The Journey of Parenthood…

#bestweekendever

Every year Jordan’s family plays in a golf tournament. This year he asked Zach to play with them. It’s in Atlanta and it’s over an entire weekend. When we first discussed it we planned to make a weekend out of it for the whole family. I’m home all day every day with my children…it’s a HUGE blessing and I’m so thankful for it but it’s also my job. And Zach understands that and understands that evenings and weekends are a time where I need those breaks from my job 😉 I LOVE family time together and appreciate when Zach is home to help share the parenting responsibilities but also to share in the fun memories together. Zach is really, really good about taking time for himself doing things he enjoys (which I’m working on doing better at for myself!) but he’s also good about scheduling those activities for times that won’t interfere with family together time. He golfs on most Friday afternoons and will do things in the evenings on occasion after the kids are in bed and such. In the summers he and Jordan run a basketball league that’s every Tuesday night. He felt bad being gone for a whole weekend, especially since he traveled a lot during that time for work. I got with my good friend Kelly and planned to make a fun weekend out of it! We were going to stay with her and while Zach was golfing the kids and I would spend time with Kelly and her kids 🙂 

Sometimes things don’t go as planned. I’m all about keeping things real and transparent and marriages aren’t always all rainbows and sunshine. Zach and I had a rough patch the week leading up to the golf tournament weekend. I ended up deciding that it wouldn’t be best for us to go to Atlanta after all. I felt bad canceling on Kelly (flakiness is not my style!) but I knew the time apart was probably best for Zach and I at the time. Sometimes you just need a little space and perspective, am I right? Zach agreed and it saved us a lot of money for him to just go with Jordan for the weekend rather than the whole family going. When I’m upset I tend to emotionally eat and emotionally spend money. So it’s good that we saved the money on the trip…because I def spent it on random stuff that weekend bahaha. Of course Zach and I worked things out that next week and it actually still ended up being a pretty great weekend! I’m also planning to get to see Kelly later this summer so it’s all good 🙂

In my emotional state I went to Target. Which is probably about the worst place an upset mother can go. Hello random purchases. I was on a mission to make it the most fun, awesome weekend ever. If I was stuck at home all weekend, I wanted to make it memorable! 

The guys left Friday morning so after I picked up the kids from school Casey and Carter came over. She brought some celebrity gossip magazines and I brought some Chicken Salad Chick. While the kids all napped we read gossip and ate lunch and laid out. Yes. It was awesome! 

Random but I have to give a little quick shout out to Alden! How cool is it to be flipping through a magazine and see someone you know? She actually caught the bouquet at my wedding back in the day and now she has a fashion blog that was recently featured in People style magazine! You can check out her blog: The Pricey Pauper (she’s the bottom right picture!).

Once the kids woke from naps we had a little pool party! Our friends Rachel and Ashley came over with their kids and we stayed out swimming and playing for a few hours. The kids had a BLAST!

As you all know I’m a planner. Spontaneous isn’t a word I’d use to describe myself. However, at 5:00 in the afternoon Casey and I found ourselves brainstorming dinner plans for the kids and decided it’d be a great time to bust into Mrs. Charlotte’s house with the 4 grand babies. Grandparents love random sleep overs right? Luckily, my MIL does 😉 Casey called her and she said sure so she ran home with Carter and tossed stuff in a bag and I ran around the house like a MAD woman to throw together stuff for my crew. It was pretty chaotic but we still got over there around 6 and Mrs. Charlotte had dinner for us ready to grub (I’m telling y’all she’s the BEST). 

Cleaning the plates is fun at G-Mama’s!

Casey facetimed Jordan while I was nursing Tess and accidentally had it facing ME instead of herself. Jordan’s dad was trying to say hey to Carter and instead he got a nice screen full of my nursing baby. Bahah!

I was in my super cool mom mode so I told the kids they could stay up and play games. How often do you get to play board games with your grandparents? It was one of those precious moments for me to see. Mr Rusty even got down on the floor to play with them!!! 

Sleepy kids!

We had a good night staying up talking after the kids were in bed and the next morning Kye woke back up ready for more board games haha. He’s obsessed with Sorry and ended up playing all of our guys for us while we got breakfast rolling. 

Britt is SUCH a big helper in the kitchen (and she loves the butter straight off the spoon like her G-Mama too)

We headed home after breakfast so Tess could nap at home and we could get our #bestweekendever on! I went a little crazy on my Target splurge and bought some party supplies. We blew our noise makers anytime we were starting a new awesome activity bahaha. We were pretty crunk all weekend 🙂

Paint time!

After painting we hit up the playroom. I thought it’d be fun to play with my childhood doll houses. But within 5 min of getting them out I straight up fell ASLEEP. Some cool mom I am huh? I slept for a legit hour or so while the kids played. 

A new movie to watch while I nursed Tess!

We set up a picnic lunch in the back yard. I love that we have a nice tree for some shade and it was a beautiful day! A big portion of my random purchases were junk food related, of course. The kids were in HEAVEN at being so spoiled with junk. I’m surprised we all didn’t end up puking by the end of the weekend. 

Do y’all remember the ice cream truck? These were my go-to as a kid! YUM!

We were all wore OUT!

It was Kye’s turn with the fifths disease so he was pretty sleepy all weekend!

All three kids slept solid for naps and Mommy took a good nap too 🙂

After nap we went out front to play. The kids love doing chalk and playing with their Cozy Coupes. We realized on this day that Kye is officially too big for his Cozy Coupe. It’s the end of an era!!! I guess we are going to probably sell it at the next kids sale. If baby #4 is a boy someday then he’ll get a new one for his first birthday. No point in hanging onto it if no one can use it for several years! 

Do yalls kids do this? All three of mine preferred putting random grass and leaves in the gas tank of their coupes than actually driving them! Even now Britt and Kye spend most of their time putting chalk in the “trunk” of the car rather than actually going anywhere in them!

For dinner we drove through Steak and Shake and picked up some stuff! Live Large Baby!

The treat of all treats happened Saturday night. Kye and I had recently finished reading Stuart Little so I bought the movie at Target. I thought it’d be super fun to make a movie night like a legit movie theater. After Tess was in bed for the night I pulled out the bed in our couch and fixed some movie style popcorn and candy for the kids in special cups (yes, I told you I went nuts at Target!). We enjoyed our treats and the movie! 

I was SO tired that I ended up falling asleep. My plan had been to let them watch a good bit of the movie then go to bed around 8:30..which is an hour past Britt’s bedtime. Well. I woke up to Britt saying “can we watch the pictures?” (they call the credits the “pictures”). The movie was over. And it was 10:00. And both kids were still awake. And I was def super out of it. I had some allergy issues in my eye that weekend and it made my eye goopy and icky and made me just kinda feel miserable. 

I shuffled Britt to the potty and bed and told Kye to just go get his friends and meet me in my bed. After being a parent for 6 years it was the first time EVER that I’ve co-slept with ANY of my kids AT ALL. I was really tired and I’m not a cuddle type sleeper. I like my own little area. And I think Kye must too b/c really I don’t even remember him being in the bed. A couple times I woke up to him scratching my arm and playing with my hair which was SO sweet. He is SO great about understanding special treats and while he LOVED getting to sleep in Mommy’s bed he hasn’t asked to do it again. I’m not super against it or anything and I can see me letting him sleep with me again in the future when Zach travels if it works out. I get pretty scared sleeping when Zach is gone and I’m sure it’d help me sleep better!

On Sunday morning there was no way I was gonna handle church with all three solo. I seriously admire moms who do it on a regular basis! Instead we had our own lesson and had a chill morning at home. 

Kye made us each our own seats for our lesson (I love how he says “I love Me” on his card!)

Well Tess napped I got ready for the day as I had planned to take the kids out to lunch. While I was getting ready Kye came in the bathroom and just randomly hugged me SUPER tight and thanked me for such a fun weekend. Made my day for sure!

My crew!

My whole life I hated Mexican food. Then I got pregnant with Tess and craved it and now I LOVE it. A local Mexican place has 99 cent kids meals on weekends. We all got food (except Tess) and my total, with tip, was only $9! Score! We even ate outside and it was SO FUN!

We spent the rest of the day just relaxing together and waiting on Daddy to get home. He had a good time at the golf tournament and a good time with Jordan. While I feel silly for spending money on random stuff, and totally regret falling asleep during that movie, we did have a really fun time. Sometimes it’s fun to bend the rules a little and live it up, right? The kids have asked multiple times when we are going to do another movie night! That was for sure the favorite of the weekend! To wrap up our fun time, here’s a video of the kids saying their favorite things 🙂

I’m so thankful for the chance to be Mommy to my children and LOVE those random days of making memories together. Sometimes it’s the unplanned stuff that sticks with us the most. It was a weekend of bonding time for us and gave Zach and I the little refresher we needed to come back and work through somethings and grow closer together 🙂 

Emily Parker
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