My Final Vacation Post

Shane and I had a good night out last night.  We ended up eating at Famous Dave's.  I had never been there before but crave barbecue and meat like crazy when I am pregnant.  So it was a great suggestion by Shane.  And my friend Julie always said I should go there when we lived in Louisville.  Thus, I kept her updated about my first FD experience via text.

Today after Silas' tumbling class we came home to have a quick lunch then headed out to a pumpkin farm.  It was a beautiful day for it.  All the kids had fun for the most part and Silas seemed to remember it from last year.  Then the children napped back at home while I ran to the store to purchase a few items related to my making a costume for our firstborn.  The finished product now sits on our counter and we think its super cute.  Will take pics when the kids dress up for the Ignite fall party tomorrow.

So back to vacation...on Friday we went to spend lunch and part of the afternoon with our friends who just had twin baby boys.  They are the ones who let us borrow their pack-n-plays because we forgot ours.  It was good to share a bit of life together, although I felt that I was not a fountain of encouragement because Lieren had gotten sick the night before and I was on about 3 hours of sleep.  Not the best frame of mind to tell someone with baby twins that it gets better.  

We then let our children take late naps at the condo (can't exactly remember if they slept much because they slept in the car on the way back) then went to an indoor waterpark for the evening.  I have to say that by this time I was more than ready for a good sleep but ended up being so glad we spent the money, took the time and did it.  It was the highlight of Silas' trip by far!  And Sim and Lieren enjoyed it too...

Shane even took the babies down the smaller slides (smaller is relative at this waterpark!)...

Silas, on the other hand, wanted to go down the big slide over and over again.  I didn't think my pregnant self should partake in any water sliding so Shane took Silas more times than we could count.  Again, we ended up being the only people there, which made for no-wait fun for Si.  This is Shane and Silas coming out of the big slide and the following picture is of the slide itself...

There's nothing like seeing the joy on your child's face to make all the hard work worth it...

On Saturday we packed up and headed to Kansas City to stay with my grandparents and to see my uncle's family.  Generations of children have been bathed in this very bathtub.  So I had to capture the moment...

All of our three loved playing with their second cousins...

Lieren warmed up to Aunt Lisa pretty quick...

Sunday we went to church with my grandparents, napped, played in the leaves, and had pizza for dinner.  I think I was ready to relax by this time because I didn't take any pictures.  Silas still talks about the leaves, though.  And that, too, is a tradition at the Baird house so I am a little sad I don't have pictures of it.

On Monday it was time to drive home.  I got some cute pictures of Sim and Lieren with great Nana, but by the time we attempted to take a pic of all of them together, we had the car loaded and I think Lieren thought we were about to leave her behind.  Poor baby.  And don't ask me what face Silas is making.  I have no explanation.  Not the best photo of everyone, but a memory nonetheless...

My favorite moment of the entire trip was on Saturday night.  I had put all my children to bed when Papa asked to peek in at them sleeping.  It had been too long since they had babies in the house, he said, and never twins.  It was sweet.  Looking together at his great-grandchildren sleeping was a moment I never want to forget.

We learned a lot on our vacation this year.  Most of all, we learned we could do it!  And I think I will be brave enough with one year under our belt to be ready to go again sometime next year with four!

Right now Shane is up playing video games with a couple of our Ignite kids.  We have a student staying with us tonight so a few of the other guys got invited over too.  As I was bathing children and listening to the noise of high school boys downstairs, I thought how good it was to have more people in the house.  It keeps me from looking inward too much.  Keeps my eyes from focusing only on me and us and what we have going on.  And I decided high school boys are the best for impromptu visits.  They don't notice if the house isn't real clean.  As long as we have food and drink and tell them we are glad they're here, they seem happy.  That's my kind of hospitality.  Perhaps I need to get over myself more and let it be that way with everyone.