cousins

Hunter has gotten to spend some really good time with his cousins, William and Hayden, over the past week. He adores them and their attention to him over an electronic device. I adore them and their willingness to go back in time and enjoy activities with him that they too loved as toddlers. They feed and then chased ducks at the park with Hunter and took him down various slides at the playground. They shared food with him, let him crawl all over them, read books to him, and taught him to "raise the roof" at mealtimes. 

I am now used to a house strewn with toys and not surprised to find a kitchen utensil in my bathroom just because. Well, Hayden and William helped me fix a fun pancake, scrambled egg, and turkey bacon breakfast on Friday and I realized that I will soon have to let my clean kitchen go as well. Folks, there were scrambled eggs in very hard to clean places and pancake batter dripped around the counter for days. Hunter will be "helping" in the kitchen before too long and I'll just have to find my inner peace so that we can enjoy spending that time together and he can learn importance life skills. 

This picture makes my heart feel full. My family adores books. I once sat reading in the living room surrounded by my family and didn't realize that pizza had been delivered and consumed until I finally finished my book. Hayden's punishment at times has been that he couldn't read because he simply couldn't get other things done when he had a good book going. (I feel you, nephew!) I've read to Hunter since before his little eyes could focus on a book. I used to just hold him and read aloud from whichever book I was consuming. We read a pile of books before bed and he often heads off to his room during the afternoon to thumb through his books. 

Hayden and Hunter spent some time going through books together. More than anything, I love that their skinny legs are just all over the place. My knee doesn't even move like Hunter's anymore. 

I visited Natalie in North Carolina over the weekend. We had a nice visit full of walks and talking and yummy food. I slept ten hours each night in the most peaceful sleep I've had in ages. Hunter is a good sleeper now, but I still always have an ear out for him and know that he will often wake before I'm ready to in the morning.

We visited a couple of local chocolate shops and I enjoyed a few tasty morsels. 

I got to do many things that I long for on the trip including uninterrupted sleep, full meals with no one to feed but me, a nice walk without a toddler wanting out of the stroller, good conversation whenever, board games in the afternoon, and a movie at night that I was awake enough to finish. I got to enjoy all of those things and meanwhile, miss my little family like crazy. I missed Jared, but I really missed Hunter and his sweet baby smell and his babbling laugh. I didn't wake him up tonight when I got home (I'm not crazy!), but I do look forward to seeing him in the morning. I think he'll be glad to see me too.