This has been the rainiest summer I think I’ve ever experienced in Texas. That’s not a bad thing by any means. I have to say that I completely love how green and beautiful our yard and gardens are. The mosquitos have been terrible, but we’re working from several angles to sort out that minor nuisance. With all the rain, its been tough to go swimming or play outside, so we’ve been getting together with friends and family indoors instead.
the boys enjoy a snack together
We’ve hosted some play dates, but most of them have turned out to be baby play dates (with most of the children being under a year old). We often get together to hang out with Nancy, James and Paul and last week, we hosted a play date for children Hank’s age at our house. We had such a good time! Four toddlers (all boys!), three babies, five mommies and one Tori. Honestly, having Tori at the play date was SO wonderful! She played with the boys and kept them safe (stairs and all that) whenever they decided not to hang out with the grownups which meant the moms actually got to hold full conversations. Everyone had a wonderful time visiting, playing with Hank’s toys and Cody (the dog) and eating snacks. Then everyone went home and took lovely naps. It was a perfect way to spend a rainy morning and we’re looking forward to doing it again soon!
Paul
Since they’re in town for the summer, we’ve been getting together every week with Nancy, Paul and James at least to play and often for family dinner. Its been fun getting to know the newest member of our family and I swear Paul grows so much from week to week! Of course, that’s the way of things with babies, I know, but it can be difficult sometimes to remember how Hank changed so quickly when he was that little. Hank is such a big boy now and he’s not even two! In the afternoon after his nap, Hank often likes to look at photos on our computer. Sometimes we visit Uncle Ben’s blog and see photos from Ben’s adventures in Singapore, Malaysia et al (Hank likes the monkeys), and sometimes we look at the photos Tyler or I have taken. Hank likes to say people’s names when he recognizes them in the photos. Its been so fun having him recognize Paul. He’ll say “Paul!” and then “Baby!”. When Hank was younger, his cousins called him “Baby Hank”. Hank has definitely made the connection that Paul is a baby, but he doesn’t call him “Baby Paul”, instead he says “Paul!….Baby!”
Ben is awesome. He’s really good at technical things and he helped me set up this website in the first place. He added a new feature to his blog recently that allowed you to see photos in a slideshow format rather than just clicking on each individual photo to see it larger (and then having to hit the back button to return to the gallery). Ben helped me set that up here (HUGE thanks to Ben!!) and I’m trying it out for the first time with this blog entry. Please feel free to email me your thoughts on this format.
To view the slideshow, simply click the link below and click on the photo to advance (if you’d like the photos to advance faster). I personally prefer to view the photos using the second link (PicLens). Here are some photos from our recent visit with Paul and our recent toddler play date. Enjoy!
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