Pierced: Our trip to FL

Aaron has a research project he is doing through Columbia University in Fortaleza Brazil. During his winter break he traveled to Fortaleza for two weeks. The boys and I took the opportunity to go spend time with family and friends in FL. It was a great trip. We had lots of good times with family. Got to catch up with old friends. I was especially blessed by the servants hearts of my parents that granted me a little vacation from mommy duties as they so actively helped with the boys. Austin and Jonathan of course enjoyed Mema and Vovo time. The trip was very sweet.

I'm going to let the pictures tell the stories of our time there, but I must share one quick one of the boys on our final night. We were gathered at my parents with my aunts, uncles, and cousins. He went around to every single person there and asked, "Do you want to come to my apartment in NYC?" After receiving a yes, he's say, "Do you want to sleep on my momma and daddy's bed?" To which everyone would chuckle. Jonathan caught on that Austin was making his rounds. Without the vocabulary of his brother, but still the social personality, he went to everyone with high fives! As I tucked them into bed a little while later Austin said, "Momma all my friends want to come to my apartment in NYC!" Yes sweet one, they do! Somehow I have no pictures of us with my extended family. I am so sad about this!

Vovo and Mema have an electric car! So fun for the boys!

Vovo, Mema and the boys took walks around the block almost daily!

We had fresh Orange juice everyday from Vovo's orange tree in the back yard. Here are the boys helping pick the oranges. DELICIOUS!

One of our favorite things on this trip was spending time with Baby Jonah. He's my cousin's baby and is just 5 months younger than Jonathan. The boys LOVED him. My heart loves that!!!

See the sunshine??? All of us in short sleeves. The amount of time we got to spend outside was a wonderful treat!

EVERY AFTERNOON the boys would spend about two hours in the backyard. The activity of choice was making mud cakes!

This is daddy's birthday cake. We made a video for him and sent it to him on his birthday!

Jonathan made one too :)

Time with their favorite boy cousin Damian!!! The boys were like clue to him! He is so sweet and loves them well! It's so evident that even though he's several years older, he genuinely enjoys spending time with his baby cousins! Somehow I didn't get any pictures of the boys with my brother....sorry Jeferson!

Us with the Wilkins Kids! Karen and Wayne mentored me while I was in college. They now live in Orlando with five beautiful children. We got to see them a couple times and it was a delight to my soul!

Kalee Wilkins - the oldest daughter. She is such a sweet momma! She cared for my boys as I once cared for her as a baby. It literally brought me to tears!

Kalee was one of our flower girls and Hunter was our ring bearer. I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with them so grown up! As always, I so admire Karen and Wayne in their parenting! Hoping that these two get to come spend a week with us in NYC :)

Me and Karen - truly one of my dearest friends ever! So much life shared, so many lessons learned, so much love for this woman!

Playdate Elizabeth and Angela (so missed you Maruxa!) I'm bummed we didn't get very good pictures. I was able to journey with these sweet women through all of our engagements, weddings, and now babies! Love that we still get to enjoy a little bit of life together!

Our day with the Overholsers! We trekked down to Lakeland for a day with my one of my college accountability partners Melody. They now have 4 children! This trip almost didn't happen due to kid's being sick in both families, but we are so so so glad it did. Matthew and Melody are dear friends and it was so sweet to be reunited and see our children together too too :)