A week with Grandma Barbie

My mom, Grandma Barbie came for a week to babysit Ally. Becky started back at school 2 1/2 weeks before Ally's preschool starts, so my mom came for a week, I took a week off and took Ally to Arizona and babysitters covered the remaining 2 days of time. Phew we will all be glad when preschool starts. Ally flourishes with routine - she has had very little routine in the past month and it has seriously affected to her sleep. As in she does not go to sleep at night until 3-4 hours after we put her down. Sometimes there is 2+ hours of crying. Some nights she goes to sleep fine, and then wakes up for 2+ hours in the middle of the night. It has been AWFUL. I am so tired. Becky is tired, Ally is not herself. My mom got to witness this all first hand, since she shared a room with Ally. Even she said it was awful. But we all agree it should get better when school starts. Here's hoping....

In the meantime - a recap from Ally's week with Grandma Barbie. It was super hot - in the 90s everyday. The first day we drove to the wading pool, in 90+ degree heat. Ally may look happy above, but

this is as close to the water as she got. She said it was "too hot" - the sun seems to bother her when its very hot, and it was pretty crowded so she refused to go in. After about 15 minutes we gave up, and went home. I know my mom thought we were silly, but I figured why should we all suffer in the hot sun if Ally refused to get in the water.

So we went home, set up our kiddie pool in our shady driveway and Ally played there for about an hour and half!. Every afternoon after that my mom would set up the kiddie pool for Ally. Becky and I would come home from work and they would outside having fun in the pool.

My mom has been working on a cookbook of her mom's recipes and in it is the recipe for coconut cream pie, my mom's favorite dessert. Grandma Mimi would always make it for her. I think its been 5 years since my mom has eaten it. So I made one for her. Turns out its super easy to make - start to finish about 25 minutes then an hour to bake. It was a cinch.

and well worth it to put this smile on my mom's face. She ate some every day and took the rest home with her at the end of the week.

One night we ate chips and salsa before dinner. Ally loved that she and grandma had matching straps on their dresses (her sun dress above, and the pic of my mom above that).

We went out for seafood one night.

Of course grandma read books before bed. Olivia is a current favorite.

Thanks mom for coming. It was a huge help, and I know Ally really loved having her grandma here.