A Glimpse of Our Weekend

Friday was a nice and relaxing day for Ellie and me. The man traipsing around Morgantown was caught at 7:20AM about a mile from Jon's work (I forget if I linked the article for those who care but you can read about the event here). I cleaned up the dishes from our small group snacks after breakfast then played with Ellie. She really enjoys stacking her blocks back into their collapsed form - she definitely prefers this to stacking them on top of each other. I believe she also took a bath. 

Jon came home for lunch and Ellie took a nap. I worked on making another gift for a niece and when she woke up I put the sewing things away and we baked. In the evening we had a fall event for church and I signed up to bring a dessert. I brought a variation of this old-fashioned apple crisp recipe by Ina Garten. One of my friends recommended her recipes. I threw in cranberries and scratched the lemon and orange zest, along with the orange juice. Mimi said it turned out.

My little helper

We dressed warmly and went to the evening of festivities at the Montgomery's house. Mrs. Montgomery, Ruthie Noble, and Katie Hageman graciously offered to watch the children so I didn't have to keep an eye on Ellie after she had eaten her dinner of chili and rice. We stayed past all the other mom's with babies and finally headed home at 9:30. Ellie was pooped.

Saturday morning Jon was up early and off helping Ryan Frey with an electrical project. I slept until Ellie woke me up, around 8:00. We ate breakfast and prepared for the day. At 11:00 we met up with Kelly, Maya, and Mimi at Mr. Frey's house in Elverson for a fair trade event that Mrs. Frey and Mrs. Willis were hosting. They had all sorts of gift-type things such as jewelry, scarves, and bags. Linda Smith was there when we arrived so Ellie and Linda compared hair styles. They are both going with the bold, short look. It works.

Cousins hanging out. Ellie's showing Maya how cell phones work

Since Jon was helping out at Frey's house Tara invited Ellie and I to join us for lunch. She made a delicious chicken salad sandwich and had fruit and chips. Ellie was much more daring with Zoey (their pup) and once ventured close to her when she was sitting on the couch. She was a bit too brave because Zoey jumped up to come say hi and Ellie turned and ran for my legs. Ellie behaved well but was obviously unraveling by the end so I took her home for her nap.

Jon ended up working at Ryan's house past dark. He came back at 5:30 and we ate dinner. I put Ellie to bed at 6:45 then headed to Elverson to help Donna and Jess set up for Brittany's surprised baby shower.  I was home by 9:30 and we did some preparations for church, I made a couple of pinwheels for the party decor, then went to bed.

Sunday morning Ellie slept in until 8:45. That is a wonderful time to wake up, on any day except for Sunday! Jon left before we were ready and dropped off some things for the shower at his Mom's house. I followed after Ellie was dressed and her breakfast packed. I apologized to the nursery for having to feed her but felt pretty pleased since she had such a well-balanced breakfast (a bunch of grapes and a pancake) (yes, that is well-balanced in my book).

I left after the sermon to prepare for the surprise shower. Jess, Donna, and Amanda showed up before the other guests. Brittany came quite a bit after church ended due to some talented stalling techniques and was surprised, which was very exciting. We had lunch, opened gifts, played a game, opened more gifts, then bid the guests good day. You can ask Kelly and Mom what they thought about the shower. It was over by 2:35, which I think isn't bad (she arrived at 12:45).

I didn't take any pictures during the shower but here is some of the setup:

I hung around and helped Donna clean up, leaving her house at 4:00. Jon had been hosting his Dad, brothers, and Owen and Layla while I was gone. Although the company had left a while prior to my arrival, Jon had been entertaining Ellie for an hour and a half and she was being needy. He handed her over declaring his appreciation for staying home for Ellie during the week.

After the shower and company we decided to forego evening prayer at church and spent time as a family at home. Ellie went to bed promptly at 6:28 (somehow 6:30 really couldn't come soon enough) and she was very tired from her long day. Jon and I watched a movie and followed relatively close behind.

Ellieisms:
Ellie was testing me at Mr. Frey's house on Saturday. They have an antique glass case with a brass latch right at Ellie's level. At first I let her touch it but then she started jiggling and wiggling it so I told her no. I would remove her from the location and she would saunter back, put her finger on the latch, and look up at me before jiggling. Oh dear.

 stacking:

collapsing (she shakes her head when she gets it wrong):