Just sharing some cuteness

My sister Erica and her two girls visited us over the last two days, and Yikealo absolutely loved playing with Shana and Mimi. They spent lots of time splashing together in the wading pool, and yelling loudly. (Hopefully our backyard neighbors were not trying desperately to get their little boy down for his nap at that time!)

Shana kept the two little ones busy for quite some time just seeing who could fill up a plastic bucket more quickly using a little shovel to scoop the water. (Notice Yikealo's tongue sticking out with concentration - this was a serious contest!)

He loved Erica too, although he absolutely COULD NOT remember her name! He kept wanting to show her various things, but since he was just yelling "Hey!" to her, he wasn't succeeding very often in actually getting her attention. Being a mother to four has definitely increased her ability to completely ignore loud children! He'd usually give up, walk over to me, point at Erica and say, "Manno?" (name?) He could say it pretty well once I reminded him, but it just wouldn't stick!

Yikealo seems to be doing fine now that his special buddies are gone, but we'll see what tomorrow brings! I think that he really loved having some playmates closer to his own age.

Tonight we went over to David's Grandma Alma's house to wish her a happy 88th birthday. Yikealo was actually really sweet to her and sang a very nice rendition of "Happy Birthday" before taking off to explore her house. In typical Yikealo fashion, he was completely fascinated by the fact that almost all of her many dolls had shoes! Unfortunately for him, Gram's house is NOT child-proofed, so we quickly directed him to her nice big yard, where he found lots of things to keep him busy.

He was especially intrigued by her gazebo, and enjoyed "sneaking up" on Ababa to poke him through the cut-outs!