Another quiet weekend....

It was a pretty low-key weekend around the Coppola household! We did a few things here and there but no major accomplishments! The boys seem to be in a stage of transition overall. Maddox wants desperately to switch to one nap from two, and his mama wants desperately to keep two naps! Joey wants to switch from one nap to zero, and mama is also denying his request relentlessly. And, Maddox seems to not be needing a bottle anymore, but the convenience in the morning, and right before bedtime of just giving him a bottle sure is nice…once again, mama is the problem! Maddox is walking all the time now, so he’s on the move and wants into even more than he did before! And, he’s eating gigantic proportions, as well. Joey is getting so big and now is transitioning from ‘mommy’ and ‘daddy’ to ‘mom’ and ‘dad.’ It’s really stinking cute. On one hand, it kind of makes me sad, they are growing up so fast. On the other hand, it’s fun to have two little boys playing with each other more, and able to do more things.

On Sunday, we went to my sister’s house and carved pumpkins, painted pumpkins, and hung out with Gracie, Maya and Reagan (Kim and Jon’s little girl). It was fun and nice to get outside and watch the kids play together. Gracie is a mother hen to the little ones, and it’s quite fun watching her ‘mother’ them. Here are some pictures from the day:

Here's Maddox trying to pull the whole crew by himself!

Born just 14 hours apart, they sure do love each other! Reagan is trying to put a smacker on Maddox here!

Joey reading 'Goodnight Goon" to the "class".....
On Sunday night, I made supper and we invited Joe’s Grandma Doris to come over for supper. Joe’s Grandma (known as ‘GG’ to all the little ones for ‘Great Grandma’) is kind of in a unique situation in the family. She doesn’t own her own home, so she travels to all of her kids’ homes, staying two weeks at a time. So, we get to see GG quite often, which is why we don’t usually invite her over. She’s at all the birthday parties, holidays, gatherings, celebrations – and when she’s at Bobbi and Joe’s, we see her over there frequently. So, it’s really nice that we get to see her so often. But, sometimes I get sad because Joe doesn’t have a lot of memories of he and his Grandma alone….whereas, I have a lot of memories of me with my grandparents alone. So, I wanted to invite Gma over to just be at our house and have supper, without umpteen cousins and family members around. We had chicken and rice and then I made dessert- apple fritters (a new recipe that I won’t be doing again to say the least). Gma laughed and laughed at Maddox eating and as she sat down, she said, “This is so neat that I’m here. This is really neat.” And, when Joe took the boys for bath time, we visited in the kitchen about baking and cooking, and what some of her memories were of holidays and baking. Turns out, she makes some mean Divinity candy, and some awesome fudge – just like my grandma. She told me that in the ‘old days’, she would stay up the night before Thanksgiving and cook all night long and everything would be ready to go at 9 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day. She said she made 9 pies! Those Coppolas can eat…and there’s a lot of them! And, we found out Daddy Joe was her easiest baby, and they were all easy teenagers (um, with the exception of Aunt Bobbye!) It was fun visiting with her one on one, which I seldom get to do. She loved the meal and she kept complimenting me, “This is so delightful!” and “Tonight was just divine!” I’m writing about this now, so I remember this later and can tell my kids about it. Delightful…Divine….Neat….! I loved that she said those things and I will pass those words exactly on someday. Joe took his gma home and they also had a nice visit on the way home. When Joe came home, he thanked me over and over for having her here – he had a great time with his Gma and our GG…and we need to do that more often. At 92 years old, I know our time is running thin so we need to take more opportunities like this one. Here are some photos from our memorable night with GG!Here's why Gma was laughing at Maddox eating all night long! How can you not love this big ol' teddy bear we call 'Maddox'???? Also, this is just a guess, but I bet my mom and dad never let me eat my own pudding when I was one!

Joey took Gma's glasses! That was so cute! He giggled the entire time he had them on!

Actually, we have a pretty quiet week planned and gearing up for the half-marathon on Sunday. Joe's friend, Kevin, gave me some words of encouragement over the weekend....still aiming just to finish though!