lucky

My little house is quiet tonight after having Lauren and her younger sister Reegan here since Thursday. Their parents were out of town this past weekend so they came to hang out with me. I love having people in my house with me and we had a great weekend together. Here's a little bit of how our weekend went...

Friday night Lauren and I babysat all the kiddos together while my kids' parents went out for the night. We had a pajama party complete with a movie and frozen hot chocolate (SOOO YUMMY!!! Wendy said it was featured on Oprah a while back. It is most delicious!). :) Not sure what's up with my oldests' smile in this picture! Ha.

My baby loved having the attention of all five of us girls! :) He loved getting to join right in on the pajama party...and got chocolate all over his pajama shirt! He and his sister obviously enjoyed the frozen hot chocolate very much as you can see from their mouths.... :}

The movie was followed by a spontaneous dance party during the movie credits.

Saturday we enjoyed getting out of the house in the beautiful sunshine. We went first to Lily's Bead Box to make necklaces and bracelets, then stopped at the Cupcakery that is right next door. We each chose a delicious cupcake and took them to the World's Fair Park to eat. Then we headed up into the Sunsphere!

I have lived here for 25 years and had never been up in the Sunsphere - and neither had Lauren and Reegan! It was funny feeling like a tourist in my own home town! :) The view from the observation deck was neat though. I think I'd like to go back up at night and see all the lights!

Our car is somewhere in the parking lot next to the art museum. :)

Take a boat down the river here and you will get to my house in just a few minutes! :)

That evening, Shannon text me and said she and Dave had a gift card to a restaurant burning a hole in their pocket and attempted to bribe me into coming to watch Jonathan while they went out to eat. She promised us ice cream and cookie dough and said it sounded like a perfect movie night situation - we were already planning to watch a movie anyways, so we figured it didn't matter which tv we watched it on and headed over. It's doesn't usually take a ton of convincing to get me to come see my "almost nephew" anyways! :)

Jonathan was in his jammies when we got there and we got to play with him for a few minutes before bedtime.

Reegan and Jonathan invented a new version of golf. She would set up the bowling pins while Jonathan stood at his post by the wall.

Then Jonathan would come over and knock the pins down! :)

All of this was a lot of fun and other than a few typical sister squabbles every once in a while, we all got along fabulously well. There was one other little friend though that caused a bit more excitement than I would like! A friend from her church had given Reegan a hampster last Sunday and so she brought him with her. Lucky is a Russian Dwarf Hampster and as we soon found out Friday night, they are very well known for being able to squish their bodies flat and squeeze through very small spaces! We were down at my girls' house and at around 9pm I ran up to my house to get something real quick and happened to glance in at Lucky's cage and there he was just wiggling his little nose at me looking pretty darn cute. About an hour and a half later, Lauren took some things back up to my house and came running back down saying she couldn't find Lucky in his cage! I went back up to check and sure enough, Lucky was gone!! The cage door was closed properly and there were no obvious places for him to get out. We had no idea what had happened!

After searching with a flashlight and even letting one of the dogs in to sniff him out, we figured he was gone for good (oh great! running around my house?!) and even went to the pet store to see if we could get another one. That is where the very helpful hampster guy informed us that Lucky's particular breed is known for escaping and being the most aggressive (biting, etc.). He said he would rather be bitten by any one of their snakes than that kind of hampster! (!) We decided to wait on getting a new hampster. Thankfully!

Late Saturday night, the girls were both asleep and I was brushing my teeth. I felt something against my toe and at first thought a lid to something must have fallen on the floor. Then I thought wait...that couldn't be...??? Sure enough!! There was Lucky right at my feet! I knelt down to try to pick him up but he was too fast for me and scurried back into a TINY hiding place right above the baseboard under my cabinet in the bathroom. I can't really even explain where the hole was - it was definitely somewhere I would NEVER EVER have thought to look!!

I went to get some of Lucky's food and after two tries of coaxing him out of hiding, I finally caught him and quickly placed him back in his cage. It was a bit of a rush to actually find him and catch him again - and then both girls were asleep and there was no one to be excited with me! :) Happily, he stayed in his cage the rest of the time (We put a blanket over his cage whenever we weren't in the house after that!) and is now safely back at Reegan's house!

He is awfully cute, isn't he? Those blue bars are the ones he escaped through! I think if he was mine (which he wouldn't be...) I would name him Hudini.... :}