Grandchildren

Grandchildren are such a blessing. I have 3 beautiful grand-daughters and I love them to bits.
Last weekend I was asked to look after the girls while my son and daughter-in-law went out for the evening. I could have gone to their house and looked after them there but I knew they would have more fun if they had a sleepover at my house. And I was right.
They played with the Barbies, they drew pictures and painted magnificent landscapes. We had art works drying everywhere. Molly didn't have her afternoon nap, insisting that she wasn't tired. Then they played outside for a while, collecting gum nuts that had fallen from the trees and picking flowers.
Manfred & I took the girls to Hillarys Marina for fish and chips and then they played in the playground at the family beach until it started to get dark. When we got home there was much discussion about who was sleeping where and also whose turn it was to sleep with Grandma. It was decided that it was Ella's turn to sleep in my bed (phew!) and eventually after bathing, dressing in pj's, teeth brushing, hair brushing etc they all went to bed and went straight to sleep. There was not another sound until 6am on Sunday morning.
What a lovely time we had. They wanted pancakes for breakfast and, of course, Grandma obliged. Topping choices were maple syrup, golden syrup and honey and drink selections were banana or chocolate flavoured milk.
After all of us dressing and gathering up the paintings we went to Church.
We also had all our shoeboxes to deliver(21) to Church for Operation Christmas Child (a Samaritan's Purse initiative to give gifts to children in third world countries).
After Church Manfred picked up Ella, Violet & myself and we went to the Cancer Rally for Life that had been going for almost 24 hours at the Arena Joondalup.(No Molly because she really needed an afternoon nap!) It was such a warm, sticky, humid day so the girls had slushies to drink. Later we went to Hungry Jacks for burgers and chips before I took the girls back to their Mum and Dad.
When I went home it was about 3pm and I was absolutely shattered. I made myself a coffee, lay on the bed and promptly fell asleep, with Spiffy cuddled up beside me, purring contentedly. The phone woke me at 6.15pm and even though I had slept for 3 hours I still had a good night's sleep on Sunday night. I was so exhausted.
But I would not have missed a moment of those 24 hours with my adorable grand-daughters. We talked about all sorts of things, we laughed, we watched movies, listened to music, played with the Barbie dolls, painted pictures and although the girls made an effort to put all the toys away, there was still quite a lot of tidying to do afterwards. What fun we had. I love those little girls and it made me realise how fortunate I am that I get to see so much of my Grandchildren. So many Grandparents don't always have such a good relationship with their children or with their daughters-in-law or sons-in-law, and so they don't always get to spend so much time with their grandchildren. I am Blessed.