Lauderdale Time

Where do I even start when it comes to the Lauderdales?  They are truly an amazing family!  They are so loving, giving, helpful, caring and just all things good and nice!  I'm not sure how well Texas would have worked with out them in our lives and they are one of the main reasons my children & I are so homesick for Texas!  They are not just simply friends....they are family!  They are the sister and cousins that we never had close by and brother too, we can't forget about Alex! ;)  They all have a special place in all of our hearts and we miss them terribly every day.

Other than our neighbors, Stacia was the first real friend that I had in Texas.  We met at CBS just a couple months after our oldest were born.  In short, we became stay at home moms at the same time and went through all the first of motherhood together.....first joys, first struggles, first frustrations, first worries, first excitements, etc etc.  I was on the fence about joining the bible study and so nervous that first day especially when I walked in and only saw older women, as in could be my mom or grandma older, which is great but I was really wanting to meet women my age to connect with a group or someone.  Looking back there was no need to worry as all the women with younger children were just simply dropping off their children and there were tons of them!  But I was also nervous about leaving my child with people I had never met before.  Walking into the nursery and seeing how calm & relaxed Stacia was made me feel comfortable.  She seemed really nice, like someone I could really get along with and to top it off she was in my group!  No need to go into it anymore than that, obviously we hit it off and our babies loved each other then and now!

So anyways, towards the end of our stay we switched houses and were staying with the Lauderdales.  One of the days everyone was busy and we got to hang out just us.  It was like we never left.  You see before we moved away we saw each other at least once a week but it was more like twice a week plus we did bible study one day a week together.  Basically we were together unless we had something else going and even then we would sometimes squeeze in an hour or so.  We would watch each other kids for doctor appointments and every other week so the other one could have a day to themselves to do whatever....house work, doctor appointments, shopping, going to lunch with a friend or just whatever we wanted it was our day or 4 hours and it was bliss!! :)  After the move to Washington it has been hard on all of us to get adjusted to being just us all the time and for the girls to get use to sitting quietly at appointments again and here is the biggest one for the girls....going to the zoo with out Margot & Natalee!! Hehe

We actually thought about going to the zoo but figured we would just go crazy since it would be the two of us & 6 kids....2 being newborns!!  So instead we headed to the park!

And had a picnic on the playground since it was the only place that had shade!

After the picnic we went home, picked up Mark and headed to Menchies!!!  I mean how could we not stop at Menchies since Grace & Eva have declared it the best Menchies of the two they know!

Poor Thor gets the same view at this Menchies too but at least he has a friend this time! ;)

After Menchies we went back home and decided to give them a bath cause they were so dirty from the park, lunch & Menchies!!

While the girls were bathing Thor decided to hanging out and work with Daddy and I got to hold Evelynn!! :)  It was a wonderful day that came to an end all too soon.