charlotte | with molls.

when we tried to get a photo of the three of us... he was more interested in the toy lee was setting up.

before i left charlotte the last time, i knew i'd be coming back on this particular weekend. and, since i ended up staying longer than planned (because, unemployment says i can), it was only about a week and a half of being back in nashville.

but! it was long enough to do some laundry, convince molls to come with me (and by that i mean, invite her along, because she responded with an immediate yes), and then, like, re-pack.

since she's still in school, it was just a quick weekend trip (like the ones i used to take when i was still employed and had to work on friday and monday mornings).

friday – sunday, with only about a day and a half of actual hang time. but we made the most of it and had fun and here's where i tell you about it.

from what i understand, this is the first time he realized that putting your hands in your pants pockets was a thing. he thought it was the greatest thing and told us, "look! my hands are hiding!"

in this next series, i tried to take our classic backseat selfie + molls, but luca was not interested. (his face in the first photo makes me laugh out loud, but the progression of it is even better.)

that face he's making in this last photo is his "trying not to smile" face. which i think is the cutest/funniest.

naturally, i reached over to tickle him or "honk" his nose or something, in an attempt to get him to smile. when he's being a grump (or even if he's not), it becomes a personal goal of mine to turn that mood around.

it didn't really work, but he did reach his arm out, so i reached back.

he ended up putting his fingers between mine and we held hands, with molly third-wheeling it in between us. (sorry not sorry, molls.)

our saturday consisted of sleeping in too late to get doughnuts (molly), eating waffles instead (T, lee, luca, & me), shopping at target (all of us), and then meeting up with my mom to do fun things like go to sam's club and the grocery store.

(on the way home, i asked molls what her favorite part of the weekend was and she said grocery shopping because "your sister and your mom are fun." so either we have the ability to make a monotonous activity like grocery shopping SUPER FUN, or she's lying.) (i'm pretending it's the first one.)

after the groceries were put away, baking mom popped in for a visit to teach me her chocolate chip cookie baking secrets. molls and i have made cookies multiple times in the past couple weeks, using the nestle toll house recipe (which always reminds me of this episode of friends), because that's how i thought my mom made them, and my mom makes the best chocolate chip cookies i've ever tasted.

(see above photo. they taste even better than they look.)

it turns out, she does use that recipe, but she has a few twists, which explains why our cookies never turned out as good.

on sunday, we all hung out at my parents' house because they had something of a little connecticut reunion going on. we took a group photo using the self-timer on an iphone, propped up by an elaborate stack of random items on the counter, but i don't have a copy of that photo so you'll just have to use your imagination.

also, our activities involved more than just standing and staring at the kickball, as shown above.

we (luca) also did some climbing.

and napping. "napping." (read: i basically tickled his back for an hour while he laid there.)

and piggyback riding.

luca was very excited to have ma-wee come to visit this weekend. in fact, when T called to check in on our way there, luca requested to speak to her, and when the phone was handed back to me, he kept saying, "no, molly!"

when we finally got there, he showed off for like twenty minutes, running back and forth between the kitchen and living room, saying "excuse me!" each time he passed by, and doing break dance moves, saying "look at me!" as he looked at us upside down. and then he only wanted molly to play with him and read to him, even though he was still so wound up he could hardly sit still.

it was so cute and funny and also a pretty accurate representation of how i felt (on the inside) to have some of my favorite people in the same room for the first time. on the outside, i mostly just stood there and smiled because i had just driven for six and a half hours.