I just realized that I never posted the rest of our break pictures! (ie: the period where Darin was gone and we were still taking pictures, because all we've been doing since he's been back is hugging and loving him...in between his bathroom trips that is...the transition back to America did not do anything good for his belly...). 

We were so lucky to have 5 days with Anna when we got back to PA. Love this girl so so so much.

While in PA we met up with Philip and one of the boys that he nannies to bowl and then...DUCK DONUTS! Darin and I discovered that there was a Duck Donuts close to my parents last fall but hadn't had an opportunity to go yet. We made sure to go this visit. These donuts have a special place in our heart from when we lived in Williamsburg. So fun to see it expand throughout the east coast.

 Love his sweet face, full on enjoying that amazing donut. I want more right now!

 Perks to sleeping in the same room with the kids for a week: seeing the fun positions they get themselves in to. Waking up every couple of hours with them was definitely an unperk. (They really struggled those first two weeks back after being in the west. They seemed to have devised a plan so that at least one of them was up every hour. Good times). 

 It's always fun to see the kid's reaction to our apartment/toys/their room when we get back home after being away for so long. Shae ran around saying, "I love my room! I love my toys! I love my pillow! I love my bed!" etc. etc. etc. Of course the first thing to come out, the stuffed animal/pillow pile. Always. 

 She was happy to have hummus back in her life. 

 Shae and I taking an early morning selfie to send to daddy before he went to sleep a world (and day) away from us. The flash was pretty bright, so this is what he got. 

 As much as I love to have the whole bed to myself, it was fun having Shae sleep with me for the last week of Darin's trip. I tried to put him in his bed a few times, but he somehow always ended up back in bed with me (granted, he had been sleeping with an adult in the room with him for the past month, so it was understandable). 

How to pass the week by when all you can think about is how many days are left till seeing daddy:

 Shae was at Joy School when we went up to Syracuse to get Darin. It was a bummer he wasn't there to greet him, but I'm also glad that me and Belén got some daddy time first. We arrived at the waiting area right as Darin was walking out. Belén saw him first and pushed herself right out of my arms and ran full speed to him yelling "daddy!" the whole way. My heart melted. It was the sweetest and then she gave him the BEST BIGGEST bear hug. Oh that girl loves her daddy. All I got was a picture of her letting go of the bear hug, but still a WONDERFUL moment (for so many reasons!)

 The kids can finally stop climbing other people's dads (seriously, anytime Shae saw a man the last week of Darin's trip, he would start to climb them or try to wrestle them, it was pretty awkward at a friend's bday party to look over and see some kid's dad--that we don't know--holding Shae while he caressed his face...). They now have their jungle gym/wrestle buddy back! And all is right in the world again.

And if there are no new blog posts for awhile it's because all we will be doing is this:

Potty training! (and eating lots of hummus because that is how we do) All of last week that is what we did and for the next weeks and months and years to come. That little toilet ring around her bum, ha! Wish us luck!

The Farm Show

How my parents have lived in PA for 10 years now and I have never been to the Farm Show, I have no idea. It was legit! And huge! And all over the news. According to their web-site, it is "the biggest agricultural exposition in the nation, with nearly 6,000 animals" and thousands of competitive exhibits. There were also tons of big trucks/tractors and food vendors. From the food vendors we tried some delicious potato donuts, a perfectly fried blooming onion, and the show's famous milkshakes! 

Playing in the chicken feed. We had to pull her away from this one.

 So sad these pictures were blurry! But posting them nonetheless because seeing those horses walk right behind Belén was great.

Shae is usually so timid around animals and wants nothing to do with them, but he REALLY wanted to pet this cow. It belonged to the little girl in the below picture which I think he thought was really cool, that it was hers--a kid! She told him all about her cow and made sure to "keep him safe" while he was petting it.

The butter statue. Legit.

 Shae liked the merry-go-round much more than the below picture would indicate. He loved it! Not so sure about my mom and Belén. It was a very fast merry-go-round and once it started going Belén just slid right off the side, but still holding on to the horse. So my mom was trying to keep her own balance and hold on, while gripping on to Belén as well so that she didn't fall off. Poor girls. Thankfully, they all made it off alive 

Besides all the fun things we got to see and do, Shae LOVED riding the yellow school bus (shuttle) that took us from the parking lot to the show. He kept saying, "This is like the bus I will go in when I go to school!" 

Basketball, MoTab, and Airplanes

The last weekend of our trip we went down to Utah and stayed with Amelia in Salt Lake City.  We got down to SLC a little earlier than we had planned since there was yet another snow day causing school to be cancelled. It was nice to get in earlier and relax and let the world travelers plan out all their fun upcoming trips. 

On Saturday we headed down to Utah Valley. We first met up with my girls Kaitlin (and family) and Kaitlyn for some yummy Mexican food (something we don't have in Ithaca). We then went back to the Rackhams to hang out for a bit before heading down to Provo. The time went by way too fast, as it always does. 

We then headed down to Provo. It was quite snowy and took us much longer than anticipated to arrive. We met up with Ammon at the Wilk and then headed down to Slab for some pizza. Since we arrived so late, I knew that a quick dinner wasn't going to be enough time to catch up so we convinced him to come to the basketball game with us too. Although it was a quick visit, it was SO nice to see him.

Shae: "Look mom, I took my first selfie of myself!" First of many. What a gem.

Slightly better selfie with the help of the selfie master.

Sunday morning we met up with the Nystuls to watch Music & the Spoken Word. It was Kaitlin's first performance with the Orchestra at Temple Square. I felt so lucky that we got to be there for it. How was I blessed with such talented friends? Kaitlin is a rock star. She's amazing.

Here she is in the back playing her violin, right next to the guy with his back toward us in a suit.

 Loved being here with my main squeeze. He left me the next day for a two week research trip, so it felt extra special (and maybe made me extra emotional) to do something sans kids right before he left. (Thanks Amelia and Sharon for making this possible! In more ways than one...the kids...the cars..etc. etc. etc.)

 Love these people SO much.

Sunday afternoon was hard because we had to say goodbye to Sharon. I'm always worried that we are going to overwhelm her with our loud, busy, boisterous kids...especially when we crash her house for THREE whole weeks, but she is just amazing, letting us take over her peaceful home and turn it upside down. We are so thankful that we got to be with her for the holidays and enjoy some quality family time. We all love her so much.

Monday we packed up and were on our way. Said bye to Amelia, which is also always hard, and Shae always asks about her the rest of the day, and even days after leaving her.

I forgot to post these pictures from our trip out and since I barely took any on the way home thought I'd post them here. Filling out there suitcase tags:

 SO MUCH STUFF. 

(Please picture me solo with all that stuff and two kids--one of which was trying to run away while the other pulled on her sweatshirt frantically trying to be helpful to me, but ultimately letting go and letting his little sister run away--trying to get out of the airport on our way home to meet up with our friend who brought us our car. Wish I had a picture of what that looked like, or maybe I don't...especially the part where everything fell off the cart, right in the middle of the street as we were crossing it. Good times :).

 The lap child. Getting checked in.

 Our flight out was delayed an hour so we went on a nice walk through the airport, trying out all the walking escalators on our way before grabbing some Chinese food.

 Ready to go! Showing off his pups from grandma.

Everything went so smoothly the day we left to come home. Somebody was definitely looking out for me. We got through checkout and security without incident. Got to our gate right as they were calling for family boarding. Said the quickest goodbye to Darin and we were on our way. 

We had really talked up being our "big helper" to Shae and he really was the BIGGEST HELPER. I was so impressed. He did anything/everything that I asked him without complaint and kept asking me what else he could do to be the big helper. 

The flight was only 3.5 hours instead of 5 like our flight on the way out (like I said, tiny miracles). Belén was a bit restless at times and wasn't entertained by movies as much as I had hoped, but thankfully our flight wasn't full so we got a whole row to ourselves (miracles) and she was able to move around.

 We survived our flight photo!

The craziest part was definitely getting all the luggage while trying not to let Belén run away (which is EXACTLY what she wanted to do after being stuck in a metal tube for 4 hours). There was a super sweet man at baggage claim who stayed with me and made sure that I got all my luggage (miracle). Then there was the suitcase disaster in the middle of the street that I mentioned above, but so many people around me jumped up to grab my kids and my stuff and get me to the other side of the street. There were saints at the airport this day. 

The drive up to my parents was mostly smooth (the check engine light was on which always makes me think I'm hearing and feeling everything out of place...), but Belén slept! For 45 minutes! This NEVER happens. Confirmation that somebody upstairs really was taking care of me on what I anticipated to be a very difficult day of solo parent traveling. 

Prayers are heard.