I got back from my girl's weekend to find that my boys had not missed me much at all. In fact, it appears that they may have been a little bit spoiled by the relatives! I loaned my camera to Nonni (since I had the rental) to get photos of all the fun - here's what I can piece together from the photographic evidence. And testimonials from a somewhat reliable 3 year old... ;)
They got to go on a train ride! This one is partially my fault, I thought of suggesting the Grapevine railroad when I was reading Thomas his "Goodnight Texas" book that features Puffy - the steam locomotive! Well the tickets were super cheap compared to all the Alaskan trains, so it was obviously a no brainer. :)
But the fact that they are decked out in railroad gear was all on my dad. He has always been all about trains and the fact that his grandsons love trains makes for a lot of train excitement when they get together. It's pretty adorable all around!
Happiest little engineer ever! Not pictured are the train whistles that I have hidden from them until we get back home... Ha!
Uncle Ralph and Aunt Barbie even made the long trek down from Oklahoma to hang out with the boys. I ended up not getting to see them, but Nonni dutifully reported back that they had a great time and they loved the boys. That's something every mom loves to hear! :)
When I got home, there were all these new toys - where did these come from?? Turns out the boys got their Christmas presents early and they were sooo excited about them. Thomas met me at the door talking about his castle and the knight and the catapult, etc.
They also got Henry the rocking horse in the background of this photo. Henry was apparently not too sure about the horse - his feet don't quite touch the ground when you sit him on it. Thomas showed his little brother how to use it, but Henry was not quite convinced. So he mostly tried to steal parts of the awesome castle from his brother.
After the initial excitement of me getting back wore off, the boys wanted to go play on the front porch and show me the fun set-up Nonni and Grandpa had for them. Grandpa definitely didn't skimp on the sand like we did with the tiny sandbox they have at home - ha!
Look at this happy little guy! Who knew a spoon and sand was all it took??
Actually, this guy seems pretty happy too!
Ok, ok...
We'll make them a better sandbox next year!
Mo was curious about all the excitement in the sandbox and wandered over to check it out. Henry was super excited and started yelling "Mo! Mo!" - he's gotten very good at picking up names recently!
Luckily, he already knows how to say "Anna" from daycare, so he was already a pro with my parent's new puppy. She was super excited about all the attention from the boys and wanted so badly to jump in the sandbox with her "nephews". Unfortunately she's still a pretty boisterous puppy and puppy claws are pretty sharp, so dad had to keep her on a pretty short lease. Poor Anna!
Not content to only have a sandbox for their grandsons, my parents also had a pool for them! See what I mean about spoiling them??
What's that? Oh, that super awesome wooden boat in his hand? Well... Theresa and I may have been on a girl's weekend, but we did mostly buy toys for the kiddos while we were perusing the plethora of shops in Fredericksburg. You apparently can't take the mom out of us when it comes to shopping. ;)
Thomas loved the boat! It's a little wooden boat that has a balloon attached to the smokestack. You blow into a tube at the back of the boat to inflate the balloon and it putters the boat across the water. It was having a little bit of trouble with forward progress with the gentle breeze on the porch, but they didn't care one bit. The boat was a hit! :)
I may have also bought them these super fun tubes... I blame this on Theresa - she swore up and down they were one of her kids favorite toys and convinced me to buy them each one. They make a super fun (and loud!) noise when you pull them apart, then you just compress them back down and do it again. The boys loved them so much - a well spent $2!
So it seems the boys had as much fun this weekend as I did. And they got super spoiled with attention, affection and some new toys. No wonder they were so excited to visit Texas! ;)