OOOOOklahoma!!!!

I was lucky enough to get to spend an entire week back in my home state a week or so ago. Sadly enough I still did not get to see everyone I wanted to but at the same time I did get some good quality time in with some of my favorite people.

The primary reason we trekked it down there was to attend our dear friend Ronnie's birthday party. Him, his wife and three beautiful girls just moved into a new house they built in Owasso and invited us down to celebrate Ronnie's big day. Me being me, decided to make the most of our time in OK and of course crammed waaaaaaaaay too many things in to too few days. 

I had the bags packed and ready to go on Friday and last minute we decided to drive down Friday evening with the idea that it will be around the kids bedtime and they will sleep during the drive (because they have always been awesome sleepers in the car like every other child in the world???) I am here to tell you that I have the children who are anti car sleepers. Like not one wink if it is possible. I am sure you can see where this is going but after we were 15-20 minutes into our drive and had experienced 15 minutes of Paxton screaming we decided to turn around and leave in the morning after everyone had a good night's rest. Not much else makes me more anxious than having a screaming baby in the car (especially since Josh's brother James was with us, who has no kids, and I do not want to frighten him for life out of having any by the insanely high pitched cry of our little guy in the car for three hours...)

Anywho, our drive was much more successful the following morning and we had so much fun spending the afternoon swimming, playing with all the kids, eating a shrimp boil and ice cream sundaes, meeting new friends and celebrating the fact that Ronnie was born and we are pretty happy about that!

As I had mentioned about cramming in too many things, after a loooong day of food, drinking and staying up late, we had our car packed back up and were leaving Tulsa that very next morning to go to not one but two birthday parties for our little Harper. Since 99% of our family lives in Oklahoma it only made sense for us to come to them for her birthday instead of expecting 25+ people to come our way. In all reality for my sanity it was much easier as well. We went to my moms first who planned the CUTEST brunch/donuts party for Harper. Pink sprinkled donuts, yummy breakfast casseroles, and of course too many presents were awaiting this spoiled little girl. Harper being the way she is was not quite ready for all the attention until she had been there about an hour. Then she really turned on the charm. When opening her gifts, Josh would tell her who it was from and she would take it over to that person to help her unwrap it. Then she proceeded with WOW!! or OOOOHHHHH!! before she even saw what it was. Needless to say it was adorable!

Post nap time we loaded the kids back up and drove over to Josh's mom's house where we were having party #2. Over there we went swimming and they grilled some yummy foods for us! Again she was super spoiled with Dora gear, books and an awesome stuffed animal named Abigail that talks when you read her book. Pretty awesome!

The next morning (early again) Josh, James and I were back in the car because I had to drop them off at the airport =(.
Tuesday morning, you guessed it, we were back in the car and driving to Duncan to spend the day and night with one of my very best friends Katie!! The timing of our trip was perfect because her husband, mom and dad were all out of town that week. This meant Katie, Keller, Canon, Harper, Paxton and myself were all having 36 hour long play date and slumber party at her parents house (pool included!!!). Needless to say it was AWESOME! Lots of chatting while laying out between Katie and I and even more play time with all the kids. Donuts, Chinese food, Cherry Berry, and Eduardo's were all consumed within too few hours but it was well worth it! Katie and I literally text each other a million times a day so it did not feel like it had been 10 months since we had really hung out together.

After nap time we were back in the car and heading back to Edmond to spend the rest of the time at my mom's house. The night we got back from Duncan I went to dinner with my long time best friends Hannah and Kevin and it was so much fun. Neither of them have any children yet so it is truly a refreshing night out of adult conversation and funny stories from high school/college. These two people were the people who knew me inside and out growing up and it is never a dull time when we are all together.

The last day of my trip my mom and I went out and did a little shopping, my fabulous step sister Caroline trimmed and colored my hair so I could feel pretty again, and then my siblings came over to my parent's house that evening and we had dinner and drinks and fun conversations.

Friday morning we left Edmond around 8:30am and made it back to my house by 1:30pm with out ONE SINGLE TEAR from either of my children! It was as if the sky had parted and God himself sat in the back seat with my kids and entertained them. It was amazing! 

Although it is really hard sometimes missing out on family events and not seeing my friends as much as I used to, the one thing that is wonderful is the fact that when I see them now it is truly quality time that we get. I love living here in KC but nothing will ever replace my friends, family and memories I have in Oklahoma.

I know this is suuuuuuuuuuuper long and I have been in a blogging hiatus lately but one last thing I have to say is that Harper is turning two TOMORROW! I am oh so excited for our day ahead and I will be blogging about it next week. I am going to do my best to take lots of pictures =).

Ok ok ok I promise this is the VERY last thing..... Paxton is  crawling now! Seriously my kids are getting big waaaaaaaaaay too fast! I hope you all have such a fun weekend and enjoy this awesome weather we are experiencing!