auntie suz saves the weekend

this past weekend, bill was on call. I dread these weekends as they are super busy for bill and very boring for me and the kids. thankfully, suzanne volunteered to drive up from chicago to see the kids and hang out with me for the weekend. it was wonderful!

friday after sbs, auntie suz arrived. hip hip horray! can you tell all the kids are post nap here?

auntie suz did lots of book reading with charlie.

working on his smile.

suzanne and I went to gap late friday night and scored some great sale deals. so the kids got to open gifts from auntie suz saturday morning.

charlie was so excited to open his. of course he thought it was a car. to my dismay, he was a bit disappointed with a curious george shirt. I loved it!

sportin the shirt over his pjs.

the girls got the cutest headbands. here is ellie and her Godmother – suz.

claire whipped hers off so fast!

I know this is out of focus, but it still cute to see claire’s reaction in the mirror.

the best we could do with both of them keeping the headbands on.

saturday morning we went to the new children’s museum in rochester. it was raining so it was a perfect day for it and it wasn’t too crazy busy. I was glad to have suzanne there to help corral the kids. it is small, which is actually kind of nice when you have little kids.

charlie loved the building cars and racing them section. he was here most of the time.

the girls were content at any of the ball stations. and there were lots of them.

auntie suz helping charlie build yet another car.

chewing on everything.

lastly, on saturday night charlie and claire were playing this beezer bonking game. claire was loving it even though I am sure it hurt a bit. when they were done playing her head had red marks all over it. you may not be able to tell but she was covered! she was irritated in this picture because we had broken up the game.

wanting more beezer bonks!

so of course charlie agreed.

more bonk marks. we had to put a stop to it because I thought for sure it was going to get too rough at some point.

still happy as ever.

sunday was a more low key day with suzanne helping me as I had a few things I had to be at. thanks auntie suz for coming and helping out this weekend! it was so much fun to spend time together – even though it was a bit crazy sometimes. I think suzanne had a great time, but was extremely grateful to go back to her quiet, less exhausting life for awhile. don’t worry though because we will all be together again in 2 weeks in Florida! Can’t wait!

the newest entertainment

so here is the chair that ellie and claire are obsessed with. ellie climbed up first.

then claire decided to join in the fun. at first ellie was slapping her in the face, but it didn’t stop her.

then ellie decided to give claire a little help. she pulled her right on. it was hysterical.

after that help from ellie. claire decided to start pulling and playing with her hair. thankfully, ellie thought it was funny.

loving this new play area. claire would not take her eyes off phonics farm (this was right before nap).

claire being giddy.

claire was leaning her head into ellie to “hug” her. so sweet!

claire likes to experiment with her legs in different climbing spots. she is always hoping for a little higher perch.

thankfully claire is a pretty good climber so she can exit the chair in a pretty safe fashion. ellie, on the other hand, is dangerous! here is claire’s exit. check out that flexibility!

some other new things are: one afternoon when playing on the deck, I found claire standing on top of our lightning mcqueen “cozy coupe” type car squealing. super dangerous – on a moving car, on a wooden deck…

I put claire down for nap first today so I stuck ellie in the office (the only time I still use that thing). when I came back out she was sitting on the floor outside of the office. I asked charlie how she got out and he said she just grabbed on and pulled herself out. I wish these girls weighed a bit more – they wouldn’t be able to pull themselves into so many different and fun places. guess the office needs to be retired. so much for being contained.

charlie’s latest shots

charlie is continuing to take pictures of things and gets really frustrated with the camera when it runs out of memory space quickly (which happens often) or messing up the zoom. I still can’t believe the camera works to be honest. either way it is sweet to see how excited he gets when he checks out the pictures he has taken. here are some of his best shots.

clutch aid and finn mcmissile.

lewis close up.

chick hicks. this also shows how aggressive chick hicks is.

charlie wanted to take some pictures of his sisters. here is claire. it looks like she is smiling for him. I am amazed they sat still for his pictures and that he almost got them in focus.

this one of ellie is awesome.

this proves he was taking these pictures.

claire’s newest spot

since I am now turning the highchair sideways so she can’t climb up that she has found her way up on the chairs even though they are tucked under the table. this is a problem because once she is under the table she doesn’t know where to go. she is trying to figure out how to sneak up and get on top of the table. hopefully I can prevent this from happening.

here she is trying to figure out she is stuck.

so delighted with herself.

the biggest concern for me is that she can climb up on these chairs quickly and the end chairs can’t tuck under the table so she can climb up on those and then stand up and either tip the chair over or get on the table. I might have to remove most of the chairs for awhile.

this poor girl just wants to climb constantly. I might need to find her and ellie a climbing class for the fall.

another visit from the gunderson girls

last week, my friend kate drove down from woodbury with her twin girls – eva & elise. charlie has a special love for these two girls and it is so sweet to see. this time the girls were a little more shy around charlie, but he still continued to try to hug, kiss, and help them – even though it scared them a bit. pretty funny to watch. we didn’t have much time to take pictures with 5 kids under 3 (even crazier – 4 of the kids were under 16 months).

here are the 4 girls cruising around.

we attempted to take a kid picture. here are the “best” shots. pretty funny huh?!?!

eva, elise, charlie, eleanore, claire

charlie was trying his best to holding his elise and ellie together.

they had had enough.

it was a fun, crazy day and I can’t wait until our next playdate!

birthday dinner dates

last night we celebrated kerri’s birthday at city café. thankfully beth had her camera and so we could snap a shot of us sans kids, which rarely happens. as we were laughing and enjoying dinner and for some - drinks (a delicious mojito for me), I looked around and was so thankful for what an amazing group of women God has provide for me here in rochester.

nicole, julia, becca, beth, kerri, me and rachel.

I love these ladies (and many many more not pictured). I can’t even think about when we won’t be seeing each other regularly for playdates, bible studies, workouts and  dinners. but hopefully that will only mean we get to meet up, sans kids, for fun weekends – right???

silly ellie

here are some pictures of ellie cracking herself up. when we had bill’s mini birthday party she had a blast with the balloons. thankfully none of them broke on her.

she would chomp down her little chompers.

then she would pull back.

then she would let go. spit would go flying. and she would giggle giggle and giggle. it was the cutest thing.

and more giggling. she did this forever.

ellie also loves to climb up and check out claire if claire is still eating and she is done.

happy sisters.

the girls were driving me crazy the other afternoon so I took the highchair off of the big chair and let them climb around. they had a blast.

claire hanging out.

ellie.

doing her squinty eyes.

the other night we were facetiming with my parents from mexico and ellie always does her squinty eyes smile when she facetimes. I was cracking up.

this is another squinty eyed shot. I love this!

she cracks me up! we love you ellie.