The men will hunt, the women will...eat.

Yeah, it's true. That pretty much sums up the entirety of my weekend. I did see my husband briefly on Friday night for our pseudo-date night while we watched the movie, "The Bucket List."

But on Saturday and Sunday, he was gone again to the woods... seeking to fill his second deer tag, bringing his buddies along for the ride.

Saturday brought the Mantovani family to our house. Kristen & Clay arrived around Noon with their three-month-old baby, William. After filling up on some of the goodies I'd prepared, the men hit the woods behind our house, and Kristen and I turned our attention to lunch and Will. Noah was still sleeping then, so I had plenty of time to get in my baby fix and to stuff my face with a fine collection of snackables.

One nice thing for Kristen is that I still have all my baby gear within easy reach. I hooked her up right away with Noah's old swing—oh the memories we have in that heaven-made contraption. I think I survived those early months to the credit of that swing. Will thought it was pretty darn cool too. When he fell asleep in my arms, I seamlessly shifted him to the swing and it kept rocking him peacefully for the next hour or so.

Little Will

It was a bit nostalgic for me to see a baby in that swing again. Noah was obviously the last baby to grace its cushy carrier. Here he is around 2.5 months old as a little comparison.

Noah

Once Will woke up, we tried out some other baby gear; we broke out the Bumbo! I used to love that thing when Noah was little. He always looked so big in it, long before I could officially call him a big boy. Look how cute Will is—all grown up (so soon)!

Will, rockin the yellow Bumbo

And, again, just walking down memory lane...

Noah, around four months old in the Bumbo.

Once Noah woke up, he took a keen interest in "Baby." Poor Will... he was startled awake, he was poked, hugged incessantly, shouted at, you name it. He handled it very well, as did his ultra-cool mommy (much cooler than I was when Noah was that little!).

Noah, finding other uses for the Sit-N-Spin

So Kristen and I got in LOTS of talking time. It was such a change from our usual gatherings, when I'm following Noah's every step. That's the great thing about hanging out at home—there's not much he can get into, and if he does, it doesn't matter. I can just sit back and watch the madness—gated, contained madness. In all honesty, though, it was just refreshing to be able to catch up with one of my favorite girlfriends. I wish I could do it more often!

As for the men... no deer on Saturday. They saw a few, but none were in shooting range.

On Sunday, the Adams family came up for more hunting/visiting. I happily laid out another spread of things I don't get to eat very often (what a shame, I know!), and I got to spend another day bonding with a fabulous chica. Lindsay and I don't get to hang out much, but it's been a lot of fun on the occasions when we do.

And Noah, well he was just smitten with Madisyn and he spent the better part of the day chasing after Mason to hug him. He was so excited to have little people to play with in the house, I think he would have been happy to have the Adams over every day.

Lindsay was very popular with the kids. She ran out of laproom at one point!


And this picture I just had to take as everyone was on their way out the door. Despite the Michigan hat, doesn't Mason look adorable?!

Alas, the men ended up empty-handed on Sunday too. Robbie did shoot a deer, but it ran off into the neighbor's woods, never to be seen again.