the life & travels of the littleton family: Two weeks of bonding

My sister and Lucy are now on their way back home to Concord after 2 weeks of fun with us. It's hard to say exactly what the biggest highlight was between seeing our kids play together, getting to introduce Jeff to Elizabeth, and having bonding time with my sister but I think that last one is it after all. We haven't had so much time alone together since before I started dating John (10 years this month). But since Matt couldn't come on this trip and John scheduled his work trips while she was here so I'd have someone with me, we got lots of good time in. We went to afternoon tea, got massages, played video games, and talked and laughed. Even going on outings with our three kids was fun bonding time for us. It's much nicer to have someone else with you when your child starts to melt in public :-)

Here are the pics and videos- isn't my sister so photogenic?

Feeding the fish

The kids got to go in the front for the last bit of our horse carriage ride around the ruins of the old capital

Ergo twins

I just liked this pic of Lucy with the miniature horses- she's such a cutie and there are tons of good pics of her- but in this one her hair and the horses manes sort of match :-)

Sam showed Lucy how to do lots of new things, but Lucy is the one who taught him about this great hiding place in the bottom of his closet.

We went on my favorite scenic drive and E got these great pics- even on a sort of hazy day the view from the top was lovely.

When we ask Sam to smile for pics- this is one of his classic forced smiles

Sam needed a change of shorts and all I had was this pair of Jeff's- I think he's trying to bring back the 80s with his hotpants.

At least we can be sure that he's definitely not planning on going to a temple (see this sign posted inside one we visited)

It made me so happy to see Jeff and E meet

We celebrated Lucy's 2nd bday (Feb 5th) and E gave her this carrot bag that has little bunnies in it.

Jeff got a tad sunburned for the first time- I felt bad- just on his right side. Oh well- at least he's still smiling.

Doesn't Sam look cool riding his motorbike?

Okay- now for the videos- I'm mostly posting so many for my parents so no need to watch them all (though the one of Jeff playing and the one of Sam roughhousing with Jeff are good for showing what Jeff is like).

This is how Sam plays with Jeff- it is always stuff I'd never do with a baby- but Jeff giggles all the time at this sort of stuff. There's another video of Sam chewing on Jeff's wrist which gets him giggling too.