Precious Time Spent with the Girls.....

Staying at April's house for the past several weeks has really been a blessing. I have been able to spend some quality time with my sweet granddaughters. We had some fun activities planned for each day to keep them busy and entertained.


MAGIC PLAY DOUGH....

I thought I would teach them how to make "magic playdough." This is something that the kids at my school have loved to play with. Fun activity.

They enjoyed measuring out the ingredients.....


I love how they helped each other out.....

They were great at taking turns....

Almost finished....

Last thing to do was to stir and cook.....

Our playdough was just about ready.....

Now for the "magic" trick....
Poke a hole in the center of the dough....

Put in a few drops of food coloring.....

Carefully roll into a ball- keeping the foodcoloring in the center of the ball. Place in a ziplock baggie. When you want to "trick" someone have them keep the ball in the bag and have them squish the bag about 50 times. This will turn the playdough into a "Magical" color. The girls made about 6 baggies of playdough to take with them to the babysitter to surprise their friends. They made each one of them a different color. They were excited to trick their friends.

Feather Turkeys.....

With Thanksgiving just around the corner we decided to make pinecone turkeys....

First they got to choose their feather colors...

This activity was fun to watch as they created their own little turkey.

I love the look of concentration on their faces....

All finished!

Cute little turkeys....

I love my little "turkey" Lyssi! She is a cutie!

Showing mommy her new creation....
Lyssi's turkey....

Karah's Turkey......

Later in the day I found Lyss up at the table playing with her new little turkey. Or maybe she thought she had just made a MONKEY instead. She kept telling me that the turkey said, "Ooo-Ooo- ah-ah....Ooo-Ooo-ah-ah" Strangest sounding turkey on this farm!

Indian Headbands.....

Papa Howie was in town jsut in time to join in on this art project.

The girls decorated their own indian headbands with different colored shapes and feathers.

Lyss is hard at work.....

I love projects where they can just be creative and work on their own. I love to sit back and watch how their little minds work. CUTE GIRLS!
Howie is so sweet to be involved in the things his granddaughters are doing. He always loves to play along of them.

Lookin' good Boo!

oooo-oooo-ooooo-ooooo

Three little (crazy) indians....

We wanted to get a picture of all of us together but Lyssi was having some issues.

So we snuck a picture of her with her mom. Lyss has been VERY emotional ever since April's surgery and has wanted to just cling to her. VERY INSECURE :(

We started dancing around and singing -One little, two little, three little Indian song. We were really trying to get Lyssi to be happy and join in on our craziness. She just sat in her mommy's arms and watched us make a fool out of ourselves. She was probably wondering WHAT in the HECK we were doing and thinking to herself....PLEASSSE STOOOOOOPPPP!

Karah was dancing around with us goofing off..... but she even stopped doing it when we got really loud and annoying.

It didn't work!!!!

Lyss just laid with her mommy and cried.

Her emotions were UP and DOWN for 6 weeks straight! One minute happy and laughing, the other minute screaming in tears. Poor little girl! At least she had fun making the headbands.

Popsicle Piggy Banks.....

I decided to have the girls make piggy banks so that they can start earning money and they will have something to put it in.

They used crayons to color the sticks.....

This activity took a lot more time than I had expected but Boo worked really hard to get it finally completed.

Once the popsicle sticks were complete it was time to make the bank...

She wanted to make a rainbow piggy bank.....

Almost finished! Karah just needs to glue on the top with the coin slot in it.

Lyssi's took longer to finish but I don't have a picture of hers. Once the girls got their banks finished we started filling them. They have earned money for a variety of things....doing well in swimming classes (overcoming Boo's fear of jumping into the pool) - helping grandma clean up the house- staying dry- being nice to their sister - ect. I told the girls that as soon as they have their bank full, we will go on a SHOPPING SPREE together. It has been fun to see what they will do for some extra money.

Playing With the Kids......

We have had a HUGE amount of time spent in the house because April has been down and basically homebound.

It has given us the opportunity to really focus on spending fun times with the kids.

We spent a LOT of time playing card games together....

I especially loved playing BLINK with them. I really didn't think that they would be able to play this game but after a few minor modifications in the game it worked out GREAT!

Even Little Alyssa could join in and play!

Teaching Papa Howie how to play Blink.....

Besides playing board games and cards, we had a lot of time together to roll, jump and tumble around on the floor in the living room.

Howie makes the perfect Pony!

We would all pile on top of him for a fun ride.

He is such a great sport!

We are always climbing all over him! I bet he is exhausted!

Howie also loves to give the grandkids piggy-back rides around the house.

I started taping at the END of this piggyback ride. You can tell how exhausted he is after running around every single room in the house (including the basement I believe) Once he dropped her down on the couch to finish off her ride, she pointed out that he missed the entry area. Ahhhhhhh!

Lyssi's turn....

Oh man...My Howie looks so tired! Give this pony a rest!

Spending Time with Mommy.....

These girls have wanted to be RIGHT BY their mommy's side the entire time that I was at their home. I never realized how CONNECTED they were to her.

The very first morning I woke up to find Lyss

"STANDING" by her mom.

They were both SOUND ASLEEP!

So dang cute!

It seemed like they couldn't get enough cuddles from her. She basically stayed in their livingroom area for at least a month. With both feet out of commission she was basically stuck in that room. So we brought activities to her.
I showed them a website to listen to books online.

The kids spent HOURS curled up on the edge of the couch watching these stories along with their mom. April has always been so good about reading to her girls each and every day so this website was a nice thing for her. You could tell she was pretty drugged up and had absolutely no energy at all to even pick up a book.

The girls are watching the screen and focused on the book they are listening to. While April, on the other hand, is slowly dozing into a deep, deep sleep. Ahhhh...those drugs are magical!

Before you know it....she is out cold!

There were many, many times in the 6 weeks or so that I was visiting that the kids were snuggled up on the couch with April listening to the books. It was a very nice change from the TV.

Making April Comfortable.....

Boy did April ever have a hard time with healing from this surgery. She was in quite a lot of pain. We would prop pillows all around as she slept or just hung out all day. She used tons of ice packs and lots and lots of pain medication.

No matter what position she was in she was constantly in pain. I watched April wiggle around just to find some relief.

Just laying around trying to heal....
Poor girl. I hate to see my kids in pain!

Just Lounging Around......

Like I mentioned before...We basically LIVED in April's livingroom area. Those couches got a LOT of use over the past few weeks. Whenever I would walk into the room I would find at least one of April's girls laying all over her.

We watched movies.....

Drew Pictures.....
And just snuggled together....

Ahhhh I sure do love these girls! When Howie was in town the girls were in HEAVEN!
They would snuggle up to him for hours at a time....
They loved to watch movies while Papa and Mom slept

See Ape in the background of this picture with all of her pillows trying to get comfortable so she can get some sleep. Howie doesn't need help getting to sleep. Just turn on a movie or a football game and he ZONKS out instantly!

I love this picture of Lyssi holding onto her Papa's hand. To me it describes their tender relationship. So happy to have spent this time with April and her girls and I feel so happy that Steve was willing to come along for the fun. He has really bonded with these sweet granddaughters of ours and they love him so much. Thanks April for letting us come and spend this time with you. I thoroughly enjoyed myself!