Hunt Family Connection

A few more shots of our weekend....

You might have already seen these pictures that I posted Saturday morning....

Since we've shortened Ellie's nap time to about an hour during the day, she's been sleeping a little later into the morning. She's usually up and going at 7am, which is MUCH better than the previous 5am wake-up call I was getting. Makes for a much happier mommy :)

For some reason, Ellie decided she absolutely needed to wear her swimsuit top and dragged me into the bathroom where we keep it. Add a red, white, and blue tutu, a pair of pink princess shoes, and you have the perfect outfit for a Saturday morning!

She cracks me up - seriously....she makes me laugh A LOT every day :)

We decided to have a little picnic for lunch and Graham had the brilliant idea to have it at the little table in his room so we wouldn't be disturbed by the dogs. He even got his room all ready, pulling in the stool from the living room so that Ellie would have a place to sit too.

During quiet/nap time, Graham decided he wanted to do "homework" and so I got out all of the workbooks we've been collecting for awhile now (he's shown very little interest in doing school work outside of the school setting) and he sat for quite awhile working on dot-to-dot pages!

He also did some pages where he circled the pictures that were bigger, taller, smaller, longer, etc. He's a smartie, just doesn't always like to sit and show what he knows.

In other big Graham news for the weekend....he's been feeding the dogs every night, so I decided this would be a good thing to give him an allowance for. He's been asking how he can earn money, and I'm reluctant to give him an allowance for things that are normal expectations of living in this house. But feeding the dogs feels like more of an above and beyond kind of task. For now, 5 cents per day that he feeds the dogs - he was pretty excited to get his 25 cents this weekend and put it right into his bank.

Later Saturday afternoon Pa-Paw came over to get Graham for a boys night - dinner, movie, and an overnight with Pa-Paw since Grandma Chery is out of town. Ellie and I decided to head to the mall for some dinner, shopping, and playing.

Ellie ate all of her dinner, letting me know that she really liked the roast beef sandwich :) We did a little shopping and found something for each of the kids that was on sale as they insist on getting bigger and bigger, growing out of the clothes they already have!

Ellie was pretty excited to spend some time at the mall park and then we brought a little snack to bring home to munch on before bedtime.

Sunday was pretty uneventful, but we did have a yummy lasagna dinner with Faith and Kenny. The kids LOVE having Faith around to play with.

No big plans for this past weekend, but we still had a nice one just sticking close to home and hanging out. Down-time is good :)

Summer Project

I've been working on an album all summer....one to help focus on all of the wonderful things that happened. I had a coupon to get a free book printed from Shutterfly, so I was working like mad these past couple of nights to get it done in time to use the coupon. This has held me up a little in posting pictures and stories from Eleanor's birthday...but that's definitely next on my list. In the meantime, I can give you a peek into my album....it's been a pretty great summer :)

Click here to view this photo book.

Friends

Kara, Brian, and Sammy came by last night to visit our new place. The boys had a blast out in the backyard...

....playing in the sandbox....

...and this fun game they made up on the slide. One of the boys would climb up the slide and the other would throw him a rope (that is attached to the rock wall on the other side) to help "save" him :)  They were quite happy to play this game for a LONG time.....we were quite happy to sit on the patio with our drinks chatting.  Ellie was also rather entertained by just sitting/walking in her wheeled chair, watching all of the action (and flirting a bit with Brian!)  It was a very nice way to spend the evening - we hope they visit often.

A slice of life (at our best!)

Last night was pretty great - from the minute I brought the kids home from daycare, everything went rather smoothly. Now that I think about it, there wasn't even any mention of time outs! Because I know I'm going to need to come back and read this again on a not-so-great night, I thought I would detail the evening here.

I got done with work around 4:30 and went to pick up the kids. When we got home (shortly after 5) Graham settled into the couch to watch one of his shows and Ellie was excited to play with the "kid drawer" in the kitchen while I started dinner and cleaned up some of yesterday's dishes. She was fairly content to empty out the drawer and cook in her own kitchen while I worked. When she wasn't happy with that anymore, I put her in her chair and started feeding her as I was finishing dinner for Graham and I. I gave Ellie some finger foods while Graham and I ate (he ate almost everything on his plate!!) and she eventually fell asleep for her little post-dinner power nap (often needed to make the rest of the evening run smoothly). Graham played and Ellie napped while I cleaned up the kitchen....I even managed a call to mom while doing all of that, so got to catch up with her too! Just as I was finishing my chat with mom and the kitchen, Ellie woke up. I got her out of her high chair and the three of us went to the living room to play.  Graham turned off the TV (his idea!) and wanted to play "garbage truck".....EVERYTHING is a garbage truck these days - he goes to pick something up, then goes through the whole garbage truck dumping motion. While he was doing that, Ellie was playing with some of her toys and eventually had the most fun with her own socks (?!) It was sooo nice to see them just quietly and happily playing :) 

Around 7:30 we went upstairs to get ready for bed. Graham sat in my room with the iPod touch (playing educational games!!) while I got Ellie ready for bed and gave her her bottle. When I was done there I got Graham ready for bed and he settled in to watch Sprout until Nina (from the goodnight show) said goodnight. It didn't take him long after that to fall asleep, and I wasn't far behind.

Disclaimer: Please know that this is NOT the norm - more like the exception to the rule....that's why I'm writing about it. 

Ellie woke up at 4:30 for her morning snack and diaper change - Graham is still asleep and I think the rain has stopped for the time being....that's right, it's raining AGAIN! Today is a busy day, but should be a good one. I'm making an offer on a house today at 11:00 so please think some good thoughts for me :)  It's Wednesday, so that means lunch out with my friends. I have a haircut/color this afternoon and then an end-of-the-year work party to go to (please let the rain go away by then!) Graham has also been invited out this evening and will be attending a 'dinner function' with Pa-Paw...pretty exciting!