Our First Weekend Visitors

Last weekend was a very exciting one for us as we had our first weekend visitors.  Not Gram... she doesn't count... or Uncle Bill, again... doesn't count.  This was not only my visitor, a friend from high school, C, but also her adorable baby boy, Stretchy's first visitor, H.

I admit, I was a bit worried about having TWO babies in my house for 5 days, as sometimes ONE is enough to make me want to pull my hair out.  Half the time we don't get out of the house until 11am, and our schedule is totally unpredictable.  I could only imagine what would happen with TWO unpredictable babies.  Would we ever get to leave the house?  What if one of them cried and woke the other up?  Would Stretchy behave like she does at playgroup and fuss the whole 5 days because someone else was playing with her toys and getting her mom's attention?

BUT, fortunately, I worried for nothing.  It was a FANTASTIC visit.  I think we all had a great time.

C & H arrived late Thursday night.  According to the law of GPS, they had a rough time getting here.  Between countless "recalculating"s and turns onto roads that didn't exist, it was a miracle they arrived at all.  It was right around the time Stretchy would usually eat dinner.  We hadn't even started dinner.  I could see the evening headed downhill, but to start things off on the right foot, since Stretchy had taken a longer than usual nap that afternoon she seemed fine waiting on dinner.  We had the babies in the bath by 8:30 and Stretchy was in bed by 9.  H didn't really want to sleep after napping all day in the car (can you blame him?), but that gave me and C time to hang out with him and gave him lots of time to explore some new toys.

Can I say that two babies in a double sink is just about the cutest thing I've ever seen in my entire life?

Friday morning we got up (H even slept until 8!) and went to swimming lessons.  It was a little more of a hassle getting FOUR people out of the house.  Not to mention that we might have had a slight episode to take care of before we left (have I ever mentioned I have an escape artist cat that likes to get into the garage?)  H had never been in the pool so it was a lot of fun to see him in the water.  As usual, Stretchy loved every minute of it.  

After a nap, we headed downtown for lunch and a walk in the park.  We decided to feed the ducks.  A few weeks ago I'd been to the pond and fed the ducks and the cute little ducklings would waddle close enough to grab some bread and then run back to the mommy duck in the pond.  Well, this time the half-grown ducklings were so brave that the waddled onto our blanket and even managed to nip some poor little baby fingers and toes.  It would have been a video to send into America's Funniest Home Videos had we not been so involved in protecting our babies from being nipped to death, pooped all over, or carried away by some very hungry ducklings.  

We wore those babies out!

Saturday the weather took a turn for the worse, and again, I got worried.  When Stretchy and I have to stay inside all day we both get pretty cranky from a case of cabin fever.  BUT, again, the babies were angels and played nicely together all day and took long naps, which gave us a chance to rest up a bit too!  After another swimming session at the Y, C and I stayed up late chatting.  (Boy, you really feel old when you look at the clock and it's 11:30 and you both look at each other and can't believe you've stayed up SOOO late!)  

Sunday was a lazy day of getting up and hanging around the house.  We decided to go back downtown to re-do the duck feeding and capture the funniest video ever.  The ducklings didn't cooperate though, and this is what we got... 

At least we got to ride the carousel.

The weather turned in the afternoon and Monday morning wasn't much better so there was a lot of playing indoors, but both Stretchy and H seemed to enjoy each other's company and were very well-behaved.  

Not sure what we did for this captive audience

Yum! More please!

Tired of sharing the couch

Guess the feeling was mutual!

It was great having C & H and I think Stretchy misses having a live-in playmate.  Come again soon, guys!

A Busy Week

Once Stretchy and I were both feeling better, we ended up having a pretty busy week.  I think it was really good for us because we'd been stuck in the house like we were quarantined for almost two weeks and cabin fever was starting to drive me a little nuts (and I certainly cannot afford to be more crazy than I already am).

Wednesday my sister arrived to spend part of her vacation with us.  Its always nice to see her and we haven't been home in a while, so it had been too long since we'd seen her last.  Unfortunately, it took Stretchy a while to warm up to her, but soon she had a new favorite play-mate (and I got to take some breaks to finish recovering!)  My mom came too since she's always looking for excuses to come see her favorite person... and her daughter...

We did some shopping and ran some errands.

Are we getting in the car already?

We headed up to Lake George (which was kind of a bust since most things were still closed for the season) and strolled around downtown Saratoga.  And we played with the baby...

It was really nice to see my sister and have company for a while.

They left Friday after Stretchy's first swimming lesson and we had a quiet evening.

Saturday we went up to Lake George again- this time to the Recreation Center where we took a hike in the woods, had a picnic with some friends we met in Germany and their kids.  Bob and the other dad took their bikes out on the trails there while the other mom and I watched the kids on the playground.  Unfortunately, a six-month old can't really play on the playground, but she seemed to have a good time sitting on the picnic table and watching.

Family photo... no, it's not a skirt, the baby's legs were cold- it's a blanket!

Sunday we went to a baby shower and had a BBQ with one of our friends who just moved back from Belgium and will be starting work with Bob soon.

Hanging out with the big kids...

I have to say, after more than a week of doing nothing, we definitely made up for it with everything we did last week!  Today we'll take it easy and enjoy the nice weather!

Here's some cute pictures of Stretchy hanging out on the couch this morning:

Standing and reaching

After falling over

Almost in the crawling position!