I haven't blogged in awhile so I'm going to update on the last couple weekends. Last weekend was Blake's birthday celebration so we got a sitter and hit the town. We absolutely love our children more than anything, but we certainly love enjoying a night out without them!!
This is about how excited we were to be kid free :)
See that empty car seat in the back there? Yep.....
Nick hates it when I do these self portraits of us. Especially while he's driving :)
Blake picked the restaurant and it is one that none of us have even heard of. It was a tiny little place that only had about 10 tables and only 2 or so servers. The food was amazing and Blake definitely picked a wonderful place.
Emily and the birthday boy
After dinner we went out to a karaoke bar and it was so much fun! Blake even got up and sang a song. We will definitely be going back there, hopefully not too far into the future.
Now, this past weekend, we spent it in Houston with our good friends the Bell's. Before heading down there Friday afternoon, we stopped at Conner's house to drop Nick's car off so he didn't have to come all the way home. Conner was home and brought out his bear...I mean, dog Cooper. Cooper is a goldendoodle and seriously looks like a bear! He is absolutely enormous and would definitely scare me if I saw him wandering down the street alone. Even Finley, who is absolutely obsessed with dogs, was kind of wondering what on earth that giant fluffy animal was. He really is such a sweet dog though!
Nick decided to ride Cooper before we hit the road...poor Cooper!
We headed down to H-town and I was sort of dreading the drive because our sweet little daughter has never been a great traveler. She has never enjoyed being in the car seat and lets the entire car know how unhappy she really is. Hence, the reason we decided against driving 14 hours to Colorado for Christmas this year. Paying that kind of money for flights is well worth it to save ourselves from the ear damage. :) We love that girl!!! :)
Anyway, she actually did fantastic on the way down there! She was supposed to take a nap around the time we left but didn't end up falling asleep till we were almost to Houston. But, at least she was pleasant and didn't cry too much.
Cole, has always been the best traveler and just sits so quietly and looks out the window and then about half way down there we let him watch a movie on the iPad. I'm looking forward to the day when Finley likes to watch movies so that might distract her on long car rides.
We made it down there in time for dinner and Chris and Sharon made an unbelievable meal for us, seriously our mouths were watering! The kids didn't waste any time and jumped right into all the toys and being silly. We were so excited to see baby Charlie because we haven't seen him yet. He's about 3.5 months and definitely a little chunk.
He's posing here with his new Mickey Mouse that Tracy got him.
And Tracy also got Reagan a new Minnie Mouse and some jammies. She loved them both!!!
Cole and Reagan have always gotten along so well and been great buddies. She is such a sweet girl and they crack me up. Have you ever sat and actually listened to two 3 year olds have a conversation? It's pretty much the funniest thing I've heard in awhile.
Cole and Reagan were having a snack and having very deep conversations, you know....politics, the last time they went to the bathroom, who has the better tasting juice. Love it!
Saturday night, we got a babysitter...who was the greatest babysitter ever!!! I was a little nervous about this girl who I've never met, watching 4 kids all under the age of 4! AND, one being a tiny little baby! I mean, she had to feed them dinner, give baby Charlie a bottle, put him to bed, get the other three ready for bed, put them in bed AND she cleaned up the house. I was impressed!
So while she was hard at work with 4 crazy kids, the adults went out and had such a fun evening! They took us to their favorite pizza joint and the pizza was to die for. We even took a couple pictures while we were waiting for our table.
After dinner, we walked down to this really fancy grocery store and bought a bottle of wine and sat outside. They have tables outside the grocery store so everyone does the same. A lot of times people will buy little picnic items and take everything outside and have a picnic. It was the perfect night!
Chris and Nick
When I go pick up Cole from school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I am in the car alone for 30 minutes and lately I've been listening to Pastor James MacDonald on the radio. Last week he talked about friendships and how it's so important to choose your friends and not let your friends choose you. It's good to have those friends that may not believe the same things as you or be in the same walk with you, but they shouldn't be your "go-to" people. Nick and I have a lot of friends, we have a lot of acquaintances but we have also been so completely blessed to have those friends that are definitely our "go-to" people.
This here....these are "our people"!!!
We have many "our people" but the Bell's definitely hold a special place in our hearts! They are those friends that you can be so completely silly with, even say a few cuss words here and there but can also talk about our faith and how important our relationship with God is. These are the people that keep us grounded financially and spiritually. We can talk about anything with them and know they would never judge us.
I remember when we first started on this Dave Ramsey thing a few years back, we called Chris and Sharon and went through our budget and just how we were going to get everything figured out to get debt paid off. There aren't too many friends you can be so open with stuff like that but they have nothing but the best intentions.
Ok, sorry for my little rant there....just being around them this weekend made what I'd been listening to all last week on the radio make more sense. And again, we have some of the greatest people and friends in our lives that just "get" us. So blessed to have such amazing friends who are like family!
I will leave you with these sweet pictures of the kiddos. We had to leave pretty early Sunday because we had life group and that's just one of those things that is definitely a priority in our lives and hate missing a chance to meet with our group. We have definitely been doing life together lately and these people are the best!
Miss Finley all cuddled up with her blankie
Again...he is the best traveler ever!!!
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