hotel snapshots.

here are a couple of pictures i snapped of us in the hotel room over the weekend. i used to think traveling and staying in hotels was fun. the buffet waffles for breakfast, the tv in the bedroom, using 5 towels to dry off just because they are there and so much cleaner than mine at home. and then I had kids. and while it is still fun to eat hotel waffles in the shape of texas and watch tv in bed, it is becoming increasingly less fun. 5 people in one hotel room is just not fun. it wasn't fun when i was growing up, although that was mostly because all i remember is my mom telling us to stop jumping on the bed (another fun reason to stay at hotels by the way) and the fact that we never stopped at a hotel before 3 in the morning when traveling. but it is crowded at night and crowded during naps and there is lots of tiptoeing and climbing over suitcases and cribs and no changing table so peeing on the bed is inevitable (sorry Hilton).

we truly do always have a great time when we travel like we did this past weekend to see my mom's family, we are just completely exhausted by the time we get home because no one sleeps great and the travel just wears you out. and yet we keep doing it. isn't there a definition of crazy that sounds similar to that? oh well, back to the pictures. one is of elise at 11:00 sunday night when she was supposed to be sleeping. i went to check on her and this js what i saw. so cute I turned on the light to take a picture. I just love being off schedule. *cough cough*

travel craziness.

the girls have experienced a new kind of travel over the past few days. on wednesday we flew to tulsa in the small plane to go and see my grandma and lots of other family. then on thursday we flew to st. louis to see the other side of the family for our biannual family reunion.

brenner and i had lots of discussion as to the best way to take this weekend adventure.

option #1: driving 13+ hours where we would need to stop every 2 hours to feed babies. Ummmm....pass.

option #2: commercial airline flight which would be expensive and take most of the day.

option #3: small plane with half the travel time and flexible scheduling. major downside? when the toddler says "poo poo" at 9000 feet. oh yes he did. so we had to make an extra landing to go potty. lovely.

other than that the flights went great and the kids proved once again that they are great travelers!

here is a glimpse of our flight. I had one baby in a bjorn, one in a carseat in the back and cole in the back glued to the DVD player. brenner of course was our pilot.

museum.

yesterday the kids and i went to the children's museum for a little while in the morning. i have felt so bad about not doing nearly as many fun things this summer as we intended because things with the girls are so challenging and getting through each day and the daily routine is all I can handle. but the past couple of weeks I have been determined to have more fun and so we went to the mayborn museum where cole got to do some of his favorite things, such as driving vehicles, riding animals, and playing with mommy. he also likes to pretend to make me coffee and breakfast just like daddy does (he is obsessed with the eggs and coffee pot here). We had so much fun!

our weekend.

here are a few pictures from our weekend. don't worry, one of these days i will actually have time to write on my blog again and tell you about my life instead of just posting a bunch of pictures. 

 but, let's be honest, most of you only want to see my adorable children anyways.

still a little short for this jumper.  

daddy found a solution to that problem.

we showed our house for the first time!  it has been on the market for 6 weeks so we are disappointed it took this long to show but we are trusting in God's plan! 

me trying to capture a cute photo of cole holding clara.  

clearly things could have been going better.

cole was very into building towers out of things found in the pantry.  

we pulled out our rice bin and cole played happily for close to an hour in the kitchen.  3 pounds of rice ended up on the floor, but he was happy and entertained so i was a happy mama.  it let me clean and prep all my farmer's market produce in peace!

nightly bible reading.  cole is WAY into the story of shadrack, mishack, and abednigo right now.  he is seriously concentrating.

trying to get out of the door these days with the kids can be a challenge as i am trying to leave the house neat and tidy in case it needs to be shown while we are out.  taking the extra time to straighten up is hard with 3 kids.  

enter mickey the mouse.  

i am not proud of this at all, and try not to do it, but, let's be honest.  

sometimes a mama needs some help.