This last week...

We were in Arizona with all of Ryan's family. 17 people in one house with four beds and four bathrooms, and at the end of the week, we all still loved each other (I think?). That's got to say something right? We had fun, except for the fact that I have a little bit of a going problem when we travel (yikes!). Ryan calls it traveling stage fright. I call it constipation. We had beautiful 70 degree weather the first few days, followed by the cold and rain the last few. Amber had a darling new craft for us to do everyday. The boys went to a bowl game, and the girls painted pottery. Clara ate dirt, and discovered how fun the toilet can be to play in. I think we ate our weight in food. Jeff and Amber introduced us to Trader Joe's peppermint oreos (amazing!) and they make it in ice cream too. We of course had to try both. And somehow in the midst of President and Sister Howes running the mission, they still made time for us and spent every minute they could with the grandkids. I swear their phones never stopped ringing, no matter what time of day. They are busy! I don't think it ever slows down or stops for them either.

Davis grew up! I think being around all of his cousins made him grow and learn new things quicker than usual. He was in heaven with all the kids. Any time we would put him down he would crawl as fast as he could into the kids room and get right in the middle of all the action. He loved all the attention, kisses, and smothering he got from everyone. Every morning little cousin Jack would come up to him, give him a kiss, pat his head, and say "hey little buddy". Jacob (4 yrs. old) would ask if he could feed Davis his bottle at night. So sweet! We discovered his love for lemons. So weird, but he went through about 8 lemon wedges one night at dinner! He picked up a new trick, we call it "The Hulk". It is hilarious. He would do it on que when the cousins would say, "Davis Hulk"! He clenches his fists, tightens his whole body, and makes this grunting noise. He stands up on everything and is walking around furniture. He feeds himself at dinner. We set it in front of him and he goes to town, making a huge mess, but he is learning, right?

It's so nice to be home. We miss everyone though, and Davis misses everyone! I swear the day after we got home he was crawling around the house looking for his friends to play with. I forgot my camera. So sad. Thanks to my phone though, I was able to capture a few things. Six months down... only thirty more to go!

I have to give credit to Ms. Kathryn Whiting for inspiring the idea of doing photo collages. And Ms. Kaitlyn Ray for teaching me how to do them, and all my photos! What would we do without friends? It makes it so much easier to display a million photos. :)

And what is this might you ask, that would be my dear husband at dinner on New Year's Eve. If you know him at all, it will be no surprise that he is wearing flip flops. But only one! He parked the car for us and walked into dinner looking like this. After dying of shock and laughter I said, what happened? "My flip flop broke in the parking lot, what was I suppose to do?" He carried in the broken flip flop and tossed it under the table. He even went to the bathroom (gross!) He said he had someone hand him a paper towel and he scooted around with it under his foot. He walked around the restaurant with Davis, having no shame at all. I would be mortified if that were me! The best part of the story is that at the end of the night Amber walked back in the restaurant to use the restroom and our waiter came running up to her and said, "Excuse me, someone left their shoe under the table. Don't want to forget that." She took it and said Thank you. As he walked out of the restaurant with one shoe on, I maybe pretended like I didn't know him. The looks he got from people were priceless. Hope you all had a wonderful New Year's!

After reading over this post, I am realizing between my "going" issues and Ryan walking around barefoot, Yes, we are dysfunctional! But we are comfortable with it. C'est La Vie... right?