With Tim, Kathy, Rylan and Aubrey Belizing it for a week, Sierra is spending their Central American vacation with us. This means she is scoring a blog all of her own. Well, okay, she didn't totally come by herself. Sadie is here too!

Sunday, August 19, 2012:

Sierra's last day staying with us

Sunday morning we didn't hear a word out of Sierra till almost 8:30! Staying up so late the night before obviously did her in. When I went in to fetch her, she was not in much of a mood to get up. She was still trying to wake up. To change her mood I started singing to her and telling her little stories. Somehow I got into talking about butterflies and octopuses. When I said there was a butterfly on her face, she said no there wasn't. I told her I could always paint one on her face.

 
   
Last morning at the park

That peaked her interest. She immediately wanted one painted on her face. I told her we could do just that sometime during the day. When I made up a story about an octopus she decided she wanted to eat one for breakfast (she was remembering the octopus hot dogs I made for her, Rylan, and Aubrey the day Zack came over). I told her maybe she could have one for lunch. She brought up about having an octopus to eat again later but when lunchtime came, she forgot all about it.

After lunch though she did remember the face painting. By the time I found the face paint, she decided she wanted a bumblebee instead of a butterfly. And of course she had to a have a flower (on the opposite cheek) for the bee.

Since there was leftover chocolate frosting from Robert's birthday cupcakes, I decided it would be fun to make sugar cookies. So, after lunch, Sierra and I baked cookies. She had a fine time selecting all the cookie cutters she liked and cutting out cookies. She stayed with it really well. There was only a little bit of dough left before she said she was done. As it turned out, we didn't have time to frost them after all so I told her we could do it when she, Rylan, and Aubrey all come back on Tuesday for the day. She liked that idea!

After their grand vacation Kathy, Tim, Aubrey and Rylan arrived at our house mid-afternoon much later than planned to pick Sierra and Sadie up. They had a horrendous time coming home, storming in Texas meant cancellation of all outgoing flights which meant finding a hotel for the night. They were supposed to be on a flight out of Texas Saturday night. After being told they would not be able to get another flight for 24 hours, Kathy was up early Sunday morning to call American Airlines to score an a.m. flight! They arrived in Sacramento in the afternoon. Then, after finding lunch and getting on the road, there were even more delays; heavy traffic on I-80 then rerouting to Vallejo because of an accident on Jameson Canyon.

This worked out good though in that Sierra got a nap before going home to Sonoma and we got to hear all about the Belize trip and see lots of great pictures while Tim and Kathy waited for Sierra to finish her nap.

As soon as Sierra was awake, and all her stuff packed up, she climbed into the car and as she did so she told Rylan and Aubrey, "I stayed at Grandma and Grandpa's all by myself!" She was so proud of herself!

Sierra did so well on her own with us. She was so cooperative and patient (most of the time) with whatever we did or wherever we went. She had lots to talk about or tell us all the time. Of course she received so much attention from Grandma and Grandpa she is going to expect it from her family now that she is home again. Obviously she enjoyed being entertained all the time and when there were in-between moments when Grandma or Grandpa decided something needed to be done without her, she would ask, "What should I do now?" Left to her own resources, she would pull out dolls and play house and games. It was fun to see what she would say and what she would have her dolls do. There were times she would play like this for a good hour or more on her own. Or other times, if we didn't suggest something for her to do, she would pull out board games (big sister and big brother influence?) or ask to have books read to her. And she really loved Play-Doh, stickers, and tracing using shape templates. One of her top favorite activities is to put puzzles together, over and over and over. Often she would want to go where we were going be it to the bathroom, to feed the cats, out in the garage or wherever asking, "Can I go with you?" After spending a week with us, she became an integral part of our day. Now that she is gone, our house is so quiet and feels so empty.