We spent the bulk of the week at the Vlach's house in Nashville. During our days, Meg and I
supervised (and took part in!) puppet shows, jungle safaris, cookie bakes, dress-up time, craft upon craft and even nightly toddler dance parties. Our kids had SO much fun playing together. It was like a never-ending playdate - toddler heaven! And mommy heaven too, since Meg and I got to enjoy chit-chat just as if we were getting together over coffee, but in our case we were chatting as we cleaned lunch plates and changed diapers. Glamorous, I know! Ha! But we both love our jobs at home, and it made it that much more fun to spend the week doing that job together.
Cassidy particularly had fun playing with Madeline, who is adorable and just a few months older. Cassie still talks about reading Fancy Nancy books (her first intro to those!), dressing up as a kitty (in a costume she wore so much that Meg very sweetly tucked it into our bags as we packed 
up to leave!) and playing with Maple, the very patient family dog. Gavin and Charlie are only 3 weeks apart and loved crawling and exploring together! They both appear to be climbers, watching like hawks to gain entry to the stairs and playing on top of the open dishwasher door whenever they had the chance. Charlie
would feed Gavin little bits of food whenever they had snacks together, it was really sweet! How fun to have our boys so close in age. Rob was so kind to welcome our chaos into his home during a work week, and even stayed home with the sleeping kids one evening so Meg and I could have a night out with wine and southern BBQ! The restaurant, Puckett's, was the perfect setting for an evening in Franklin (such a great little town that borders Nashville). Live music, rustic decor, and a huge smoker preparing all the BBQ we could possibly hope for. We loved our time in Nashville and hope to return again. Hopefully Erik can join us next time! I owe a huge thank you to Meg for hosting us for the whole week, turning her home into ours and making everything so fantastic. She is amazing!
We also spent 2 nights (1 night on the drive down, and another on the drive back) at the Haru's 
house in Louisville, KY. We got to meet their newest little addition, Makaio Michael Haru (8 weeks old). He has the cutest little baby cheeks I 
have ever seen! We arrived at 11:30pm both times, and Jamie and Eric had everything set up so I was able to just carry sleeping kids into the house and tuck them in without a peep. How wonderful. In the morning, we had breakfast together and Cassidy and Kainoa played with play-doh, trains, and every other available toy. Gavin stumbled upon Makaio relaxing in a bouncy chair and didn't know what to make of him! Luckily, we'll get to see Jamie, Erik and the boys again very soon as our next road trip takes us back to Louisville in the first week of March. Yay!And another stop on our road trip was to the Harding house in Lafayette, IN. It's always nice to
spend time with family! Cassidy talks endlessly about her cousins 
and that gecko that lives in cousin Ethan's room! They hosted us for dinner on the way down, and for the whole weekend on the way back. We always enjoy our time here, getting to watch Kelsey and Ethan in action with soccer/basketball and enjoying the great meals that Steve and Tracy cook up (tried some homemade jambalaya this time around!). We relaxed in the evenings with some good TV, wine and desserts. Since they are only 2.5 hours away, we always know we'll get to visit with the Hardings again soon. In fact, they'll be part of our next road trip adventure in March! We are grateful to them for the wonderful hospitality.Now that we're home, we've settled back into our normal routine. The only exception is that we had a visit from the Pacifier Fairy! She came to our house and took all the pacis (they're just for little babies, after all, as we explained to "big girl" Cassidy) and in their place, she left presents! Cassie was thrilled to find a new Fancy Nancy book and 2 new puppets (a hippo and a lion, by request) in her room that morning. All was wonderful until naptime arrived, and she decided that, well, she'd really just like to have her paci back. We had to get through some hefty crying, but she eventually did fall asleep without her paci - the first time ever, since she has had it with her since her first days in the hospital and every day since. Every bedtime since then has included a few sad tears about missing paci, but overall it has been a really smooth transition. Coming soon - big girl bed, potty training, and saying goodbye to sippy cups! Eeeeeeek...
