Four little ducklings all in a row ... oh no!

Last week Rachel asked if Grandpa Jones and I could relieve her mom of the children for just 3-4 hours on Monday ~ Rachel was going to Chicago (long story) ~ and would we be willing to help? So the four kiddos were dropped off to us at 9:15 a.m. Grandpa and I had a pre-planned strategy ~ Divide and Conquer! So, since Grandpa is SO wonderful with infants, he was assigned to Liam! And then I figured Lottie could hang out with Grandpa as well. It was planned that I would do arts and crafts with Nia and Nathan ... who are much easier ages for me to handle! My plan worked for about the first FIVE minutes!
Baby Liam was very content in Grandpa Jones arms, and I got the stickers and construction paper out for Nia and Nathan ...
Nia was very very GOOD at sticker pictures. She enjoyed it hugely. She is a very serious little person, very meticulous about detail, and she has good dexterity as well.
But Lottie Girl wasn't content to just do baby stuff ...

After playing with her and observing her Monday morning, I have concluded she is next-door to a baby genius. I'm not kidding! No matter what the older two children are doing, she MUST do it too ... and she DOES! So for awhile there, Lottie was sitting on my lap while we were doing our sticker pictures, and she was actually peeling the backs off the stickers! We were playing our beautiful children's music while we were doing our art work, and I got all of our instruments out for the kids to play along.
Nia was especially pleased with this pipe/flute type instrument. She could blow it so that it sounded VERY shrill. Nathan was a bit annoyed with it and TOLD her so!
We attempted to feed them lunch ... but it was pretty hit or miss ... mostly MISS! Nathan was more interested in spinning the Teddy Grahams on our swirly toy, and Nia really really liked that shrill pipe! I think she quite enjoyed annoying Nathan!
And not to be left out at all, Lottie picked up that little pipe and blew it like crazy ~ absolutely delighted with the music she could produce!
Nia got out the letter blocks and REFUSED to share with Lottie ... "NO NO LOTTIE! Go away!"
Nia was not about to have her block tower destroyed by her younger sister! So ... it was time to distract Lottie with ... other toys! We have a sufficient amount of them around here!
Liam and Grandpa Jones were busy consuming goat milk (!) ~ Liam is allergic to everything else! So they were occupied in another room, and then Liam had an upset stomach and needed Grandpa's comforting and warm arms around him ...
I kept up pretty good with Lottie and Nia ... Nathan was off in another room doing ... who knows? He seemed to be quite content to be somewhere OTHER than where his sisters were playing!
Nia finally did share the blocks with Lottie, and for awhile, they even sat on the kitchen floor and babbled between them about this and that ...
Lottie has a pretty good reach ... so I had to be careful to ... keep her safe!
The three hours raced by ... chaos was most everywhere ... but we managed to ... survive!
And the children survived too! Amazing! It's a busy little bunch ... all of them beautiful and healthy and smart ... and did I mention ... exhausting? Granny McNeil retrieved them (all in one piece) exactly at 12:15!

I'll try to show you some pictures of the one-on-one we got to have with Nathan for a little while on Tuesday ... I'm a little bit behind on posting pictures ... I'll try to catch up!