The Virginia Hams

This past weekend the three of us headed to Virginia for a friend's wedding. We were meeting up with three other families from my online group of moms, who had kids within weeks of each other. I can't stress how much these ladies have helped me with parenting tips, reassuring me that Drew's normal, and just everyday friendship.

Over the next few days I'll share various photos of our trip - goodness knows I have enough of them (I downloaded them and came to realize I'd taken more than 200). We arrived on Thursday evening and had dinner with everyone at TGI Friday's. We met up with the bride-to-be and her son, and the other families for a bite to eat. Here are a few of the shots of how we kept the kids busy over the long weekend.

Friday at the outlets... letting the kids burn off some energy.

OK so the strollers were because they were really "running" off that energy. This was a way to keep them contained and off all the rides that were wet thanks to the remnants of Hurricane Ida. The kids LOVED these strollers... and the dads happily ran them up and down the storefronts.

Later that night one of my friends had a brilliant idea... make a "tunnel" out of scarves.

The kids crawled back and forth for quite a while.

Around the time the picture above was taken, Drew sat admiring his girlfriend. Then he said the cutest thing, "Leila, you're so handsome!" Seriously, he came up with that one on his own. Of course he didn't know how to tell her she was pretty or beautiful - it's not like we're telling him that. So that was the only thing he knew how to say.

Another great idea, re-purposing the scarves for capes. Here are our three caped crusaders.

I'm sure the folks on our floor loved the screaming toddlers running up and down the hall.


And at the wedding, the kids all looked fantastic! And while the dancing did happen (my pictures of that didn't turn out), they all enjoyed running around in the big grassy area out back as well.

I have to say getting all the kids together was awesome. All of them were really well behaved. We didn't have too many tantrums, in fact not a single one is really coming to mind. Wow, amazing.

The bride's son isn't pictured here. As you can imagine he was quite busy doing the formal rounds. I do have a few pictures of him, but they came out a bit blurry. I just didn't want you to think he was being ignored.

Just a reminder... for every comment left on my blogs this week (current or past) I will donate one canned food/non-perishable food item to a local food bank. As of the writing of this post last night I only have four comments. Let's try and make this a Happy Thanksgiving for Bay Area families in need.