UEA

Sunny has been here for the past week and we were so glad that her visit happened to fall on UEA weekend so that we had extra days to play! The first day they were here I met her at MarKey's and picked up Hayden. He really wanted to pick Natalee up from school again. Since that night they've stayed up here quite a bit and it's been so fun!

Here they are playing soccer in the backyard. Sunny didn't send a jacket on the first night so he had to wear one of Nat's. They got good use out of the Peruvian hats that Dallas brought too!
Natalee has loved having Hayden stay with us. She loves having a built in playmate to run around the yard with. She's even introduced him to Barbies and he's been nice enough to play them with her. (I think he secretly likes it!)On Thursday we took Natalee, Hayden and Bennett to Chuck E Cheese's to play for a little while. Naturally they had a very fun time.

Hayden and Natalee loved earning tickets, but Bennett's favorite thing was playing a game where you try to catch "popcorn" (ping pong balls) in a basket. He'd say, "I catch-a da popcorn!" About 10 minutes before we left, he noticed some tickets coming out of one of the games. Then he wanted to hold some for himself. So instead of trying to win them, he'd walk from game to game checking the front of the machine. He was kind of disappointed to not find any, but then we got him to play a game and showed him where they came out and then he was happy.

This is what 3 kids crammed into the back seat of my car looks like. Um, yikes!

We finished out the afternoon at a park, where Bennett insisted over and over again that we climb the "mountain" instead of playing on the equipment. We'd get to the top and he'd shout, "I climb-a da mountain!" (I think Bennett is part Italian, as he puts an "A" on the end of words sometimes.) After he'd shout that, he'd say, "OH NO!" and run down the hill and at the bottom he'd say, "Back up the mountain". It was a good way to get them really tired.

*****

On Friday we got together and went to Wheeler Farm. They have cute fall activities for the kids and each one got a pumpkin at the end of the day. Grandma bought them popsicles that turned their mouths a ghostly shade of green and we got a hay ride. All the animals were very active and we saw two chickens perched in a tree. I had no idea chickens could fly that high. The kids had a ball and it was such a pretty day too!

*****

On Saturday there was a Halloween Carnival in my neighborhood. Natalee loves it and was so excited to take her cousins. We had a very nice time and they won some fun little prizes. They loved being able to wear their costumes.

It was such a fun weekend. I was kind of bummed that because of Nathan's work schedule we couldn't go somewhere, but we had all the excitement we needed right here. It's going to be hard to let Sunny go on Sunday since she's been here for so long.