Ellie's Duttinger Guests

Way back at the beginning of the summer, my sister Carolyn, her family and my mother came her to see Miss Ellie.  They were here for a few days, arriving June 30 and leaving the evening of July 3.  Good visit.  As you can tell, her boys Alex, 10 and Logan, 7, love babies.  Lots of time with cousins Jamison and Julianna!  Alex could not get enough of holding her!  And this picture of Logan with Ellie is a favorite...one of her first smiles on camera :)  The boys were also really good with Adam.  They played with him, showed him baseball, brought him a catcher's mitt, took him to the park and played Mario Brothers so he could watch.  I was pretty impressed with them.  They were polite while still being boys and clearly knew right from wrong.

(A surprise stop in by Todd's brother Alan while they were here.  He had a stroke a couple of years ago.  Todd asked me to take a photo.  I thought it turned out sweet.  Love Alex in the background.)

Adam just loved rough housing with them.  Although he did climb on Logan at one point and pull his hair so hard, the poor kid cried.  I punished Adam and when Todd got home, he pulled his hair and walked around the house.  I think Adam got the point.  Logan got Adam in the face the next day.  I told Adam to man up.  He just LOVED hanging out with them.  He still talks about them...he just asked yesterday where Logan was.  One day they even took him down to the wooden park.  It started raining as they left, so I told Carolyn just to drive around, but they went in the rain anyhow.  Adam had a blast.

Mom and I got along.  I LOVE this picture A LOT.  She just was loving little Eleanor and Alex is showing such compassion here.

Another nice Grandma shot.  I told she CAN come more often.  She has the time and the means.

The first night, we took everyone, including Bobby & Co. out to Bridie Manor.  It was a nice time.  Carolyn fed Ellie with the bottle before she became a rebel.  I won over Alex by putting apps on my phone for him :)  The second night Bobby had a BBQ, but it was late and Ellie was moody, so I skipped it.  Tuesday night we all headed to Rudy's.  Love this photo of Adam with his Uncle Bobby!

Everyone enjoyed dinner...isn't Alex growing up SO FAST?

Of course my kids wanted to play with the rocks...love this photo of Abbey in the dress Carolyn bought her.

She was running wild and Lynette's son Matthew surprised her by jumping over the fence to stop her.  Love the look of surprise on her face!

I wanted  cousins photo but Abbey wasn't cooperating...so I settled for boy photo.  Adam LOVED his cousins SO MUCH.  Eric was lifting his shirt up in the background.  Sigh.

You can see him here.  Look at how Adam is admiring the big boys.  This visit was so good for him.  He got to know them a little and they just gave him all sorts of attention.

LaRoche family photo.

Hearing about Adam's interest in baseball, the boys brought Adam a mitt.  They took outside to hit a few as they are both avid players.  Adam gets frustrated easily, I learned, if he doesn't know something.  I know it's my job as his Mom to teach him perseverance and how hard work can pay off.  They all looked so cute together.

OK, this picture just got stuck here as I took it around the same time and I love it :)  Anyhow, it was a nice visit.  Three nights...maybe one more would've been nice.  They stayed at the Oswego Inn a few blocks away and mostly we stayed here.  I had tried to come up with things for them to do, but Carolyn said they just wanted to hang out.  I did have a doctor's appointment while here and Carolyn and Eric watched my kids while I took Mom with me just to spend a little time.  We actually got on fairly well.  Since then, Bobby has gotten engaged so I know we'll see them again next year.  I had a conversation with my sister asking here to try and visit more now and when my kids are older, I will return the favor.  Todd can't take off much work and I just can't go all that way and take care of little kids by myself yet.  I really liked seeing everyone and loved to see our kids spend time together.