18 1/2 glorious days together
1 trip to the cemetery
3 or 4 joint baths -- Eva modeled "taking a mermaid" for Bella (lying down on her back and letting her hair spread out like Ariel's, Little Mermaid theme song being sung in the background) and Bella actually did it a few times! Eva got frustrated with not having enough room to spread out her short little legs, but she still wanted to share her baths with Bella. What's a girl to do?
1 girl who was happy almost all of the time and managed to just crack me up.
1 outing to Seven Peaks -- yikes. We could only handle one!
1 water bug that Max caught in the wading pool. He put it into Eva's bug-catcher (favor from Bella's birthday party) and they brought it inside for observation. After 2 days, I announced that we would have to let the water bug go or he would die from lack of food. Eva was devastated that I was getting rid of her pet! I never would have believed that my little bug-o-phobe would want one for a pet!
1 unsuccessful attempt at watching the annual balloon launch. Better luck next year!
Many days of playing in the wading pool that Heidi lent us -- most of the fun seemed to be in scooping the water out and pouring it elsewhere.
A few rare moments of cooperation.
Many, many sparklers.
3 drawings in sidewalk chalk.
2 or 3 attempts at playing Bugdom (the computer game that Eva loves). It just caused too much strife.
1 restaurant game that Lucas made up and played with the girls -- downstairs -- for 2 hours one day (!), allowing us to watch Lars and the Real Girl (our new favorite movie) -- in our jammies, while eating caramel corn. Good times.
3 big containers of bubble stuff.
Only 2 rounds of popsicles! (we tend to forget about them)
3 nights of playing cards. We taught Lucas to play Contract Rummy one night, and then we taught Spades to Max & Lucas another night. It was a huge hit.
Many under-the-table kibbutzes.
Several trips in the van with all of us!
We managed to take a couple photos of the four of us, but it is remarkably hard to get 2 toddlers to look at the camera at the same time, especially without making weird faces.
1 delightfully kid-free day, thanks to Jill
20 trips back and forth to take Lucas to his acting class, and 1 recital at the end attended by: Jessie, Bella, me, Max, Eva, Grandma & Grandpa. Apparently the kid loves acting!
2 very swollen feet. Poor girl!
2 trips to Iceberg and 2 to Cafe Rio
24 layouts completed by The Master
1 maternity photo shoot yesterday morning -- how's that for last minute?
about 30 self-portraits of the two of us...many time-outs (mostly Eva)
countless groans of frustration (mostly me)
innumerable snacks, cartons of yogurt, sandwiches, macaroni & cheese, etc. prepared
And I am anxiously awaiting our next visit... Love you, Jess & Bella! Miss you already.
