Fun in Michigan

Charlotte and I just got back from a few days with friends in Michigan. We had a wonderful time. The real purpose was not to visit IKEA, Trader Joe's and H&M. The real purpose to our visit was to spend time with dear friend Annette and her family. So Charlotte & I packed up our stuff & headed east for a nice long weekend of friends, wine, kids, and hair clips. Charlotte was a real champ and was every one's friend on the airplane. Not a single problem there. Whew! There was a kid on the flight out that cried (wailed more like it!) for an hour and a half of the flight. When the flight attendant asked the mom to take the child to the back of the plane the mom told her that "he didn't want to go back there." Huh? The kid was maybe a month older than Ian. It didn't look like the real problem was the kid, but the mom. I asked her if she needed some Children's Tylenol or Children's Benadryl and she said that she had some. I should have asked her if she used it!

So I'm taking the day off of work to get caught up on some laundry, get unpacked and go grocery shopping. Ian's speech therapy is tonight and I want him fed before the therapist arrives. It makes it much easier to get the session done correctly when he's happy & fed. Or I should say fed & happy, in that order.

I was able to find some fantastic buys on some things we'd been looking for here at the casa. Picked up more towels (can't have too many with little neanderthals running amok!), a new kitchen knife, two bedside lamps (we haven't had any luck finding ones we like here in town), and my usual list from Trader Joe's that normally consists of chocolate covered ginger, chocolate covered blueberries (I completely blame my mother-in-law for this addiction - I'm sure she's not losing any sleep over it), ginger granola, jasmine tea buds, and any thing else that struck my fancy that day. I had to be good on this trip though, because we're trying to be fiscally responsible with several birthdays and Christmas looming in the next six months. Had I not been traveling with an infant I would have surely picked up a case of two-buck-chuck. Trader Joe's has the best wines for the most affordable prices known to man. And it doesn't taste like cheap wine either. Let's not get started on the fact that Denver doesn't have an IKEA or Trader Joe's. I might start crying. Let's move on to clothes. I had not purchased any new clothes for a very long time as I had been hoping we'd be pregnant, and then I was pregnant and then my body completely changed and I've had to revamp a lot of my wardrobe. So while we were out in Michigan we went to an H&M hoping to find some good wardrobe basics for fall/winter. I think I did pretty darn good finding a cute sweater dress, adorable cable knit a-line skirt, and a couple tops. I'm sure my personal fashion critic will have some words about the fact that they're mostly gray. I'll simply remind him as I always do that he's welcome to not wear them. ;)

Poor Charlotte. Annette taught me how to make the cutest little hair clips for Charlotte's hair. She's got a trick that holds even the scantiest of little skiffs of hair into a clip. God bless Velcro. We made several. They turned out so cute! Here's my handy work.

Here's what the creative process looked like. Pathetic, isn't it?

Now I have cute little hair clips to put in my sweetie's hair. When Robert picked us up from the airport yesterday I had the aqua clip with the 'c' in her hair (see above, middle row, 3rd one down). He says, "What did you do to my daughter's hair?" Of course it was said complete with a look of utter disgust. Really! How can anyone think this is not completely adorable?

We had such a wonderful time with Annette, Rod, Owen & Alden. They were wonderful hosts and Owen did a fantastic job of being a big brother for Charlotte. She thought he was pretty funny. Here's the two of them playing while we're getting the car loaded up to head over to Plymouth to see more friends.

While in Plymouth we visited friends Jess, Noli, Sophie and Jacob. Jacob is their new arrival from Ethiopia. Talk about a little snuggler! He's a cute little guy for sure. We lined up all the kids and joked that it looked like a Benetton ad. Pictured are Alden (15mos), Jacob (almost 8 mos), Charlotte (almost 9 mos), and Sophie (3 yrs).

And here are the babies, Jacob & Charlotte.

Charlotte was a real trooper on the trip. We messed up her nap, bedtime and feeding schedule. The entire time she was content to be strolled around, played with and enjoying the company of Owen & Alden. Our little baby is now crawling everywhere and pulling herself up on everything she can. She's at that stage where she wants to get up on everything and her little noggin gets bumped every five seconds. I remember this stage for Ian and we were sure he'd need a helmet.

We made it back yesterday night. Charlotte did great just going back to her usual schedule, but we threw Ian off completely. He spent the night in our bed with us and I have a sneaky suspicion that we'll need to do a little sleep training again later this week after things settle back down to normal.

Well, I need to run so I can do laundry. The weather apparently turned a little chilly this past weekend here and I need to get the kids fall clothes out so they have some long pants for the cooler days that are going to come more frequently soon. Hoping everyone is having a good week!