Coconuts!

I almost called this one "Ethan" but decided this title was more descriptive. Heehee! Ethan said "coconuts" to be silly at least once a meal the whole time we were there. I encouraged him once to keep saying it, and that's all it took.

Ethan is almost 3 and a half right now, and he is getting to the age that I just love to interact with. He's talking to me in real conversations. We talked about favorite foods, and coming to visit each other at our houses. We talked about who in the family has blue eyes or black ones (or brown---that brown/black distinction is so confusing). We talked about our dogs.

On the night of the fourth, we talked about the fireworks. About dinnertime we decided that we were not going to go back into town and fight the crowds with our tired kids. Sabrina had had it by about 7:30 anyway! We could stay at home and watch the fireworks form Mom and Dad's street, we thought. Before the house was built across the street and before the trees got as tall as they are, we could see the fireworks show from the driveway. No luck this year, although Kirk found a spot in the music room, looking out across Mom and Dad's bedroom out the windows at the top and could see the fireworks. He was the official Dad on Duty, listening for Sabrina in case she woke up during the ruckus.

Anyway, as we always do, we were looking out towards town from the road, and we saw nice little fireworks, spraying out in their sphere shapes. "Is that it? Where should they be? What are the bright lights there? Aren't they usually over this way more? Shouldn't they be a little higher?" We said this over and over. And as always, when the real show began, they were much higher than those little ones. (I found out that these were all banned in Hood County. There was a burn ban for the whole county, not just in town, so any of these fireworks were actually illegal!) Ahhh . . .there they are! Big balls of color, but still pretty far away from us.

But overhead? The neighbors down the street were lighting up their own fireworks. Kinda scary for Ethan and Bess and Jamie, even. After the end of the Granbury fireworks show ($30,000 for 30 minutes, I heard), the neighbors lit their impressive show, and it was so scary, Jamie took off, "running for his life" he said. So Bess and Jamie took off after him, running in the dark down the asphalt road. "Stop!" the mommies yelled, but they kept on! We caught up to Ethan and Bess, and I talked to them about how the scary part was the noise, and you just had to get your ears ready for the noise. Plus, we kept on walking back to the house, too, and from thier driveway it wasn't so scary, and we could enjoy them.

So that was one more conversation I got to have with my little nephew. Too fun! I So so so wish we lived close and they could come over and play, and we could watch them grow up. I was so impressed it brought tears to my eyes to listen to Ethan "read" a book to me. (Mouse About the House, by the way.) He played with Bess and Jamie, and they had fun. Not often my kids are playing with such young ones.

But they liked it, maybe for the same reason I liked it so much. Ethan is part of us. We're connected by blood. I am proud of him in an Auntie kind of way, I guess.

This picture to the left is Ethan and Bess at the square. Aren't they sweet? My kids don't hold my hands anymore for protection! Sometimes we do, though.

And I thought it was bad when I realized I didn't make my kids take a bath all weekend. But then Rachel said Ethan hadn't had a bath either! Unless you count the kids splashing around in Poppa's pool. Ha! They were clean enough, I guess. My kids also got in the hot tub. That has chemicals in it, so it sanitized them. Right?

That's my post about Ethan! I think I have a post about Sabrina and one I am tentatively titling "this is . . . Granbury." If you are from Granbury, you'd know that was the title to a featured picture in the Hood County News for a long time. And sometimes, as my friend Donna and I know, they hit the nail on the head. Not in a flattering way! I don't know if they do that feature any more. Leave a comment if you know. Leave a comment if you liked the blog!