Hadley and Baby Cousin....

This week my niece, Hadley, has been visiting and we have been playing non-stop. Hadley calls Analayne, baby cousin. She calls Russ, Uncle Bus and me, Aunt Lee-Lee. It is so sweet and we just love it! Analayne and Hadley are so very sweet together and they play really well together, with only the occasional "tiff" over who gets what (but the art of distraction works well with both of them so one of us can generally help diffuse the "give it to me now" situation). Every time Analayne sees an airplane in the sky she says, "airplane...Hadley" (which means Analayne or Hadley must get on an airplane in order to get to see each other). Analayne also really enjoys calling Hadley and Aunt Candace (Chad, she loves you too...but your usually at work and you don't talk a whole lot). Well, this week we were eating dinner and the girls had finished up and had moved on to playing in the family room. We could see them from the kitchen and they had discovered a drawer full of papers and pencils and pens and random other non-harmful objects. They loved discovering all that the drawer had inside and we could hear them talking to each other and playing cooperatively. We don't think they really knew we were watching and Poppa was able to capture the moment with these awesome pictures!

The Wonder Horse Lives On

I am sure you are familier with the Wonder Horse spring ride-on toy if you were a child in the 70's or were raising a child in the 70's. I know many households had this amazing bouncing horse and you can probably still hear the springs making that sound (ee-eee,eehhhh, ee-ee, ehhh). Guess what? My parents kept our wonder horse! Yes, for 30 years this horse has been a part of the family and now there are two little girls who get to enjoy riding the wonder horse when they visit Mimi and Poppa's house. It is one of the favorites for Analayne and she puts all of her energy and spunk into her wonder horse adventures. Take notice that the springs have now been covered with a foam tube to ensure that any little fingers do not get pinched (the 8 years as an ER child life specialist forced me to caution Poppa and prompt him to help ensure safety). On the other hand, its probably one the safest toys around because it was probably made in the USA and does not have lead paint and I don't have to worry about some small part containing the date rape drug if its ingested!