Husband is in the last big push to finish his dissertation so me and the girls are trying to give him as much space and time as we can. Since he still has to work full time, this means we try to give him evenings and weekends to himself. So last weekend, we decided to go play at Grammy's house while he played student.
We drove up Thursday evening and did some errands and shopping on the way. We met Grammy and Papa for dinner and then played at their house for the evening. Since Butterfly didn't have preschool on Friday and all schools we canceled on Monday, it was a wonderfully long weekend with lots of time to play. On Friday, we had a long playdate with their cousins. We showed up just before noon and didn't leave until nine. The girls played with their cousins (they have three girls as well, spaced just as close as our girls) and ran around like crazy people to check out all the fun toys. The favorite was the cardboard castle my brother made for his girls. It's approximately 6 feet by 8 feet big, made of several large packing boxes complete with towers and a drawbridge and is perfect for our little girls. They played dress ups and kitchen and took dollies on walks and watched movies while I got to lounge around chatting with my sister in law as we cuddled our little babies. It was a pretty ideal day.
On Saturday, we spent the morning playing at Grammy's house. We talked my little sister into playing wii games with us (not that it took much convincing, it's just rare that we get to play with her) and the girls loved it. Butterfly was eager to play with us but Ladybug lost interest quickly. But she loves her auntie so she would wander from auntie's lap over to the toys and back again and again. In the afternoon, we returned to the cousin's house, left the two big girls to play with their two big girls while the moms went shopping with Grammy. I love shopping for my girls, hate shopping for myself (their clothes are much cuter and much more likely to fit), but it was long over due. So we wandered the racks together, picking out candidates and then staging our own little fashion show in the dressing room. Grammy sat on the floor with the "twins" while me and my sister in law tried on clothes. (Eventually we did make it to the kids department and that was way more fun. That doesn't involve my ego slowly deflating like a balloon with a pin sized hole.) After our shopping excursion we had a lazy evening of movies and pizza.
Sunday morning was a chaotic blitz as we readied for church. Butterfly wandered happily into her primary class without any hesitation but the reluctant Ladybug ended up attending Relief Society with us. Fortunately, she played quietly with her books or with my phone during the first class. For the second hour, Papa joined us for Sunday School and she was thrilled to see him. Then, in an unusually friendly mood, she decided to wander. She snuck out of my reach and into the row in front of us, climbed up on a gentleman's lap and impishly asked him to read to her. (he turned out to be their stake president and an experienced grandpa so he was happy to comply). Then she abruptly abandoned him for another gentleman (a family friend sitting by us) and repeated her routine. Fortunately, she was charming and quiet and we made it through class without being too much of a distraction.
After church, we put the girls down for naps and some surprise visitors arrived at my parents' house--my aunt and uncle that I rarely get to see. So we sacrificed our naptime to enjoy and visit with them and then spent the evening playing with the girls, watching movies and feasting on Grammy's cooking. Each evening after the girls were in bed, my parents and I would sit at the table and play cards for an hour (usually waiting for AngelBaby to fall asleep). That was one of my favorite parts of the weekend as I miss getting to play games like that or just spend time talking to them without small children needing all of our attention.
We spent Monday taking down the Christmas decorations and much to Butterfly's dismay, dismantled the tree. ("Papa taking my Christmas away!") We weren't sure we were going to stay so long (three kids wear me out so fast, I worry about wearing out our welcome) but in the end it was a wonderful way to spend the day(/weekend), watching movies, playing with toys, visiting other family and hopefully being a little bit helpful.
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