Buds

Last Friday we got to pick up this blonde first grader from the bus stop by his house to spend the night with him while Jeff and Ash were in the "Big Easy"...

You would've thought we told Mimi that she was getting a dog. 

She was SO excited... (every five minutes, "Mommy, is DIS the day that Gent comes?!?!") So when we saw Gent get off the school bus and loaded him up in our car, Mimi officially was having the weekend EVER.

We decided to get a little frozen yogurt and Menchies to kick off our slumber party and Gentry ran into some school friends. How cute is that? He's in first grade and he already has a posse!

Then it was off to our house to play!

Gent is THE BEST fort maker. I was glad to be off the hook and make someone else do the hard work for once. It was so cute the whole weekend to see Gent and Mimi interact. Even though he's 7 and she's 4 (a BIG difference at that age) they acted like equals; he treated her in a sweet way like she could contribute to the projects and have her ideas about stuff, and she really hung with him and held her own.

The best is to hear Gent say, "Tink,_______" (whatever it may be). I don't even really think he knows her real name. She's just "Tink" (short for Tinkerbelle. See THIS post...click on "this" for the backstory). 

more fort making...
at one point the game was to run away from the "stinky diaper monster" (a.k.a. Bode). He's officially the younger brother now...

I loved when we all were sitting around the table for dinner.

Every night we do our "highs" and "lows" of the day. Here's genuinely what Mimi and Gentry's highlights were:

The kids slept so well after wearing each other out.
The next day we played more and watched more Bearenstain Bears, then we took a trip to Loveland to go to Bounce!


I loved watching this boy there!
The last time he was at Bounce he was a month old.
This time, he couldn't get enough...

He didn't stay in the "toddler zone" bounce area for long....

He definitely wanted to jump with these kids!

Bode went down every slide, into every bounce house...you name it! He was hard to keep up with!

And then we met up with Jeff and Ash to take Gent home to them. 

What a great treat for us to have Genchies over!

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Here were some more highlights:
At one point Saturday morning, Gent and Mimi were up in her room playing Barbies. I think that Gent reluctantly started, but it wasn't long before I heard him saying things like, "what about this skirt on this girl?" or "she needs a new outfit." The best was when he nonchalantly initiated a Barbie wedding...! They had GREAT fun (and it was fun listening in)

Here's another gem of a conversation:

MIMI: "these Barbies can be our guard Barbies to protect our fort."

GENTRY: "What, do they have secret powers or something?"

MIMI: "yes, their eyes... they shoot out of their eyes" (Maybe someone's had little too much Austin Powers "fembot" clips?!?! Just kidding! I did watch that movie a lot in high school...it could've passed on to her through her genes)

Then after Barbies Mimi asked Gentry to read a book to her. It was adorable. Considering that we read the Berenstain Bear books A LOT and I know them all verbatim (and Mimi too) I could tell right away that Gent was improvising a little, and it was adorable. Mimi just sat right next to him, hanging on his every word. Cute moment #102... ;)

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