Wordless Wednesday

-Bethany

February Love

We've spent a lot of time indoors lately.  I'm hoping these continued cold (for Texas) temps sure help with the mosquitos this summer because we Jordans are not used to being indoors and confined.

Sometimes, I just kick the kids out anyways.  Jumping around long enough will warm them up!

In the meanwhile, we spend a lot of time during the week on homework.  Palmer works hard (although his handwriting is about as stellar as mine) and is really loving to read chapter books these days.  On Mondays, he and I like to set up shop for homework somewhere where we can grab an afternoon treat while Grace is at Spanish lessons.

Chocolate croissants for the win...

Or how about some "rolled up" ice cream.  I'm fine with that, too.  Obvi.

Grace is quite the character.  I asked her if she wanted to read chapter books like Palmer one day.  She told me, "No, thank you.  I will just read kid books."

She also has a hard time being convinced to wear pants.  Apparently, a preschool-aged Bethany had similar issues, but I digress.  

I try.

I've also been researching books and videos to try to teach about the concept of lying/honesty.  So far, we haven't quite mastered the topic.

Nearly a year ago, Aunt Samantha gave Palmer an amazing zip line for his birthday.  Because of the steep slope of our backyard, it was insanely unsafe.  Finally, we had a landing platform built for the zip line and we are back in business.

Even little miss got in on the action...

Palmer has been asking about his tree fort for months and months.  He was so excited when it finally got built.

 

Family dim sum fun.  I've been wanting to go for a long time.  The scene was chaotic and I'm pretty sure the kids ate less than 200 calories, but we got to check it out.

 

Grace was very excited for her Valentine's Day party at school this year.  She made sure to tell me that she didn't need a lunch that day, which was great because I totally missed that memo.

She also got the memo about Valentine's treats and is all about sneaking them out of her treat box when I am not looking.

And heaven forbid her Valentine's jammies not have a skirt.  Girlfriend improvised..

Rick was out of town for Valentine's Day, but passed over the reins for Palmer to be "man of the house".  Palmer asked me to wake him at 640am so he could go downstairs and set some things up before I came down.  Rick and the kids had planned some treats for me before Rick left for his business trip.  Thanks, everyone!

Rick, Rick who?  We are missing our guy.  He travels about three days a week and I have a personal goal of getting more photos of him for the next post.  Thanks for all you do, babe!

-Bethany

Wednesday With Words

"Grace, you are such a good doctor!"
"I'm not a doctor.  I'm a princess."
(insert eye roll)

-Bethany

Guys/Girls Weekends

Super proud mom over here.  I've always been very proud of Palmer's independence, but he really showed his true self a week ago.  

Rick was in Denver for work and thought it would be fun for Palmer to join him at the tail-end so they could ski for the weekend before returning to Texas.  We bought a pass thru Southwest Airlines for Palmer to be an "unattended minor" and I was given a ticket to get thru security and walk Palmer to the gate.  In Denver, Rick had a pass to get thru security and pick up Palmer when he walked off of the plane.

Palmer was so proud of himself.  He got to hold onto Rick's second phone for the flight and we spent the previous night practicing making phone calls and texting.  I sent Palmer to school for a few hours in the morning and told him that he was NOT ALLOWED to take the phone out at school.  Well, don't you worry because he followed instructions BUT he definitely told all of his friends that he had a phone in his backpack and when they didn't believe him, he let them FEEL the front pocket to prove it.  Ha.  He cracks me up.

When we got to the airport, he filled up on pizza and "needed" a bag of Skittles (a true treat over here) so that he didn't get hungry later.  He had also packed three snacks for the two-hour flight.

At the time of boarding, he was eager to start walking down the jet bridge.  The flight attendant said, "Um, aren't you going to hug your mom good bye?"  He was like, "Oh, right.  Bye, mom."

It was such a weird feeling to just walk away from the gate and leave him there.  I felt like I wasn't allowed to just cut loose.  Well, don't worry because within two minutes, he called Rick to check in.  Then, he hung up with Rick and called me and said, "How did you feel when I walked away?"  I told him I was a little sad and he told me not to worry.  

Five minutes later, he called both of us again.  Those poor seat neighbors! ha

THEN, he discovered emojis and any further communication looked like this:

The guys had a great weekend- they skied hard, ate pizza for dinner and breakfast (do you see a theme here?) and came home with too many clean clothes in their suitcases.

Meanwhile, Grace and I had a girls weekend and went down to Austin to see Wylie and Charlie (oh, and my brother and sister-in-law).  The cousins had so much fun despite Grace regressing to a two-year-old state of mind and running off at every turn because "well, Charlie does it!"

 

We also stuffed our faces...

Cuddled this cutie...

And got our nails done...mostly selfishly for me, but also because I tried to paint Grace's nails for the first time and there is a REASON why I don't paint my own nails.  She's gonna need to suck up to her aunts on that one.

We all had great weekends.  And then, it was your typical Monday morning...

-Bethany

Wordless Thursday

-Bethany