Heaven looks a lot like Ten Mile

Moms rarely get a weekend all to themselves.  Even more rarely do 12 moms get a break from their 25+ children for an entire weekend.  I won't say it's easy to coordinate but how glorious are the 48 hours we get to spend together without serving little hands and feet around us!  We only had to serve ourselves.  We ate what we wanted and we only had to share if we WANTED to.  We ate meals that were hot, not necessarily nutritious and NOT prepared by us!  We drank adult beverages.  All.  day.  long.  We stayed up late and only woke when things in the kitchen got rowdy with a cup or two of coffee.  The attire was pajamas or swimsuits.  

These are my Nashville girls and even though I haven't lived there for 2 and a half years, I never missed a beat!  I fell back into their circle like I had never left.  That's how you know, it's real!  I was SO happy to join them on their annual girls trip to the lake at Ten Mile.  It made me overwhelmingly happy that I could be with them for 2 whole days, no kids, no husbands no problems.  All the distance between us just faded away.  

We started our weekend with a gourmet meal at Loveless Cafe.  That made both my heart AND my belly happy!  Gah, y'all, there just isn't anything like it anywhere!  It's EPIC and when I lived in Nashville it was only minutes away!  I'm lucky I made it out of Nashville with only a few added pounds! 

If you wonder what we did all weekend we'd be hard pressed to give you an exciting run down.  It consisted of A LOT of sitting on the pier.  And I mean A LOT!  We would get in the water to cool off floating in packs of 2 or 3.  We squealed about fish biting our toes and we even ventured over to jump off the neighbors pier once.  There were photos of it but they are not in my possession.  We also came up with a rowdy obstacle course that everyone was required to participate in.  It included a kids slip and slide and a made up yoga pose of your choice.  There were explicitly NOT photos to be made of that event!  

We watched the sun set every night we were there, all the way until it went below the skyline and the spiders started coming out onto the pier.  We would then squeal our way back to the house and indulge in freshly baked cookies and watch movies from the early 80's!

I got my first taste of Cards Against Humanity and I was shocked but also head over heels for the game.  I came home and bought it for Jason and I to play with neighbors!  

Dinning on the pier happened ALL DAY LONG but hey, it was our party we could eat what we wanted to!

If I could hold onto these moments, these girls, I would not let go!  I love them so and miss them dearly!  I might have only lived in Nashville 2 years but my heart will always go back there!  

Our Epic 12 person selfie, we are pretty sure its a record.  At least it is for us!  

I'll always love Nashville and I'll always love these girls!  Thank you so much for a fantastic 48 hours away.  It refreshed my mommy soul and made me miss you all over again!  

Pigtail Perfection

It took us what FELT like a long time to finally get to the point of pigtails!  It might be a stretch for some but we have been seriously rocking the pigtails lately!  There is just nothing cuter than a toddler with two tiny pig tails in her hair!  

I'm pretty sure I was even older than her before I rocked the pig tails so I guess she's lucky to have enough to pull it off at 1.  I was nearly 3!

We are finding that pig tails go with EVERYTHING and it makes her even MORE irresistible!  

Even the brothers think so!

Isn't this the TRUTH!?!  

We couldn't help but notice the uncanny resemblance to Boo from Monsters Inc!  My little blonde haired Boo baby!  

We love her AND her pigtails!

Up the Creek

There is nothing these two love more than "playing in the creek".  They'd choose a slimy mud hole over the pool any day.  I have scoured this place and have only found one or two places to let them be dirty boys in.  Luckily one is nearby us at the YMCA.  We hike back into the woods and there is a hole with partially stagnant water and partially running water to play in.  The boys love to take their shoes off and traipse around in the water or the "sinking sand".  The catch any number of critters that they happen upon.  This particular time, they caught fish with their bare hands.  It's the girly girl in me that will never  understand this fascination but I let them be boys and get dirty and play in the creeks.  

In Alabama, the creeks aren't so hard to come by.  This creek is one I played at when I was little even.  It hasn't changed so much.  I can remember the time when I liked walking up the waterfalls and jumping from rock to rock.  Now the critters, that was always outta my league.

I'm just glad they can have fun like this without screens or being entertained.  This is how it should be.  This is how we played and we obviously turned out PERFECT! ;)

Come on Ride the Train!

We had a 14 hour drive ahead of us but that didn't stop us from making a last minute fun stop to ride the train.  The Houston Area Steamers are life size miniature trains that volunteer train enthusiast host a free rides day once a month.  I saw the ad for the Zube Park in Hockley and looked up how far it was.  Its actually really close to us so we hit the road.  We were working on at least 100 degrees outside and full sun.  We had to wait in a significant line but when we made it on the train, it was all fun and breezes!  Lillian waved to all the people as we left the station and we all enjoyed the scenery around the large park.  The train ride was a little longer than i would have expected which was nice after such a long wait.  We will absolutely go back again.  In the fall.  When the temps go WAY down!  Nothing outside the water is fun in the Texas Summer!

Summer lovin' the little things!

We really did our part in making the most of the summer we had off!  We didn't leave one day to spare.  We made it to the Library for a story, game night and the reading program.  We also got to watch a few animals of The Woodlands from the window.  

While Jackson was at camp, we made it back to Wendy's for story time and face painting.  It was nostalgia because we used to take these two when they were in pre-K and we had infants in tow.

We walked to the bakery and the newest splash pad in town.  Lillian liked the water but seemed to be unable to distinguish it from a water fountain for drinking.  Luckily she's #3 and drinking from the splash pad is perfectly acceptable!

These cute new chairs are out in the green space in market street.  She likes to sit in the ones her size.

We had to make a mad dash for passports.  We suddenly decided to get the kids passports for our upcoming disney cruise and we went to Conroe to get them.  County office=no lines!  We spent some time in Conroe exploring.  The court house has a fantastic fountain that the boys really loved.

 We introduced Lillian to the Disney Store!  With the cruise coming up, it's time she got accquainted with Mimi (minnie) and she took to it pretty well.  We are lucky we didn't end up having to take one of them home with us.  She gets pretty serious about her "babies".

And now we have a princess.  When she's not busy being minnie, she's all decked out in princess gear.  This makes my heart happy!

This also makes my heart pretty happy.  She RARELY lets me rock her to sleep these days.  As soon as she's done with the milk, she DIVES into the bed for her blankets.  I got to steal this little bit of heaven from her when she gave up first!  I'll take it!

No time like the present.  We introduced Lillian to American Girl.  As to not delay the inevitable, we showed her the dolls and the accessories.  Wouldn't you guess, she LOVED it.  I think Santa just put something on his list for Lady Lillian!

We also got to ride the carousel at the mall!  Lillian went from excited to not so sure and back to excited again.

We ate ice cream!  And lots of it!  

Lincoln went to golf camp at TopGolf for a week.  It was a birthday gift for him and he really enjoyed it and did really well for one of the younger campers!  He still claims he wants to be professional golfer one day.  

Oh, we went to Torchy's!  It's possibly the last time I'll have to drive 30+ minutes to get to Torchy's because they are opening one in The Woodlands very soon!  I am super excited about this!  Lillian s head shook up and down in satisifaction the whole time I fed her their "chocolate meatballs" as the boys call them or fried cookie dough.

Jackson and his friend had some deep 9 year old conversations at the Koi garden.  

Then Jackson catches one of the wild ducks at the Northshore park.  

We got Lillian a water table mid summer.  She loves to pour water from one thing to another and it can occupy her for quite a while.

We hit more pools than I can count this summer.  We kept a swim bag packed and went probably 4-5 days a week!  We all got a good tan and swam our pool pass money's worth!

This is what most of August feels like in Texas.  It has gotten better as of late but whew, it was really rough there for a few weeks.  We had 5 weeks that were OVER 95 every day.  Texas in the summer.

When it was so hot you might melt, we played games inside.  We watched a little TV and played with the neighbors.  We lived life to the fullest and enjoyed every minute of SUMMER!