Memories

Adam had a dental conference in Philadelphia last week and we all packed up and went with him!  My mother's mother and sister live about half an hour from downtown Philly, so we took the opportunity to visit with them.  We stayed with my Aunt Candie and Uncle Jim, who, as I've mentioned before, are so wonderfully kind and thoughtful.  They spoil us every time we are with them!  We had lots of adventures and made many great memories.

Great Grandmom Ruth loves babies, and Peter loved her.

Abigail read Great Grandmom some books.

Uncle Jim and Aunt Candie planned a scavenger hunt for the children with plastic eggs, little animals, and snacks.  Here they are getting their instructions...

...hunting...

...and finding!

Noah likes Uncle Jim. :)

Having a chat with Great Grandmom.

Aunt Candie helping Esther and Joseph check off things on their list.

Great Grandmom got to feed Peter his first ever taste of real food...avocado!

We went to Philadelphia one day and the visitor center had a book and sort of a scavenger hunt for children.  Uncle Jim is helping Noah draw the Liberty Bell here.  

Apparently Peter is not too impressed with the Liberty Bell!  

Here we are at Independence Hall in the room where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed.  (Joseph is missing because he stayed back at the house with Aunt Candie.  It was a long day and he would not have had such a good time, especially considering he would have missed his nap.)  

Uncle Jim with the 5 bigs. 

We took a day and drove to Lancaster, PA as well...Amish country!  We stopped at a park and ate lunch, and when we got Joseph out of the van his arms, hands, and face were covered in green marker! He had gotten hold of one of the older children's activity bag and colored all over himself.  It was washable marker, but we still had a really hard time getting it off of his skin.  

Me and my man. :)  We don't get many pictures of just the two of us.  

Adam bought each of the girls a bonnet. :)

Aunt Candie bought some cookies from an Amish bakery.

Sweet Abigail

Petting the miniature horses.

We went to a working farm and the children got to hold rabbits...

...and bunnies...

...and feed the calves!

Relaxing under a big tree.

Swinging by the barn.

More relaxation. :)

My silly Bean.  He keeps me on my toes. :)

Funny little Joseph.

Peter and I had lunch with Great Grandmom one day.  Peter has had some feeding issues, but when he is full he is so contented.  He got sleepy during lunch, so he snuggled up with the nursing cover and stuck his fingers in his mouth.

"Hey!  Who just took my picture!?!"

A couple minutes later he was gone!  Peter is not our first baby to fall asleep in the Bumbo.  Noah did it a few years back as well.

We spent the night in Virginia on the way up, but on the way back we did not make a reservation.  We planned to drive as far as we could and just get a hotel when we were ready to stop.  The children did wonderfully, especially Peter.  He cried for a total of about 10 minutes the whole way back.  Since they were doing so well, we just kept trucking and made it home in one day!  It was about 15 hours with stops.  That's probably not something we would ever plan to do, but it worked out this time and we were thankful to get home and have a day to unpack and recover before Adam went back to work.