Making Memories: 3 months worth of visitors!!

I decided at the beginning of the year, as the 1st three months of the year started shaping up to have lots of visiting family & friends, that I would just do one big post with memories from each group that came.

For those of you that know our family pretty well- we always have a lot of visitors. :) Whether it's family visiting (Yay!) ; or a friend dropping by on their way through (Sweet!) ; even a more casual party with friends or a game night (Woot!) - there's a lot of Hospitality & Entertaining that goes on in our home.

It is a blessing to us- we get to spend quality time with those we love. We get to learn to be better hosts/hostesses, and stretch our family in ways that wouldn't otherwise happen. We get to participate in activities in the area we live in that we wouldn't necessarily do without a visitor to spur us into action. I am slowly learning these lessons, and my flexibility is better than it used to be. We love visitors!

In honesty, I can't say that it doesn't wear us out, and get us off our routine. But that's part of learning to grow, and learning to let go of the less important things to pursue the more important- relationships with people that matter to us.

> > > Will they remember whether my house was perfectly decorated,organized & cleaned or not? I hope not! (Because, more than likely it wasn't). OR> > > Will they remember sitting around the dinner table talking; staying up late into the night playing a game and laughing until it hurts; sitting & sipping coffee in the morning while the kiddos bounce all over; taking trips with our family to interesting places/events & experiencing something new? 

I HOPE that is exactly what they take away from visiting with our family! Of course, this entertaining thing is always a work in progress... so I know that may not always be the outcome. :) We are by no means perfect- - and our flaws do come out sometimes.

Anyways, onto the visitors! This post is primarily covering the longer-term visitors who stayed overnight or longer with us. :) Sorry all you party people! {Wanna come over & hang out?! lol.}

So the year started off with my hubster's parents coming for a visit.

We celebrated a belated Christmas with them. The kiddos really enjoyed playing games with Nana, and wrestling with Pops. Aliyah was adored, of course; but also adored her grandparents, too. :) And we enjoyed time talking & playing games & eating some yummy food. It was too short, as I suppose it always is when you're with people you love but don't get to see very often-- but very sweet to get the chance to spend time with them.

Late into January, we had the opportunity to visit with our long-time friends & mentors- our Pastor & his beautiful family from Florida. They came down for our church's Revival. It was such a blessing to hear the powerful preaching & the sweet music of this family and our Pastor. We enjoyed going to the Audie Murphy museum with them, and just hanging out and talking. Our little ones made friends with their littlest ones, too. It was adorable! And they got lots of hugs in at the end. :)

We also had a quick overnight visit from a friend from our former state of residence- New Mexico. On his way through. :) He & his wife are actually one of the reasons we ended up moving here to Texas! Looong story. ha! It was nice to visit for a few hours with him.

Then in February, we had a visit from my brother & his wife. Can I just say? My brother & his wife are such awesome people!! I love them so much. All of our siblings are pretty awesome actually. :) And, we got a big surprise when my Mom walked in the door behind them. (We weren't expecting that!). We made the most of their visit... bowling, Chuck-E-Cheese, free Denny's breakfast day (lol), and the kids will remember it because that's when Grammy brought the snow from Chicago down to us in Texas (for the 1st time! there was a 2nd, if you can believe it). We truly enjoyed every moment... right down to getting stomped all over on the Catan board. :)

Our next visitors were my hubby's sister, bro-in-law, and kiddos. Boy did we have a blast making some memories. From about the very 1st moment the kids saw each other, it was instant bonding with their same-aged cousins. :) So adorable! We also took them to see Thomas the Train... every little pre-school boy's dream come true. We played some Catan. My sil & I exchanged family photo sessions. The kiddos played their little selves into exhaustion. The guys went golfing. Me & Erin never did get to go on our shopping trip- next time, girl!! That used to be "our thing", and then we had to go and have kids, and get responsible... it is definitely happening next time we're together. That's all there is to it! lol. However, we did get to do a little tiny bit of crafting while the littles were asleep, and the older ones were watching a movie. We had a great time.

 Finally, to round it all off... Grammy (my Mom) came to visit us. She's a regular visitor- every 3 months we joke. But it's really about true. She can't stand being away from her grandbabies for too long. :)

She came for the baby's 1st birthday, but she was such a huge blessing, as always for the entire 2 weeks she was here. She got to help with the oldest's schooling a little, make the Peeps shirts with the boys, watch the baby toddling & being so active, beat us BAD in Catan, OH! And she brought the snow again. :) It was also her idea to go to the zoo with the kiddos. And she and I dieted together this time... normally we're a bad influence on each other & make awesome food & desserts while she's visiting. We did really good this time. As always, she was the listening ear I needed, the helping hand our family needed, the game partner my hubby wanted, the fun Grammy who does everything so much more fun than mommy/daddy to the kiddos, and pretty much- it was so fun to be with her again. I'm blessed beyond measure with a mother like her.

These were the visits from the last 3 months. I don't think that we'll be quite that busy these next couple months, but you never know!! :)