Sunday Afternoon at Kudjip

After our naps and snacks, we needed something to do. So, Daddy and the boys went outside to play football. Now this activity has a different meaning to each of the three people who were playing it. For Wiley, it just means that we throw the ball, watch it sitting out there in the yard and wait for Daddy to go get it. In the meantime, he slips away to find some rocks to play with and throw around. For Aden, it is throwing and kicking the ball some, but mostly it is 'play' tackling each other (whoever has the ball). For Daddy, it is just whatever these boys want it to be, but we usually have to at least see how the catching skills are coming along.
We played at this for awhile, and the game eventually evolved into other things like trying to keep Wiley in the yard, and a little game of hide and seek. Aden would count while Wiley and Daddy were hiding. Aden was usually peeking so easily found us. You add to that the fact that he can't quite count all the way to ten in order and you can only hide so far away. After this, Wiley decided that he wanted to be the one to find us so he went over to the tree and covered his eyes as if he were counting. Because we were counting by the tree, we eventually had to try and climb it. We have a great climbing tree in our yard that has many low branches. It wasn't as easy as it looked though. In the end, climbing the tree consisted of each boy taking turns while Daddy held them up to a branch that they could hold onto.



Pretty soon, the McCoys came outside and of course Aden thought this meant it was time for him to go with Uncle Bill into his house to play cars and blocks. Grandpa McCoy arrived today for a visit though and was taking a nap, so we had a good reason not to go running into the house. Eventually, the Dooley family came up for a visit. They have three girls and their youngest one, Olivia, is just nine months older than Aden. They love to play together and ran all over the yards while everyone else sat on the porch and talked with Grandpa McCoy (fresh up from his nap by now). By the end of the evening, Olivia (who knows how to climb the tree) had taught Aden to climb up onto the first branch. I overheard part of the lesson while taking pictures. Olivia was already up in the tree and Aden was trying to get his leg up. Olivia told him to grab her leg. "Come on Aden, you can do it," she coached. And indeed he did. He was quite proud of himself. That's what friends are for.
By the time we had some of Aunt Marsha's chocolate chip cookies, and ran around the yards a few more times, it was getting late and Olivia had to go home. We started to play another round of football, but Mommy said dinner was ready so we went inside. More indoor activities followed, like preparing for our guests that would be arriving at anytime, according to Aden. He had grabbed his quilt and a pillow from his bed and spread them out on the kitchen floor. We asked him who was coming, and without hesitation he said, "Grandpa Jerry is coming to stay with us." It would be a long trip here from Heaven so it was a good thing we had prepared a nice bed for him (Aden has a picture of Mommy's daddy in his room and is learning about who and where he is). We played along with this for awhile and by bedtime we were all pretty worn out. The imagination is really taking off (as you will hear about in our next blog entry).