Our time with Elaina!...by guest blogger, Aunt Kate

Well, as most of the Stringfellow’s loyal readers know, Erin and Erik went for a fabulous trip to ***VEGAS baby***! The Gates Clan (aka Aunt Kate, Alexandra and Quentin) lucked out and had the pleasure of babysitting Elaina for the week.

We haven’t hung out with a 3-year-old full time in quite a while so the whole gang had lots of fun playing “Cooker” (that is playing chef with plastic food and little kitchen ) and remembering that getting a kid in and out of a car seat is a real workout sometimes! Elaina seemed fascinated with the fact that she didn’t “have a door” in Aunt Kate’s car (I drive a 2 door Blazer) and she liked to tell us that every morning on the way to her school . I hope Elaina had as much fun as we did and I hope her teachers at school don’t think I am too crazy for letting her wear some of Aunt Kate’s BRIGHT RED lipstick to school in the morning !!!!

I took these pics with my camera phone, so they aren’t great, but here are a few highlights from our week!

Elaina quickly learned to chill with her cousin Alexandra!

And we thought Alexandra was hysterical wearing Elaina’s bunny!

As most of you know, some VERY bad storms with tornados blew through our area on Wednesday, so we had to take cover (Aunt Kate doesn’t take tornado warnings lightly). We were watching the news closely and here are Elaina and Quentin in the basement riding out one of the storm cells….they didn’t seem nearly as anxious as Aunt Kate was! We passed the time by coloring pictures.

Afterwards, we went to take a look at the hail that caused a LOT of damage to cars in our area. This is a picture of Quentin holding some pieces (and Elaina’s little feet in the background).

This is a pic of the front flower beds – the white stuff is hail! CRAZY WEATHER FOR SURE!

We hope that Elaina comes and stays with us again! We love her!