Talking

Tonight Pete was giving Hannah a bath while I cleaned up the kitchen. Hannah refused to get out so Pete called me to talk to her. I went in and asked her if she was ready to get out and she said "NOOOO!" I asked her if she was ready to read a book and she looked at Pete, stretched up her arms, and said "up!" So he pulled her out and was drying her while the tub drained. Hannah turned to the water and started waving, then said "Bye-bye agua!" It was adorable. She's so smart!

So we went and read the bedtime stories, then sang "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". Two nights ago Hannah blew us away when we got to the end of the song and she sang sky, star, and are at the appropriate times, babbling something close to the tune in between. She's done it every night since.

Hannah amazes us every day with all she is learning. I always knew that babies learned a lot in their first few years of life, but I never have been able to witness just how much. It is too, too cool!

Visiting folks

A few pictures from our trip to SE TX in early January.

Hannah with Rhonda


Hannah and Kennedy


Me, Hannah, Rhonda, Nicky, and Aunt Matalee


While there we visited my childhood friend, Lisa, and met one of her daughters, Abby. Hannah is not mad about being there, she's mad because we made her stop playing to take a picture!


Hannah and I went to visit Clint and Nicole and to meet Khale and Emily. Hannah was mildly interested in the babies, but very interested in all the baby toys.


Amy and Eric came over as well so of course we needed a group picture. This time Eric was sad to stop playing.


Pete and I went to eat with Stacia and John, and Taryn and a friend of hers. Stacia, Taryn and I took an obscene number of pictures of ourselves. A few of them we even liked!






Drinking our margarita flavored tequila. If you run out of margarita mix you can apparently just reverse the amounts, according to John!




On the way home we stopped at our park again. Hannah tried out the big girl swings.


And the merry-go-round with Nah-ma.


And a really tall slide.


She did not get on the see-saw like last time.

You may have noticed the beads that Hannah is wearing in a lot of the pictures since Christmas. They are kukui nuts from Hawaii. Mom gave them to her for Christmas and Hannah would happily wear them 24 hours a day if she could. Occasionally it seems that she's being nice as she takes them off and offers them to you, but she's a tease. If you reach for them she snatches them back, puts them on, and laughs and laughs.

Busy day

Hannah and I met some friends today at Southpark Meadows. As usual Hannah loved the slide. This time she got to slide with her friend George.


Hannah, Campbell, and George played the drums.

The slides are the very most fun.

Do you know that this is a "tee taw"? Hannah loves to tee taw, especially with her friend Campbell.

Green girl













I absolutely did not expect her to make it up, but I promise these pictures are taken back to back with no one going to help her at all!

Later in the afternoon Hannah, Pete and I went to meet Mom and go to North Pole Village. NPV is a community event that is done near Mom's house. There is a "village" in the community center. You can go to the "petting barn" (puppies from the animal shelter), the "bakery" (decorate cookies), "school house" (make a tree ornament), "library" (get a book to keep), "post office" (write and mail a letter to Santa), "toy shop" (choose a stuffed animal to keep), and several more places including pictures with Santa.

We skipped Santa pictures since facial hair is really scary. We took Hannah to the end of the line, pointed out Santa and asked if she wanted to go see Santa. She shook her head and emphatically said "NO!"

Decorating cookies

Choosing a book with Grandma

Finding the perfect stuffed dog (with a belly button)

After that the camera batteries died, but se had a lot more fun!

San Marcos Park

It was a beautiful day and Pete and I decided to take Hannah to the San Marcos park for a picnic.





Hannah did lots of exploring.


And tried to get into the river.


Next we found a slide on the playground.


But it was way too big so we found a better one.


There was a big hole at the bottom, but that was ok.


Hannah and I climbed up high.


And then Hannah just climbed,


and climbed,


and sat a minute,


and climbed some more.


She made some cute faces too.




Here Hannah is practicing her Uncle Brian face. Tongue must be out in order to concentrate fully.


We left the steps for the swings. Hannah pitched a nice little fit over leaving the steps, but we had been there for nearly 30 minutes. She didn't like the swings nearly as much.