Friday with the Pahmans

Would you like to hear about our time visiting with Grandpa Pahman,

Uncle Shane, Uncle Dylan, and the grandchildren on Friday?

I picked up the grandchildren from the Hands' at 3:00 in the afternoon.

The back seat of my Kia Rio was wall-to-wall

toddler car seats (2)

and one booster seat for Emma in-between ...

it was a tight squeeze!

I announced there were just two rules:

(1) Hands must be folded and in each lap, and

(2) Talking should be with quiet voices instead of loud voices

I turned on a CD of children's music, and we sang

all the way to Grandpa Pahman's apartment.

Grandpa Pahman had lots of nice toys for the grandchildren

to play with ...

It was nice to see Uncle Shane again after so long ...
And Uncle Dylan joined us too!
We played for awhile and then we ordered pizza ... yum!

Since it was such a warm and pleasant evening,

we drove to a playground at a park about a mile away ... and set the kids loose to run, climb, swing, play, jump

and try to run off that caffeine they drank at dinner time ...

Everyone had a great time ...
we had the entire playground to ourselves!Here's Emma (above) ascending the tallest tube slide.
We found that it had a neat echo
so that if one of us yelled into it at the bottom,
the child at the top could answer back
and our voices would collide and echo!
The kids enjoyed playing with their uncles!
Matthew especially loved the swings ...
Grandpa Pahman was demonstrating to Matthew
the mechanics of pumping with your legs
and pulling with your arms so that you could swing
higher and higher and higher ...

Matthew made a little bit of progress
with pumping his legs, but Christopher
was watching and later was able to get himself pretty high!

Although Chris and Ems preferred swinging on their bellies like
a couple of monkeys ...

Uncle Shane did a lot of pushing and helping out
at the swings ...
And then it was time to say good-bye to
Grandpa Pahman and Shane and drive back
to Grandma Jones' house for a sleep-over. We started our evening with half-showers to get our feet
clean from all that dirt on the playground;
and then we got in our jammies
and watched "The Incredible Journey"
(the talking version with Michael J. Fox doing the voice
of one of the dogs).
This used to be one of their favorite movies to watch
at my house before they moved to Texas.
Emma was SO into the story this time ...
it was cute to watch her loving the little lost animals
and being so happy when they were able to get home
to their family again.

After a small snack, it was bedtime ...
i.e. TROUBLE IN TRIPLICATE!
It was 9:45 ...
the kids had played hard all day ...
they ran and played at the park ...
they were exhausted!

We read two nice stories,
prayed together,
had hugs all around,
and then lights out!

Matthew managed to roll himself
all over the bedroom (practically),
bumping into Emma and Christopher's bedrolls,
kicking his legs against walls, etc.
and talked incessantly until 11:15!

Christopher was pretty quiet,
but it was difficult to sleep with Matthew being so active!
I think Chris was asleep slightly before Matthew ...

Emma was wide awake until at least midnight!
She just could not fall asleep!
However, the first time she ever slept over at my house
she was 15 months old.
Diana was in the hospital birthing Christopher
and Emma spent the night with us ...
She didn't fall asleep that entire night!
We watched "The Sound of Music" almost three times!
At 8:00 in the morning, she fell asleep on the couch!

At 4:30, Christopher woke up because he wanted me
to "put the cat out" of the room.
I showed him that Thomas K was not in the room!
Chris stayed awake until 6:00
and then fell back to sleep.

Emma woke up at 6:30
Matthew at 7:00
Christopher shortly after
And by about 7:45, we decided to give it up and get up!

We woke to a soft morning rain ...
we were all a bit grumpy to start with,
but we decided to try really really hard not to be ...

after all, it was our first Saturday together in a very long time ~
we ended up having a wonderful day!