More, Yes More, Fun With Cousins

This post is late for no reason other than the fact that since it gets dark around 6:30, I feel the need to be completely lazy after Charlie goes to bed around 8:00.  The amount of laundry that was done today was enough that BJ and I should have been ashamed of ourselves.  Let's just say that if we wouldn't have done laundry today, Charlie would have had to wear his halloween costume to church tomorrow and the general public would have been exposed to my pink fuzzy robe.

But enough about the depth of my laziness over the last week.  We had a great weekend last weekend when my sister Molly, brother-in-law Mike and nieces (Emma, Claire and Hannah) came for a few days.  They arrived on Thursday night and kept Charlie at home while I went to work for a few hours on Friday.  We spent a few hours at the mall on Friday afternoon and Charlie had his first trip to the play area.  I'd be lying if I said that I haven't been dreading this day.  I realize that from now until years from now, we will probably have to extend all mall excursions by about 30 minutes to allow him to have ample playtime in the petri dish known as the play area.  Charlie had a great time and his crazy Horsfield cousins entertained him during their entire visit. 

I did not have my camera with me, but my sister Molly sent me these pictures of Charlie playing.

Charlie loved going down the slide and would arch his back and cry until I put him at the top of the slide again.  I think 10 months is a little early to throwing fits, but maybe it's a good thing that he is so passionate about something at this early of an age???  Denial can be a mom's best friend.

We all went out for pizza on Friday night and came back and watched Jumanji.  It was good that we had so much fun on Friday because the Horsfield visit was cut short when the flu bug struck them sometime during the middle of the night on Friday.  Despite my bleach/cleaning efforts, I think that they caught it from BJ and Charlie, which was a bummer.  Before they headed home, I gave Emma her birthday present a couple of weeks early - a hair straightener.  I cannot believe that she will turn 11 next weekend.  I still remember watching a movie with BJ in Cedar Falls and getting the call from Molly that she was born.  That day does not seem that long ago, but the fact that she asked for a hair straightener makes me feel very old. 

Unfortunately for Copper, we have not found the fountain of youth as that is Pete and not Copper in the picture.

The rest of the week has been pretty uneventful.  I snapped the picture below after Charlie ate the equivalent of 2 adult dinners.  He ate chicken breast, rice, carrots, green beans, an individual serving size cup of applesauce and (when I didn't have anything else to offer him) about a cup of leftover goulash.  He may have even licked the tray when I wasn't looking and yes, he drank an 8 ounce bottle 45 minutes later.  We were at the table for over an hour and he was so happy after his tummy was full that I had to snap a picture.  At one point, BJ was getting ice cream out of the freezer and said that we should just "cut him off".  I told him that those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones and that was the end of that conversation.