Like the Old Days....

Travis and I have just wrapped up 4 (almost 5) days without our sweet little girl and we are more than ready to go pick her up tonight!!  She has had a big time with her Grandma and Grandpa, not to mention her aunt and uncle.  Every time I called or skyped, we could hear and see her living it up with her peeps!  She had a dance party almost every night, got to go on lots of little excursions around town, learned how to let herself out their back door, and discovered that she is in love with peaches!  We are so grateful to my parents for taking her for a few days and loving her up.  We missed her, but I'm not going to lie...being alone for a few days was kind of like "the old days" and we LOVED that too!

For instance...

-I haven't cut up anyone's food for days now or washed any sippy cups at night or taken my diaper bag out of the house.  Ahh, what a nice break!!

-We were able to sleep later than normal and lounge around at night, watching TV or a movie together almost every night.  Kind of fun :) 


-We made huge progress on the bedroom swap, although we have at least another few weeks of work before it's totally done.  We got both of the kids new rooms (i.e.-our master bedroom and closet) all painted and cleaned out.  They look great and we were pleasantly surprised by how big our closet became after we took all of our clothes and storage stuff out!  I think it's going to work perfectly for Carter!  


-I spent several days organizing and emptying 3 closets, going through all kinds of junk and sorting it into piles to keep, give away or throw away.  Today I have to get rid of all those piles before Ava can re-join us :) 


-We worked hard, but we also played hard for a few days!  The last 3 nights (and twice for lunch) we have eaten out, either by ourselves or with friends.  We had 3 great meals at 3 really unique and fun restaurants.  It was a splurge that we needed and in so many ways, it felt like those early years when we ate out a lot more!  We're ready to eat at home for awhile now, but it was certainly fun to be out too!  


-I got to go to Church yesterday, after waking up to a quiet house and taking time to get ready ALL BY MYSELF!  That was amazing.  Usually my Sunday mornings are rushed and stressful, but yesterday was peaceful and calm.  Gotta love that!

Our plan now is to finish painting our bathroom throughout the week, after Ava goes to bed, and then next weekend make the big swap between bedrooms with all of our furniture.  I've already swapped out our closets and I'm going to try and swap out the bathrooms during the afternoons this week.  It is so much work, but I just keep telling myself that when it is all done, it will be worth it!!  We're definitely going through the "it looks like a tornado hit" stage, knowing that it always gets worse before it gets better when you do this much cleaning and rearranging, but it's helping my nesting tendencies to get this done and Trav has been a great sport about it too, wanting to finish before soccer starts and the junior high fall kick-off begins.

So, all that to say that we miss Ava and can't wait to get our hands on her tonight, but we have totally enjoyed our days alone too!!  I worked on our fall calendar last night and I have to tell you, I'm very excited about the days ahead.  We will be gearing up for lots of soccer, as he is coaching a varsity boys team at a local high school here, and getting back into the swing of things at Church with Bible studies and retreats and just the weekly grind.  I'm totally looking forward to spending some quality days with Ava and sitting on the sidelines of lots of soccer games.  I think it's because we are enjoying a blissful cool snap right now that has the feel of fall in the air, but I just can't wait for all that the fall will bring!  College football starts soon and so does all the NFL madness around here with Bret Favre and the "will he or won't he" play for the Vikings???  It's crazy but fun too.  FYI, our waiter at one of the restaurants we went to, told us that Favre's wife and daughter had just been in a few days prior because they were in town to register her for school...hmm, the buzz about him coming back just keeps increasing!!  We're certain no one will know until the last possible second, because that seems to be how he rolls :)

I have lots to do today, so I need to get off of here and move on....

Hope you had a great weekend and are enjoying the start of your week!  Happy Monday everyone :)