sleepovers

Jim and I have found that when our grandsons spend time in our home together, it is difficult to enjoy the unique qualities of each one. So we decided to invite Joel and Silas over for individual sleepovers. Joel came Sunday night, but due to an activity with Jorie, Mark and his brothers, didn't arrive until 8:00 PM. The evening passed quickly, but we found time to teach him a new card game - 7 Up. Joel caught on right away, but didn't appreciate Grandpa using his adult level strategies to beat him and me every time! Grandpa, do you have to win at EVERYTHING?

Joel loved having Grandpa put him to bed and continue with the latest episode of the "Adventures of Snuffle-upigus," Joel's stuffed dog. Grandpa makes up wonderfully exciting adventures about this dog that keep Joel dreaming all night long!

Grandma time was the next morning, starting out with Swedish pancakes hot off the grill!

Next, Joel wanted to make some new "shape" pictures, an activity we started last week after Joel read his take-home book about making pictures out of paper circles, rectangles, triangles, and squares. He made two great pictures - a rocket and a truck.

Then he spent some time assembling a few more Lego creations. He has become quite the expert, including lots of fun details in his trucks and houses.

Silas came for his sleepover on Monday night. We had a great time, too; but since Silas had to leave pretty early the next morning, I didn't have as much time to take pictures. When he arrived he said, "What do you want to do first??" and we started in with a couple of games of Memory. Silas is a champ at that one! Next was hot tubbin' - Silas proudly wore the new Toy Story swim trunks I bought for him last weekend. I decided he needed a pair to keep here so he's always prepared for the hot tub! Silas chose an Arthur story for bedtime. He hasn't learned to enjoy Swedish pancakes yet, so just had a bowl of cereal for breakfast. One of the activities he enjoyed in the morning was playing with Marble Works, and showing the cool ramps to Chocolate Milk, his brown puppy.

He also made a darling shape picture of a cat's face - so sad that I don't have a picture of that!

Maybe next time it will be warm enough for Grandpa to "camp out" with the boys on the screened porch. But we'll definitely have to plan on regular sleepovers after seeing the fun we all had with these first two.