ahhh...warm fuzzy feelings.

We had a marvelous, lovely, grandparent-filled weekend around here!

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it here before or not, but sometimes I'm jealous of Millie's sweet grandparent set-up. I loved my grandparents as a kid (and as an adult!!). But I lived in Georgia, and they all lived in Texas. So I only ever saw them once or twice a year. I didn't really understand how some of my friends saw their grandparents all the time, or went to their houses after school, or like actually knew their cousins. Everyone besides my immediate family was 1,000 miles away in a pre-FaceTime, pre-free-long-distance-phone-call era. So although I loved them, I really never knew them on a consistent, day-to-day basis.

But that's not so with Millie, and for that I am thankful. She sees Matt's parents at least once a week, since they live all of about 15 minutes away. She knows them and recognizes them and I love that. Not to mention what a huge help they are when we are sick, or Millie is sick, or we need some last-minute childcare!

"Meeeeee-meeeeee!!!" is what she was screaming into her phone. Her Mimi has taught her everything she knows about talking on a phone, since Mommy and Daddy are both 100% anti-phone talking. Ha!

My parents live more like two hours away, but that's a heck of a lot closer than the 18 hours away from my grandparents I was growing up! We usually see my parents once every 6 weeks or so, and we FaceTime at least once a week. I feel like Millie knows them, or at least understands enough that she regularly demands "Pop-pop!! Pop-pop!!" while holding my phone...so, she knows that Pop-pop appears on my phone screen, which seems pretty smart to me.

Anyway. So this weekend my parents were coming up to visit. They ended up getting to town before I was even off work, so they met me there and then we drove over to Millie's school together. I had been telling Millie all week that Nanny and Pop-pop were going to come visit us on Friday...but like, she's one. I have no idea if telling her that made any sort of impression at all. :)

So we get to school and (as is the norm on lovely days like Friday!) they were playing on the playground. We went out and scanned around and saw Millie waaaaaay on the opposite side of the playground. One of my favorite things to do is to just watch her playing when she doesn't know I'm there, so we planned to do that for a few minutes. But one of her teachers noticed me pretty quickly and told Millie "look, your mommy is here!," and so Millie looked over and noticed us. And then she started walking towards us.

And then she started running- nay, sprinting. Sprinting as fast as her itty, chubby little eighteen-month-old legs would carry her. Her arms were stretched out and her mouth was open wide and as she got close to us, we could hear what she was yelling.

"Popppppp Popppppp!!!!!! POPPPPPP POPPPPP!!!!!!" 

And all three of us were kneeling down with outstretched arms, and Millie had the hugest smile on her face as she ran straight into my dad's arms. Her Poppppp-poppppp.

(Not surprisingly, I believe that all three of us may have had leaky eyes. I mean, come on. It was just too much.)

And that was the start to our pretty perfect weekend. Millie just couldn't have been any more excited to have (some of) her fan club staying with us for a whole weekend. When she woke up Saturday morning, the first thing she said when I came into her room was "Pop-pop? Pop-pop?" And then on Sunday morning, her first words were "Naa-nee? Naaa-nee?"...so at least she's a fan of equality. :)

We didn't do anything overly exciting, just hung out, ate, and played with Little Bit a whole lot. Well, that's not entirely true. My mom and I did venture out on Saturday to treat ourselves (or rather, she treated me!) to an hour of blissful reflexology at Foot Palace. That has quickly become my favorite place in this entire city and the center of most of my daydreams. I knew my mom would feel the same way, so I've been anxiously awaiting her visit so that we could go together! And basically the minute our massages ended, she said "well, this is definitely going to be our new tradition every time I visit!"...and so, let me repeat everything I said earlier about how great it is to live close by to your parents/grandparents. :) Come again anytime, Mom!

                  

On Saturday we dug out some Easter eggs from the depths of my closet and taught Millie how to hunt eggs!! She caught on pretty quick. I think she's going to dominate the Athens egg hunt circuit this year!

                    

I am getting really excited about Easter this year. Now that she really "gets" life a little more (compared to last year!), I am feeling way more enthused about holidays. She will understand that it's special and exciting and she will be ALL ABOUT a basket filled with treats. And since I put some raisins and marshmallows in her eggs on Saturday (for training purposes, obviously), she also understands how awesome it is to find all the eggs...so it's going to be a really fun next couple of weeks!!

Another thing I'm looking forward to is the TIME CHANGE next weekend! Time change haters are gonna hate, but I love knowing it won't be dark by the time we get home from work and that we'll be able to take walks after dinner, so bring it!! I can't remember whether springing forward/falling back means Millie will sleep in later or wake up earlier or what, but so far she's never really had any issues with any other time changes, so hopefully it will remain that way this time. But obviously since I just wrote that, I'm sure we are jinxed and she will freak out and our lives will be ruined for the next six months. Ha. But at least we'll be able to play outside after dinner, so...all things in perspective.

Hope you have a wonderful week!