My Much Needed & Loved Getaway

I got to go to Indiana and visit my sister for 2 weeks at the end of September/beginning of October. We had planned several months ago that I would go out and help her after she had her baby #3 and after my mom had left. We made the plans before we knew I would be a mommy myself. So when it came time to actually buy the tickets, I was a little hesitant to be gone from Joe for 2 weeks with the baby. But my sister really wanted me to go, and I'm so glad that I went. I really needed to get away from life and have a break before I ended up having a total and complete meltdown.

I wasn't great at taking pictures, tho I did take some. But you'll have to visit my sister's blog to get better (and more) pictures than I have here. I already stole some of the pictures from her blog. :)

So first off, my little boy got to meet his cousins. It's a big deal to me because 1) I'm so close to my sister, and 2) I grew up knowing and spending a lot of time with my own cousins (and we still do things together too.)

Here's our little guy with his cousin Aurora. Aurora is 5 weeks younger than BJ, but they are pretty close to the same size.

After church I laid down to take a nap with Amy. I may look like I'm sleeping, but my sweet little niece never really let me fall asleep, and she obviously didn't take a nap either.

Then we went outside to take pictures. It was suddenly very cold!
My dad was able to come out for the weekend too and we were all able to be there for Aurora's blessing. She wore the same dress that both of her sister's were blessed in; and Tracy and I wore the dress when we were blessed as babies too.

I can't get Blogger to let me change the order of these, not that it really matters.

Grandpa and Grandma with Adelynne, Amy, and Aurora.
The Belt Family

My sister and her 3 beautiful princesses.
Me with my sister and Aurora

Tracy, Aurora, Me, and BJ

My sister and her new baby Aurora

Then inside, Grandpa started getting creative:

They are so cute! I'm so excited to finally be able to have babies with my sister. These 2 also have another cousin about 8 months older than them. I'm looking forward to when we can get them all together. They'll be fun to watch, especially as they get older.

Before my parents went home, we went down into Indianapolis and went to the Children's museum. I didn't take a lot of photos, but like I said, just check out my sister's blog.

Here's Adelynne digging for bones.

Amy acting as "mother dinosaur" and counting her eggs.

Dustin and Amy working the tractor.

Afterwards we went and had ice cream...for dinner. It was tasty!

Amy's dazzled ice cream face.

Adelynne enjoying her 2nd cone. She totally has Grandpa wrapped around her finger.

A cute picture of BJ smiling. You can even see the slobber and drool around his mouth. He had just started smiling before our trip, so it was fun to see him light up.

I couldn't miss out on pictures of the "little guy" with his Grandpa. This was one of the major reasons I was excited to go on our trip - so BJ could finally meet his Grandpa. The onesie that he's wearing, which says "little guy" was the first outfit that we ever received. My dad had picked it out because 1) so far, BJ's the only grandson, and 2) my dad's name is Guy. I sure hope that BJ will have a special relationship with his Grandpa. He's the greatest there ever will be!

Now some more pictures from our trip:

A sweet sleeping smile.

Smiling at Aunt Tracy

Gotta love those bright eyes!

This was a cool artistic photo my sis took of Aurora. S
he taught me how to do it on my camera too, but mine didn't turn out as clear as hers, cuz she's got a much nicer camera.

I was in Indiana over Conference weekend. I wanted to make it fun for the girls, but also allow us adults to pay attention and get the spiritual influences and inspiration that we needed too. So I printed off some coloring and activity pages for the girls. And I also printed off some Bingo cards. Then I got this:

to play Bingo with. The girls didn't love having to wait to eat their candy, so we made a rule that when they heard the word on their card, they could pick one candy for their Bingo board, and one candy to eat. My mouth still starts to salivate when I look at this picture. I tried to get some of our favorite candies. But after all that sugar, I did a few rounds playing with baby carrots and grapes. I was pretty sick of carrots by the time I finally got Bingo. (Carrots are not my favorite food, but I know they're good for me anyway.) I think I ate about 30 carrots.

I also included our Jensen Family Conference tradition of making cinnamon rolls. I had a great helper:

More pictures:

Sweet sleeping boy in his sweat suit.

Cousin tummy/nap time

Amy and Adelynne loved giving Brek a bottle.

More cousin bonding

One of my other favorite things from the trip was Amy's excitement about babies. She loves being a big sister, and have 2 babies in the house seemed like a dream come true. She would always come into the room, notice the babies and say, "Let me see that silly (or sometimes she used cute) little face." But she said it in such a funny voice. It had me cracking up every time. I still find myself quoting her.

So here are those silly and cute little faces:

Aurora, 1 month

BJ, 2 months

We finally got some pictures of Aunt Tracy with her favorite nephew. Sadly, I didn't really get any pictures of me with Aurora. Next time. :)

Sure do love these 2!

Thanks Mom and Dad for flying me out! And thanks sister for such a wonderful vacation. I definitely wasn't ready to leave and come home, but luckily I still had a few more weeks away from reality.

Oh, and for those that are curious for how BJ did on the flights, I really couldn't have asked for a better baby. I was slightly terrified when I got on the first flight because I had forgotten to fill up his bottle with water, and the flight attendant was quite rude and unhelpful about it. But the little guy just slept the whole way. I sure enjoyed the looks of panic on my fellow traveler's faces when they saw me traveling with such a young baby. My fears matched their faces. But he was angelic and hardly made a sound. Same with flying home. He woke up for a little bit, but was smiley and content. Whew!