Our Trip Back Home

Published by shelbypaulk

2 years old, birthday, family, Lincoln, Riley, roadtrip

Ty has been gone for what seems like forever, in fact, this week will mark his 7th straight week of being out of town…and we hate it. So, on a whim and with a little nudge from friends I decided to take the kids back to Michigan since I am tired of being home by myself. I figured why not? It’s going to be much harder for me to drive with all three kids once the baby gets here! We left at 8am on Thursday morning and the kids were awesome in the car. Maybe it helps that I’ve got the drive down pat and a strict schedule in the car–probably more for me than for them, but it seems to help a lot!

8-10:30 they play, sing, etc.
10:30-11:30 watch a movie.
11:30-12: Stop for gas, potty and eat lunch while driving.
12-2 Naps.
2-3: Movie
3-3:30 Snack and play games in car seats.

We went to my Dad’s house the first few days and Riley and Lincoln have so much fun! They were so excited to see Nani and Papa and ran around the house for hours, probably glad to be out of the car! My sisters are still at that age where they love playing with the kids so they spent a lot of time in the basement playing Barbies, instruments, playing doctor, etc. I love it because it gives me a little break and the kids have a blast.

That Saturday was Lincoln’s 2nd birthday and Ty was really upset that he wasn’t going to be with Lincoln so I told my Dad we wouldn’t celebrate Lincoln’s bday much because we would do it the following weekend when Ty was home. However, my dad made his famous donuts that I love (and the kids do too) we stuck a couple of candles in them and sang Happy Birthday. Not sure he knew what was going on. He looked a little confused!

That evening my G and G came over for a steak dinner and cake for Grandad’s and Lincoln’s birthdays. Lincoln’s bday is the day before Grandad’s. Lincoln was having so much fun with Grandad and actually sat still for a while on his lap!

My camera, unfortunately died, after my first day there so I don’t have many pictures. These are all from my Dad’s camera or Jori’s. On Sunday we went to church with my Dad then went to Papa Vino’s for lunch and to celebrate Mother’s Day. Afterwards we went to Ty’s family’s house to hang out for a while. We were there a few hours then the whole incident with Riley and the ER happened so our stay was shorter than I was planning, but we’re going back in two weeks.

After getting back from the ER with Riley we took off to my mom’s because the kids needed dinner, I had to drop off Riley’s prescription, and they needed to go to BED. This was the night Lincoln decided he was going to start climbing out of his pack-n-play. These 3 nights at my mom’s were probably the most frustrating in a LONG time. It was taking him 1.5-2 hours to get Lincoln to bed because he kept getting up. I was NOT happy and I was exhausted. Thankfully my mom would take over and of course it only would take her 5 minutes to get him to sleep…what the heck?!!

It was so nice to be home and it was great to have a break from my everyday routine. The kids had so much fun with the family and I know after this next weekend (Memorial Day) we won’t be home for a long time! Hopefully we’ll have some visitors though instead.