WonderfulTrouble - Colin & Lexie Hickey

We're alive and well!

It's been ages and ages since I've shared anything here - social networks like Facebook and Instagram just make it so easy to keep family and friends up to speed on our lives, all from the convenience of my phone.  But I'd like to start documenting all of the hilarious, happy, and sometimes hard details of our lives with Roman and Sloane here, as well.  However, attempting to fill in all the blanks since my last post is far too daunting a task, so consider this my a promise (to myself, mostly, since I doubt anyone checks this page after such a long silence) to check in more often, even if only to preserve memories for my kids to read when they're older.

Here's a reminder of what we look like.

Hopefully you'll be seeing more of us around these parts soon.

The Pumpkin Patch

This weekend, under stormy autumn skies, we went to a local pumpkin patch and had such a good time.

Sloane wanted to take home just about every pumpkin this size.

She was so, so happy there.  She kept saying, "Sloane having fun!"

Picking just three pumpkins to take home required quite a bit of help from Mama and Papa. I really think she could have spent all day there checking out every single one.

We always love our weekends together as a family, but with cooler weather finally clearing the valley of forest fire smoke, we are really taking advantage of the beautiful Montana fall.  But to be honest, I'm already looking forward to everything that winter will bring, as well.  Thanksgiving, Christmas, a new baby...  all in good time.

We're the Luckiest

My Grandpa has been in a rehab facility for the last three or four weeks to help him regain some strength and mobility.  While I'm sure he'd much rather be at home, he lives nearly an hour away, whereas rehab is only a mile or two from our house.  So we've been getting to see a bit more of him than usual, and more of my dad, as well, since he is in our neck of the woods when he visits Gramps almost daily.

We caught my dad there by chance a couple of days ago as we were driving home from picking paint colors for the baby's room.  We stopped by for a quick visit, and somewhere between Sloane cracking both Grandpa and Great Grandpa up with her fish face, and fast, fun toddler rides in Gramps' wheelchair, I started tearing up.  How amazing is it that on any ol' Wednesday, on a whim, four generations of my family can be together?  Most families would have to put months of planning in to such an occasion.

We are so fortunate.
 

Sloane takes a momentary break from wheelchair racing to admire the paint colors that she chose for the baby's room: Princess Pink and Caliente Red. She was outvoted 2-1 by Colin and me.

Letting Go & Letting Loose

We've had lots of pajama time.  Lots of time with crayons in our hands.  A spur of the moment parade.  We've ignored piles of dirty dishes and heaps of clean laundry.  I wish I could say we've been spending a lot of time outside in the garden or playing with sidewalk chalk, but the longest fire season that I can remember has us trapped inside by all of the smoke.  I like to think of it as practice for the harshest part of the winter.  In lieu of outdoor fun, the occasional Pixar movie and a big bowl of popcorn can be pretty fun, too.

So we still have another two and a half days to make it without Papa, and although we have been missing him terribly since the moment he left, I'm hoping that if I can maintain this laissez faire attitude until he gets home, our girls weekend will continue to be this effortless.  It's been a tremendous reminder that I should be like this more often, even when Colin is home.  But until then, we will remain unshowered and uncaring as we eat pizza leftovers for just about every meal.