More Fun With Cousins

Our summer so far has been full of activity and lots of fun with Hank’s cousins. While Uncle Ben is away in Singapore, we’ve been getting together regularly with Hank’s Aunt Nancy and cousins, James and Paul. We also saw a lot of Megan and Christopher recently while Aunt Laura and Uncle Jon were away on a trip to Colorado. Its been so fun hanging out with cousins who don’t live near us. Of course, Hank (and we) have greatly enjoyed our time with Uncle Josh, Aunt Dayna and Tori, Michael and David and Grandpa and Grandma too! Tyler has taken a few days off work here and there and Hank and I have really been enjoying the extra time with him here!

Hank and Dad

We’ve been going to the pool more recently. Hank thinks Grandma and Grandpa’s pool is the coolest place and has started asking for the pool when we go visit them. Hank is also very into telephone conversations right now and has been making the rounds asking to call some of family members most familiar to him. He usually begins with GG and she seems to be his favorite person to have “conversations” with on his pretend phone, but lately he’s been chatting up his Aunts and Uncles which has been really fun.

Hank loves Grandma's pool

Exploring is still the favorite activity at our house. There is a trail near us that Hank never seems to tire of exploring. Its fun watching him find “treasures” on his expeditions and brings back memories of finding such treasures on our own adventures as children. We’ve hosted a few play dates recently. Hank’s friend Henry came over with his mom and new sister, Edie (too cute). Despite all the fun toys and activities we have here, Henry and Hank seemed to enjoy hanging out in his room, bouncing on the bed and looking at the animal photos on the wall the best. We had what I call a baby play date recently too. Halley (10 months old) and Wesley (6 months old) came to play. I’m not sure if its because Hank has been around baby Paul so much or what, but he climbed right into Wesley’s car seat and began making “baby sounds” and even pretended to drink from Wesley’s bottle (which had the cap on at the time). It was quite comical actually. We also went to a birthday party for our friend, Lisa. She has lots of musician friends so a tune session broke out pretty quickly, much to Hank’s delight. Hank *loves* music! He also really enjoys water and found a hose nearby that evidently still had water in the line. When he pulled the trigger on the nozzle, he ended up spraying some of the musicians. It was hilarious! No instruments or people were harmed by the water, which was a good thing. When we left the party, Hank said, “Bye-bye music.”. We thought that was so sweet.

Ms. Carey lets Hank play the guitar

Music class is going well. Hank really seems to like Ms. Carey. His favorite part of class continues to be instrument exploration, but he also really likes turing the lights off to see the “stars” (white Christmas lights on the ceiling) during our lullaby segment of the class. As soon as he hears the slower music, he walks over to the switch on the wall and asks to be lifted up to flip the switch. Hank is really into the “I can do it myself” phase right now. He’s been taking great joy in putting on his work apron all by himself. It usually goes on backward (see photos below) which is fun for us, but the look of triumph on Hank’s face and hearing him exclaim, “I did it!”, is priceless. Yesterday Hank managed to put the apron on correctly all by himself (he was SO pleased) but I didn’t have my camera with me at the time. Washing windows and watering plants are still high on his list of favorite inside activities. We’ve had a lot of rain lately which is uncharacteristic of Texas in the summer, but has been welcomed by us and our gardens. There’s been a lot of thunder accompanying the rain so we haven’t gone out and played in it much. But it seems drier days will be here next week so we’ll be back to the pool soon! Here are some photos from recent adventures in no particular order: