Keeping Busy

This past week Vince went to Minnesota to celebrate his grandmother's 90th Birthday. I was not looking forward to him being gone, so I kept myself and the boys busy.  Very busy, in fact. Here's a few of the things we did...

We went shopping and then had dinner at Paradise Bakery with my Mom (aka Grandma H.). When we were done having dinner and walking to the car, we saw the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile.  If you look closely, you'll notice that Grafton is trying to open the door!

The next day I took Grafton to get his haircut.  It had been almost two months since his last one and was desperately needed.

We went straight from Snip Its to the mall to have lunch and play. We usually go to the play-place outside, but Grafton wanted to play with the train set at Barnes and Noble.

This is the self-portrait I took of Deklan and myself at Barnes and Noble.  I had to get in a picture somehow!

After our day of haircuts, lunch, and playing at the mall, my sister and her son came over to visit and eat pizza.  I decided to trust Grafton with markers again and then he and his cousin drew beards on their faces.... Will I ever learn?

The next morning I took the boys to our play-group.  Deklan is such a content baby that he was happy sitting in this exer-saucer most of the time.  Grafton spent the morning eating donuts, building towers, playing with trains, and drawing on a chalk-board.

The weather was so beautiful in the afternoon that once the boys woke up from their naps, I took them to the park in our neighborhood.  When we got there it was empty, but a few minutes later some of the neighborhood kids came.  Two of the girls kept telling me that Grafton was "so cute".  They were both five-years-old, and now Grafton keeps telling me that he's five too.

On our last morning without Vince, the boys and I went to a birthday party and Grafton decided to have a fish painted on his cheek.  He liked it so much that he ended up having an ice-cream cone painted on his left arm and a snowman painted on his right arm.  I hope this doesn't mean he's going to love tattoos when he gets older.

After four days of Vince being gone, we were so happy to have him home!  He brought Grafton the crayon you see in his hand.  It looks like a stick, but has a brown crayon in the middle.

I hope it's a while before Vince has to go out of town again.  Staying busy helped, but the house feels lonely without him!