I lie and tell myself he missed me.

But he so totally didn't. Not only did he not miss me, but when we first got to my inlaws' house and I picked him up to hug the life out of him say hello, he pushed me away and reached for his daddy. Ouch. He's a heartbreaker, that one.

The first night of his first stay away from home was a little hard on me, as would be expected. But then the next day I surprisingly warmed up to his vacation with his grandparents. I'm thinking the fact that I was able to actually go to the bathroom by myself, shower without strategically planning, eat lunch, not have to lock doors and climb over baby gates and trip over toys that I'd already picked up 20 times in the same day and say no a million times and go and chase and go (and then chase some more) may have helped me get comfortable with his absence. :) I missed him dearly, but didn't realize what a break from my exhausting toddler would do for me. I definitely feel recharged -- physically and mentally. It was nice to actually finish a few complete thoughts for a change. And I even managed to get a bunch of things done while he was away. Here are just a few:

1. I cleaned the house and got caught up on all of the laundry. It went much faster, even without the help of somebody who always insists on "helping." It was nice to only have to fold each load once for a change!

2. I got my shadow box finished. It was a wedding gift from my mom that I wanted to display a few mementos from our big day in. It's only a little pathetic that it took me FIVE years to finally get it done. I had it hanging on my wall with the stuff in it, but just hadn't arranged the stuff because I felt intimidated by it for some reason. It was pretty sad when people would see it for the first time and ask me what happened to it, thinking it had fallen off the wall or something. So I dragged my mom over to help me, and by "help me" I mean "do it for me while I hold a fussy baby." Ha! I think it turned out great. Thanks, Mom!

3. I printed pictures of Harper and put them in the frame in her room. I'm very proud that I did it before she was even 2 months old. I didn't get around to filling Harrison's picture frames until he was about 6 months old. I know, it's terrible.

 

4. I got Harper's birth announcements finished and ready to be mailed out (now I just need to get my tush to the post office). I also finally finished my thank you cards. I'm pretty embarassed that it has taken me this long to get them done. I'm so grateful for everybody's love and support and kindness and I feel like a little card in the mail could never adequately express how thankful we are for our friends and family.

5. I went on a date with my husband! My husband and our baby girl, but dinner and a movie without the presence of a toddler definitely counts as a date these days. We enjoyed dinner with Jeff & Katie and then Rick, Harper, & I went to the movies. I was a little nervous about her making it through without being too loud, but I held her the whole time and thankfully she never cried. She did let out a pretty loud toot at one point, which actually caused the lady in front of us to turn around. From the suspicious look she gave me, I'm not entirely sure she realized it wasn't me. Thanks, Harper!

6. I got out my sewing machine to work on a few projects. I've been wanting to try out the Sure-Cuts-A-Lot software I got for my Cricut machine and was finally able to play around with it a little. I'm so excited about trying out some of the ideas I have brewing in my head.

7. I snuggled and loved on my baby girl. And she's needed lots of extra snuggles and love lately because her reflux has her feeling miserable.

We headed out of town on Saturday morning to reunite with Bubs and enjoy a small 4th of July get-together with Rick's family. Small. Ha! I thought it was going to be small, and then as we're pulling up my MIL mentioned something about a family reunion. If I had to guess, there were probably 150-200 people there! We're talking a serious party, y'all. It was at our aunt and uncle's land on a lake and everybody who put this thing together really outdid themselves. There was food served in a festive covered wagon, live music, and a great fireworks show. Funny story -- I met Rick's cousin Tammy for the first time while we were there. I had heard about her through family but never had gotten the chance to meet her in person. Come to find out, she lives only about 20 miles away from us, has had all of her babies delivered by the same OB who delivered mine, and her 5-month old daughter Scout's name was also inspired by To Kill a Mockingbird like Harper's was. What a small world!

We didn't get to stay as long as we would have liked, thanks to the unbearable heat and a flat tire, but we still had a great time. I did a pretty poor job of taking pictures over the weekend. I didn't even bother bringing my nice SLR camera because of space and the fact that we were going to be near the water (my cameras and liquid have proven to be a bad combination). But here are a few pictures I managed to get:

Granny and Harper



Sweet Cavan. Can't believe how big he's getting!



Harrison (in quite an interesting costume, I might add) with his Uncle

my boys

Cousins!

Christian soaking Rick. That's my girl!

Tracye looks pretty good holding a baby, dont you think? ;)

I have a sneaking suspicion that the reason my child wasn't at all eager to see me when we got there was because he's been spoiled by his grandparents and all of their "toys".

Santa, I'll take one of these in red, please.

She thinks my tractor's sexy....

He was very upset when Rick tried to put his hands on HARRISON'S wheel. How dare he.

Ashleigh and I both caught fish! Jon didn't. :)



He was very upset when we wouldn't let him dive into the pond. We're so mean.



So he settled for letting Papaw spray him with the water hose. He kept sticking out his belly like this...what a weird
kid. :)

It was nice to finally get out of town again. I had been on traveling restriction since being diagnosed with my previa six months ago. Traveling with two kids so young is pretty exhausting, but I'm glad that we made the trip because we all had a lot of fun and it was well worth it!