At Great Grammy and Aunt L's!

And here's my last, belated, post about our trip to CT from last month. I've already covered everything right up until we stopped over at Great-Grammy and Great-Aunt L's house for a delicious lunch and family gathering before heading on our way back down south.

It was great to catch up with family members we don't get to see often. Both J and I commented afterwards that we'd had a really really great visit.

R enjoyed hanging out with her second cousin K, who is just stunning.

And before we left, we made sure to get some R snuggles with Great-Grammy and Great-Aunt L! RUS was already asleep and in the car, otherwise he would have joined them, I'm sure.

Two Girl Cousins and One Boy Cousin

We got together with J's family this past weekend and one of the things that is VERY different about seeing J's family is that there is a girl cousin on his side of the family! Little Frog and R are 8 months apart and the absolute best of friends whenever they get together. And of course, not to be left out, RUS, who always wants to do everything R does, had no problem keeping up with the two girls. Here are some of my favorite shots from the weekend.

We took the kids to a nearby park with some great playground equipment, including a bunch of butterfly bushes and a flower garden and lots of music-making playground toys.



Later in the day, we hung out at JW and C's house and had fun playing on Little Frog's backyard playset with one of J's best friends from high school. We had such a relaxing, fun visit with everyone, and it got even better when Big D and Aunt T came by late in the evening.
And of course, one of the very best things about going to someone else's house--especially someone elses that have kids!--is discovering all the toys they have! Here are RUS, R, and Little Frog wreaking havoc in Little Frog's room. I have to tell you that RUS's favorite thing in Little Frog's bedroom was the Ariel vanity and mirror. He is the cutest thing when it comes to wanting hair accessories in his hair. And once he discovered Little Frog's battery-operated hand-held fan it was all over. He didn't want to play with anything else. (You see him holding it in the group shot above).

Anyway, sorry the pictures are all blurry. It's hard to get clear, crisp iPhone pictures of constantly-moving targets.
Heck, I even find it hard to get clear, crisp pictures with an iPhone when the targets are standing perfectly still and smiling! But this picture is still awfully cute, isn't it??
Every day R would ask us, "Am I sleeping over tonight?" and we would tell her, "Yes, we're sleeping over for TWO nights!" or "Yes, we're sleeping over tonight but we're going to go home tomorrow." She then announced several times to Little Frog, "I'm sleeping over for ONE MORE NIGHT but then I'm going home tomorrow."

The day we left, we had plans to visit Great-Grammie and Aunt L (more on that in another post!) but in order to get some outdoors activity we decided to head over to Valley Falls and do a little trail-walking. It was such a perfect, beautiful day. I'm so thankful we managed to fit that in because it was one of the highlights of the weekend, just enjoying the weather and showing the kids all kinds of things. J skipped some stones at the lake. I tried to skip a few stones too and failed miserably although I did make some interesting ripples. R was brave and slipped down a steep incline to get near the lake. RUS just loved being outside!

R develops her photography skills at GiGi and PopPop's House

We went to Connecticut this weekend to visit J's side of the family and had an AMAZING time. The first thing we did was head straight to GiGi and PopPop's house, where we had takeout lunch from Paul's. We just hung out and relaxed--RUS enjoyed picking up all of GiGi's delicate lighthouse decorations while we continuously told him "no, don't touch that!" and tried to distract him with plastic dinosaurs and duplo blocks. Too bad he's too smart for that kind of foolery.

Then we went outside to let the kids just run around. Well, outside, all RUS wanted to do was run into PopPop's shed, which is full of power tools and other lovely things that almost-two-year-olds cannot play with. We finally tried to corral the kids into a photo session. Only, R wanted to take the pictures. Here's her first attempt--it's actually really good, isn't it???

Here's her second attempt. Still! Not too bad!
Then I took the camera away and took a few pictures myself, including the one at the top of this post and this lovely one of GiGi, R, and PopPop making silly faces.

Another Connecticut Trip

J and I had a great time visiting Connecticut and hanging out Saturday at his grandmother & aunt's house with his brother and sister-in-law and Little Frog. We had a belated Christmas exchange and had a lot of fun catching up with everyone. Here's a photo of J, R, RUS, and I with Little Frog. The kids had a blast playing together running all around the house!! RUS pulled out all the pots and pans from under the stove and banged them together while R and Little Frog dressed up in Tinkerbell and Cinderella dresses and carried lanterns from room to room going on a bear hunt. Later they had fun hanging out together on Little Frog's snow tube. The next day R and Little Frog went sledding at the same park J went sledding on as a kid (even Grammie sledded there when she was a little girl, too). RUS and I stayed back at GiGi and PopPop's house and visited with Great-Aunt T. and then we all went down to southern CT for a playdate with two other friends of mine and their families. It was so much fun! We were served a decadent lunch of vegan chili, cornbread, and the. most. scrumptious. coffee. cake. EVER. from a place called Claire's Corner Copia that I think J and I really need to go visit in person the next time we are in Connecticut.

On top of just plain having a great time hanging out and getting to talk about such important topics as the wonders of Keurig coffee makers, the joys of DIY remodeling your kitchen, babywearing, and super-duper tips for organizing one's house, we had a ton of fun watching the kids all have a blast together. In fact, the three 3-year-old girls played together like they had been friends all their lives, and let me tell you, there is nothing sweeter than the sound of children squealing in laughter!!! J really had them all going when he let them all bury him in couch cushions. You can't even SEE him under those cushions--they really had him well-covered up!!!!
After hiding J, the girls all wanted to hide too, so they ran around the house hiding here and there and everywhere. A favorite hiding spot was in the bedroom closet (see picture, below) as well as on the bed underneath the quilt.
Here's the best shot we got of all three girls together:
And of course, we can't leave out the younger members of the get together, even though the three-year-olds definitely stole the show. They were so funny, and just so much fun to watch. Here's the two-month-old, who, astoundingly, slept through half the get together, even with all the children running around pell-mell in the living room . . .
. . . here's the 10-month-0ld who army-crawled everywhere--he definitely didn't want to be left out of the action . . .
. . . and of course, 15-month-old RUS, who found intense enjoyment in finding doors that were open and closing them. You can see me peeking through a door that RUS has just closed in the picture below.
And I just love this last one of him. It's just so sweet!

(caveat: none of the pictures in this blog post came from our camera--J's brother took the first three and the remainder were taken by one of my friends at the get-together).