Warm & Sunny Days

Thursday Ellie and I had another slow morning as we wrote up a grocery list and cleaned the house for our company coming over on Friday. Around 11:00 we went out to Shady Maple for our various items for Friday dinner. At Shady we saw people from church who we don't normally see apart form church, which is always fun! Ellie loves the grocery store because there is so much auction to watch. While I was chatting she was intently watching a man unload onions. We tried to get her attention but her eyes were glued on watching him work.
We came home and Ellie fell asleep in the car. I transfered her to the crib and finished cleaning up the house (bathroom, kitchen floor, etc) until she woke up three hours later. We played until 5:00 when we went to Jon's work to see his project for Bue Sky Days.
Once a year Iron Mountains has a competition where everyone can come up with their own new or improved idea for a baby product. Kelly came up with the idea of a remote controlled bouncer seat and Jon was challenged to make it happen. We went to his work to see the project and pick him up for our family night out.
Every few months we try to visit Jon's Grandpop in West Chester. He lives in an apartment in center city and we arrived shortly after dinner. Ellie behaved and passed the time sitting in his recliner, reading her books, and playing with the plastic blocks toy the Fentons gave her for her birthday. At the evening Grandpop even held her for a bit.

We headed home when she was starting to fuss and popped by Chickfila for dinner. Ellie was too tired to eat chicken but she had eaten her dinner before we left. She chatted and drank milk on the way home and went right to sleep once she got into her crib.

Friday morning Ellie and I were invited by Katie and Wyeth to get together at Livingood for a bit. We arrived at 9:00 and really enjoyed the beautiful weather in the empty park. Although Ellie and Wyeth were both a bit cranky but they held it together well and played nicely. They did push each other around a bit especially with the steering wheels but nobody was injured.
We were sitting in the grass for a change (from the mulch) and Ellie crawled over to the bottom of the slide and started crawling up it. Fortunately her slippery pants didn't allow her to climb very far.

Katie had to head home at 11:00 to start work soon so Ellie and I drove home a long route and hit up a couple yardsales. We didn't have any success finding what I needed (dresser/chests for storage) and we made it home before noon and Ellie fell asleep.
I relaxed a bit since I had done my cleaning yesterday then spent time organizing my fabric and craft stuff in the basement. I vacuumed down there (for the first time, thanks to Jon doing it regularly) and after Ellie woke up we started preparing dinner.
At 5:30 Jon came home and his coworker JP (Jonathan Pacella - they have so many Jonathan's at work that he goes by his initials) and his family came shortly thereafter. I was still preparing the chili and cornbread but they were very patient. They have four kids, two biological and two adopted, three boys and one girl, ages 7, 7, 5, and 4. The adopted kids have just been adopted this past year but they were all very well behaved and Jon and I really enjoyed our time with their family. They are a vegetarian family and the little girl (age 5) has to eat gluten free so I went with vegetarian chili and gluten free corn bread. I had cheese, sour cream, Fritos, and rice to go with the chili and I heard the little girl (Addy) ask "are the chips gluten free?" (they were) Poor little thing! I would hate to be worried about eating, especially at such a young age. JP made a delicious Italian Love Cake for dessert. Following dinner the kids played Kinect in the basement and they left around 8:30 to head back home to Downingtown. I felt bad they had to travel so far (I had no idea where they lived when I invited them).
The nice part about having company with young kids is that when they leave early we have enough time to do all the dishes and watch a movie before bed! I had put Ellie to sleep right after dinner and before dessert so she was out of the picture. I also spent some time ironing the clothes and figuring out what I needed to bring to Ellie's photo shoot with Ben on Saturday morning.

Practicing for Saturday morning's pictures

Ellieisms:
Ellie does a weird Mowgli-like crawl when she's wearing dresses and can't crawl like a normal baby.