February Visitors

My parents stopped by for a quick visit over this last weekend. As usual, it just flew by but it was time enough for them to get to reconnect and hang out with their grand kids. And on their parts, the kids were quick to dive right in there and relish the extra attention while they could.

Aside from his usual baby babbling and rolling over and such, Noah made sure to show off his latest "tricks"...

Like sitting up by himself. In just the past week he's gotten really good at it and can sit up very stable for longer stretches of time. Especially if he has something interesting in front of him, like this bead toy.

He even came up with something new to show off for his grandparents. Here he is demonstrating how he can hold his biter biscuit in his mouth and flap his arms all around at the same time. I'm sure he was thinking, "Look Ma, no hands!" He was quite pleased with himself for inventing this little maneuver, thought it was quite funny in fact. (Okay and we did too.) As if he didn't already have enough fun with those biter biscuits to start with - look at his face!

Meanwhile, Bree spent most of her time playing pretend with her Grammy. As you regular readers out there know, she has quite a rich imaginary life with her Grammy DeeDee (because Grammy plays along so very compliantly). So, there they were back at it again. Most the time, it was their old standby, Brianna was the mommy with her baby "GooGoo," her favorite game to play with Grammy. (I think for the obvious power role reversal reasons.) And also Bree insisted on being called "Apple Cinnamon" (her usual alter ego) most the time as well, but she made clear to clarify to her GooGoo "but I'm still your mom too!" And there were some new imaginary games added this time as well... at any given time during the visit both Grammy and Brianna were cats, birds, doctors, or zookeepers. In which case Bree's official title would become respectively, Apple Cinnamon Cat, Apple Cinnamon Bird, Apple Cinnamon Doctor, or ZooKeeper. (Not sure why that last one didn't include the Apple Cinnamon part, but it didn't.) Although, any of these new games were added on top of the Bree/Mommy Grammy/Baby GooGoo scenario and so Grammy's new names for these games were, Baby Cat, Baby Bird, Little Doctor, and Little Zookeeper. Brianna was quite strict that we all address her properly during these times, otherwise she would either refuse to respond or correct whoever it was trying to talk to her. "Hey Bree..." "You mean, Apple Cinnamon Cat?" "Yes, Apple Cinnamon Cat, you want a snack?" The problem was, it was kind of hard to know exactly what her name was at any given time during the weekend so we were wrong most of the time. It got a bit confusing trying to keep it all straight! Even Bree would have to correct herself and would say things like, "GooGoo, I mean Little Zookeeper...."

While they were here it was really nice weather so we also managed a trip to a nearby park, much to Bree's delight. She's been at me all the time to take her to the park, but it's just been too cold for more than a 10 minute shiver fest. Finally this weekend though it was nice enough for a good long play at the park so we bundled the kiddos up and headed out.

Bree was a big fan of the slides.

And she also liked the teeter-totter. But I'm not real sure she gets the concept because she insisted on riding it by herself. She actually got mad if anyone tried to sit on the other side.

After that it was a case of playground monkey see monkey do with Noah copying everything his big sis did. (Okay, more like we amused ourselves by making him follow along behind her and do stuff.)

First, Bree climbed up the wall...

And then Noah had to try it. He thought it was great!



Then Bree decided to try hiding out in one of the big tires. (One of my favorite things to do in elementary school.)

Of course, then Noah wanted to do that too. (Apparently, it wasn't as fun as the wall climbing.)

Then it was on to the swings. Here's Bree swinging, with attitude! (Little smuggy smirk.)

And with a little help from Grammy, here's Noah swinging as well, with attitude of a different flavor. This is his new face, this wrinkly nose scrunchy face. Not sure what it's all about...

Then we found a swing that was the perfect Noah size!

Okay, actually it was a balancing thingamabob, as Bree is demonstrating here while Noah admires her skills.

Time for a little rest on a bench and a quick smooch...
Awwww... what a sweet sibling moment!


Not to be outdone in the having fun department, the big boys, (Trav and Grampy), who are both photography nuts, entertained themselves by having Travis slide down the slide and at the end they each took pictures.

Trav, taking a picture of my dad, taking a picture of him.
And vice versa... Silly boys!

Just time enough for one last father/kids swing on the tire swing...