Family and Friends

This was a week of fun times with family and friends for Evie, Seth, and me.  On Thursday, my aunt Kristy and her three kids, Zach, Aiden, and Lydia, drove from Atlanta to Nashville to spend the day at the Science Museum, so Seth, Evie, and I met up with them for dinner.  We went to the Aquarium restaurant at Opry Mills.  The kids all loved the huge fish tanks in the restaurant.  In fact, we all had to take turns with walking Evie around and around the big one in the middle.  Zach was great and took both Evie and Lydia around several times.  It was really nice to have an 11-year-old (almost 12!) built in babysitter.

 

We couldn't get the girls to turn around for a picture - they were mesmerized.

After dinner, we all headed back to our house since Kristy and the kids were spending the night.  But there was a really really bad wind storm - I almost decided to stop driving because it was hard to see and the wind was blowing the power lines around.  It was fine when we left the Mills, but Kristy and the kids didn't get out before it hit there, so they stayed a little longer to wait out the storm, and I ended up putting Evie to bed before they got back to our house.  But the kids loved playing with our dogs for a while before bed.  I think the dogs were happy to have houseguests.

On Friday morning, we all went to get donuts before I dropped Evie off at daycare, and then Kristy drove me to Franklin to pick up Seth's car since we were going to Memphis later that day and didn't want to wait until he drove home to head south.  We had a great time with the cousins!

I packed up all our accoutrement and the dogs in the afternoon and picked Evie up from daycare, drove to Franklin again to get Seth, and we headed for Granna and Grannadaddy's.  We made pretty good time and got in about 8:00, had some dinner, and then Evie headed straight for the book nook.  She loved pulling the books off the shelf, thumbing through them, and then putting them in this small opening between the bookshelf, the wall, and the stool she was sitting on.

I love how much she loves books.

On Saturday, we spent the morning with Granna and Grannadaddy and then our friends Cristaldawn and Matthew came over.  They spent the day with us and Evie enjoyed playing with toys with them, tossing the ball back and forth, and had a great time when Matt started pushing her around on the trike.

 

Rolling a water bottle in the hall with Cristal

 

The wind up

Wheeee!  (as Evie says)

Kathy and Grandma Jeanne came over for dinner, so we had a nice full house and delicious BBQ nachos.  Evie mostly ate beans, served to her by Kathy, and then wanted to play.  It was a full day for her.  After dinner, she snuggled in on the couch for a movie with Granna and Grannadaddy, and then Granna read her two new Babar books (because Granna is magic and bought the Babar books for Evie to bring home).

Evie impressed me by saying Kathy's (Taty) and Grandma Jeanne's (Jeanne) names, and she's close to saying Granna and Grannadaddy too. 

Sunday we had breakfast, went to church, and came home for lunch with Grandma Jeanne, Kathy, and Rickie before it was time to head back to Nashville.  She did really well in the car on the ride home - she slept for the first two hours, and then she let me read books to her and tickle her for entertainment on the rest of the way.

 

She looks so grown up!

I continue to be impressed with her vocabulary acquisition.  She says so many words now and picks things up so quickly!  Things I don't even realize she knows... Like yesterday she wanted to read this book of short stories about Winnie the Pooh.  She started pointing to the pictures and saying Tigger (Tiduh), Roo (oo), Piglet (Pitpit), and of course, Pooh.  I had no idea she knew those other characters' names.  

I am excited for next week when the pictures I ordered finally get to me and I can put together the Alphabet Name book I've been wanting to do.  I had the idea to put one together and then Kristy gave us a perfect photo album with pictures of her kids already in there for Christmas, she said it was   We'll do pictures of family or friends whose names start with each letter so that she can learn not only the letters but also family names and faces too.  Though I am very impressed that she already knows most of the vowels by sight.  

This kid's got a great memory too.  She can recite portions of books, and this morning, I was reading her a flap book that she hadn't seen in a while and she knew which animals were coming next. Granna always says how impressed she is that Evie knows where things are in their house, even though she's only there every 3 or 4 weeks.  She'll also sing along with some songs, like recently we've been singing Baa Baa Black Sheep while we read the book about it, and after I sing "one for the little girl who lives down the lane", Evie sings, "baa baa baa baa" in the right tune. She can also singing the beginning of most of the lines to "What a Friend We Have in Jesus", which is our bedtime song.  I think nothing is more precious than listening to her sing.  It just warms my heart.