The Smiths: Baldwin Ladies Visit

Candace and Hannah came for a quick girls' weekend visit to meet Boyd in the middle of September. Boyd was a fan of the attention!

And the girls were a fan of a friend to play with!

Besides riding bikes, we also got to go to the park! And Candace was nice enough to play tag with the girls - running all over the playground!

Boyd was not impressed with the park.

At least at first....the pacifier helped him warm up to it.

The kids were in heaven - so much space to play! So much potential for injury!

"Maybe it's not so bad here...."

We got ice cream cones at Braums after the park, capping off a perfect Saturday afternoon!

So many snuggles!

We had a bit of excitement at church on Sunday. We sit on the front row - well, second to front now (with covid social distancing, the front row is closed to keep people back from the pulpit and potential germage). Anyway, during the Sacrament, I noticed something black crawling around on the floor under the pulpit and made the mistake of nudging the girls and showing them. Unfortunately, it started heading in our direction. We didn't hear much of the rest of the meeting. All our eyes were fastened on it as it crept closer and closer. Eve decided it was a baby tarantula which she whispered around. We were all lifting our feet off the floor by that point, just to be safe. When it came under the first row, we realized it was a cricket. We didn't want to squish it in the chapel, but also didn't want it to unexpectedly jump onto any of us, so after a little thought, I gave a ziplock bag from my purse and she began attempting to catch it. Any hope of paying attention to the speakers was now completely gone. After a couple of scares as it hopped around, she managed to bag it and zip it up. We let it sit on the floor for the rest of the meeting, then took it outside to release it. But not without a picture!

When we got outside, we found that a boy in the ward had discovered a praying mantis hanging out near the doors.

For some reason, Eve decided to catch it too and for a few terrifying minutes, had both the cricket AND the praying mantis in the bag. I was not in the mood to watch the cricket get eaten.

Anyway, long story short, the cricket stayed at church and the praying mantis came home in the bag and was released into the backyard. The girls wanted to keep him as a pet forever. (I was this close to saying - "Fine! You can have a dog! Just get rid of that thing!") Bugs - yuck! We convinced them he would like the backyard and they let him go all on their own.

That afternoon the kids opened the HUGE flannel board collection that Candace had brought to give us. They loved it! And it took forever to clean up....