We're swimming through boxes in the Ashcroft household these days.
We've had a very exciting couple of weeks...

Two weekends ago Esme, Clare and I had a girls weekend out visiting Uncle Mike and Aunt Mary. Clare got to meet Ryan and Desiree's new puppy Rocco and they had a great time wrestling and running themselves ragged. Every now and then Rocco would mistake a crawling Esme for a new puppy friend, she definitely did not appreciate him throwing himself on her back in an invitation to play.an exhausted Rocco rests under the porch

Soon after we got home from Mike and Mary's my friend from high school, Chanda, came to visit with her sister Kayla and 2 year old daughter Lucy. Thursday night Andrew and I babysat Lucy so Chanda and Kayla could go see Spamalot. We are now sure we will be waiting a few years before adding to our family. Two kids less than two is at least one too many. Lucy has been very into babies lately, lucky for mom who is due to have their second daughter in October, so she was super excited to help with and hold Esme as often as possible, thankfully Esme is resilient and patient. We all had a great time and it was really fun to reconnect with old friends.

Lucy helps with Esme

This past weekend we went to church for our last Sunday at St. Mary's Times Square and then we walked up to Central Park and had a picnic with Aunt Veronica. After that we had a ton of fun at FAO Schwartz trying on hats and ended the day with a barbeque on campus with some new friends Greg, Katherine, their daughter Gracie and their son Andrew who was born just three days after Esme. Esme greeted him by crawling over and pushing him right onto his back. After that it took him about an hour to decide that Esme was okay to play with. His parents were amazed as they claimed Andrew was usually the little bully...way to go Esme, Isaac has taught you well! The best part of our day on Sunday was this push toy they had in the nursery at church, Esme got up behind it and just cruised all over the nursery without any help...there is video to come as soon as we work out the technical difficulties with my new computer.

Esme as bear & monkey at FAO Schwartz courtesy of Aunt Veronica's IPhone

Now we are settled into the business of serious packing. The dogs are nervous, Esme is into everything, including the boxes and despite ourselves we seem to be making progress. I think we are more than halfway done with almost every room...we're definitely at that chaos point and we're getting down to the little stuff that you have no idea where to pack. You know that point where you think you're almost there but really there's way more left than you're prepared to admit? That's where we're at...Thank goodness for our little helper Esme, she keeps us all on track!

The most helpful packer