Staycation Day Two

Woohoo! We're off to Bicentennial Mall. Here are the happy boys! Elijah was "up high Daddy. Up high!"

The little sleeping girl enjoyed her stroller.
More water fun!



Elijah and I climbed on the pillars, during which I really felt my stomach muscles - eek!
She's awake, my happy Haven!
Elijah and Daddy showed me their secret place at the park.
Elijah and Momma were very excited about our first visit to the Cupcake Collection. Oh my! These are some delicious cupcakes. They are better and much more reasonable than the other cupcake gigs in town. Yum! Yum! (Ooops. No coupon here.)
The out of the ordinary sugar rush got to Daddy, so he joined Haven for an afternoon nap.
Fun days!

Staycation Day One

Marriage is all about compromise. In keeping with that premise we had our first (annual?) Staycation. Think "We can have just as much sitting in the dark eating peanut butter sandwiches!" and "Vacations should be the most exciting time of your life!"
Day One saw us at Nashville Shores (Eric)...
...eating a frugal picnic lunch outside the park (me!)... ...giving Elijah his first Twizzler (saved from a work function - Eric & Lydia)...
...enjoying some Dippin' Dots (Eric)...[Here Elijah is telling me that they are COLD!]...
...[Haven's darling little tutu hiney got a quick nap in before she was thrown back in the water.]...
...eating Hush Puppies at Uncle Bud's catfish (me - we had a great coupon!; Eric & Lydia - shared our plates with hungry Elijah)...
...eating ice cream (me - coupon again!) and splashing in the water fountains.
We do apologize for the low-riding shorts Elijah is sporting. Sometimes you just don't know if something fits until after your child wears it (or is that just me?).
Stay tuned to see how we continued to use coupons during the rest of our Staycation~:-)

Grammie

This little girl loves her Grammie!More importantly, her Grammie loves her. A very comforting fact since Grammie & Grampa will be her sole caretakers for the next few days.

Pool Time

As Staycation continued, we all sought opportunities for naps. The children diligently found time to sleep and so did I (ahem). A favorite napping spot for the children is right on Grampa.
Pool time was super fun, partly because of the perfect weather and warm water. Luke, Haven, and Elijah all got in and enjoyed it.
These Noodle water squirter things won the Toy of the Day award.

Haven decided pool time was WAY too exhausting for her and fell right asleep on Grampa.
Luke found another nice spot~:-)

Long Hunter State Park

We started our double Staycation with a weekend in Mount Juliet. We did so, so many fun things including taking a little walk at Long Hunter State Park. If you need to know, the trail is stroller friendly. Sadly, there is no swimming in the lake, and toddler age children are not allowed to get in boats at State Parks. (Does anyone want to ask me how I feel about the government making rules that affect me?) This little dock was clearly the highlight of our little jaunt. This little girl took a nap, wakening just in time to dip her feet in the water.




Happy, happy boy!
Grammie and Grampa, our staycation tour guides for the weekend!

Laughing

Haven has recently started laughing a lot. It is such a strange, gurgly laugh but we all LOVE to hear it! Here is a little clip of Haven and Grammie laughing it up.

Mail

Lydia: "Oooh, Elijah, it's the mailman!"
Elijah: "Oooh, presents!"
L: "Let's see what he brought!"
E: "Uuuh, huh!!!" [runs to door]
---
L: [drags huge box indoors]
---
E: "O-pen ittt! O-pen ittt!"
L: "Elijah, do you want to open it?"
E: "Uh, huh!!!"
L: "OK, let me cut it with the scissors and YOU can open it."
E: [waiting excitedly at the box, which is almost as tall as he is]
---
L: [leaves the room]
---
E: [comes over to Momma, looking slightly dejected]
L: "What happened? Did you open the package?"
E: "Esss." [sadly]
L: "Well? What was in it?"
E: "Trash." [said in a very disappointed tone]

What was it really? Why, a whole bunch of great clothes from my friend Annie! They just happened to be in trash bags for mailing purposes.