Mountz Memoirs: Clark Comes Over to Play

At the end of the year Jon always seems to have extra vacation days he needs to use up from work. This year is no exception. He decided to take a half day this afternoon. But first he started the day with his run in French Creek while I was woken up at 6:00 after Ellie slept seven and a half hours straight. She's growing up!
During the morning she seemed a bit off, though. She was harder for me to read and actually fussed once or twice for no obvious reason - quite untypical. But we survived. We spent some time dusting, sewing, and cleaning up. Jon came home and completed a list of tasks he had made up including mowing, putting lights on our outside tree, moving some boxes to the attic, and working on the trim in the bathroom.
Kelly was having company over this evening so I offered that she could drop Clark over here to hang out with me and Ellie in the afternoon. She decided that it would be nice to be baby free for a bit so he came over around 3:00. Clark was not happy when Kelly left so we took a walk down the basement up through the basement exterior steps back inside through the kitchen door. He stopped crying when we were in the basement watching Jon set up a fire in the fireplace.
Ellie had woken up right when Clark arrived so the three of us wrapped some gifts, watched cars drive by, and played with this random shoe car toy that was given to me. Clark was very pleasant and seemed comfortable walking all around. He took on the task of closing all of the doors in the house. He stayed busy! When Clark was helping me wrap gifts he never tried to unwrap them. I'm sure he doesn't remember unwrapping gifts ever and after Christmas he will know exactly what to do. Instead he worked on trying to write names on the gifts since he was watching me do that. We had a cookie and an apple as a snack. I actually started with the cookie and then decided to bring out the apple to help him forget about the cookies - didn't want to spoil his appetite. Ha. While we were eating Jon was in the kitchen and Clark kept a good three foot radius away from Jon. Josh came by on his way home from work to pick Clark up. The minute Clark saw his father he started crying. Don't try to pull the wool over our eyes, boy. We know you had fun.
I made a salad and wrapped two white elephant gifts for our activity this evening. Jon had asked his parents to watch Ellie while we went to a Christmas party at the house of Paul and Sarah Rus, who are in our small group. They had invited friends and family and we were the only friends from CEFC who could make it. They had made roast and egg noodles for dinner and everyone else brought sides or dessert. During the course of the evening Jon found out that her parents (he was talking to her mom) were missionaries in Mexico for 4 years and new the Pucketts. They were even sent by the same missions agency as Jon. Small world.
After the white elephant Jon called to check in on Ellie and we found out that she was having a hard night. So we said our goodbyes and heading over to relieve Nana, Poppop, and Omar. When we arrived she was crying in poor Omar's arms. Although she may not have seemed appreciative, I'm sure she loved hanging out in Elverson.