Nana Visits

This last weekend we got to have my Nana come and stay with us for a few days. She was back East visiting my Aunt in D.C. from Utah, so we got to steal her for a little bit and have some time with her! She is one of my all-time heroes and favorite people to be around, so I loved every second of having her here! Plus it was fun to get to show her all of her artwork hanging up all around the new house and get some decorating ideas from her too. She is one talented lady!


Since she drove Nana here, my Aunt Nancy also got to spend a little time with us, and it was really fun for the kids to get to know her better. In this picture she is letting Kennedy pretend to cut and style her hair with toy scissors (**which made me re-commit to my stance on all real scissors belonging in a lock box at ALL times to avoid the "toddler self-haircut," which always seems to involve having 1 inch bangs...my worst fear!) And McKinley loved having TWO artists here to talk with about drawing skills. She got lots of good tips from Nancy and Nana on sketching eyes and noses and things, which she has been busy practicing ever since.

We tried to make Nana take it easy while she was here, but she cannot help but keep busy. Over the couple of days, I think she read about 50 stories to the kids, helped McKinley color papers to make into plates, and had lots of fun tickling Maddox's big tummy (and the girls' too occasionally).

She also got to have McKinley show her every single art project she's had for the year and LOTS of drawings. Here McKinley is proudly showing her the sculpture she made of a turtle in her art class.

We also got to take Nana down to Valley Forge for a picnic lunch on Friday, and it was so incredibly beautiful there this time of year. There were still some dogwoods blooming, and it was really fun to just eat and walk around and see how green everything was (while chasing Kennedy).

And here is Kennedy with her "Nana Fa-wol." She was very good at saying Nana's name and calling her when she wanted her!

On Saturday we all drove down to D.C. to take Nana back to Nancy's house and Milt was so super nice to offer to watch the kids for a couple of hours so Nana and I could go to the temple, which was really fun because Nana worked there for years back when she lived in Va. So we had a good time just the two of us (while Milt kept the kids happy for two hours!)

After the temple we had planned to go down and see some sights in D.C. before driving back home, but McKinley decided to get carsick and "lose her cookies" in the car. We weren't sure if she was carsick or if she might have the flu, so we came straight back home just in case. Luckily, we think she was just carsick since she felt much better once we moved her up in the car and put the a/c on her. But understandably the car ride wasn't as fun as we had imagined so we've decided we might not take the kids with us next time we head to D.C. The 2 1/2 hour car trip seemed like so much more with them along...but at least they got to spend a little more time with Nana!

Thank you Nana for coming and spending the weekend with us! We'll miss you when you head back to Utah!