High Fives and Cookie Dough

I have to confess that I have a soft spot for small children and to me there's nothing quite like a happy three year old hanging around the house, telling funny stories and  handing out high fives. 

Earlier this summer, we had the privilege of having my nephews J and L stay with us for a few days while their Mom attended a family wedding in Utah (and Dad was still in England).   

It's been quite a while since we've had such little kids here and beforehand I was a little nervous about some of the details.   I worried about our house not being childproofed, I worried that they would hate all of our food, and I worried that my kids would get tired of sharing their time and toys with them.  And I was especially worried that there might be a lot of crying, especially with J and L being 5-hours in a different time zone and missing both parents.   

My fears were all unfounded though!    

J, L, and my kids were  rockstars.  They were all sweet, funny, unselfish, and just all-around delightful to be with.   There were very few tears and, in the end, it was happy, lovely week that I would happily repeat anytime.   

One of my favorite parts of having a little one around  were the conversations!  

Here are some of my favorite J quotes:   

  at 3am "We can't just have wa-ter.  I want a banana." 

at 8am  "I kind of, sort of don't like bananas."

"I'm sort of feeling soggy and need a new diaper." 

"I want a cupcake....and a snuggle."

Shortly after their mom came back from the wedding, we went on our 3-week vacation to take Cami out to BYU, so sadly we missed spending that time with them while they were in town.  Luckily they were still around for just a bit longer when we returned in a few weeks and we got to spend time with the whole family, including M, K, and baby B before they headed back to England.  

Baby B is about as adorable as they come and  I loved my baby snuggling time (though my arms ached for days afterward)....

 and I loved watching the sweet connection these brothers had with one another!  

One of the days they were here, we joined with the other Crain cousins and met them for a Scottish festival.   Though the festival was mostly a bust, it was fun to be together like old times (before M & K moved to England).      I've had so much fun adding hidden messages that no one reads into my blogposts, so I think I shall add another one today.   Today I will tell you about how I'd take a scoop of cookie dough over a fancy dessert any day of the week.   It's my diet kryptonite and anyone who wants to get on my good side should just whip me up a scoop of good old-fashioned chocolate chip cookie dough!  

This group of gorgeous cousins are best friends and it's been a delight watching their friendship with one another develop over the years.        

I am grateful that my kids have cousins that live nearby, so that they can have these kinds of relationships.  

And we look forward to when  M, K, and family move back someday. 

In the meantime we were grateful for the time we got to spend together!  

And hope that they'll come back from Jolly Old England and visit us again soon!  

 ❤ ♡ ❤ ❤ ♡ ❤ ❤ ♡ ❤ ❤ ♡ ❤ ❤ ♡ ❤ ❤ ♡ ❤ ❤ ♡ ❤ ❤ ♡ ❤ ❤ ♡ ❤ ❤ ♡ ❤ 

August 2015

Genealogy and Foxes

While Adam, Emma, and friends continue with their week at genealogy camp at the National Archives...

Ellie and I are enjoying our daily mornings on the town.  

We're doing a ton of walking around, which is something Ellie doesn't normally love, but she's being a good sport about it and hasn't complained a bit!   On Wednesday we hit up the Library of Congress (a good 1-1/4 mile walk from the National Archives), then did some watercolor painting in the Botanic Gardens, but weirdly, I have no photos of either.  

After the camp was done for the day, we all went on a little stroll through the sculpture gardens.


Then explored the Natural History Museum for a while.


The kids enjoyed some silly photo-ops...


which got sillier...


and sillier....


and sillier...


and sillier!  



After we finished exploring, we went to the airport to pick up my sister-in-law and nephews.     They've been living in England for the last few months and we were SOOOOOOO excited to see them again!    

After the airport, we got home just in time for me to order pizza for dinner and head off to mutual.   I then had a horrible night's rest when we discovered first-hand exactly what the fox says and it wasn't anywhere near as melodic as that dang song that gets stuck in my head far too easily!   

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Favorite Picture of the Day

and it's not even of my kids.

 I love this sweet picture of Adam's friend, Benjamin, showing his baby sister the fish he caught. 

Fish, you ask?  That must be an awfully small fish to fit in the palm of his hand like that. 

Yep.  One of our favorite summertime activities this year had been to go explore our neighborhood stream and the surrounding woods.  It's an activity that the kids never seem to tire of.    So when Adam had two friends over this afternoon, it was the first thing they wanted to do as soon as our indoor activities were finished.    There they used nets to catch little minnows (and got soaking wet in the process).  When it was time to walk back home, they couldn't bear to part with all of their new fishy friends, so they brought the best of the bunch back home in a peanut butter jar.

They boys were pretty enamored with their catches and spent the rest of their time together eating Flavor-ices and jabbering about their plans of  where they were going to keep their fish and what they were going to feed them, how often they might need to change the water, etc. 

Soon the fish were divided up into Dixie cups and sent home with the boys along with a handful of mini marshmallows for food.  Not surprisingly, a few of the minnows have already passed onto the big stream in the sky, but Adam is holding out home that at least a few will survive to be his newest pets.  (Thursday morning update:  all of the minnows are now dead)

After spending an afternoon with a couple of 8-year-old boys, I've discovered that their conversations can be highly entertaining.  There was  silliness aplenty, some competitiveness as they took turns showing off their smarts, a little bit of potty humor, and even a little waxing poetic as they shared their philosophies on being kind to animals. :)