Countdown

The countdown has arrived! We have been anticipating my Mom coming for a visit from California for a few months. Some sweet people she knows donated their frequent flyer miles so she was able to come visit her grandchildren for free!!! How awesome is that??? I have never met these people, but they know from talking to my Mom how much she loves and misses her 4 "babies" out here in Tennessee. Thank you so much sweet strangers!!!

The last time my Mom was here, JT was pretty small as you can see here

JT was just 1 month old...

This is how much younger the girls were...

He was only a month old when my Mom last came. He is the first child of mine that doesn't really know his "Nanny". Before we moved here, my Mom was a huge part of our lives. I do miss having my Mom not being here for the daily things that JT does and seeing the girls mature in young women. I've tried my best to convince her to pack on up and move out here with us, but she's not quite ready yet. Maybe this time it will work :)

One tradition that we used to do when I was young was a countdown chain. It was something that we made every year right after Thanksgiving to countdown the days to Christmas. We would make the chain out of red and green construction paper and tear a chain off every morning. We continued this tradition of paper chain countdown for big vacations, trips to Disneyland,etc. It was such a fun visual for me as a child to see the chain get shorter and shorter.

Since we have moved to Tennessee, my Mom comes to visit every year or two. The first time she planned a visit, Lindsay and Courtney were still pretty little, 6&7, so my Mom made the links and then sent them in the mail for us to assemble. We had a lot of chains as we had a lot of time to countdown. We had the chain up and down the hallway, crossing each other every which way!

The start of the countdown...

7 more days!!

So with this visit, during Fall Break, Lindsay made our family a chain and then she was so sweet to cut out links for a chain for my Mom. I thought of an idea that made receiving the chain a bit more special to my Mom (beside surprising her when we mailed it & not telling her) was each girl had a set of links. Then each girl would write down the countdown number and something they were looking forward to doing with her. For example : 24 days until I get to hug you, 19 more days until you can read JT a book. Each girl chose things special to them. Sarah- hoping to see the Harry Potter movie with Mom as its releasing when she is here, Lindsay- wanting to compare heights as she is now taller than her, Courtney- looking forward to cuddling with her, and JT getting to know his Nanny.

JT trying to eat some links

2 more days!

My Mom has sent me some pictures from her phone and what she has done instead of throwing the chain away for that day, she instead taped each "link" to her back door. This is the door she uses so it's the last thing she sees before going to work each day and reminds her of her sweet grandchildren!

My Mom flies in tomorrow evening and we are so looking forward to it!