Burnsville 2016

The first week of August, we spent a week in the mountains of North Carolina with Greg's family for the Baker Family Reunion--after some initial denial that the gathering of Greg's parents, all his siblings and all the grandkids was a family reunion (they tried saying it was a joint vacation--um no).
A few memories:

*the drive up.  When I say this house was in the mountains, it was really in the mountains.  As in when we got to the house the first day, we had to park our van down the mountain and walk up the mountain to the house--it wasn't a far walk but still.  The next day, Greg managed to get the van up to the house, but it was still pretty harrowing every time we drove up.

*the mountains.  I thought it was just the mountains of Utah that filled me with great joy, but in fact it's all mountains.  It doesn't help that they were doing lots of construction so there were orange cones everywhere.  Just like home.

*hiking to several waterfalls.  Andrea and Emma managed to find some very short half-mile hikes to some beautiful waterfalls.  I could have stayed all day, but the kids got obviously jumped in the water and then got cold so we went home.

*peace and quiet.  When we went to the reunion, I had discovered that Zora was hungry most of the time and was working on increasing my milk supply, which is time consuming and stressful.  I spent a good part of the reunion in our room just me and baby Z and Henry, who cannot for any length of time be left unattended, trying to increase milk supply and it was lovely.

*cards.  Lots of cards.  Greg taught Rex how to play Bundha and Rex actually did pretty well--even becoming president at one point.  The best part was his gloating--very Robins.  I can't wait to pit Rex against Dustin and Noah.  I also spent an afternoon playing Settlers of Catan with Rex, Bryant, Alice and Cora.  After about an hour was all bored so I put everyone out of their misery and won.

*THE BEST MEMORY: The night before we left, I decided to pack all our stuff because we had to be out early the next morning and Zora couldn't be trusted to behave enough for me to pack in the morning.  Our room had a door that door that let out onto a catwalk and then down a steep flight of stairs.  So Zora and I are up packing, it's dark outside and getting a little late, when I hear a little sound at the door, which startled me.  Then the door opens and in walks Henry covered from head to toe in mud.  He looks at me in his little mischievious way, "I all muddy Mom."  I can see that.  Later I went downstairs and asked who was watching Henry, I had left doing a craft with Grandma and the aunts, but Greg and all the other adults were also downstairs.  Greg said he didn't know.  I then informed him and all the other adults of their failure. Henry is something else.  We feel asleep watching Super Why together that night.

All-in-all, we had a great time playing with cousins, hiking, and relaxing.  I just love mountains and family reunions.

My father-in-law and I took my kids to the Asheville Nature Center one day (nobody else wanted to make the drive) while Greg went mountain biking.  We didn't see many of the animals because the kids were having too much fun playing.

Henry--regressing much?

The kids spent a good 30 minutes pretending to shovel poop in the barn--too bad they don't work like that at home.  But Bryant and I had an interesting chat about his childhood and small towns.

Cousins playing on some rocks.

Family waterfall picture

The house had a little playset and fire pit that got plenty of use.

Alice really liked drinking out of the fancy cups.

Peaches, being slightly creepy

We did origami one night

Greg impressed everyone with his mountain biking skills

 Zora is lucky enough to have two girl cousins right about her age on the Baker side, so we did a little photo shoot one night (Zora on the far left, Zolaikha in the middle, Tilly on the right)

I made the Bakers do family pictures one night.  Not their favorite thing, or at least not Greg's, but they all played along.

Tradiational Roberts grandkid line up.

Burnsville 2016

The first week of August, we spent a week in the mountains of North Carolina with Greg's family for the Baker Family Reunion--after some initial denial that the gathering of Greg's parents, all his siblings and all the grandkids was a family reunion (they tried saying it was a joint vacation--um no).
A few memories:

*the drive up.  When I say this house was in the mountains, it was really in the mountains.  As in when we got to the house the first day, we had to park our van down the mountain and walk up the mountain to the house--it wasn't a far walk but still.  The next day, Greg managed to get the van up to the house, but it was still pretty harrowing every time we drove up.

*the mountains.  I thought it was just the mountains of Utah that filled me with great joy, but in fact it's all mountains.  It doesn't help that they were doing lots of construction so there were orange cones everywhere.  Just like home.

*hiking to several waterfalls.  Andrea and Emma managed to find some very short half-mile hikes to some beautiful waterfalls.  I could have stayed all day, but the kids got obviously jumped in the water and then got cold so we went home.

*peace and quiet.  When we went to the reunion, I had discovered that Zora was hungry most of the time and was working on increasing my milk supply, which is time consuming and stressful.  I spent a good part of the reunion in our room just me and baby Z and Henry, who cannot for any length of time be left unattended, trying to increase milk supply and it was lovely.

*cards.  Lots of cards.  Greg taught Rex how to play Bundha and Rex actually did pretty well--even becoming president at one point.  The best part was his gloating--very Robins.  I can't wait to pit Rex against Dustin and Noah.  I also spent an afternoon playing Settlers of Catan with Rex, Bryant, Alice and Cora.  After about an hour was all bored so I put everyone out of their misery and won.

*THE BEST MEMORY: The night before we left, I decided to pack all our stuff because we had to be out early the next morning and Zora couldn't be trusted to behave enough for me to pack in the morning.  Our room had a door that door that let out onto a catwalk and then down a steep flight of stairs.  So Zora and I are up packing, it's dark outside and getting a little late, when I hear a little sound at the door, which startled me.  Then the door opens and in walks Henry covered from head to toe in mud.  He looks at me in his little mischievious way, "I all muddy Mom."  I can see that.  Later I went downstairs and asked who was watching Henry, I had left doing a craft with Grandma and the aunts, but Greg and all the other adults were also downstairs.  Greg said he didn't know.  I then informed him and all the other adults of their failure. Henry is something else.  We feel asleep watching Super Why together that night.

All-in-all, we had a great time playing with cousins, hiking, and relaxing.  I just love mountains and family reunions.

My father-in-law and I took my kids to the Asheville Nature Center one day (nobody else wanted to make the drive) while Greg went mountain biking.  We didn't see many of the animals because the kids were having too much fun playing.

Henry--regressing much?

The kids spent a good 30 minutes pretending to shovel poop in the barn--too bad they don't work like that at home.  But Bryant and I had an interesting chat about his childhood and small towns.

Cousins playing on some rocks.

Family waterfall picture

The house had a little playset and fire pit that got plenty of use.

Alice really liked drinking out of the fancy cups.

Peaches, being slightly creepy

We did origami one night

Greg impressed everyone with his mountain biking skills

 Zora is lucky enough to have two girl cousins right about her age on the Baker side, so we did a little photo shoot one night (Zora on the far left, Zolaikha in the middle, Tilly on the right)

I made the Bakers do family pictures one night.  Not their favorite thing, or at least not Greg's, but they all played along.

Tradiational Roberts grandkid line up.

This kid

 Just about everything I do with this kid deserves a #Ivemadeahugemistake.  He is out of control.  I think, or at least I tell myself, it's because he's ridiculously intelligent but doesn't know how to channel it, yet.  I should probably do some reading on how to focus the hyperactive yet intelligent child.

Back in July, after screaming in his bed for nights on end, where Greg promised him for a least a week that if he'd just lay down and go to bed, Greg would turn his crib into a big boy bed, I finally felt bad for all the semi-lies and disassembled the crib and then reassembled it into a toddler bed.  Henry thought it was awesome.  He refused to let anyone touch his big boy bed.

Until bed time, when we both wanted to hashtag our Ivemadeahugemistake out of the toddler bed and back into a crib.  Like I said, Henry has a hard time with boundaries and control.  He couldn't control himself that night but was so tired and want to sleep but lacked the ability to stay in bed.  He even asked me to put the crib back up.  I refused.  I may have given up on potty training and am still putting off taking away the pacifier, but my laziness came through on this one--it took a good 45 minutes to take his crib apart, I wasn't about to put it back together.  Greg turned the lock on his door around to at least keep him in his room.  Around 11, I found him like this, mostly asleep on the floor reading himself stories.  He only did that the first night; he now does a pretty good job of falling asleep in his bed.

Most mornings I find him like this--sound asleep in the most uncomfortable position possible (for me) in my bed, with Zora and Greg, having abandoned ship, on a couch somewhere else.

On the bright side, Henry is so crazy and active, that even without a crib, he still takes a 2-3 hour nap most days.  I'm not sure I could survive him without the nap.

Also, if we want to add a tendermercies, when he's not being crazy, Henry really is a very sweet boy and I happen to have crushes on just about every 2-year-old boy so I really do just love him to death and he just melts my heart.  Which is good, or he'd be dead.