Courtney Grace and I have been bffs pretty much since we met... in the Boise Airport when Blues flew in for Chuck's and my wedding festivities and she ignored me completely in favor of snuggling with Grandpa ;). Luckily for me I managed to win her over - here are some of my favorite Courtney and Jana pictures from back in the day:
And how ridiculously cute are these pictures? Courtney has always been pretty girly - whenever Carma insists on wearing a dress or something pink or accessorizing we always draw the comparison to Courtney at that age :).
I was so so excited for Courtney to make a return visit to hang out with us this summer - here's our group shot again from Burley when I sent Mallory back home with her mama and took Courtney home with me. I love this because as we were all crowding in and trying to figure out how we'd fit all of us for the picture, Court grabbed my phone and snapped the selfie like a pro. Or a teenage girl. Possibly those terms are interchangeable in this context...
During our two+ hour drive back to Nampa, I did the grilling (aka asked all my nosy aunt questions about school and friends and boys and church and all that) and when we got home, Courtney did all the grilling, aka making us dinner ;). And then we put her to work on Sunday puzzles!!
I believe strongly in exploiting guests' talents, so we kept Courtney in the kitchen throughout the rest of the week as well. I had a couple zucchinis that I wanted to magically turn into zucchini bread but was loads too scared to attempt on my own. Enter Courtney! The boys were entranced as they helped her make the batter, and I redeemed myself as not being completely incompetent by shredding all of the zucchini. And by all I mean most... a large portion of? Maybe? At least some... ;)
And it turned out SO pretty and SO delicious! Court and I did some styling of the loaves and our extra zucchini to make the best Instagram shot possible - the picture in the bottom right being our final product.
We did let Courtney out of the kitchen a couple times - like Zumba on Monday morning (have I mentioned Courtney's a dancer? She was ridiculously graceful despite learning the moves as she went) and she may have stolen Clyde's bike for a quick spin when we hit up the church parking lot as part of Jack's 'no training wheels' quest:
It awesomely worked out for Courtney and Lexi to get some second cousin time! Courtney headed over there for a sleepover and by all reports (and this Instagram picture I stole from Court...) they had a great time. Love these girlies!!
On Wednesday afternoon we were finally able to ditch all the kiddos with Chuck and head out for some retail therapy and fun - Courtney LOVED my tendency to take random pictures of her mid-shopping trip ;). It's not my fault she was so cute getting her cookie from the bakery and fangirl-ing over Harry Potter!!
Don't worry, I took random pictures in the car too; Court seemed to love them just as much ;).
We finally made to the mall for our traditional Orange Julius...es. It's possibly ridiculous how hard we laughed trying to get a good selfie with our treats hahahaha:
For the official record: here's our winning Instagram-worthy shot, complete with caption: It definitely took us 12 tries to get one where my bangs looked okay AND Court wasn't laughing/dying of embarrassment 😳😂😳 - I don't know why I always seem to have that effect on her 🤔; me being such a cool, hip aunt and all 🤓💃🏻😎🤗. Loved having my nieces visit over the summer 😍😍!!
Melissa gave us the okay to buy Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, so Courtney read late into the night and possibly got pretty into the (crazy!!) storyline. I wish I'd gotten pictures when she was lying on the ground lamenting that she couldn't handle the stress of reading any more ;).
Courtney is suuuuch a good cousin - I wish I'd gotten more pictures of her with the kids. Carma definitely made Courtney work for her lovin' - as opposed to Courtney's visit two summers ago, when baby Carma let Courtney snuggle her and dress her and adore her! Toddler Carma plays a little harder to get - another similarity between her and Courtney as a little girl! Carma during this visit was almost the exact same age as Courtney when I met her .
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Ohhh Courtney... thanks for 'hanging around' with us for the week! I love you tons sweet girl; I'm so so so glad I get to be your aunt! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
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