Olivia's in Town!

It's been a while since I saw my friend Olivia...and I think the last time she was at our house was over a year ago, when she and her little Ruthie stopped by one evening to have dinner with us. I wish she and Tom lived closer, because we would love getting to see them more often...but alas, they live out of state, so the occasional visits have to suffice.

But Olivia and Ruthie were in town, so we met up yesterday for lunch at my house - one of my favorite things about my new life. Flexibility do things like this! Ruthie is wildly mobile, quite vocal {in a good way} and just a treasure and joy.

Olivia's mom dropped the two of them off to hang out for a couple of hours, and Ruthie got to work touring the house, snacking on goldfish and trying to make friends with Braeya, who was {again} not in the most social mood.

Ruthie told me stories, helped me check the mail, and even helped me start lunch; we had chicken quesadillas. She was really excited about them at first, but then she remembered all the goldfish she'd eaten, and suddenly, lunch was just a lot to handle.

Olivia told her she had to eat two more bites of quesadilla to get a bite of cupcake, and my goodness...she had to work hard to get those two bites down the hatch. And then it became apparent that only then did it register she'd earned one BITE of cupcake. Not one CUPCAKE.

I've never seen anyone melt down INTO a cupcake before, but Miss Ruthie did, and I confess, I was cracking up. Giant tears rolled down her cheeks and pooled onto the table and she just sobbed, and buried her face in that cupcake, coming back up for air without her one bite. She never did take a bite. It was just all too much.

But sister, if you're gonna melt down, there's no better place to do it than a face plant in a cupcake:

Oh you guys, I just died! It was precious. Olivia and I talked and caught up around the breaks in the meltdown, and I am just so proud of the mom she's become. Well done in the parenting department, Olivia!!

All too soon, her mom came to get her, so we did a few quick pictures and said our goodbyes.

It was a joy to see these two, and even though I was sad that our schedules didn't work for Ryan to be there too, I'm thankful for the flexibility in each day to have moments like these when I wouldn't have been able to even just a month ago!