JANUARY HIGHS & LOWS

We're almost through the entire month of January, and I haven't broken a single New Year's Resolution.  Because I didn't make one. 😬 I never do. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Here are some of the highs and lows from this month!

High: Celebrating my dear sister/friend's baby who will be here anytime now!  We had a mini Fiesta with a few fun friends.

Low:  We realized that the twins were sneaking candy/treats/iPads into their room and hiding them to be pulled out at their discretion.  Obviously, we've had to shut this down, and I *love* the time it takes to make sure nothing is tucked under their pillows or behind their laundry basket.

High:  We celebrated a big year with our team and the holidays by going bowling with everyone from our restaurants.  This turned out to be a great move and much less stressful than past parties.



Low: I got a text from a fellow mom giving me a head's up to ask Lily about the excitement at school.  Y'all, there was a snake in their classroom.  Not a pet one, either.  A wild one.  I'm not here for it.

High:  Seeing Bella as a fake 100 year old with fake gray hair for the 100th day of school.

Low:  Seeing John as an actual 37 year old going actually gray.  He was letting the girls pluck out the gray hair.  (- i actually don't mind the gray hair at all.  on him.)

High:  My sister came in for a few days with one of her sons.  We went to a Justin Timberlake concert, painted a room at my house and planned quilts for her to make for the girls' new room.  It's always so fun to be together!  She is so great at helping me actually complete projects since that is not really one of my strengths.

Low: For weeks, Violet has been talking about her teeth.  I thought it was just that in kindergarten, lots of kids lose teeth.  None of hers have budged.  However, as I looked, I realized that she has actually grown two new bottom teeth without losing any.  Come to find out, this phenomenon is called "Shark Teeth."  So now we are wiggling those teeth every chance we can get to help them loosen up and hopefully not need to have them pulled by the dentist.



High: I've reconnected with several old friends this month whether in person or on the phone, and it has been such a gift!

High:  Hosting a PJs and Popcorn night with my adoptive/foster moms group.  What a gift to have such a tribe!



Low:  Having leftover popcorn and no self-control.

High:  I finally redeemed my Mother's Day spa morning which was amazing.

High:  We've had pockets of warmer moments this month, and we've jumped on all of them to get out of doors for everyone's sanity.

Low:  We've slipped into a Polar Vortex.  (to be fair, we actually haven't.  it's cold, but we are still allowed to leave our homes, so it's clearly not as cold here as the Midwest and North)

High:  We celebrated Maya's 10th birthday - it's such a gift to be in contact with the twins' birth family!

High: Fun nights with friends!  We recreated the "Kitchen Sink" dessert from DisneyWorld.




Low:  Not realizing just how ridiculous I looked while wearing this hat I grabbed to stay warm.  So glad that my friends love me anyway.

High:  Finding these tasty little Key Lime candies on Amazon.

Low:  Eating them until the roof of my mouth is torn up.  I didn't know that could happen.

That about wraps it up!  Stay warm, friends.

LILY'S BIRTHDAY TRIP: THE SWEET

We have four kids, and I wouldn't change that for anything.  Our children are each so precious and unique.  But, having four kids in four years means that sometimes, people get lost in the shuffle.  It is low-level simmering chaos most of the time, and other times, the pot boils over into full blown crazy. I'm just gonna tell you that when it is totally nuts, parenting feels really difficult.  The number of issues feels high and the number of parents to deal with those issues feels far too low.

Having the chance to take one child on a birthday trip was such a gift to us all.  I remembered the joys of parenting.  We had fun!  We came back more refreshed than when we left.  The whole experience was sort of unbelievable.  

Lily is our oldest, and a lot of responsibility falls on her shoulders.  She is mostly loving and patient with her siblings (though they all get under each other's skins plenty).  She is helpful and kind.  This trip we were reminded of what a great traveler she is and how much she enjoys going on an adventure.  She was also completely up for the challenge of 4 parks in a day and rocked it almost every step (over 30,000 of them!) of the way.

This trip took us all out of our norm in a beautiful way.  Obviously, there was the fun of visiting Disney World.  But the novelty of being able to focus on one child and ask questions and listen to the whole answer over several days was unforgettable.  It was a great reminder that we need to emulate this on a small scale more regularly.

At 10, there is still a lot of innocence in our girl, and I'm forever grateful.  The world is full of things she doesn't know or understand yet.  But slowly and surely, she is learning and growing.  She is noticing, and it is spectacular to watch.  She appreciates beauty and delights in small things.

Lily is witty and has an unusual sense of humor, and we found ourselves genuinely laughing a lot.  Like I said, John and I were really amazed at just how enjoyable the entire experience was.  I had time to notice these things, because my attention was not divided.  I also remembered that I am normally a friendly, chatty person when I travel.  When I travel with our whole family, I usually cannot see past us.  But with a smaller contingent, I can take deeper breaths and engage others around us and notice more.

So thankful for these unforgettable moments and treasured experiences.  None of us will forget this long weekend.  I'm thankful to have four children, and also so thankful to have had the opportunity to peel one off for a while.  Here's to having a child in double digits and cherishing the time we have together!

LILY'S BIRTHDAY TRIP: THE FUN

Last fall, I cooked up the plan to skip the birthday party, and instead throw a birthday trip for each child when they turn 10.  (I've seen friends do this and loved the idea!)  John was game, and we let Lily pick where in the United States that she wanted to go, though we did have to limit her to warmer areas, because NYC in January sounds like zero fun.  Once she realized that Disney World was on the table as an option, she picked it, and I got to work planning a 3 day, two night itinerary in the Happiest Place on Earth.  

Swimming was a very important component of the trip for Lily, so we picked the resort based on which had the "best" pool, and we ended up at the Beach Club.  The pool really was incredible, and when we arrived on Sunday, it was just warm enough to swim.  

It was a beautiful property, and the pool really was fantastic.  There's a huge area with sand that felt like a mini-beach, and I got to watch this portion of the fun from the hot tub.  Win win win.

Because we went to Disney in February, and because I was looking to save a *little* money, we decided to only do one park day.  And then,  I asked Lily if she would want to try to visit all four parks in one day, and she was game.  I mapped out a strategy that had us starting at Animal Kingdom one hour before the park opened so that we could be first in line to Flight of Passage (the current most popular ride in Disney World, to those who don't frequent Disney)

John thought this was mildly crazy but humored me, and we were sixth in line in a hoard of people, and we were in the first group of people to ride.  This freed us up to head to other rides that also had no wait, and we were finished with Animal Kingdom by 9:15 a.m., including a coffee/breakfast/colossal cinnamon roll break.

From Animal Kingdom, we took a bus to Hollywood Studios to check out the new Toy Story Land.  Lily did NOT want to ride Slinky Dog Dash (the coaster), so I got a Fast Pass for the other new ride there.  Toy Story Land is so fun.  I love when details are executed at every level, and this was some of the best theming I've ever seen.

We did one other thing at Hollywood Studios, but it was our quickest park of the day, and we headed to Magic Kingdom next.  I was able to secure more Fast Passes for rides we weren't able to do in February, and we also ate a LOT of snacks.  

The Magic Kingdom will always and forever have my heart, and it was delightful to have time to take it in.  Lily's feet did start to hurt a bit late in the afternoon, but she barely complained a bit.  And she felt better as soon as she had some Mickey Ice Cream.  After we had hit the highlights that we could squeeze in, we headed to Epcot and immediately went for Churros, duh.

We were there later in the day, and it was not very crowded.  Amazingly, we were able to get onto a lot of great rides with virtually no waiting, which is definitely my favorite way to theme park.  Lily was terrified on Test Track, but liked the experience a tiny bit better in retrospect. 

We ended the day with Illuminations before walking back to our resort through the International Gateway.  By the time we ended the night, we had walked over 13.5 miles in the day.

John and I were floored at how fun and relatively easy this trip was.  It was better than we expected on so many fronts.  I would NEVER have attempted four parks in one day with all four of our kids, but we knew that Lily could hang.  She was thrilled at almost every turn, and seeing her delight in everything was such a joy.

I plan on going into more details about how sweet doing a trip with one child was in another post, but to sum it up, it was PRECIOUS time.  It's so easy to lose track of our children when they are seen as a four pack, so peeling one off for time was really special for us all.

And I love Disney World more than the average person (understatement), so doing all of this was super fun for me.  But, what put it over the top was seeing how much fun Lily had.  We did what she wanted to do and made it a point to cater to her.  Normally, that is not how our family functions, and it was a great opportunity to indulge things that we normally would not be able to for a host of reasons.

We came back relatively refreshed, which was completely unexpected.  Lily is a GREAT travel buddy, and being able to just have fun with her was amazing!  And now we can say we did four parks in one day. 👊🏻