recovery

 I'm back, and I have fully recovered from my three day grandparenting trip to Morgan.  Mindy had me so worried that I wouldn't be able to handle it that I broke into a cold sweat as they drove away on their trip to Jackson Hole.  But, I have to say, Marty and Mindy, you have the happiest, most tolerent, kindest, sweetest kids ever.  They were a joy to spend time with every minute.  Even that crazy Charlie who melted my heart.  Of course staying in grandparent Utopia helped.  The Anderton back yard has a full on playground with miles of the softest, greenest grass ever.  Not only that, but in their basement is an amazing play room with toys,  a chest full of dress up clothes, a play kitchen, and draweres full of all kinds of things that keep kids happy for hours.  They also have enough videos to last for three days if we chose to watch them non stop. 


 One of our biggest challenges was to keep Dog out of the house.  Dog belongs to the Andertons and he is not suppose to come in the house, but he doesn't know that.  He even knows how to open the sliding screen by himself.  Ruby was totally in charge of getting Dog out.  She would get a little piece of bread and coax him out the door.  So that was one chore that was lifted off my shoulders because she was on it every time. 

This is Charlie on the run.  I should be at least 10 pounds lighter from chasing him.  Charlie loves "kackers" and he was always asking for some. I put a handful on the kids table in the kitchen.  {yep, there are several kids tables in house and yard}.  Charlie kept coming back to the table to shove a "kacker" into his mouth and then off he would go to play.  The wheels began to turn and Charlie went over tot he sippy cup drawer and got a sippy cup and took it over to the little table and put all his "kackers" into the cup.  He now had a portable cracker carrier and he figured it out all by himself.  Every once in a while he would go to the sippy cup drawer and try out some of the cups to see if there was anything in them.  It took me a while to figure out that this meant that he was thirsty so I would get him a sippy cup full of milk or water and he would be happy. 
Charlie had a little book that he liked a lot and he would bring it to me to read to him.  He would pull himself up onto the couch and plop down next to me so I could read it.  (so cute).  When we got to the page where the grandma and grandpa and their dog were, it became clear that Charlie liked this page for some reason.  He wouldn't let me turn the page right away and a couple of times he kissed the grandma.  I think his other grandma must have conditioned him to do this.  I was warned not to lose his binky, he only got it when he went to bed.  But of course I lost it.  The last day, I found it in the sippy cup drawer.  I guess Charlie put it there for some reason.

I discovered that Liam had developed a little bit of the devil in him.  He loves to tease and tease he did.  Once I caught him with the hose in the back yard turned on and he was holding the hose over Charlie's head like he was watering a flower.  Charlie was screaming and crying.  I said, "Liam, stop that, that's not nice" and he looked at me with the most innoscent look and said, "it was an accident".   
Ryan and Becca brought Emma to meet her grandmother.  She is the sweetest little Emma.  She has dimples and she definately looks like she could be Lydia's sister.  Lydia was so happy to play with her cousens in the wonderful back yard that she paid little attention to me and was very unhappy when it was time to leave.  I don't blame her.  I really wanted her to stay, but she had to go home.  I miss her.  I miss them all.

All these pictures were taken with my  phone because my camera battery was dead.  So the quality isn't that great and I didn't take very many pictures.   Sorry.