I have been spoiled by the wonderful visit of my husband's parents and grandmother.  They are so kind and loving, and we had a great time with them.  Here are just some of the ways that we were spoiled by their visit.

E and C got to take to two trips to the splash park in one week.  They had wagon rides every afternoon and lots of individual play time with loving grandparents and great grandparent.  I think both E and C got pushed around in the pink princess ride-on toy about an hour each day.

Here we are just about to leave for our date, dinner and a concert.

I was spoiled in many ways also.  I was able to do my hair and put make-up on at least four days while they were here.  I had help while my husband was out of town which made bed time so much easier.  I had time to run some errands, go out to dinner with friends, go on a date with my husband, and clean around the house.  We power washed our entire house and cleared out a lot of brush in our yard.  I played a lot of cards with my great grandmother-inlaw, which was such a treat as I don't get to play games very often. 



Over all it was a superb visit, topped off by a mother's day shared by three mothers. I am thankful for being able to be a part of this special family and all of the thing that they did for us during this visit.