From Dubai with Love

Last week we had the privilege of hosting our dearest friends from Dubai, The Cumberworths. Hillary and her girls, Leighton and Corbin spent a lovely 3 days with us and it was completely awesome. 

To say the boys were in heaven is a complete understatement. I'm fairly certain they were somewhere in another world, they were THAT excited. 

Jackson was especially thrilled and enamored with both girls, but especially with Leighton. They are both the 'bigger' kids in the group and thus the more calm, agile and overall fun ones...

 The little's are fun also, but they are still working out their baby 'kinks' such as NEEDING naps, food all over themselves and overall neediness...

We of course love them just the same, but we're still pretty much juggling nonstop around the babies, where as the bigs can be left to their own devices...

We spent mornings at splash pads and The Thinkery, afternoons in the backyard and evenings taking baths and watching movies....

It was pretty perfect. Also, pretty exhausting, but overall perfect. To see the looks on the kids' faces every time they got into something new was priceless. I think it's safe to say they had an incredible time. All four of them! 

 Thank you for visiting us Leighton, Corbin and Hillary. We had a blast and are looking forward to seeing y'all again real soon!

 

Summer in San Antonio

This past weekend my dad had a medical conference in San Antonio and he was nice enough to invite us down, or maybe I insisted he invite us? Either way, we went! 

Since the boys L-O-V-E staying in hotel rooms this was probably the highlight of the trip for them. Just look at out how excited they were to be on a hotel bed again! 

These cats are so weird...Once we decided to venture out (after nap time of course) Jackson and James' minds were blown when they discovered that the hotel not only had a pool but multiple pools AND a HUGE slide! 

 They were real quick to put on their swim suits and dive right in, (well after their milk that is)...

 That night they played relatively quietly until bed time and crashed almost as soon as we put them down. Pools+kids=exhaustion=Happy parents.

The next morning we woke up bright and early to have breakfast and do a little shopping. During lunch time James kept grabbing Gigi's arm and snuggling her. It was the sweetest and SOOOOO unlike him! We were all a little shocked so I'm glad I got a picture of it :).

After nap, you guessed it, back to the pool! This time Dada got to join us and Jackson was especially ecstatic to have someone to go down the slide with a million times, (3 times is my max).

We were really proud of Jackson, after the first few times going down with his Dada he figured he could just go down on his own. Jack would wait for him at the bottom of the pool, I'd keep watch with James from my seat and Jackson would run out of the water and up the stairs over and over and over again. 

32 times later however, Jackson got sick, (everywhere. It was not pretty) and we decided to call it a night. It was already getting pretty late anyways and after a warm bath, lots of hugs and kisses and some dinner, Jackson and his little brother were out. 

The following morning we enjoyed some breakfast and a long, leisurely walk on the property's grounds...

 The property was overlooking a golf course and in the distance there was a decorative tower. I told Jackson that I think Rapunzel lived there and so the remainder of our walk he was screaming, (at the top of his lungs) "RAPUNZEL! LET DOWN YOUR HAIR! LET IT DOWN! RAPUNZEL!!!!!!" It was pretty funny.

Per their usual MO, James and Jackson had a fab time. When they were ready to go they grabbed their suitcases, their toys, a bathrobe and snake and said, "Let's burn this candle". Which is what we say when we are ready to leave. 

 

Gigi and Abuelo, gracias por tener nos. Como siempre la pasamos MUY bien! Love you! 

Splash Pads Forever

It's starting to get realllllyyyyyy hot outside. When you have two boys who are addicted to water, the only means to keep cool is to keep them wet.

So wet we keep 'em! Splash pads are a wonderful/fun way to not have to fully commit to getting in a pool (cumbersome unless your own) and the boys just plain love them. Any time we have an hour or two to kill (typically between meal times) Jack and I almost always fall back on splash pads. They're pretty rad and we may be going a little more than we care to admit....