Hanging out with Brendan ...

Wednesdays are becoming favorite days of mine! We're hopefully starting a habit of hanging out together ... baby B and Grandma! Kelly has had a busy few weeks with birthing activities (!), and Brendan really misses his mama when she is gone. Yesterday, when Kelly was trying to recuperate from a 40+ hour birth, Brendan was so ecstatic to be with her once again that he didn't nap ALL day!

I think he was a bit tuckered out during his playtime with me today ... but we still managed to have fun. That's because this little fellow has a TON of personality ... 

I love this expression on his cute little face! I think he is saying that he is VERY pleased with his brand new (dollar store) crazy-straw cup!

Nothing like cucumbers and grapes
for a nice, healthy snack.

And I love it when he puts his hands behind his head - like he is SO relaxed and happy! 

 Brendan likes my wicker rocking chair very much..

Spinning parts ...
Brendan is fascinated with anything that SPINS

We had a fun play date today, and managed to get three loads of laundry washed, dried and folded too! And Kelly joined us for a yummy lunch ... a true bonus on such a happy day!

Bad photography day ... Saturday's Halloween school festival

I was so glad to be invited to the kiddos' Halloween school festival Saturday afternoon. We met Jesse, Diana and baby Kaity over at the school ...

The party was INSIDE. And there were huge crowds of children and parents and grandparents. And I evidently had my camera set on the WRONG setting, because most of the pictures are blurry and the color is terrible. I am very disappointed in them. However, I've never ever been good at indoor photography. I just never seem to get it right! And I'm not crazy about crowds either!

But the festival was fun. There were all kinds of games: bowling, sack races, golf, pin-the-tail-on-the- skeleton (!), etc. with candy and other goodies as prizes. There was a fellow there making animal balloons too. Christopher got a tiger, Emma ordered up a pink panther (because she was demonstrating school spirit, i.e. the Comstock Park Panthers), and Matthew had the man make him a turtle. 

An extra special treat for me was seeing and spending a little bit of time with Kaitlynn. I don't see enough of her. She was wearing her cute bunny hat to keep her ears warm ... it was a COLD afternoon here in West Michigan! I wish I could show you more pictures of this sweet baby, but the other ones are not good! I'm thankful these two turned out!

A pleasant visit to Schwallier's ...

Kelly and I were chatting last week and she mentioned that she had taken baby Brendan to a cute place with little goats and bunnies ... a place over on Alpine Avenue! I had never known of any place like she was describing in that location, so I got more information from her and decided that the kiddos and I simply MUST visit Schwallier's Country Basket!

Schwallier's is on the Northwest Corner of 9 mile and Alpine ... very easy to find ... and NO admission fee! Friday afternoon, immediately after picking the grandchildren up from Diana, we headed over to check it out.

These baby goats were so cute!

We walked inside the main building and were handed a free apple! We actually would have preferred a free donut, but received the apples with a smile anyway, and then purchased our donuts at the counter. 

Emma, Chris and Matthew are very good with animals of all kinds. There was quite a crowd of kids in the bunny pen, so we didn't stay there very long. Christopher at least got to pet this nice brown rabbit, but then something else caught their eye ... this very fun slide!

I think we spent a solid HOUR going down this slide. I didn't try it myself (!), but the kids told me it was very slippery and super fast. They have so much energy, these three! I was glad to see them running and playing and cracking up together. 

Emma and Matthew

 There was a coup of chickens and roosters as well, all strutting their stuff. We watched them for awhile and talked their kind of talk too ... cluck-cluck-cluck!

Emma and I strolled through the orchard quickly and Emma found an apple that she decided to feed to the goats ... 

The goat area was really really fun. I took lots of pictures here to demonstrate how the children were able to put feed into the tin basket and then wheel it on up to the top so that the goats could eat ... 

We did this over and over and over again ... mostly using the seed that had fallen on the ground, rather than spend 25 cents for a small handful of seed each and every time ... 

I'm so glad Kelly told me about this place! I never even knew it was here! The grandchildren were very appreciative of being able to experience the animals, the slide, and the great outdoors. 

Matchbox cars and other fun stuff ...

Baby Brendan came over for a visit this morning. Kelly had some errands to run, so I got to play with my little fellow for a few hours today. For the most part, we stayed inside where it was toasty warm ...

But Brendan loves to be outside too, and the cold doesn't bother him one single bit. So we took a little walk around the block ... 

When we got back to the house, Brendan thought it would be a good idea to get inside my car and play there for a little while, but I turned him down! I scooped him up and we headed back inside to play. 

Brendan, enjoying a little snack of
apples, cucumbers and ... crackers

I got the suitcase of Matchbox cars down from the shelf, as well as my blaster set, put it together, and showed Brendan how it all worked ... 

Brendan would line his car up in the blaster, push the magic blaster button, and OFF!!! would zoom his car. He showed me how enthused he was by clapping and yelling, "YAY!" each time.  

We also zoomed cars down down DOWN to see how far they would go! Never one to waste a good time, Brendan enjoyed his time at the Beach House today very much!