Playing the day away

I'll start by summarizing our week thus far. Remember, this is for me and my future reading. Skip on down if you don't care for the boring details!) :) Monday was photo shoot day. Tuesday we went to Ingles again, mainly because I was bringing dinner to some families with new babies. Remember the post where I named off all the friends who had babies in one week? They're all home and trying to get into the swing of craziness with newborns, so friends from church are coordinating meals to make it a little easier. Even though I end up with almost no room in the cart for groceries, it's still fun to take the kids to the store. Yes, you heard me right. I enjoy it, and I think they do to. (More free popcorn.)

Tuesday afternoon was a flurry of juggling cooking three meals with taking care of kids, mainly the one who wouldn't nap when I needed her to (Elizabeth). I made dinner for the Woody family and Raffray family, and for some reason decided it would be a great time to make something entirely different for my own family, beef stew. I learned a valuable lesson about barley that day. If it says add 1 1/2 cups, don't add the rest of the box since even if it seems like such a tiny little bit. Barley takes over the pot. I ended up with a pot of what I have named "Find the Beef and Vegetables in the Barley, If You Can." It still tasted pretty good, though.

Tuesday evening Jenny came over to borrow my camera to take to the soccer field to photograph Ruth, Bennett, and Maggie's games. She took Amelia and Shannon with her to watch and run around the field, and that left me with two less to go to Clermont to deliver the meals. I got to see little Bella Woody, who is a cutie pie. Her mom says she's been sleeping through the night (9:30-6:00) since they brought her home. I guess I forgot to put my order in for that model!

Wednesday was gymnastics and then church that evening. James and I kept the nursery. We've been on a four week rotation, but since he and I don't usually have anything to attend on Wednesday nights we told them we'd be the permanent Wednesday night folks for the two's if that would help free up other people to take other spots. With so many young families at our church it has been a huge feat to get childcare taken care of, even with every parent of a preschooler on the rotation.

Today (Thursday) has been a big day of play here at the happy Himstedt home. I hosted playgroup this morning, which was fun. I had also volunteered earlier in the week to do our Thursday night dinner here. Two of the moms would be back tonight, so I asked if they'd just leave their boys to play until then. So we had Elliott and A.J. Hicks and Caleb Raffray join us for the afternoon. We mostly played outside since it's starting to cool off and the weather is beautiful. My two youngest cooperated and made it easy by taking LONG naps. Shannon enjoyed having boys over and they spent the day doing boy stuff. Amelia had fun too, though she sometimes gets frustrated that little boys don't play like little girls. I didn't hear mention of a single princess all afternoon, and I think she even got used to not being able to tell them all what they would all be playing next. Boys basically do their own thing and don't care if a girl is trying to tell them what to pretend or how to do it. I enjoyed the day with all of the kids, and they behaved and got along quite well. See pictures below...

 
Here's a picture of Elizabeth at playgroup. I just had to include this one because I think it showcases her mondo cheeks quite nicely. What do you suppose she's storing in there?

 
Here's sweet little Sophia Raffray. Erin and Brad got back from Florida with her on Saturday, and she's doing well. She has just hit 6 pounds, and is a tiny little thing. Isn't she so cute? (See a few posts back for more info on Sophie's story, if you missed it.)
 

The boys, A.J., Caleb, Elliott, and Shannon. They had lined themselves up in anticipation of getting to watch a movie while Amelia and I did school today.

 

Here's one of Amelia and Elliott. Amelia is 6 months older than him. They've been buddies for awhile now. (I'll don't understand why sometimes captions act ugly and refuse to be put where I want them. Oh well!)


Here they are in August of 2004. Amelia was 13 months old, Elliott was 7 months. This seems like yesterday.