When Good Friends Come to Visit

We have been truly blessed with visitors this past year. I love to entertain guests: I love to cook for others and I love to hang out and have fun. And I especially cherish the opportunities that having overnight guests affords - the chance to really have good conversations after the kids are finally asleep, or to play a game (be it cards/board games/Rock Band/etc.), or to enjoy a non-animated movie. It is the extended time with good friends that really builds a friendship, that takes it beyond the snapshots of conversations that you can fit in around 4 crazy kids (or usually more) and into a deeper friendship.

This week our friends, Justin and Carin, came to visit for a couple days with their daughter and two foster children. We had a great visit, and here are a few ways we spent our time together...

We made salt art (an idea I got from another friend, Katherine) in which you color table salt with sidewalk chalk and use it to fill a jar or container. This was a very affordable alternative to traditional sand art, and if the kids were older they could have colored the salt themselves. This time, however, the adults pre-colored the salt ahead of time. Then we set each child up with a baby food jar and spoon, and let the fun begin! *Note: Jacob's jar had gotten shaken up into a solid color and then taken for a bath, which is why there is a clump of salt in there.

We also celebrated Maira's 2nd birthday with some cupcakes. The kids were allowed to chose between vanilla and chocolate frosting and then decorate their cupcakes with various sprinkles. It was a bit messy but they enjoyed it. 

And I must say that Maira has the most adorable 'bed hair' in the morning... she is just precious! 

We also took a trip down to the creek again... but those photos will follow in another post (hopefully tomorrow). It was a very nice visit with our friends...