Friday, April 8, 2011

'Becca's turn

Thursday we had the pleasure of Rebecca's company. We did the usual - leisurely breakfast, some outdoors time, lots of playing with all the toys available.


3 carts and no competition...















Checking out our pictures from the gym














She spent a long time playing with dolls and stuffed critters, lining them up, covering them for 'night night', and patting their backs.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Wednesday with Julie





We had each girl for a day during the week, and they were delightful. We had leisurely breakfasts, lots of conversation, played with toys, went outside for a while, took naps, and did fun things in general.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Tuesday at the gym

The girls have started going to a gym Tuesdays. It's easier if they all go to school; from there we all went to dinner, then to the gym. As a result we didn't have anyone at home that day.

The teacher had a bucket full of bells, and she had the kids come get some for the parents and themselves. The approach is geared to getting the young'uns to do things on their own.








Emma doing the 'moon walk'.















Julie on the balance beam.

















Becca on the beam.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Monday with Emma

Monday Emma stayed home with the grandparents. She was a bit unhappy at first when she didn't get to put shoes on in preparation for leaving for school, but she soon caught on, and there was no further fussing. As Sarah has mentioned in her blog, they are getting good at taking turns. That may be best seen in deciding who gets to sit in the favorite car seat in the van. They know the order of the turns, and understand that they will get that chair the next trip, or the one after that, if they didn't have it this time.

We explained to Emma that today was her turn to stay with Gramma and Grandpa, and that her sisters would have their turns later in the week. Perhaps her being first made it a little sweeter today, not that there's any competition among them.


We had a leisurely breakfast. All three start with some dry Cheerios and a cup of milk to start. One by one they get dressed for school and return to the table. They'll have their main breakfast at school.

With Emma staying home, we munched our way through the first course, then had some banana, raisins, more milk, etc. for the rest of the meal. I had coffee and a bowl of cereal, too. There was an empty chair between us. Emma proceeded to push her bowl to her left, then the napkin, then her cup. I figured she was through with the meal, but instead, she wanted to shift to the chair closer to papa. Neat.

Later, Grandma was preparing her cereal, and Emma did the 'shift left' maneuver again. This time there wasn't another chair to shift to, she just raised her arms to me in the universal 'up' pose. She shifted to my knee to continue breakfast so Grandma could occupy her previous seat. Charming.

how they've changed!

It's interesting to see how much the girls have changed in two months. They are much more verbal now, and tend to speak in ~sentences e.g. "Gramma milk all gone", etc.

(our) Names: Ginnie is pretty consistently Gramma or Gamma. I am at times Grampa, but currently variations such as papa, poppop, poppy are more frequent. This is interesting to us as we have not initiated it. Perhaps a linguist or two can help us out with this when we meet up with them later in the month.

Sunday at the park















Sunday Sarah stayed home while the rest of us headed to a local park with a terrific playground for the young set.










Rebecca
















Emma
















Julie - concentrating very hard at climbing onto the airplane ... for the umpteenth time.















It was hot and thirsty at the park, so we chill a bit at home.






Someone, I think Julie, brought her booster seat into the living room ... followed by Emma, then Rebecca. Imitation is the sincerest form

Sunday, April 3, 2011

back again

We arrived in Mauldin Saturday afternoon in time to meet the family at a local restaurant, coordinated by cell phones and the GPS. The girls didn't know we would be there, and there were some puzzled looks when the van doors opened and we popped our heads in to say 'hi'. They soon caught on, and we had a good reunion since our last visit 2 months ago. They had been to the Columbia, SC zoo that day for another excursion.