July 7 HERBIE!!!!

Tuesday:  FIRST, I'm going to tell you what happened near the end of our time at my house. I was picking up all of the toys that had been scattered around and requested that the kiddos come into the main room and watch about 15 minutes of "The Road Runner and Coyote" cartoons so that I could accomplish the clean-up task successfully. Brendan and Erin were sitting on the couch, Gregory and Aidan were on the chairs in front of my computer screen. Suddenly, I heard a very excited voice shouting: "HERBIE! HERBIE!!!" I came running into the room immediately. Erin was pointing up to the tippy top of my bookshelf, and peaking out (from behind a bunch of shells) was our very own repeat-after-you Herbie toy that I had LOST about 15 months ago. All of us had looked repeatedly, but he could not be found. I truly had given up ever finding him again.

We flipped the "On" switch, and sure enough, Herbie could still repeat after us in his funny little voice. We all cracked up. I gave Erin a super BIG hug. She was our hero of the day.

The three younger kiddos wanted another chance to make a "movie" of their own using some toy props around my house (I have an unlimited number of items that can be used to make an interesting video). They couldn't decide who would go first, so they requested that I make a video since Cal said he would go 2nd. I grabbed "Sunny" and sat down and had a beauty pageant with her for about three minutes. Erin sat with me and joined in my video. You see, no one wanted to be first because they hadn't decided what their story line would be this week. Cal offered to go second, and everyone took him up on his offer.

Here are some random photos of the kids watching their own videos and enjoying themselves hugely.

Look how delighted Cal is while watching himself on my computer!

Brendan, bless his heart, brought books along with him to keep him occupied today. He does really well with the little kids, but he is fourteen and not really interested in the same stuff the younger kids are. I try to connect with him throughout the day. We did watch a "Paco" video with the puppeteer who created him years ago. The creator is a very good puppeteer and cracks the kids up. We finally we able to find the video of him using a little hand puppet that he calls "Paquito" that has no movable mouth--he just squeals and makes the cutest noises to communicate.

Erin was in a very creative mood today. She was cutting and taping all kinds of things! She made a paper camera for one of my small stuffed animals that actually hung around its neck. Did I get a picture of it? Sigh. Nope.

Erin really enjoys all of the little puppets I have here. She played a long time with Lamb Chop today.

Look at her beautiful smile.

Erin was super helpful today! She helped clean up

some of the toys she had played with, without a single complaint.

Aidan gets a real bang out of both my PIG puppets--he's a real fan of pigs in general and has quite a few stuffed pigs of his own. I love to watch him pretend and make up stories. And I love to hear him really laugh and laugh. He has a very good sense of humor.

Here is everyone watching the Paco video--I forget his creator's name.

We ate a bunch of good food--some of which was actually healthy! By about 3:15, we decided it was time to return to their place to continue our day. It was getting a little bit too warm at my house. So ... that's what we did.

Thankful to be able to enjoy these grandchildren. I hope to never take it for granted that I have good enough health to continue to play and have fun with them.