Mary's Blog Corner: A GRAND Old Time!

We had a full house this past weekend as three grandchildren arrived on Friday afternoon and stayed until Sunday afternoon. Kristen has made it a tradition to attend a scrapbooking weekend in January and we have the pleasure of keeping the children as it would be impossible for Jay to handle both the children and his work.

They burst into the house with smiles and energy plus and we enjoyed a busyness in the ensuing 48 hours that only comes when you have small children living with you. Here are some of the highlights of our time spent together:

The toothy grin of Mark as he toddles around and mischievously opens and shuts cupboards and drawers and "helps" me load and unload the dishwasher. He was fascinated with our propane heaters and would approach them and say "HHHH" (hot). He is not saying any words but he makes his needs and wants known by very loud and persistent grunting :) He was not very impressed with the pack-n-play I had set up in the basement for him to sleep, but by the end of the weekend he had resigned himself to it.
Lydia is a constant little chatterbox and busybody. She is always moving and one of the funniest things she did was jump in the walker I have for Awstin and zoom around the kitchen and living room. Alexis saw how much fun it was and wanted to be a part of it and they ended up fighting over who got to be in it. I managed to get some video of it but I missed the part where Lydia slams into Mark's highchair (with Mark sitting in it) and he jumps and looks around to see what hit him and then giggles and laughs at her. Lydia also wasn't a big fan of Jeremy. We told her that Jeremy was coming down to see Megan and she stated emphatically, "I don't like eremy." Alexis said, "why don't you like him? He is a really nice guy." Lydia replied, "he scary." When he did arrive, she refused to look at him. On Sunday at church, I had gotten her coat and handed it to her and started to walk back into the auditorium to Alexis. I thought that she was following me, but when I turned around she was standing in the midst of people with her coat over her head. I went back to her and when I lifted the coat, she was crying. Apparently, she lost sight of me and when all she saw was strange people, she just put her coat over her head so she couldn't see anyone and cried.
Alexis loves to help in any way she can. While Lydia and Mark slept on Saturday afternoon she and I baked a birthday cake for Steve and then I let her decorate it all by herself. She had so much fun and was so proud of her finished result. She is a little girl with a huge imagination. I love to play with her and listen to her pretend. Some of her favorite things to play are store, farming and house. The things she comes up with just make me laugh. She is also really advanced with her motor skills and will sit and color a picture for a long time and stays in the lines beautifully. She knows the whole alphabet and can write most of the letters and numbers. She also loves to play games on my computer and Lydia will sit on the chair with her and watch as Alexis plays one game and then another.

The first night it was a little difficult to get Alexis and Lydia persuaded to go to bed so Steve watched nursery rhyme songs with them on his computer until they were really tired. It was so cute because they were both yawning but neither of them wanted to stop and kept insisting that they weren't tired at all!

It was a wonderful, busy and grand weekend and when Kristen came to pick them up on Sunday, they were happy to go home and we were happy to see them go :) But, oh what a wonderful time we had. I am just so grateful that I get to experience this amazing thing called grand parenting.

Cutie Pie :)