Camera found, Family visited, Memories made!

It's been a very busy past week and a half here! :) First of all, my husband took last week off work because Monday was our anniversary! Mother's Day was, as I'm sure you know, on Sunday. I am not sure if I mentioned this on here or not but it seems the second I hit 20 weeks pregnant, that's when the contractions started, and sometimes they HURT like crazy. Now you should know this is typical for me to spend the last few months contracting. With Buggie I spent pretty much the whole pregnancy scared that he was going to refuse to wait and be a preemie. There were alot of real bad scares . Then I hit the magical "safe zone" of 36 weeks and the contractions just... stopped. He wound up being born 2 days "late." This time it kind of caught me off guard when the contractions got so painful at 20 weeks because they hadn't been very often or painful during the first half. It made me realize that I need to make it a priority to go see my mom ASAP - before I'm too far into my incessant-painful-contraction phase to be driving through miles and miles of uninhabited prarie. So we made our plans to drive up on Mother's Day and stay for a few days so I could spend some quality time with my mom.

The drive on Sunday went better than expected. Buggie does not ride in the car well so we had some ...moments... and he wouldn't take a nap for longer than a few minutes at a time. But I was expecting way worse so I'm thankful it went as well as it did. We arrived at my parents' house at dinnertime and there was a family BBQ in progress for Mother's Day. My inlaws, and my sister's inlaws were there, as well as us and my sister's family. My baby brother lives out of state now so he was not there. The BBQ was great and it was nice to see everyone at once. The only bad thing was how bad it seemed to wear my mom out. The last "guests" left at nearly 11pm and by that time my kids were already in bed and hubby and I were eager to join them. My poor mom sleeps in a chair in the living room so she looked absolutely exhausted by the time she was able to go to sleep.

I had found my camera to take on the trip but, other than snapping a few scenery pics out the car window on the way, I was so used to not having it that I sadly forgot to take pics of most of our time up there. :(

Monday, our anniversary, we visited my husband's parents in the morning and then drove an hour to another city so hubby could visit his brother and I could meet up with a friend. Actually I've known this friend for years but only on the internet and telephone so it was a real treat to finally get to meet her in person. :) Her kids and mine had so much fun together and I really enjoyed our visit! Here's my car all packed full of kids, aren't they cute? My 2 are on the left and my friend's girls are on the right. I was walking around the front of the parked car to buckle Chicklet in as my friend snapped this pic. :) (So in case you're wondering why she's the only one not buckled in, that's why- I hadn't waddled my preggo self all the way around the car yet!)

After that we took a drive across the state line to see the house my sister is trying to buy. Then all the way back to my inlaws, and left the kids with them for an hour or so while hubby and I went out to a quick Chinese dinner for our anniversary. Happy 8 blessed years to us! :) Then we zoomed back to the inlaws to pick up the kids and drove back up in the mountains to my parents' house and went to bed. It was a reeeeeeeally long day but a a good day! :)

The next day my hubby was in and out. He went out varmint hunting and took a drive and went to town for milk. Me and the kids spent all day just hanging out with my mommy (and my dad when he wasn't working!). It was so wonderful to be able to spend a whole day with her! Again, I wish I'd been better about remembering my camera and taking more pictures! I did get some of Chicklet doing a puzzle with Grammie and Grampy:

And hubby got a few of Buggie and I -Buggie was "flying" in case you were unsure. ;)

Bug got a tremendous kick out of the hummingbirds at my parents' feeder. He was running round their front yard giggling and shouting "Zoom! Zoom! Catch 'em! Catch 'em!" while clapping his hands in the air in the general direction of the zooming hummingbirds. Of course I forgot I had my camera until we were all back inside and Bug was busy with the toys and had forgotten the birds. I did take a couple pics of the hummingbirds once I finally remembered the existence of my camera.

The next day, Wednesday, we made the long trip home.

I took this pic at a rest area because the cloud shadows looked really awesome on the prarie below. Don't let the snow fool you; it was a nice warm day with a cool wind.

The kids did AMAZING on the drive! I think Bug only had one meltdown the whole way home! And Chicklet didn't have a single potty accident the whole time we were away from home! We were so proud of them!

I hope you enjoyed my little recap with a boatload of pics! Or perhaps you did not; so sorry to have bored you half to death! ;)



P.S. Don't forget tomorrow is Toddler Tales Tuesday! I'd be tickled pink if you would join me in posting the cute things our toddlers say and do!