Guests!

Grandma and Grandpa taking
the girls for a ride at the
local park.

One of the best parts about moving to a new place is that everyone wants to visit. At least once. Often for consecutive weekends. We've been having lots of fun seeing everyone and showing off our new place.

We've also turned it into a learning opportunity for Kalina. She now knows (in theory more than in practice, but that's okay!) how to properly "take care of" visitors, from offering them something to drink to sharing toys. Her favorite part, which she usually skips to after greeting them at the door, is giving them a tour of the house. She does occasionally remember to show them the guest room on the way back downstairs from her own room, and I should mention/warn you that everyone planning to visit our house for Christmas will most likely be deposited there, according to one of her enthusiastic plans. ("And all of the guests will sleep in the guest room!") It's not a big room, so we're anticipating standing room only. Hope you can all sleep like horses/bats.

Early Nebraska fans!

Grandpa Hanks was the first, and he arrived in time for Elise's birthday. He goodnaturedly submitted to being the test subject for the new mattresses in the guest room, sharing a small bathroom with the kids, tuning out our kids' poor sleep habits and surviving our somewhat sporadic hospitality.

Thank goodness he was a good sport. The girls both came down with colds, which soon transferred to Grandpa (he was still fighting it when he returned 10 days later). What's more, they were waking up at all hours of the night/early morning--loudly. Especially Elise, whose bedroom is right across from the guest room. And to add insult to injury, we didn't even own a coffeemaker--so he had to survive all of this without his beloved brew (along with the cold, he also brought a coffeemaker 10 days later).

Elise and Angela and a turtle
statue.

He'd deny it, but we're pretty sure Grandpa must've been glad to leave when he did. Fortunately he enjoyed some nice pampering the rest of this trip (visiting family and friends throughout the midwest), which may have softened his memories of our house because he did actually return on his way back through rather than just staying in a hotel, as we probably would've.  Even better: Uncle Tom and Angela came too! We were all able to catch up and take a look around our corner of St. Louis and sitting on sculptures of stone turtles in beautiful weather.

Uncle Tom was reclining on the rug.
Elise decided to snuggle up to his beard
for long enough for us all to grab a
camera.

The baby, by the way, enjoyed the attention--but only in small doses and on her terms. When it all got to be too much, she resorted to playing peekaboo games that outlasted any of our attention spans, and in this way, hid from the world. Really, peekaboo was an incredibly tactful method of gaining a little privacy--cute, but effective. It generally took her about three full days of quality time before she'd consent to let anyone pick her up. Or, in Uncle Tom's case, before she'd snuggle into his beard as he was lying on the floor.

Elise "mooing" her heart out.

Next, it was Grandpa Les and Grandma's turn to visit! By now, we had the guest routine down to a science and both girls demonstrated excitement appropriate to their age level: Kalina bounced up and down and did tricks to show her joy, while Elise watched and giggled.

Feeding chickens at the bird
sanctuary.

The grandparents showed equal amounts of excitement, as proven by the fact that they drove fast so as to arrive a bit earlier than expected. We rushed home from Target to greet them--and ended up following their car through the neighborhood to our house. I couldn't unbuckle Kalina fast enough, and she was soon gleefully dragging them inside to show them the most important areas of the home: her room, Elise's room and the basement.

Kalina showed Grandma and
Grandpa how to fish.

We thoroughly wore out all the big people, but the girls by visiting parks and other popular sites, many involving animals of some kind, and all outdoors as the weather couldn't be beat. And even when we were ready to come back to the house, there will still crafts to make, coffee cake to bake, puzzles to put together, toys to strew about the house and stories to read. I suppose you could say our kids really know how to entertain!

While everyone else fished,
Grandma, Elise and I got
to spend some quality time visiting
farm animals. Here's Elise setting off
on an adventure of her own.

One thing that's particularly fun about having guests visit is that while others are keeping my older child happily engaged, anyone who's left gets to follow Elise around. At a small farm, for instance, Elise got to pet super-soft miniature horses, point to ducks and wander around aimlessly to her heart's content, without a big sister on a mission leading the way. This happened at home, too, where the baby decided all of a sudden that she wanted to take baby-sized piano lessons. Grandma was happy to oblige.

Elise's new favorite activity is playing
the piano. Grandma was happy to indulge.

Kalina was management and Grandpa
labor for this puzzle.

And so, if you can look past the early mornings, occasional sniffle and high-energy household, we think we make a great destination for your next trip. Relaxing we are not--but adorable we are (well, at least two of us). Who wants to come next? 

A dinosaur ride for both girls!

Despite really long and frequent
games of peekaboo with Grandpa Les,
he became a real source of hilarity
by days three and four.

A nice rest during a park picnic.

Storytime with Grandma!