Grandma in Town

The day after Christmas, Grandma M came into town and finally got to meet her second 'Grand-baby'.  She stayed with us for a week, soaking up all the grandchild time she could, naturally.  :)  We wanted to take as much advantage of her presence as we could, too, but there was a little problem...The Mini is such a good nurser that she was having a really hard time taking to a bottle--the exact opposite problem that the Munch had, go figure.  Knowing that Grandma was coming, I worked hard to get Mini to be ok with bottle feeding, and slowly but surely she made progress, but it was still not a consistent thing even mid-way through Grandma's stay.  She would drink from it, but also howl all the way through the process.

BUT...she was very good about sleeping soundly at bedtime--I'd started working her onto a schedule sometime around Thanksgiving, and she took to it extremely well--so one of the evenings that Grandma was still here, I nursed the Mini a little early and got her to bed, then Daddy and I rushed out to a nearby cheap theater and enjoyed a couple of hours of wonderful, baby-free time as we took in the final Hobbit film.  It was wonderfully relaxing to be AWAY, and the Mini never made a peep.  :)

The first picture of Grandma with the Mini was taken at church the Sunday after Christmas.

The Munch was in heaven all week because Grandma is ALWAYS ready to read stories.  :)

Grandma had brought up a special little treat that she and Grandpa had found at a garage sale near their home.  And since we didn't have any snow yet, it made for a perfect afternoon activity.  Daddy and Grandma went outside with the Munch while I stayed in with the Mini--because even if there wasn't snow, it WAS cold out.

And because of that, I was able to get this picture, which cracks me up...Think there were enough cameras out for the momentous 'First Bike Ride'?  :)  She did fairly well, gradually warming up to it as she rode down the block and back, and I'd love to post a video of some of it, if only it would play here...I'm still not sure what's going on with that, but will update this when I DO figure that out... 

The Saturday before Grandma went back home, we had one final bit of Christmas, this time with Daddy's family.  These roller skates from Daddy's sister took much of the morning's attention, of course!  They're already almost too small, so the Munch and Daddy have been practicing regularly with them, getting as much use out of them as they can! :)

The rest of the week that Grandma was here was pretty quiet.  It was lovely to have an extra pair of hands for the kiddos, and I was able to rush out for groceries and some clothes shopping just by myself a couple of times, despite the bottle issue.  Grandma goes to bed much earlier than we do, and since our 'guest room' is the livingroom where the TV and my computer are, it meant that Daddy's and my evening activities were confined to the kitchen and dining areas, and couldn't generally involve electronics...  Good thing we'd gotten each other new games for Christmas!  :D  We played game after game after game almost every evening, and had ourselves a good time.