Helping Hands in CO

In preparation for Elise's baby's arrival I made reservations to fly to CO. Jack made his appearance a little earlier than planned and suddenly instead of meeting a newborn I was meeting a three week old!  

I was completely satisfied though because he was small and adorable!

One of our scheduling hoops was overlapping with Chandra but only by a few days.  We had to maximize the time with helping hands around but when you get a chance to not only see a sister but get all of us together, well, you go ahead and jump through the hoops!

 For all the mommy vacations I have taken to Elise's house, spending a week with Elise's family was something I haven't done. All my other trips were for just a few days. It was so fun! I didn't actually take a ton of pictures but here are few from game night:

 I lamented my late arrival for awhile but as the week passed it seemed that Jack was sleeping less and getting fussier.  It felt like I was actually there at the time I needed to be to be the most help. As he got fussier and tummy problems developed it took more hands to hold a baby and get a snack and do some cleaning and everything else that goes into running a house full of people. 

 There were lots of fun and enjoyable times to be had but there were a couple of times that I really enjoyed on the inside. I sat like an bug on the wall and had my heart warmed.

  The first was Dan.  He took Luke to his soccer game and by inspiration or daddy intuition captured on video Luke making his first goal on video.  The video was super cute and the best part was Dan yelling at the end-his major football fan talents showed off in his yell of approval:) But then, to my enjoyment, Dan and Luke would sit together and re-play the video over and over and over with these smiles.  That little boy knew his dad loved him and was proud of him that day!

Having 5 kids isn't an easy ride no matter how you shake it but it has to be more challenging when #4 is not even two yet!  And occasionally, there would be these moments when you had to mommy both at the same time. Elise did it so easily and graciously.

 While I was away, Chris held down the fort here in WI (with some amazing help from Clara and Dave who bravely took on the morning rush and trips to schools so Chris could take half days off instead of whole days) and even did some fun things with the kids!

 Ok, maybe he enlisted a little help with some of the daily tasks...

 And the last treat of my trip was getting to see Christina and catch up with their family's goings on. With everyone getting to Oregon and getting settled into jobs and schools and boyfriends (she can't be that old, can she?!?) there was lots to hear about. She brought Cafe Rio for lunch and we got to see a house tour via Facetime that Bret and the girls were checking out.

Family is so precious.  There was a time when I would have hesitated to spend the money to take the trips to see the  people.  Don't get wrong, I am not advocating being foolish with your financial situation but sometimes being too frugal is not right either.  For me, family times are those times. The relationships built and strengthened and enjoyed are worth so much because they last forever!