Grandma comes to see us

We were blessed with a six day visit from Grandma Lorrie last week. Hope and I were in bed already by the time she got in from the airport, so she had to wait till the next morning to see Hope again! Not that the present was needed for Hope to warm right up to Grandma, but it was sure enjoyed! :o) And what a perfect gift - winter boots for Hope, which she needed. She insisted on having them put on her right away, and had cozy feet all morning long!
Grandma also brought a couple things we'd left in Denver at some point - like this little book Angie had given Hope for Christmas. :o)
A lap for stories! Hurrah!!!
A game of Scrabble with Judy Collier before Judy and Lorrie went out to lunch together. The pink snow pants Hope is wearing she found in a tub downstairs when Lorrie and I were pulling out baby clothes earlier that morning. Hope still had the snow boots on too, so she was roasting, but quite happy. She was a little dopey, so we thought we should relieve her of a layer or two before Grandma left for lunch. :o)
A cute new outfit for Hope from Cheri Hamvas, a friend from Denver. Before naptime that day, Lorrie taught Hope "ladybug" by pointing to the ones on Hope's shirt and in the book. Now, whenever you say "ladybug" to Hope, she starts pointing to her arm, remembering they were on her sleeve!
Hope showing Grandma how she can do her shape ball all by herself now.
Hope's top hair is finally getting long enough to go into piggy tails without also needing clips on the top, which is really nice!
Quenching a thirst after naptime one afternoon. Hope woke up with quite the fuzz head look that day! :o)
Building Duplo towers all by herself now.
And quite happily too!
Hope "helping" Grandma peel oranges for breakfast on Sunday.
And having fun with it - the best part.
Sunday afternoon after church. Toting her full toy basket around was quite entertaining for us to watch. Just love the adorable jumper Lorrie brought for Hope from Denver.
"A brilliant idea - I'll push it instead!!!"
"Head down, grunt, grunt, this is hard work, guys!"
A game of Ticket to Ride with Mom, a first for us to play with her. :o)
And... this is Hope's way of telling you she has a dirty diaper. One day she'll learn to sit on the potty without crying... hopefully soon!

It was lovely to have Grandma Lorrie here with us for a while, though the time went by sooo fast! We did make it out to Tim Horton's for coffee the morning she left, which is a nice little thing she and I try and do together when she's here. We are so blessed. :o) Looking forward to the next time we can be together.

Those Pink-Striped Overalls

Seems like I just did a blog post, though looking at the date on my last one tells me it's been a while longer than "just." :o)

We've been looking forward to a visit from Lorrie for a few weeks now. Here's a few pictures from our day-to-day life the day before Lorrie came.

Hope likes the salt and pepper grinders - both playing with them, and having us put S/P on her food whenever we put it on ours. :o) She was sitting still after breakfast this day, just playing with the salt shaker on the chair while I did the dishes. :o)
Monday's are laundry day for us, and basket-pushing is Hope's most newly discovered way of helping.
It's actually great, because I'm usually a little winded when I get to the top of the stairs with a full basket these days, so I just plop it down on the floor and ask Hope to push it down the hall for me. :o)
Josh has several evening commitments each week, so having him to ourselves for a long devotion time is a real treat for Hopey and I. :o) As you can see, Hope enjoys the recliner in many ways.
He was teaching her how to climb up on her own, and kept inching the chair higher and higher till she couldn't do it herself anymore. :o) Here she's trying to sit herself up from between Daddy's legs. Her expressions crack me up!
"Ah-ha-haaa! I got up! Now watch me get down!"
Encountered Daddy's feet at the end of the chair and decided to hang out there for a while.
She's the best entertainment there is!
Scheming....
Singing - "lo-lo-lo-a-lo."
And after Bible reading, a Peter Rabbit tale for Hope. Josh was trying to keep Hope from turning the pages so fast so he could actually read the story to her!
Focused and finally getting sleepy. :o)

A week in the life

Thanksgiving weekend started off with having some new friends, Ben and Jenna and their little girl, Tallulah, over for dinner on Saturday night. I heard a very lively story being told to two little girls, and popped my head into the living room to see if it could be that Hope was actually sitting on someone else's lap, and sure enough - she was! Of course, Ben was making up a new story to go with the pictures. :o) I recall loving it when Dad would do that when we were kids!

Hope and Tallulah are just a couple months apart in age, and Ben and Jenna are expecting their second baby, just like we are. It was a special time together of hearing each others stories, and trying to teach the girls to share the toys!
For Thanksgiving dinner, we were invited over to Mike and Karina Ardron's. Hope loved all baby Hudson's toys, and was quite happy to just be around Hudson too. :o) At 6 months old, Hudson only weighs one pound less than Hope does right now! He's such a content little tot, and specially loved by this family, being ten years younger than his next oldest sibling. :o)
More of the Ardron's, and the amazing feast they had prepared. We ate till we were full or more than full, then had a long visit before dessert. When we left they blessed us with a whole box full of leftovers, which was such a blessing to have for this week!
Monday: Hope and her book with the extra-pretty pictures.
For some reason she almost always looks at books upside-down. Hmm....
Hope and I set out to make a big batch of pumpkin bread that morning. After supper Monday night, Josh loaded up the stroller with Hope and 9 loaves, and we went around to wish our neighbours a Happy Thanksgiving.
She's really into doing it by hand these days. :o) I had to carefully sort through the bowl before adding the liquid to make sure I retrieved all the measuring spoons she had buried in there.
Tuesday was a beautifully sunny day, and after Mom's and Tot's in the morning, and scrambled eggs and pancakes for lunch, Hope and I got ready for a walk. I was still hungry so I thought I'd eat an apple on the walk. I gave it to Hope so she could hold it while I got my shoes on or something, and I never got it back! She did let me have a few bites though! Soooo glad she's getting interested in more foods these days.
Still grinning over the fact that she has Mommy's apple.
"Hooooottttt" - the word for all extremes. The metal shaft was cold, not hot, but I knew what she meant.
There's a lot of construction nearby where we walk, as the city is putting in a new park. Hope hears the big trucks and tractors while we walk, so this day we walked to the end of a little sidewalk so she could watch the tractors working. She was fascinated. :o)
Perched on her Pansy stool and enjoying water from her new cup. With Josh's approval, I ordered some good Tupperware cups for us, as the cheap plastic ones we had were wearing out, and you sure can't have just glass when you're raising little ones! We like the Tupperware cups very much.

And so, that's our week in review. Tomorrow is Josh's first Sunday playing violin with the worship team at church. It's so exciting for us me to see this opportunity God has brought into this season of our lives. May our hands bring glory to the King, be they holding a violin or a little girl. :o)

At home with Hope, Vol X

Just a few smiles for Papa, Granny, and Grandma on Thanksgiving Monday! For some reason, I hardly took pictures this last week, but here's the few I did take. :o) Hope likes rolling the Boccee balls around on the deck like she's bowling.
She especially likes the little one.
We rolled them off the deck to see if she would go get them. :o)
And she did, at least a couple of them.
This was Sunday supper last week at Moxie's. We were hungry, and Moxie's sounded good. Hope liked the ice water and her very own straw.
She also had a blast building towers out of the creamers.
Or, she at least liked knocking over the towers I built for her.
"And now, ladies and gentlemen, for my next performance we shall observe what happens when two creamers are smashed into each other by my little hands!" (Just kidding, no explosions happened, the picture just looked like it needed a caption like that!)
She discovered if she dipped her straw into the water and brought it out carefully, that there was always one drop of water on the end -
which drop she removed from the straw with her other hand. It was amazing to watch her concentration and coordination in her effort to get that one drop!