Yep, I’m leaving. Not for good, just for the weekend.

When we came back to the US it was our goal to spend this time back home to be intentional about relationships that often take the backseat when we are abroad. One of those relationships for me has been our dear friends the O’Leary’s. Most of you know the story, I babysat the O’Leary kids when they were itty bitty and now they are teenagers! Growing WAY TOO FAST! In early January I decided to try to sit down and look at the calendar for a time I could take one of the boys with me to visit. As I looked at the calendar and talked to Annie we realized with the kids sports starting up again January was the time to come. So, me and my not so spontaneous self up and booked a flight to go only a couple of weeks later…which happens to be today.  We went back and forth about me taking a boy or not and Seth encouraged me to go alone. (His opinion may or may not have been influenced by ticket price rather than wanting both boys for a weekend alone but that’s not important! ) I took  him up on his offer and reluctantly bought a solo ticket on a late night flight . You know how I hate to leave the kids but I know I need to sometimes and I know it’s important for a mental health break every so often…. You know how it is. Maybe spontaneous is going to be my new normal so I don’t have enough time to talk myself out of things.

The O’Leary girls are going to the Grammy’s so our mission for the weekend is to shop for Grammy dresses and I am taking my camera so I can finally photograph Annie’s lovely home to share with all of you! Other than that we will just be relaxing and having girl time. I want to soak up these teenagers before they up and leave the coup. I am very much looking forward to some grown up time to catch my breath after some busy months with little ones and life in general. And it won’t be so bad to sleep through the night and let the boys be boys for a weekend I envision lots of sausage and macaroni in their weekend despite my diligent meal planning for them!

The fridge is stocked, they are pumped for a daddy weekend, Seth is all set and I will be home before they miss me!

Hope you all have a great weekend and hopefully I will come back refreshed and with lots to share next week!

A few years back I heard someone talk about using Christmas cards to pray for their friends. I thought it was a great idea but never really got my post-Christmas self in gear to make it happen.  And our boys were never really both at the developmental point at the same time for it to be entirely practical. (I can’t for the life of me remember who told me about this so feel free to claim the idea in the comments and I’ll give you credit! I feel like maybe it was related to MOPS at Vienna Presbyterian years ago?!)

SO, before you toss that Christmas card stack into the trash or a box think about keeping them and using them for a fun family project.

As we received cards from friends this year I took a tip from one of my favorite blogs… A Barefoot Day and hung our cards to enjoy for the season. Simple…twine and clothes pins.  Nothing fru fru!

So far since Christmas we have just kept our cards hanging on the twine that we hung on our front window.  Most evenings after dinner we let one of the boys pick a card and we talk about and pray for those friends.

So far it is serving a few purposes:

1. Taking time to pray for friends! For their jobs, safety, health, joy…

2. (one I hadn’t anticipated) To help our boys get to know family and friends that we may not see so often. It isn’t uncommon for the boys to not know everyone in the picture so it’s a fun way to introduce them (or refresh their memories) to our friends/extended family and their children.

3. Teaching the boys to pray…what it means to “talk to God” and pray for others. It has been such a neat way to teach the boys more about prayer and having others in mind when we pray. I won’t lie, there have been some silly prayers. But they are learning. We are all learning.  I don’t know about you but I want to be mindful of others needs and I often get a bit stuck in a rut and distracted by our own family needs. Praying for others helps get our attention off ourselves. And the visual reminders of the cards is helpful!

Sometimes we are aware of what friends are going through currently and can pray specifically, other times we just pray for them to be healthy, happy, etc. And I am attempting to send people a short message after the boys pick their card just to let them know that we care about them and spent some time in prayer for their family. That part is harder for me to remember to follow up on!

I am getting a little antsy to get things completely back in order around here and as much as I love seeing the cheerful cards, I am ready to take them down. So I took them all off the twine and punched a hole in them. I tied them together with a snippet of the twine (you could use ribbon, a ring, slip them into an old album, whatever you have). There are lots of ideas on pintrest for making them into a book to keep as a memento, which is fun too.  But for now, I just want to keep them together so we can continue our family project and not have them scattered.

So rescue the stack of cards before the recycling bin and join us as we start this New Year!

A few (a lot of) pictures to sum up our Christmas festivities! People and food pics all rolled into one!  (And one added goal for the new year is to have Seth take more pictures so I am actually in some! My kids might think they had a single parent Christmas based on the photographic evidence. I hope they recognize my hands working in the kitchen)

Lots of fun memories with family and delicious meals!  Looking forward to a Texas Christmas next year!

Last weekend we did the drive to NYC to see my younger brother and his wife. It was such a fun day of seeing the sights! The only thing missing was my parents who know the city like the back of their hand and my older brother and his family! In the future we might have to do it again with the whole gang.  New York City at Christmas is so magical.

We didn’t tell the boys where we were going or that we would see Tina and Graham. We got them into the car super early and drove. As we drove in we pointed out the Statue of Liberty. (Jackson has had a fascination with it for yrs) He was so excited when he spotted it. I asked him where we were on our adventure and he squealed excitedly “France!!!) Last he had heard we had seen the one in Paris so he was so confused. He was so excited to find out we were in NYC.

NYC is a crazy city to do with kids in many ways but the people watching alone kept them entertained most of the day. The city was having their Santa bar hop while we were in town from 10 AM on so we saw hundreds of people dressed like Santa and elves, festive costumes, etc…Jackson spotted this gingerbread man as we began the day. A city filled with people in costume was kind of a kids dream.

FAO Schwartz was a highlight of the day! FYI if you have a stroller you can skip the line and head in the back door! I remember going as a child so it was fun to take the boys. Owen slept through lots of it but Jackson enjoyed it so much! We were all kind of amazed by the giant candy section.

I tried to talk the boys into adopting a baby at the pretend baby nursery

After a quick lunch we stopped by my cousins new bar in Brooklyn. It’s called Exley if any of you are ever in Brooklyn you should check them out!  They have done a great job with the space that used to be an old garage. The boys enjoyed ginger ale so no worries!

we left Brooklyn and headed to Central Park where the boys ran and played and we watched a street performer doing bubbles and then there was a big bird spotting.

we finished the day with a walk through Times Square (rather a push and shove through, it was packed! ). I’ll spare you the naked cowboy pics since this is family friendly. Once we survived Times Square we grabbed dinner and exchanged Christmas gifts. We got dessert at a little bakery called Amy’s Bread. I highly recommend it!   Not one thing didn’t look yummy!

We said our goodbyes and loaded up the kids to head back. We stopped over near Philly for the night and met friends for lunch in Wilmington on our way back. It was a whirlwind trip but so fun.