push me, mason!

mason and madelyn have been able to work out madelyn pushing mason around, but today madelyn got to have a turn taking a ride and she milked it for all it was worth!

i was in the kitchen while they were playing in the play room. i think madelyn called out, "look at me!" or "look at mason!" and it took me a second to realize what i was seeing and why she was excited about it. and then i ran for the camera. i missed the beginning when they were both laughing hysterically with excitement, but it was more like the second part of the video where he is pushing her straight and quickly. enjoy. love.

one year check-up

monday morning mason woke up crying at 4:30am. i knew that it was going to be a long day at that point. mason's appointment was set for 10am - normally his nap time. he doesn't take the morning nap all the time so on a normal day we would have been okay but not with a 4:30 wake up...

and since it was his one-year check-up there were going to be shots and a blood draw.

mason did fine during the appointment but was starting to fade toward the end. madelyn was so excited to be at the doctor's office that she was literally climbing the furniture - which led to her bloodying her lip. the doctor gave her some gauze with cool water to help stop her crying more than any thing else. we had to wait a while for the nurse to come back with the shots and mason was just crying by the time she got there. he screamed so much after the first shot that she stopped after the second to wait for him to actually take a breath. and we did have to wait a few seconds. once he got a breath and into his next scream, she gave him the third and last shot. thankfully, he calmed down very quickly, but i was not excited to take him down the hall to the lab for the blood draw.


here are the stats from his check-up:
height: 32-1/2" (98th percentile)
weight: 25lbs. 5oz. (83rd percentile)
head circumference: 49.6cm (99th percentile)
height/weight (aka bmi): 56th percentile

i really don't know what i was thinking not bringing a stroller for him. we usually don't wait very much at this doctor's office so it would be more trouble than it is worth. not so on monday! we had to wait what seemed like an eternity at the lab in a very crowded waiting room. mason did not want to be held at all either. and when i put him down he would take off - very out of character. he did sit still for about one minute coloring with madelyn. the good news was that he didn't cry about the needle poke but started to cry because it was just taking too long and he was done.

he fell asleep in the car right away. it was a fitful sleep day and things did not get better that night. i think he got up at 4:30am because he was starting to get sick and things were just amped up by the vaccinations. he is still fighting off some congestion and runny nose but slept through the night last night.

when he was awake on monday afternoon he was very happy and normal except for the runny nose. he even stood up from sitting without holding on to anything for the first time. now he can bend down and pick up toys without anything to hold on to for balance. he seems to really like being able to do this now.

we did hear back about his blood work yesterday and it turns out that he, like madelyn, was slightly anemic. we are just shocked because he eats raisins by the fistful, eats more meat than madelyn ever did (or does), and eats more than most adults. matt thinks there must be something wrong with the test because it just isn't possible that he isn't getting enough iron. oh well. i discussed starting him on vitamins with the doctor so maybe that will give him the slight iron boost he needs by his next appointment when they will check his blood again. love.

finally - cake!

poor mason had to wait until monday night to have some of his birthday cake, but it didn't seem to phase him any. he also didn't hesitate to inhale his cupcake! he had a huge dinner too. this kid will just eat anything and always has room for more. love.

birthday part(ies)

sunday was a whirlwind of birthday festivities! matt and i got up and got to work. first was to check the weather which was not looking like it was going to cooperate with our outdoor birthday plans. it looked like the storm might happen before the party and then clear up for the rest of the day - whew!

matt got to setting up the 'water park' (so named by neighbors) in the back yard and i was trying to begin and finish food prep and clean up after breakfast. the good part about the downpour before the party was that it filled up the pools most of the way.

when guests started arriving i was still prep-ing, the vacuum cleaner was out, mason was just wearing a diaper, and matt was out back trying to get everything set up now that the rain had cleared out. i called him up to start up the grill so everyone could start eating. once the food was served people started moving downstairs and the kids made their way out to the yard.

i am not even really sure how long everyone was playing outside before i realized that we had less than an hour left in the party and we still had a game and cake to get through! i had originally thought that three hours might be too long for the party with all the little ones, but it flew by!

our game was a flip flop match. i let all the kids pick a flip flop and matt took the other half of their pair up to the deck. he tossed them all down into the yard and the kids had to hunt for their shoe's mate. it worked out even better than i hoped it would. and the kids were actually excited about the flip flops - which they got to take home as part of their party favor.

i did finally get mason into some shorts so that he didn't spend his whole party in just a diaper but he never made it out to the pool - not that he minded. he really seemed to love having so many people in the house to watch and play with. i did feel kind of bad that the birthday boy never came out to join the party and didn't get even close to the cake. thank you to kurt and jill who watched him inside and carried him outside for cake.

here is a slide show of pictures from the party. a huge thank you to amy and jill for taking pictures because i was hardly getting any!

everyone left by 1:11pm and mason went straight down for his nap. madelyn fought off a nap but then fell asleep on the couch. and it was a good thing too because we had another birthday party to go to at 4:30! madelyn and mason were still asleep at 4:15 so we started to wake them up and get them dressed to go to the party.

it is much more relaxing to attend a party than to host! our friend, colton, turned two and we were very glad that our parties didn't conflict and that all our friends/guests were able to nap between the parties. here are some pictures from colton's party. love.

mason's first birthday

saturday morning brought mason's first birthday! much to madelyn's delight he (she) could finally open his presents and cards that had been arriving all week. he had been playing with his gifts from papa and nana all week and was happy to get more new toys from big pop and grandma.

the riding airplane was a huge hit. mason loved to watch the propeller and madelyn thought that it was hers. here is a little video of them playing nicely. (madelyn spent some time in her room by herself after having trouble 'sharing' mason's gift with him.)


once the gifts and cards were open we hustled everyone to get dressed so that we could run all the errands we needed to take care of in preparation of the kids' party sunday afternoon. luckily our kids love running errands. although it wasn't much of a birthday for mason.

while mason was napping after our morning errands, madelyn and i went out to get more party items. one of our purchases was a bunch of balloons. mason's smile was priceless when he saw them after he woke up. by the time i got my camera i was only able to get a long shot of him and the balloons, but i cropped the picture down to just his smiling face in the slide show below.

quick snacks and then off to church. after church we had frozen pizzas for speed and then gave mason his gifts from matt and i. most of the gifts were toys that madelyn hadn't 'taken care of' from the basement. i had her help me bring the presents out from our room to give to him and every time i would give her something from the basement she would say, "hey, that is/was mine."

"yes, honey, but you didn't take care of it and now it is mason's."

"why didn't i take care of this?"

"i don't know."

(happily) "mason! look what i have for you, buddy!"

she even helped get all mason's new toys put away in the playroom before bed. she has been super great at cleaning up since her birthday. i think she wants to make sure and take care of everything so that she can continue to play with it instead of having it taken away again.

we didn't sing or do cake, but i think mason still enjoyed his first birthday. here is a slide show of more pictures from the day. (i will post stats on monday after his check-up.)love.

pool break

friday looked like a nice day so i had planned to take the kids to the zero depth pool we had gone to at the very end of 'pool season' last summer. i was looking forward to going there because i thought i could handle both kids there without too much stress - the whole pool doesn't get much deeper than my knee and there are several lifeguards on duty.

lucky for me, one of the neighbors emailed out thrusday afternoon that she was thinking about going to a local beach or pool friday and wanted to know if anyone wanted to join them. it made matt feel better to know that i wouldn't be alone with the kids because he worries about the water and how quickly something can happen. i keep telling him that we need to take him with us some time and he will feel much better. anyway - two other neighbors and their kids ended up joining us at the pool.

mason didn't quite know what to make of the pool. he didn't have a problem with the water, but he would make for the chairs every time i put him down. he 'walked' holding my finger almost the entire time we were there. it really made taking pictures nearly impossible and i finally gave up.


madelyn had a great time and took off for the slide as soon as i gave her the go ahead. she was thrilled to have her friend, ava, there to join her. they were an easy pair to keep track of because they were wearing the same color swim suit (by coincidence) and were playing some sort of loud shrieking game.

everyone played until hunger set in and then we went out to some picnic tables to eat a little lunch before going home. the fun in the sun had totally worn mason out. he barely had the energy to eat his lunch and i was afraid that he would fall asleep before finishing. thankfully he made it through lunch and into some dry clothes before falling asleep in the car. madelyn fell asleep on the ride home too but had no interest in continuing her nap once we got home.

i am planning on making several more trips to this pool throughout the summer. i think mason will like it more once he can walk and go down the slide. once he found the slide he was like a moth to a flame and it was difficult to keep him away. i think he was more interested in the stairs than the slide. love.

more birthday celebration

madelyn's birthday celebration continued today. she didn't want to go to school and leave her new toys, but then she remembered that she was bringing cupcakes for her 'friends'. we had made strawberry cupcakes with vanilla frosting and bear or dinosaur sprinkles. i don't think madelyn had ever had strawberry cake before but she picked it and was very enthusiastic about making it. she never eats the cake anyway so what difference did it make? but she told me, excitedly, that she actually ate the cake too! (gavin only ate the frosting.)

after school she had another package arrive. this time from papa and nana. papa and nana gave madelyn and mason a lot of presents while we were in kansas (which have been loved and played with often) but still had one more for each of the kids. madelyn got a table set with giraffes on it and wanted to open it for pretend food right away.

so i tried to get video of mason 'walking' to madelyn. i was a little nervous to hold the camera while this was going on so i set it on the playroom table. the video isn't great but you can get the idea. it is so funny because mason is laughing so hard that he almost can't 'walk'. at least it gives you a taste for what they are doing. love.

it was the best of days, it was the worst of days

today is madelyn's third birthday. all in all, i think that it was a pretty nice day. we started the day with breakfast out and madelyn got pancakes with sprinkles on them. and all kids' meals come with a cookie but we managed to put that off until after lunch.

both kids were really excited about the crayons at breakfast and mason actually took one and used it to 'color' on the paper. it was the first time i have attempted to let him color and i was very impressed. we will try that again soon.

after breakfast, madelyn got her second gumball but had to wait until we arrived at our next destination because there is no eating, or chewing, while in the car seats. we took daddy home so that he could get his car and head to work and we went off to run a few errands. first stop was target where madelyn got an ariel doll and several classic chapter books (they were in the dollar section for anyone who might want to check them out).

next we headed to the grocery store to get what we needed for cupcakes since that was what madelyn wanted for birthday. she remembered seeing winnie the pooh cupcake papers a few weeks ago and wanted them for her birthday.

for lunch i took the kids up to mcdonalds so that madelyn could play at the 'playplace'. she asks all the time to go and we never have before. the weather wasn't forecasted to be nice today so i hadn't really planned anything for us to do and was trying to make it a fun day and not just run all the errands i need to do before their birthday party this weekend. madelyn had a really great time and i was happy that we went up there. at one point another mom came over to where we were sitting and asked if anyone was named michelle. of course i panicked, but madelyn had just gone to the bathroom by herself and was ready to be wiped off! i couldn't believe that she just went by herself considering she had asked me to go with her not 10 minutes before.

madelyn started melting down while mason was napping. i think that it had a little to do with the amount of sugar she had eaten today. but man, oh man, was it brutal! she threw some of the worst fits ever. and i mean ever. i had to physically carry her kicking and screaming upstairs from the basement because she wouldn't go to her room willingly - a first. i think she had three serious fits today but always emerged happy and pleasant until the next one. i was utterly exhausted by the time matt got home from work.

in one of her happy moments she got a package from big pop and grandma filled with presents. she was so happy that she even shared with mason and let him help open gifts. the funniest part to me was that she was most concerned about getting all the paper picked up each time. before she even looked at what she had received she asked me to help her pick up all the paper and put it in the box. you can see her cleaning up in the video.

on the plus side, the macaroni and cheese i made for madelyn's birthday dinner was the best i have ever made. matt ever said that it was the best he has ever had. we also dined on madelyn's favorite fruit - cantaloupe. madelyn chose not to have her cupcake after all so we didn't do candles or singing tonight, but we were fine with that. she did not need any more sugar.

as an act of mercy, matt took both kids to the park for a long time so that i could clean up in peace. once they got home it was already bed time but we went ahead and gave madelyn her presents from matt and i. most of her presents from us where returning toys that 'were not taken care of' but she did get a few new things too. here are just a few pictures from all her gifts today.

one of the 'big gifts' from matt and i was what madelyn calls her 'computer'. it is a letter writing toy from leap frog. i just thought she was hysterical sitting on the couch using it with her ariel dress up shoes and her legs crossed. she calls that 'sitting like mommy'.

mason's gift to madelyn was walking to her on request. she would smile and say "come here mason, come here!" in super sweet way and he would toddle over to her and then lunge forward for her to catch him. while they both shed a few tears over bonked heads, the overall sound was laughter. they were both having so much fun with mason going back and forth from me to madelyn and she rewarded him with praises, hugs, and kisses. unfortunately, they followed me when i ran to get the camera in hopes of a video.

again - it was a nice day overall. however, we will not have another sugar filled day any time in the near future! love.

nana visit

nana flew down on wednesday so that she could join us for the ultrasound. madelyn was in school on wednesday so nana just got to relax while mason was sleeping away and i was working. the ultrasound was on thursday afternoon so more time around the house in the morning while i was working.

friday morning we took nana to a large, annual rummage sale (i still call it a yard or garage sale though). it was warmer out than i was expecting and i think everyone was exhausted by the time we got back to the car. but we got lots of great clothes for all three kids and madelyn came home with a toy vacuum cleaner.


saturday morning we took nana with us to the kids' workshop at home depot. this was a 'by appointment' session so it was a little different to get there and there were only about 10 kids and it was much quieter - not at all like it normally is!

the nice thing about it was that it was easier to get mason up to the table with us (not that he really cared). the bad part was that the staff was much more involved. normally they just stamp the project and i can write her name and the date neatly on the bottom. this time the lady was calling her madison and after we corrected her she still spelled madelyn's name wrong because she didn't copy it off her apron or ask any of us how it was spelled.

at least it was a fun soccer game and madelyn really enjoyed making it and playing with it in the car on the ride home.


after home depot we got a quick lunch at panera before taking nana to the airport while daddy headed off to a charity golf tournament.

we were glad that nana was able to come to the ultrasound with us. love.

happy father's day

i was very disappointed that we didn't take a picture of me with the kids on mother's day so i was extra disappointed that i forgot to get one of matt and the kids on father's day. maybe next year...

father's day wasn't the most special day for matt. we tried to let him sleep in a little and when he woke up he said that he wanted to have the breakfast buffet at whole foods. we were already planning on doing the grocery shopping (at matt's request for sunday) so we hurried along so that we would get there early enough for breakfast. matt loved it and the rest of us enjoyed it too. after our shopping we came home to unload and then headed to sams for a few more items. we came home and had lunch (leftovers). matt decided that he really needed to mow the grass and headed outside. the kids and i all took naps. matt said he came in and everyone was sleeping so he went back outside to work in the yard some more. i must admit that i felt kind of guilty.

and then matt grilled us all dinner! that was the reason we went back to whole foods on sunday was to get matt fancy burgers for dinner.

it might not have been the most relaxing day, but i know that matt got to do all the things that he enjoys (except golf which he did on saturday). we love him a lot and appreciate all the things he does for our family. love.

number 3

last thrusday afternoon we found out that baby #3 is a boy! and a big boy too. he wasn't very cooperative so we didn't get any profile pictures or any of his face that were very good, but we did get the money shot that left no doubts about the gender. and everything regarding his health looked great too.

the tech made me a little nervous when she took a few measurements of his head and then asked if i was seeing the doctor after this. i was really relieved when i got to see the doctor and hear that everything looked really great.

he measured a week ahead of his actual age (i had 7 week ultrasounds with all three and madelyn measured two weeks ahead at 20 weeks and mason measured right on track of his due date).

the picture is me at 19 weeks, 5 days with baby boy. and the ultrasound pictures below show his spine/head, his foot, and the best of his face shots.
madelyn watched the whole ultrasound and told us that the baby wasn't big enough yet. mason and nana came in to join us after we had gone through all the screening measurements. we invited nana to join us since she was out of school for the summer and matt has been hinting that this might be our last. it was nice that she could come even after we had just visited her and papa for the past week.

at dinner afterwards we were all making phone calls to share the news and madelyn did most of the announcements. she is really excited to be having another little brother. love.

look what i can do

in the midst of all our travels, visitors, and appointments, the kids continue to add to their bags of 'tricks' so here are the ones i could remember (or happened to have pictures of - thankfully!).

mason discovered that he can open doors at papa and nana's house. we have turn knobs at home but they have lever handles that are easier to open. now he is a man on a mission to try and open every door he finds. the most impressive is when he opens the closet doors (like in the picture). he pulls the knob and carefully moves his feet back out of the way to get the door open. he even closes the door slowly and moves his fingers out of the way so that they don't get pinched. the unfortunate part is that he is very, very close to opening the turn knobs and then we will be in the difficult place of childproofing for him but making sure that madelyn can still get into the bathroom... oh well. it is a short time in life to deal with these issues.


mason has come close to it before, but he actually fell asleep while eating dinner at papa and nana's. he was so cute. he dosed off and on before i took him down to get ready for bed. mason didn't get many morning naps while we were there and i think we were wearing him out. and it was much warmer in kansas than we were used to. matt and i are becoming such wimps when it comes to heat after living here for so long. it's hard to believe that i ever lived in florida.

matt has been got a lot of nights for different work functions so i have had to be a little creative about filling the evenings without daddy as my relief. after several rainy days we were all ready to get out of the house and the kids were both whiny from being off routine. a walk around the neighborhood! some fresh air would be good for all of us.

let me just tell you that pulling that wagon gets really difficult - those kids are heavy! thankfully madelyn asked to get out and pull mason. i was so happy and she actually stuck with it all the way home. let's just say it was much, much farther than she has ever ridden her bike.

today we went ahead and moved mason to the booster seat because he is just getting a little too big to fit easily into the high chair. mason wasn't really sure about it at first, but madelyn was really excited about it. she was trying to teach him how to eat out of a bowl and trying to help him with his water even though he is more than capable of drinking water all on his own.

the video doesn't really capture her excitement but it does show how she was treating mason like he had never eaten before.

i had to take an intermission during writing the post to wake the kids and take them down into the basement for almost an hour because the tornado sirens went off. we never lost power or satellite reception so it was a little surprising that the sirens went off. it was nice to be able to watch the weather radar and see where the storms were the whole time we were hiding out. the other good part about this impromptu family gathering was that mason took 5 steps to walk over to me! that was by far the most steps he had ever taken with no hesitation. and he was so proud of himself! madelyn was pretty excited too.

speaking of the storm, the thunder and lightning started as i was putting madelyn down for bed. she came out after a little bit and told me that she could hear the thunder and wanted to pray about it. so sweet. and after we prayed she didn't say another peep until we came to get her when the sirens started.

madelyn can be so silly and this week she was playing with a straw and holding it like a mustache. so i told her that if she did her, newly mastered, fish lips it would stay up on her own. she didn't quite understand until i gave her a demonstration and then she was a pro.

madelyn has been watching matt get dressed for work in the morning for a while now and when she found a spare tie she decided to give it a try for herself. she was so cute trying to knot it just right. she was a lot closer than i thought she would be and very pleased with herself.

never a dull moment around here. love.

first sleepover

our friends from florida were the infamous lorelai (madelyn's blogger buddy) and her family. they were on vacation traveling through illinois and wisconsin visiting family and managed to squeeze us into their plans. they arrived on thrusday night, went to the zoo with us on friday, visited more family on saturday, and stayed with us again on saturday night.

besides them actually staying at our house, madelyn's favorite part was that lorelai slept in her room for a sleep over. the first night they stayed up talking, going to the bathroom, and getting drinks until around 11pm! i think madelyn was up so long because of the very long day in the car that didn't allow for much activity. plus, she was super excited to have lorelai over.

friday morning matt went back to work and the rest of us loaded up for a trip to the zoo. madelyn had a pretty rough day from getting so little sleep. i felt bad that she cried most of the time we were there but it didn't spoil the day and she even posed for a few pictures with lorelai (mason and kinley - lorelai's sister - spent most of the day in their strollers).

mason took what looked like a very uncomfortable nap for a while. he had a big red dent in his forehead when he woke up. his napping helped us postpone leaving long enough for the three girls and lorelai's parents (jon and kellie) to ride the zoo train. it was a really nice morning for the zoo. the weather had not looked very promising and we were back and forth on whether or not we should try to go. i am so glad that we went ahead over.

friday night the girls went to sleep much earlier than thursday night and i don't remember having to go in too many times either. but saturday night they kept getting into each other's 'beds' to read books together. we wanted them to go to sleep but they were just so cute that we were going to give them a little bit longer to visit. and then madelyn started crying on the verge of screaming. we went in and she was on the floor with lorelai but we couldn't figure out what had actually happened. while crying she realized that she needed to go to the bathroom. matt stood with her while she went and was rubbing her head where she had bumped it. when he pulled his hand away he noticed the blood. by the time i came in there was a bright red/pink stripe down the back of her hair but we couldn't figure out where it was coming from so we were trying to convince her to get in the bathtub so we could rinse her head off and find the source.

poor lorelai was in shock and her parents went ahead and moved her downstairs to sleep with them and kinley in the guest room. turns out madelyn had a very small cut on the back of her head. after some discussion at the scene of the accident, i determined that madelyn had been trying to reach a book under her bed and bumped her head on the underside of the bed. head wounds bleed a lot so they always look worse than they are. we decided against taking her to the e.r. because it stopped bleeding pretty quickly, wasn't all that big, and wasn't on her face. madelyn wasn't all that bothered by it either. she just wanted to go back to bed. i think she just wanted to give them an exciting last night in wisconsin.

before they hit the road on sunday we tried to get some pictures of all the kids together but after the exciting (and late) night the kids weren't all that cooperative. i think they still make for great pictures though...

we were so glad that we got to see them and hope that they enjoyed staying with us. now i had two days to unpack and get to the grocery store before nana arrived on wednesday morning to visit four days to come with us to the ultrasound. if i haven't mentioned it yet, this is going to be a really, really busy month for us! love.

driving home

yep. that is madelyn on yet another carousel. this one was in a mall somewhere in iowa. we chose the mall as one of our stops in the hope that we could eat something besides mcdonalds and that mason might be able to crawl around a little.

we had made it out of papa and nana's driveway at almost 6am on the dot. we had said our goodbyes the night before so that the kids could just be put straight in the car without having to really wake up. we stopped for breakfast and a snack and that is when mason started to decide that he was over this whole strapped in thing. he took it easy on us the ride up because of his fever, but he was starting to feel better and just wanted to be on the move during our return trip.

the mall we stopped at was a huge complex with a children's museum too so i thought that there would be some sort of carpeted space he could enjoy for a little break. there was a family restroom area with a play table that we spent some time letting the kids play a little. and, much to matt's delight, we were able to have lunch at panera instead of mcdonalds - again. it was a nice stop, but we had to keep it short because we were trying to be home by 5pm - when our house guests were arriving! yes, we were hosting friends from florida and their two kids thursday through sunday and wanted to get home a little before they did.

we ran into an interstate closure somewhere in iowa that added at least a half hour to our trip, but thankfully, our guests were running late too so it was going to work out okay. i think we got home at 5:50pm and our guests arrived around 6:15pm. we had just enough time to unload our car and open the windows for fresh air. more about their visit tomorrow. love.

last day in kansas

on our last full day in kansas, daddy and papa went golfing again and nana and i took the kids to oak park mall. i thought that it would be a good place to spend the morning because they have a great little play space that mason would be able to explore and madelyn could ride yet another carousel. it was also nice to walk around a little.

our first stop was barnes and noble for browsing and train table time. nana decided to buy the kids their birthday presents there too. i was really impressed at the selection of toys and helped her select items i thought that the kids would enjoy.

next we got smoothies. the guy behind the counter went above and beyond by giving madelyn the extra from mine in her own cup after overhearing us discussing that she and i would have to share and her not being very happy about that. thank you, smoothie man!

the disney store was our next browsing stop. mason enjoyed this store almost as much as madelyn did. he was pointing at everything! then we finally made our way to the little kids' area and carousel. i think mason enjoyed getting to crawl around and check things out. and he also enjoyed watching the other kids and imagining that they were 'chasing' him like madelyn does.

while mason was playing, madelyn and nana went over to take a few rides on the carousel. (and this would not be her last of our trip either.)

it was getting late in the afternoon and we were all starting to feel hungry. i just couldn't leave without eating at chick-fil-a. we don't have one any where near us up here and i love it. although with ordering for the kids i blew it and didn't order sweet tea which is the main draw for me! oh well. maybe next time...

madelyn and mason did get one more chance to play before we loaded up and headed back to papa and nana's house for afternoon naps. only, madelyn didn't ever nap. she made a tiara with the kit nana bought her for her birthday and then read books with nana for a while. she did ask to go take a nap but only stayed down about 15 minutes. i guess we just didn't wear her out enough.

we spent the rest of our day at papa and nana's packing up and relaxing. thursday morning we hit the road by 6am to head back home. it was a fun trip to kansas and we hope papa and nana enjoyed it too! love.