Visiting with Friends

We have been busy lately visiting friends indoors and out...

Our friends the Hrubec's have re-habbed their backyard with new sod & plants, a sandbox, kid's picnic table, and our loan of AJ's plastic slide (since we have nowhere practical to put it in our place). I think AJ has already used it more since it's been living at Izzy's house than he did when it was here! Maybe someday we'll have a yard too, but not for at least a few more years.

Here is AJ loving Izzy's fun tunnel. He likes to crawl through it, lay down in it and do log rolls, and as shown in this picture, squash it!  (My favorite is when Jeff puts it on standing up and dances around...I'll have to get a shot of that next time!)

Here is Andy pouring sand into all the kids' cups. Were they playing tea party? The kids all love the sandbox and are getting better and better about sharing, taking turns and playing together. In this shot are Andy, Emilio, AJ and Izzy.

We also visited our friend's the Chenier's recently to meet their new addition, baby Axel. He was born exactly on his due date and has so far been a really easy baby. I have been watching AJ closely during visits to see how he reacts to the new baby and how he watches Louis' reactions to being a new big brother!

Here is a cute shot of Louis & Axel with their Great Grandma who was visiting from London. It was so nice that my friend Sam's mom and grandma were able to come and stay with her for about a month to help out taking care of Louis and the new baby (and Sam too!)

While his grandparents were in town, they got Louis a new train set that came with lots of fun engines and items from the Island of Sodor (where Thomas "lives"). AJ LOVED it!  He thinks it's the coolest thing and asks regularly now if he can go play at Louis's house. Louis is luckily really good at sharing his toys, so there are not tons of issues, but AJ is sometimes quite a train-hog! But day by day, we're working on that...

Andy made a bigger rectangle table for AJ's trains and I am working on making it a cool Sodor for him too. I don't want to spend the $$ for the real Thomas table top set, but I think I will be able to paint something cool on it that will work great.  More on that later!