Family Time

The last several days have been full of good family time with out-of-town relatives. On Thursday night, Joel had a meeting in Athens, so Jonah and I went along, and we all spent the night at my aunt Joy and uncle Joe's house there. It was so fun! Jonah and Joe played a whole lot together, and after Jonah went to bed, we all watched old home videos of my cousin Lacey's birthday parties growing up. They all included a bunch of family members, so we really had a lot of laughs. I was laughing so hard at one point that tears were coming down my face. You see, Joe and Joy talk a lot about how smart Jonah is (they say this about ALL of their great nieces and nephews all the time!), but it really put things into perspective when we watched the video from Lacey's second birthday, and she can actually SPELL WORDS. We were amazed and kept saying things like, "Why on earth do you keep saying stuff about our kid being smart when your daughter was a genius at two!?!" So Joel was giving running commentary the entire time about what was in Lacey's head at her party while her bigger cousins and friends were playing with toys and going down the slide....things like, "They are so juvenile. When will this be over so I can study physics?" You definitely had to be there, but it was hilarious. Too bad Lacey wasn't there for it! Of course, I'm sure she was glad she wasn't! But it was a great time.

Then Jonah and I joined my parents for a day trip to Lufkin yesterday. Yes, that made three out-of-town trips within one week. It was blast though. Jonah had a really big time. We first went to church at Harmony Hill, which is a special place to us. It is where my aunt Jan goes and all of her clan in Lufkin, where Joy and Joe and Lacey went when they lived there, where I'd join Lacey at VBS a lot of summers when I was little, and where the pastor has had a special place in the lives of our family, having done funerals for dearly lost loved ones. His family has always been so sweet to ours through the years. Anyway, it had been many years since I'd been there. It was even more special yesterday because a really good family friend of ours was there too. The husband was "in view of a call" as a worship pastor there. They live in Arkansas now but went to the church in Tyler that I grew up in. So we "surprised" them (sort of) and got to see their whole family. Their oldest daughter was one of my first little babies to baby-sit when I was in about 5th/6th grade, and I just adored her! She is now 15 years old, and seeing her made me feel SO OLD! It was crazy. We just love that family and hope things work out for them to move back to Texas. After church, we had lunch at Jan's, then went to visit my dad's brother. Three of his sisters came over to visit as well. Jonah had never been out there. My uncle Robert built a house that is on the same property as the house my dad grew up in, and it is a really pretty piece of land out in the country. So Jonah had lots of fun going down to the pond with Papa T and Uncle Robert (or the guy we like to call "the guy who looks like Papa T), doing what all of us kids used to want to do when we were younger and we'd go to Mam-maw and Pap-paw's house. Plus, he had two tractors out there, and if you know my child, you know that tractors are a BIG DEAL in our home. So that was fun! And it was great seeing them. I definitely want to make a point to go down and see my dad's family more often. We stayed there a couple hours and then were on to the next stop in our very busy, fun-filled day: Reese's first birthday party! Reese is my cousin Cory's younger daughter, and the family celebrated at their house with a cookout, cake, and a pinata. Jonah was really cute trying to hit the pinata. Unfortunately, my camera was temporarily misplaced at the party, so I used my mom's most of the time and haven't gotten those pictures from her yet. But below is one of Jonah with his four Lufkin cousins....they were hot, sweaty, and very tired out from the party, but oh so sweet and fun. Jonah has talked a lot today about going to Kate's house and is already asking to go back. He LOVES them ALL so much!


And I have to include a show-off picture of my artsy-craftsy project. You don't know how rare it is that I attempt one and it turns out to meet my expectations! It never happens. But I wanted to wrap Reese's present in a cute way that could be used as decoration in her room, so I decorated this box to match her nursery. You can't see all the letters, but it has her name on it.


Well, I'm making good on my desire to have a slower week this week. We haven't even left the house yet today, which is HUGE for us, and I already said no to one play-date invite this week. Yay! My friend from high school, Erin, and her almost-three-year old daughter are on their way to Tyler, and we're hanging out with them tomorrow. I'm so looking forward to that. Then we'll be heading to Bartlesville this weekend for another visit. Well, Joel is home for lunch, so I'm off to spend some time with my boys!