Partying Like a Stay-at-Home Mom!

As many of you know, Kevin’s cousin Jennie (my best friend) came and visited us for the last 2 weeks. Nothing terribly exciting really happened…in fact, Jennie basically spent her whole vacation learning how to be a stay-at-home mom! However, we did get the chance to do a few random things during her visit. Here are some pictures of our time together.

Kevin, Jennie and I got to run a 4 mile race together in Oswego, Illinois. We all finished and we are all still alive!

We spent some time painting rooms and tearing down walls at our home teacher’s house. It wasn’t really a kid friendly environment so we just strapped Brooklyn and Lily in their car seats in front of the TV and gave them food! It turned out to be fun for everyone!

We spent a few hours at the Dupage Children’s Museum. Brooklyn loved having an extra set of hands there to lug her around while mommy took care of Lily.

We started and almost finished constructing a new headboard for my bedroom.

We took the girls to the park down the street and each took turns getting our wiggles out.

We witnessed Brooklyn growing more and more independent as each day passed.

We took a trip to Hollywood Boulevard Cinema WITHOUT any children in tow.

The movie theatre serves you food while you watch the movie. It was a new experience for Jennie and a special treat for me!

We left the kids with a babysitter and traveled to the Chicago temple!

It was the first temple visit Kevin and I got to take since Lily was born, thus, MUCH appreciated!

We spent our time doing initiatories and were treated like celebrities since we were the only people there… and possibly some of the only people who showed up the whole night!

On a more random note, Jennie also managed to dye her hair, get puked all over, run on a sprained ankle, and convince Lily that she is her "other" mommy, all in the space of 2 weeks!

And just so you believe that we didn’t kick him out (and because Lily is really cute in this picture) Here is proof that Kevin was still living in the house while Jennie was here. He took a short absence to run a ridiculous race with his brothers and cousin (which I’m sure he will blog about soon), but other than that, he was around to share in the great food and fun for the whole visit.

Well, that was the happy stuff. The sad stuff is that Jennie left yesterday. We have no pictures, but did manage to earn an interesting farewell story. It was a very hot day and we can’t drive with our AC on or the car will shut off, so Kevin was praying that it would rain while we were traveling so the girls wouldn’t get overheated in the backseat. Unfortunately, his prayer was answered and about 5 minutes into the drive to the airport it started to rain, then pour, then hail, and eventually we were stuck on a bridge in a microburst with no possibility to move unless the wind made it so!

I happened to be the one driving because I was trying to overcome my fear of driving to the airport…ironic…and was totally freaked out by the swaying bridge and complete inability to see out my windows! At that moment we decided it would be a good time to say our own prayer and after Jennie finished asking for the rain to stop, it let up enough to get off the bridge where we were stopped again to wait for all the cars who were hiding under it to clear out. Eventually the rain stopped and we got to the airport safe and sound to drop Jennie off.

The way home consisted of driving in 2nd gear for 40 minutes while listening to Brooklyn sing, “I need to feel me better! I need my Jennie to come back. No more going to the airport! I love my mommy and my daddy and my Jennie and my Lily! Blow me kisses to feel me better and get my Jennie back!” Thanks for visiting us Jennie and thank you for the fun times and great memories. We all miss you already!