Friends in Town

On Monday, my buddy Patty braved the 9.5 hour drive from TN with her 4 kids to come visit us. Our house was very full and it made for some very crazy times, but it was also lots of fun too. Here are some of her kids with mine on their first night here:

Lucky duck Steven had Scout Camp Tues, Wed, & Thurs so he didn't get to participate in most of our adventures with our friends since he was gone 8am-3pm but he got to have lots of adventures of his own. He got to fish, shoot a BB Gun, do archery, see police dogs and so much more. 

So with Steven off at camp Tuesday morning, I took Patty and her kids to my typical tourist destination, Kensington Metropark. We stopped at the farm first and the animals all seemed extra friendly. The kids loved it!

After the farm, I took them to the  beach in Kensington. I have never been there before which is pretty embarrassing considering it is the closest beach to us! The beach was pretty but the shore is weird. They raked the dirt up in huge lumps so it was kind of awkward and not inviting to sit and play in. However, there is an amazing park right by the beach that my kids absolutely loved. It had lots of fun ropes for climbing on. Unfortunately, Leia and Kate (Patty's kids) were having a rough day and they spent most of their time at the beach throwing fits. Such a bummer for Patty, so we ended up not staying too long.

Tuesday night we got even more company at our house. Tyler's mom's friend Michelle was in town for work and we had her join our crazy full house (along with her coworker) for dinner. It was so fun to see her in my neck of the woods, she is such a nice lady and we had some good talks. She really helped me to come to terms with Tyler's introvert mother better. 

After dinner, I somehow managed to escape the kids and I took Michelle and her co-worker to the nature trails in Kensington Metropark (I bet you would never have guessed I would take her there ;)). They were so in love with everything: the cranes, the chipmunks, the turtles, the lakes, the greens. It was so fun to see everything in their fresh from AZ perspective. It helped me remember just how lucky I am to be living in all this beauty. 

Michelle said she is going to try and make a trip out here again and that she would bring Tyler's mom with her. I really hope she does, that would be so fun!

On Wednesday Patty and I decided to keep things simple and we walked our kids over to Milford Central Park. For some reason all of our kids stayed in the little sand area which made for a nice chill time. 

Lucy and Ben decided it would be fun to make sand angels...

After picking up Steven from Scout Camp Wednesday afternoon, we all loaded up and headed to the splash park that is in Indian Springs Metropark. All of our kids really seemed to enjoy it. It was super hot in the sun so they were able to cool off in the sprayers and lucky for us adults it was super cool in the shade so we were able to chill with the babies.

When the older kids were done splashing around they headed to a rope maze that was next to the splash park. Unfortunately this is where the outing went sour for my family. Penny was upset about leaving the splash park because she was just starting to get comfortable with being sprayed. Just when she calmed down from that fit, Benny tripped and fell and you would've thought he was near death. He was screaming "Oh my gosh! It hurts so bad! I need a band aid now!" and crying his guts out. It was embarrassingly awful. I had to wait for Lucy & Steven to get out of the maze before I could get him a band aid from the car. The whole thing was just excruciating. 

After getting the band aides on him, he was miraculously just fine and they spent a little bit of time playing at the park there before we called it a day and headed home.

Side note: Leia was obsessed with Steven while she was here. She just wanted to spend all her waking hours with him and was not happy about him being at camp all day. She told her mom "I love Steven" her mom asked her: "Like you love your brother Brice?" She responded: "I don't love Brice but I love Steven."

Wednesday night I got to have another escape and Patty & I went and got some ice cream from Cold Stone. It was so nice to catch up with her without 8 kids running around.                                  

On Thursday we had an early morning walk on one of the nature trails in Kensington. The kids were so good (zero meltdowns) and it was so much fun! I had them pose for a picture on a bench (everyone but baby Grace) and then after that they wanted to pose for a picture on every bench that they saw. It was so funny!

After lunch we took the kids to the Huron Valley Rec Center where they have a super fun indoor water park. I had never been there before because it's a little pricey but it was so much fun for the kids and I might just have to take them again. Ben has asked me every day since if we are going there again.

The only lame part was that Patty had to fill out a waiver form for her kids before we could go inside (we had already filled one out when Steven had been on a field trip there) and it took forever! I tried distract the kids from the eternal waiting by taking their pictures and then letting them take selfies...

Poor middle child Ben is always struggling to be in the picture, even when not all of the kids are his own brothers and sisters.

I love how the whole time Patty's family was visiting my kids were totally baby crazy. Anytime baby Grace was left unattended, my kids were up in her face. Poor thing! At least she is so easy going and happy that she didn't mind. Here they are attacking her as we got ready to go to the farmer's market that afternoon:

Thursday night Patty and I were lucky enough to get out again, only baby Grace tagged along with us. We went to my friend Heather's baby shower. It is always fun to get together with the ladies in my ward. We enjoyed some yummy dessert and fun conversations.

Friday morning Patty and her kids left us. It was sad to say goodbye! Now everything is back to boring normal and we are trying to get back into our summertime routine. We still have a whole month until school starts and I am not sure how we are going to survive now that we have no fun plans on the agenda. The boys definitely do a lot of fighting when they are home with each other all day. 

Enjoying Milford with Family

Despite the crazy flights with Penny, the AZ trip was fun and it was pretty nice to just have one child for a week. I am so grateful to my parents for watching the other 3 so I could have that little vacation from life. But after 2 weeks of travels, it was also nice to be back in my own home and get back into the swing of things. It was equally nice that my parents got to stick around for awhile longer and we got to spend some time with them in Milford. 

The weather was lovely (much better than that hot AZ heat) so we spent a lot of time outdoors with my parents. We hung out on the porch, we went to Milford Central Park, we went to the farm in Kensington (where we met some friends of my mom that had just moved to Michigan), we visited a little waterfall back behind some shops, we got ice cream and my parents spoiled the kids with some toys from Target. It has been a good week!

The Rest of AZ

The Wednesday after the wedding was a super calm day. Tyler's family took him back to the airport because he had to fly back home to work so it was just me and Miss Penny hanging out at my parent's house for the morning. After she got a good nap we headed over to my brother's house and hung out with their family and his wife even fed me, she's such a gem.

The next day was Penny's dental day. Since they would be putting her under with anesthesia she was not allowed to eat or drink anything that morning. She does not do well without food, she usually wants to eat the moment she wakes up and this morning was no different. She woke up at 7, the appointment was at 9:10. It was the longest 2 hours EVER. She cried and screamed for food and I just had to keep telling that sad, sad face no. 

To make matters worse, when we got to the dentist's office, they were running behind. They ended up not taking her back until 10am and that was just more time for me to struggle with trying to calm down my "hangry" baby. After lots of fussing she passed out about 10 minutes before they ended up putting her under. Of course she woke up right before they put her under but the gas they used is amazing stuff. It only took about 30 seconds and she was put out of her hungry misery. 

Everything went smoothly from there and they were able to give her 4 crowns on her 4 front teeth and do fillings on her 2 molars. So much work for my little one and I am so grateful it's all done. 

She did not want to wake up after the dental work was finished and I ended up pushing my sleeping toddler in a cart through Target as I picked up some crackers, fruit pouches and Gatorade for her to eat. As I was checking out from Target she woke up and was very eager to eat all those things but by the time we got back to my parent's house she was sleepy again and as I was unloading the food, this happened:

I'm a good mama so I didn't leave her on the floor, I moved her to the couch and she woke for a minute and then was out again.

When she finally woke up from all her sleeping her teeth did not seem to be bother her one bit and she was actually acting pretty hyper. We ended up going to Mike and Mecca's again and then all of us went to dinner at my favorite place, Mi Amigo's! In Penny's hyper state she did a lot of escaping from the booth and getting into trouble but the food is just so yummy that I didn't mind. After filling our bellies we drove to the nearby mall and let the kids play for a bit in the play area and then we called it a day.

On our last full day in AZ we had breakfast with a girl I used to tutor, Gabby, and her mom. Her mom is very chatty and it was good to catch up with them and hear how well Gabby has been doing in school. Then that afternoon, we hit up a splash pad with my Mike and his family. Penny apparently was not a fan and mostly avoided all the sprayers...

Afterwards Mecca fed us a yummy dinner that included homemade marinara sauce and then we just hung out until it was time to go home for bed. It was a perfect end to our trip!

Mike and Oliver took us to the airport the next morning because they are awesome like that. I was extremely anxious because the last flight had been less than great. Thankfully we got through checking in just fine, said our sad goodbyes and then security went equally smoothly. Unfortunately as I was waiting in line to get Penny some yogurt at Paradise Bakery she started screaming and I knew that was a predecessor for what was to come. She was extremely volatile as we waited to board, one wrong move and she would explode. Same thing once we got on the plane. 

I sat by the window to try and block her in and I think that did help but unfortunately, a rather large guy sat in the middle seat and so we were extra trapped and squishy. The one silver lining was a nice lady who sat in the aisle seat in our row. She was super nice and constantly trying to help out with crazy Penny. Unfortunately Penny could not be helped. When she started her shrill screaming, I walked the aisle with her and managed to get her to sleep for awhile. This was a blessing. But then she woke up from the nap screaming and would not calm down. That was just painful and once again I was so grateful when the plane finally landed. I am not flying with Penny for several years if I can help it, that's for sure!

Jezerea's Wedding

So don't let that cute little face below fool you, Penny is probably the worst travel companion you could ever have. That smile was a very rare moment and sleep never came until after lots of shrill screaming at the top of her lungs. The car trip back from PA on Sat was painful and the airplane ride to AZ the following Monday was even worse. Too many unrelated people had to experience her shrill crying for a half an hour straight. When we landed the Pilot said, "Phew! We made it!" I'm pretty sure he could hear her loud and clear. Of course, as soon as we got in the car to head to Tyler's parent's house, she totally passed out.

Our flight to AZ was an early morning flight, it left at 6:40am (and we made it to our gate with just 15min's to spare because for some reason the airport was crazy busy at that time) and with the time difference, we landed in AZ at 7:30am. We had breakfast with Tyler's family, ran some errands, tried (& failed) to get Penny to take a nap and then we took Penny to her Dentist Appt. 

We were getting her tooth decay fixed in AZ because not only do I have a pediatric dentist there that I trust and like, but it was much cheaper (a third of the cost!). This appointment was just to check it out and let us know their game plan for her teeth. I thought she was so over tired that it was going to be a horrible appointment but there was sink that she could wash her hands in and that entertained her and kept her from going too crazy.

That night Tyler's family had a birthday party for his mom. It was quite the bash with an impressive slideshow of pictures from Tyler's mom's life and then all the kids gave sweet little speeches about their mom and each one of them cried (Tyler included). I liked this sentimental party much better than the crazy kung fu party they had for her last year ;)

Tuesday morning was wedding day! The sealing was at 10:30 and we had a very busy morning getting everyone dolled up. Melissa did my make up and Keshia did my my hair and I felt so pretty! I liked Melissa's make up job loads better than the expensive lady who did my make up last time.

With just a bit of time to spare, we headed off to the Gilbert Temple. We dropped Penny off with my lovely sister-in-law Rebecca and headed to the sealing. This sealing was less of euphoric event then the last sealing we attended. There's no nice way to say this but Tyler's family is not super fond of Jezerea's now husband. But regardless we are all there for her and we all love her and hope for the best.

After the sealing we picked Penny up so she could be there for the pictures outside of the temple. She probably wished we hadn't picked her up, it was super hot and she was super fussy and miserable. I only managed to get one smiling picture of her of my own and I'm pretty the fancy photographer got a grand total of zero smiling pictures of her.

Then it was off to a delicious luncheon at Arriba Mexican Grill where we got to sit with the newlywed's Jeff & Mariah who are still super cute and in love and fun to chat with. Penny started to get comfortable with the other kids and was actually running around and playing with them. That was a rare moment in this whole trip. A majority of the trip was spent with her in my arms.

After the luncheon we went back to the Hatch home and put Penny down for a nap. Not too much later it was time for more pictures and then the reception. Pictures were brutal in the heat and Penny refused to be in the pictures because I couldn't be in them with her. I think they were able to snap one shot of her before she ran away screaming. This is her showing unhappy she was about the whole process:

And this is me rocking the serious look with all my sister-in-laws:

Later on at the reception, Penny seemed to regain her comfort level so I thought I would try to get a picture of her with her only girl cousin on the Hatch side, Reese. I mean they were so cute and matchy. Unfortunately the minute I took my phone out for pictures she turned snotty and was not very kind to Reese. It was so sad because Reese really wanted to be her friend, she kept asking if "Penny the baby" would play with her and mean Penny just kept rejecting her :(

My shoes that I had bought for the wedding were horribly uncomfortable, they pinched my foot like crazy and gave me blisters something fierce. I even stuck some tacky looking moleskin all over my feet to try and help but it wasn't so successful. After pictures I immediately kicked those suckers off and Miss Penny immediately put them on. It was so cute watching her walk around in them and they didn't seem to be pinching her feet at all!

I spent a lot of the reception walking outside with Penny  and didn't get to do a whole lot of socializing or dancing. Near the end Penny really started to get fussy but Tyler's Aunt Karen was so nice and dug out candy from her purse which calmed Penny down and caused her to really like Tyler's Aunt. You can definitely buy Penny's love with candy, probably best to keep her away from any strangers in large vans that may offer her candy...

And then we sent the newlywed couple off and we crashed into bed because all those pictures in the heat were exhausting!