Brookie & Ah-Jay come to visit!

Back when we were single, one of the things that made us the saddest about marrying so late was the fact that our kids wouldn't grow up with our friends' kids. I mean, I have friends whose kids are middle-schoolers; meanwhile, mine aren't yet in PRE-school!

So when God was kind enough to give us three boys between us in the span of three years, we DETERMINED that we would not let distance keep them apart, and I am SO thankful that we made that decision. The boys and I have made a couple trips to Nashville, and Brooke's family has dropped in on Canton a couple of times, too.

A couple of months ago, Brooke decided that we should fight the Winter doldrums by visiting each other in January and February. She and "Ah-jay" would come here in January, and the boys and I would go to Nashville in February. This week was their week, and we had an AMAZING time.

This was taken as we said our goodbyes. The boys,
at this point, had pretty much had it!

In fact, after they headed home to Nashville, I was taking the boys to stay with the Pressleys, so I could go speak in Athens. Jones said, "I don't wanna go to Nana's house today. I wanna go to Brookie's house today." If you know how much Jones loves going to his Nana's house, then you'll know how big a deal it is for him to say that!

As they always have when we've gotten them together, the boys do GREAT together. I was VERY proud of how well Jones and Freddie did sharing their toys with AJ - and super impressed with how well AJ adapted to being in a totally new place. Next month, it's OUR turn to road trip. Nash-vegas, LOOK OUT!

A few other funny stories:

1) We went out on Wednesday nite, and Freddie was sitting beside AJ in my van. He kept asking AJ, "You wanna hold my hand?" and when AJ didn't answer quickly enough, Freddie asked again: "You wanna hold my hand? Yes or no?"

2) On Thursday, the boys were playing out in the "cwubhouse." Jones went out on his stump and played, "Rocky Top," and it was so cute that I wanted Brooke to get some pictures of it, so I asked and asked him to do it again, and he finally agreed, but first, he said, "I'm going to get dressed." He went into the clubhouse and then came out wearing his red Mardi Gras beads that came with his blue Happy New Year necklace. After he did his show, he immediately went back into the clubhouse and hung up the necklace before emerging again, without his "costume" on. It was hilarious.


3) Finally, Freddie shared something with AJ and immediately looked at me and sweetly asked, "You happy now?" which was HILARIOUS, because I hadn't said a WORD about him sharing ... at least not in that moment.

Anyway, we had a great time - Leslie even came up for the day and a laugh-a-minute dinner on Thursday, and Brooke and I remain hopeful that our boys will be as good a friends as their mamas are!