Evette goes to work (early September 2015)

NerdWallet is awesome. It's a great company and fabulous employer. One of these days I'll write a good post on what I'm up to there, but in the meantime, here's a small view into how great it is: I can bring Evette to work with me.

And let's be honest, that says a lot about Evette too. She spent the entire work day with me in early September and loved it. She was talking about it for weeks... the "surprise" food for lunch (we have a different caterer provide lunch every day and I never check the schedule -- "DAD! Them might have sushi!" with her bright, hopeful eyes), the toys/games, the meetings, going on the bus, etc.

So proud of her work clothes.

Walking to the bus stop

NW's video team was cool enough they let Evette on camera...

For her first on-camera interview!

Evette is a champ. And I mean, seriously, how cool is NerdWallet that this was even possible?

She spent much of the day reading books and working on her "project" books - basic reading, problem solving, and art books.

She attended a meeting with me!

Towards the end of the day, we were glad we brought the iPad. Also, one of her favorite things about going to work with me is the free snacks.

Exploring the bed-room at the office.

Drawing

While everyone at work did a great job of welcoming Evette to the office and talking to her, I was especially impressed the next day when dozens (literally) of people told me how impressed they were with her and asked me when she'd be coming back again.

{Visiting Houston}

My parents recently divorced. It's a long story.

Anyways...

I went to Houston for 5 days to help my mom pack and get her ready to move into her new home. I went all by myself! Flying solo! No kids! It was crazy!

I left really early Wednesday morning and was able to stay until early Monday morning. 

Dan picked me up from the airport and then we went out to eat with Momma dearest for dinner. Good ol' TexMex.... Gotta love Texas.

I spent all day Thursday packing and cleaning the house.

It's pretty hard to go and pack up your childhood home, but I'm glad I could be there to help my mom.

My mother-in-law, Kristen joined me Thursday morning to help with cleaning and packing. It was nice to have some great company :)

Mom's now back to teaching and I got to visit her classroom and her teacher friends Thursday afternoon. She's the cutest teacher. Check out her cute room:

MOM!

Friday morning I spent the morning doing more packing, more cleaning, moving boxes, etc. It was a sweaty morning. 

Had to take some pictures of the old place... Here's my empty purple bedroom....

Empty rooms.

Also found some old memories, like my letterman jacket! Decided to take a selfie. Isn't that all high schoolers do nowadays?

Friday afternoon a bunch of mom's friends met me at her new house to clean. We scrubbed the whole house. Mom has good friends. 

These ladies went above and beyond.

I'm not surprised, Mom is a favorite. And everyone loves her. But still, the generosity and love that has been shown by her friends during this crazy time has been astounding.

Her new house is adorable. It's going to be so lovely once she gets all of her things in there and turns it into a home.

 

Friday evening I went to choir practice with Mom and Dan. Afterwards we went out for empanadas. Delicious. 

I have no pictures from Saturday.... But Mom and I were busy running all around the town getting things together. We even got her a new cellphone! A smartphone! An iphone! Welcome to the 21st century, mom! It was a good, long day.

Sunday we went to church and Dan and his girlfriend, Kim, joined us.

Kim, Mom, and I were all matchy matchy... it was adorbs.

After church was dinner and games... It was super fun! It was great to be able to get to know Kim a bit! 

It was a great time with mom! Glad I could go down there and spend some one on one time with her and help her get ready for her big move.

{Recently enjoyed things}

Cloudy morning reading by the fireplace

 Outside playtime

  

We took this little lady's crib wall down a couple weeks ago. Overall she's done really well with it!

Sometimes she still fights against the nap, but overall, successful!

General conference weekend. It was a good time to just chill with the family all weekend.

The house was destroyed by the end of it, but all is well.

Dance parties with friends

These two little girls love their daddy and love to sit and wait for him to come home from work.  

One evening when I was at choir practice, the girls went over with Daddy to help our neighbor plant some flowers in their yard. What great helpers!

{Evette's Birthday Celebration}

We had a little family birthday celebration for this little kiddo. 

My mom joined in for the opening of the presents.

This little girl is so loved by her family.

For this birthday, Evette graduated from duplos to legos! She'd be asking for legos for a few months now. She insisted that they were better to build with, which is true. I was so excited!

So excited, I made her a lego table! This helps to keep the majority of the legos off of the floor. I got this coffee table for free off of craigslist, and it was pretty rough. But I sanded and stained it, and then glued some of the big base pieces onto the table. It's so much fun! We've all put in a ton of time with this!

A couple days after her birthday we had some of her friend's families over for a little birthday celebration. Not a birthday party cause of no balloons, decorations, games, or party favors and I wanted all the parents to come too, so that Sean and I could have fun as well :). Definitely not your "pinterest worthy" party, but I wanted her to know that we were focusing on spending time with some of our favorite people and not so much worried about the other stuff. It was great!

Evette surrounded by all of her boyfriends. I love this picture!

We had burgers and hotdogs for dinner

Evette requested a dinosaur cake. This is what I came up with:

It was pretty delicious!!

I'm so grateful to be surrounded by good friends for both Sean and I and for my kids. We had a grand time!