Happy New Year!
Its hard to believe its already 2011, my how time has flown! We’ve been having a great time and enjoying life, and we hope you have too. The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas simply flew by for us (isn’t that how it is for so many people?). We had fun with lots of friends and family. Hank’s GG and Grandad came for a visit in early December. Sarah had a show that weekend, her last performance of the season (much later than usual) at a holiday event in the heart of downtown Elgin. Hank had a blast listening to the music and exploring all the vendors, keeping Dad on his toes for sure! Happily, our cousins, Jessica, Kurt and Colby came out for the show, fun times! GG and Grandad arrived the following day, in time for our neighborhood’s annual luminary night. We got together with all the neighbors on our street for a little party. It was fun and wonderful to have an excuse to use one of our fire pits. The night turned out more cold and windy than any of anticipated so we ended up hanging out in the garage and on the driveway instead of out in the cul de sac. Everyone had a good time. After the party, we took Hank on a wagon ride to look at Christmas lights.
Hank has fun "hanging around" with Grandad
Hank really enjoyed looking at all the lights this Christmas season and we’re totally bummed that the local trail of lights was cancelled this year. We can always hope it’ll be open again next year…. Hank had fun decorating our Christmas tree and we celebrated Advent this year with him. He delighted in reading a Bible story every morning after we’d lit the candles on our Advent wreath and then opening one of the doors on his Advent calendar. We’re not sure what he’ll do when put everything away. We went to church a few time with Sarah’s parents for Advent as well.
Ben and Nancy came into town from Ohio for the holidays and James, Paul and Hank got to have a few play dates together. Tori’s marching band marched in a local parade so we all went out to the parade to support her. It was lots of fun catching the parade and sharing kettle corn with everyone. Hank always loves seeing his cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents and this time was no exception!
Cooking is one of Hank’s current favorite activities and we’ve been finding ways he can help prepare most of our meals. Hank is really into using the food processor. He laughs and laughs as the food whirs around inside it. We’ve been blessed to have such a great garden this season, despite all the weird weather shifts (it *is* Texas after all). We’ve been enjoying going out to the garden to cut herbs or tomatoes (just picked our last crop the other day) or lemons to use in whatever we’re cooking – its really nice.
Tyler and Hank at the parade
Let’s see, what else…. oh, Hank had a blast playing in the leaves while our neighbors were raking one afternoon. He even tried to help rake the leaves (and immediately jumped right into the pile he’d just made). When GG and Grandad were here, they went to music class with Hank. He really liked having them there and kept bringing them instruments to play along with the songs, it was sweet. We didn’t make it to the library as often as we usually do this month, but we did manage to go a few times and meet up with some of our friends for tea afterward (its become our tradition, return and select books, then walk down the street to the tea shop for a cup of tea and a snack). Hank also had the flu for the first time in his life this month…I’m sure there are many adventures I’m leaving out at the moment, but here are some photos of the fun we had between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
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