The Hank Show

A few weeks ago, Laura and her children came for their final visit before school starts. We had so much fun with them! Hank really enjoys seeing and playing with his cousins. Laura, Alyssa, Megan and Christopher stayed with Grandma and Grandpa as did Nancy, James and Paul. Grandma’s house was like party central with so many folks there! We tried to spend as much time with everyone as we could and Josh’s family felt the same way. We had play dates and dinners and swimming pool fun. Lots of dancing and singing and playing games, it was a blast! Laura brought some of  Christopher’s old toys to pass along and Hank simply fell in love with a little toy camera. We think we’re going to let him use one of our old digital cameras more now because he really enjoys cameras.

Hank likes taking pictures

Over that weekend, Hank’s GG and Grandad came to visit. We had our car washed by some of Tori’s school band mates (a fundraiser, Hank really liked it!) and then we took Hank, GG and Grandad to the Circus Chickendog Show. It wasn’t what we were expecting based on the promotional flyers, but we all had a good time anyway. We also discovered that Hank is apparently NOT a fan of unicycles. Or at least of people trying to ride them. Hank had fun visiting with his grandparents from out of town too. And then on the Sunday both GG and Grandad and Laura and her family had to go home, I celebrated the release of my new CD, “For A Little One I Love“, with a children’s show at a local cafe. That was so much fun too! A fantastic turnout, great energy, the whole morning was just so joyful! Hank enjoyed singing with me during sound check and he, James and Christopher danced and danced during the show! It was awesome to have so much family out to support the release of my very first children’s album. My parents were there, Tyler’s parents were there, Laura, Alyssa, Megan and Christopher, Joshua, Dayna and Tori, Nancy, James and Paul and even my Aunt Donna made it out! We also had some friends there as well and it was just such a wonderful time. I feel so blessed to have such amazing family and friends and to have been able to spend so much time with people we love all summer long. Here are some photos from Laura’s recent visit and my CD release party in no particular order. Enjoy!

[nggallery id=9]

Man, this summer is really flying by! Hank has really been enjoying the play dates and dinners with his cousins (and aunts, uncles and grandparents) this summer. Last week we hosted a family dinner at our house and it was so much fun! As it turned out, we ended up with a house full of boys! Everyone had a great time and enjoyed dinner (we made a shrimp boil featuring venison sausage from last season’s hunting trips, potatoes, corn on the cob and of course, shrimp). It cracks me up how no matter what is being served at our gatherings, David seems to just want to eat tomatoes and bread…. that’s not a bad thing.

Hank and James pretend they weren't jumping on the bed

Before dinner, James and Paul came over to play with Hank and Nancy and I got to visit while the boys played. It really is amazing how much little Paul has grown in the few weeks they’ve been here. I rather forgot how quickly babies change from infant to baby to crawler to toddler. Paul is still in the baby stage, but he’s bigger every time we see him! James and Hank had an absolute blast as always, playing with instruments, toys and the dog. Chasing each other through the tunnel, trying on hats, jumping on the bed (until Nancy and I speak to them, then they sat on the bed fighting off laughter, trying to look like they’re not up to anything), so much fun! And so fun to watch. Yes, Hank and James are definitely best buddies right now.

Paul and Tyler

Its been wonderful getting together almost every week with our family during the summer, one of the benefits on school being out and few extra-curricular activities to contend with. On Saturday, I had a show at a local cafe. Hank and Tyler came of course, as did our friends, Gene and Tracy and their daughter, Halley. Halley is another of those babies that is blowing my mind with their growth and development. It seems like just yesterday I was holding her in the hospital and a now Halley is nearly a year old and  army crawling her way to whatever she chooses! Hank “helped” me sing at the show. He walked right up on stage and wanted to hold the microphone. He kept trying to turn it so he could sing into it, all while I was trying to sing. It was funny. My band mates are just awesome and have been stellar with him. Nick let Hank play his drums during our intermission. Hank *loved* that! I’m so glad he likes music so much! Here are some photos from Hank and James’ play date, our family dinner last week and my show over the weekend, in no particular order. Enjoy!:

[nggallery id=8]

On Monday, Hank had his first haircut. We took him to a place that only works with children. They made a BIG deal about it. I think Hank would have been much less freaked out by the experience if everyone simply acted like normal people rather than using their “super-excited” voices. Still, Hank did very well. He wanted nothing to do with the smock, even though we told him it was a big bib. So Tyler and I decided it wasn’t overly important for him to use one. Hank did very well during the hair cut. He tried to help the stylist with combing and followed her lead in turning his head this way and that so she could cut properly. He enjoyed the bubbles and even got to watch a little movie while he had his hair cut.

Hank's first haircut

At the end, he flat refused to have the hair dryer used anywhere near him, so we just brushed him off instead. And he wanted nothing to do with the clippers so the stylist cut around his ears with the scissors instead. At the end of his hair cut, the stylist took his photograph and gave us a certificate for his first hair cut along with some locks of hair to save. It was pretty cute. Hank got to put some of his cut hair into a machine and get a prize… He wasn’t very into that part of the experience so Tyler and I did it for him. Then we went for Asian food and Hank had one of his favorites, shrimp and broccoli. He really likes shrimp! He was so brave and has been talking about his hair cut ever since. He wanted to call GG and tell her about it (which he did) and he’s even gone and looked at himself in the mirror several times, pointing to his hair and saying “Hair. Cut. Scissors.” All in all, a good experience, but I have to say, I almost cried when the curls fell to the floor. Growing up is full of lots of adventures and some bittersweet moments for sure. Here are some photos of Hank’s first haircut:

[nggallery id=7]

A little over a week ago, we hung out with some family at my parents’ pool (well, their neighborhood pool to be precise). Hank always has so much fun at their pool because he loves the fountains. This time was no exception. Hank and his cousins played for hours in the water and we ate some delicious food. For some reason, Hank really liked dipping his chocolate chip cookies into Grandpa’s Dip. Grandpa’s Dip consists of sour cream, bacon, cheese and some spices. Hank has been known to eat it with a fork and to grab handfuls of it at a time to eat, but we still found it odd that he decided to eat it on his cookie. Aunt Donna was there (Hank’s great-aunt) and it was so nice to visit with folks and watch the kids play together. Everyone had a great time! Here are some photos in no particular order (i prefer to click on “View with PicLens” to view them). Enjoy!:

[nggallery id=6]

This summer is simply flying past for us! Its hard to believe its “coming to an end” as all the stores and such keep announcing. FYI, if you’d like to get any summer fun toys, now is totally the time. So many things on sale! We got a great deal on a play tunnel that now lives under our pool table. Hank just loves it! He’ll crawl through it and roll balls through, sometimes chasing them. He’s even tried to get Cody to go through, but Cody hasn’t wanted to play that game. It has been so wonderful spending time with our friends and family these past weeks doing summer time activities. The local symphony puts on a children’s day at Symphony Square and Hank has been having a good time there.

Hank has a blast in his tunnel

They have an instrument petting zoo where children can explore different instruments. Hank seems very taken with the drums and likes to walk around with the sticks “playing drums” on whatever he can. He doesn’t seem sure what to make of the brass and woodwind instruments yet, but he loves to pluck the strings on the violin and cello. We often see some of our friends at Symphony Square and everyone seems to have such a good time together!

Speaking of music, Hank and I have really been enjoying our Music Together class. Every week Hank sings more and more songs and asks for some by name. He gets so excited when I tell him we’re going to go to music class and says, “Keeri!” (which is Carey, his teacher). He loves the guitar and he really likes instrument exploration time. Its so much fun, Tyler and I are thinking we’ll sign up for the next session. Hank will be so pleased.

Sprinklers are so much fun!

We’ve been having lots of fun playing in water lately. Hank has even taken to playing in Cody’s water bowl again, something we thought we’d successfully taught him not to do. Its so much fun watching him play in and with water, the look of sheer joy on his face and his happy, gleeful laugh is just priceless. We broke out his play sprinkler the other day thinking we’d do a two birds in one stone kind of thing (watering the grass while bringing joy to our little boy). Hank had an absolute blast in the sprinkler and was soaked to the skin in no time at all. Now whenever the hose is on, he’s quite keen to try getting the water all over him. Still, he’s been very careful with the hose when watering the potted plants and his garden. Hank really likes to water the plants and I think he rather prefers to water with the hose than the watering can right now.

Hank has been really into reading lately. He likes to select a book and “read” it himself. Then he’ll bring it over to us and we all read it together. He’s also taken to asking for specific books like “George” for “Curious George” and “Toad” for “Railroad Toad”, etc. The other night, Tyler was reading with Hank and Hank was asking for various books. At one point, Hank started saying “DaGa, DaGa” and Tyler had no idea what he was wanting so he asked Hank to show him what he was talking about. Hank reached into the basket of books next to them and pulled out “Dancing With Degas”.

Hank reads a book

Needless to say, we were quite impressed with what he’s been absorbing. We read the title of books, but the books are much longer so we didn’t realize he’s recall the title. Fun stuff! Anyway, here are some photos from some of our recent summer adventures in no particular order:

[nggallery id=5]

Its so neat that there is one day between our birthdays (Sarah’s is the 10 of July, Tyler’s the 12th) so we had a party on the day-in-between to celebrate both of our birthdays and we had the best time!! Hank really enjoyed himself playing Dance Dance Revolution (or Jump Jump as he prefers to call it) and Rock Band. Much to his delight, Tori played Rock Band with her guests at her birthday party. Its hard to believe she’s already 14! She was very gracious and let Hank play the drums and sing while she smoked everyone on the guitar. We had three cakes at our party. My mom made a delicious German Chocolate Cake (using dark chocolate) for Tyler’s birthday, I had a gorgeous Sacher Torte and we had Red Velvet Cake for our friend, Laurie, whose birthday actually was July 11, the day of our party. I had Tyler take the leftovers to share at his office (but lets face it, chocolate cake makes for a lovely breakfast so he didn’t take all of it). Tyler’s parents came to visit and brought with them an old guitar that Tyler played with when he was a little boy. Hank just loves it! We had so much fun with all our friends and family celebrating our birthdays. Here are some photos from the various July birthday celebrations:

[nggallery id=4]

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!

[nggallery id=2]

We had a lot of fun on the 4th of July. We went out to our friend, Patrick’s, family’s ranch in Comanche. There were so many wonderful places to explore and interesting things to see, Hank had an absolute blast! He especially loved the fish pond and wanted to get in it to catch the fish. We didn’t let him get in the pond, but we let him splash and play in the water, he was soaked to the skin in no time!  The food was delicious, the company and conversation lovely and the fireworks were beautiful. Hank stayed up late to watch the fireworks. He was pretty tired, but he enjoyed them all the same. Now he points them out in books (we have a Biscuit story with fireworks in one of the pictures) and anywhere else he sees them.

The next day, we explored the ranch some. Hank got to feed a donkey. He also saw a one day old lamb (too cute), some cows and bulls, lots of cats and several horses. Hank especially liked the horses and it was so fun to be greeted by them when we walked up. Patrick introduced Hank to several of the horses and Hank was just delighted to pet their faces and manes. Hank slept in the car almost the entire journey home which was wonderful. A good nap is a great thing! Here are some photos from our 4th of July in no particular order, enjoy!

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:

Hank adores music. He has his favorite songs and has begun asking for them by name. Some he likes to sing, others he likes to listen to, all of them, he likes to dance to. He’s been playing the piano more often recently which is lots of fun for us. And we’ve been having dance parties at home which is hilarious and so much fun! Last week we went to a music class together and he had such a great time, we decided to sign up for the next session of classes. We’ll go to our first official class this week. The trial class had over 20 children in it, but our regular class will only have 12. Hank’s favorite part of the experience, aside from the train songs, was exploring the instruments. His favorite that day was this drum. He found great joy in striking it with the mallet and it made such a lovely sound. We took him to the Children’s Day Art Park put on by our local symphony. We all had a good time, but by the time we got there, we’d missed the instrument petting zoo and balloons. Fortunately, Tyler was able to wrangle a balloon for Hank (which he loved) and we all enjoyed a fun concert with Joe McDermott.

exploring with Dad

Airplanes, trains, butterflies and bees are high on Hank’s list of things he likes right now (not that he has a list, but if he did, those would be very high on it). One day when Hank kept asking for an airplane, we realized Hank doesn’t have any airplane toys so Tyler made him an airplane out of cardboard. I was so happy to see such a lovely MacGyver/Andy Pandy (who is kind oflike MacGyver, only for kids. its on the BBC) moment, Tyler cutting apart a box to make a plane for Hank. Hank loved the plane and has played with it several times a day since Ty made it for him.

Over the weekend, we went to visit the ducks at the neighborhood pond. Hank had a great time quacking and following the ducks and Tyler had fun teaching Hank the different kind of ducks and showing him the ducklings. They were quite the pair walking on the banks of the pond together. Hank is *way* into exploring. Saturday, Tyler took Hank to the creek near our house and they spent the morning exploring there. Hank was fascinated by the dragonflies and the damselflies and the butterflies. They followed a huge swallowtail butterfly for quite some time. Hank liked the water and the bridge and he and Tyler went for a little hike together on one of the trails. They were both hot and rosy-cheeked after their adventure, but so happy. I’m so glad that they enjoy exploring together!

with Alexis on her special day

On Father’s Day, our friend (and Hank’s Godmother and Sarah’s fiddle player), Alexis, got married. Hers was the first wedding Hank ever attended. He did quite well during the ceremony (he goes to children’s church on Sundays and doesn’t sit with us in the main service so we weren’t sure how he’d do) and he asked very politely to go outside when he’d had enough of sitting. He missed the pronouncement and kiss, but he had fun exploring with Daddy all the same. At the reception, he was completely hilarious! Hank told us he was tired and asked to go home and then the dancing started…. he got a second wind or something because he danced for over an hour! He spun and shook, “jumped” (his version of jumping doesn’t actually have his feet leaving the ground yet) and clapped and even did the robot (which he learned courtesy of Hi-5, one of his current favorites). Hank danced with a few kids and several ladies, including the bride, Alexis. By the time we thought to try to shoot video, the dance floor had become so crowded we were on zone defense and Hank was starting to get tired again. One of these days we’ll take some video of him dancing and share it with you. He loves to dance and we love that! I hope he never loses that joy in dancing. There are too many guys who don’t like to dance… Hank was so amped up, he stayed awake for the entire ride home, but once we got there, he went straight to his room and crawled in bed, telling us goodnight. Here are some photos. To see the entire photo, simply click on the image, enjoy!