Two Little Hensons

In March, Anna Claire and Charlie welcomed their first cousin into the world.  Our little Gracie is 5 months old and SO stinkin’ cute! 🙂  We are so excited to see her (and her mommy and daddy) in just a few weeks.  Isn’t she a doll?

Well…Anna Claire and Charlie are happy to announce that next April they will welcome another cousin!  Aunt Caity and Uncle Chadd are expecting their first child!  Yay! 🙂  Here’s the first little picture we have of him or her.  We can’t wait!  Congrats Bonesteel Family!

Also, on Sunday, my friend McKenna came to visit.  Later that evening her husband and boys stopped by on their way home from Kentucky.  We met in college and well…a lot has changed since then.  Check us out with all of our kiddos!  🙂  So fun!

A couple random pictures:

Here they are enjoying a cool snack on a hot SC summer day.

Here they are trying to say “I love you” in sign language.  They are pretty good at it now. 🙂

Anna Claire and Charlie are starting 2 year old preschool this year.  Yesterday was their Open House.  They had a great time!  They are looking forward to starting school next week! 🙂  Here are some pictures we took before we left the house. 

Here they are walking in together.  Here they are with their teacher, Mrs. Trish.  I can’t wait to hear all about the friends they make and the things they learn.  🙂

Early Thursday morning we dropped our little ones off at our friends’, The Whittingtons, house.  They had a great time with their friend Nathan.  Here are some pictures of their fun!

We drove to Jacksonville, FL (which really isn’t a bad drive) and boarded the ship.  We grabbed lunch, went to our rooms, hung out by the water slides, took a little nap, had a great dinner, watched a show, ate yummy icecream, explored the ship, and called it a night.

All in all, the first day was pretty nice.  🙂  *that’s me and C on the slide 🙂

Friday we were in Freeport.  We explored the city, went to a beautiful beach, rode on a glass bottom boat out to a reef in the clear blue ocean and went snorkling.  That night we also had a great dinner (it was formal night) and show.  Devin played a few card games and we enjoyed some more relaxing time on the ship.

By the end of this day I was really starting to miss our kiddos.  We’ve been away from them this long before(when we went to Boston), but we could always pick up a phone and call but we couldn’t this time.  I knew they were having a great time with Nana, Grandpa, Granny, and Papa.  Thanks again to our parents for taking such good care of our little ones while we were gone. 🙂  Love y’all!

*Next I’ll post pictures from the rest of our trip and my reflection on some of the things we saw while in Nassau.

We left last Thursday to go on a cruise with our friends.  We decided to spend some individual time with the kiddos on Wednesday.  Devin took Charlie to the golf course to ride nine holes and I took Anna Claire to Monkey Joes.  We then met at the mall to ride the carousel and eat dinner.  I am so thankful for these two precious little ones.  They are already starting to show interests in different things.  I love watching them grow and learn.  🙂  Here’s a picture of Charlie in the car ready to go play and a picture of Anna Claire playing at Monkey Joes.

I feel like I’m constantly saying, “only use your crayons/markers on paper…we only paint on paper…don’t color on your hand…don’t color on your brother/sister.”  Well, I was in the store the other day and saw these fun window markers.  With the hot days we’ve had, I thought this would be a fun inside activity.  They had a blast!  That same night when they got a bath, we used some body paints their Nana got them a while back.  They thought it was so much fun!  Another thing we’ve done more of since it has been so hot is watch some new movies.  Here’s how they like to sit to watch their movies.  Now for the next story I’m going to tell, picture the really pretty red chair in the picture above while you are reading the story.  For a not so happy story that I feel I should record for the record:  Devin got home from work one night.  I was cooking dinner and the children were playing in the den.  If you’ve been to our house you know these rooms are right by each other.  Anyways, Devin and I were talking when we heard Anna Claire exclaim, “Mommy!  Daddy!  Charlie coloring on the chaaaiiirr!!”  We run to the den and he is coloring…WITH A GREEN SHARPIE…on our red chair we have only had for 7 months!  Devin takes the marker and kids and I immediately grab the cleaner Rooms to Go gave us when we added the ‘protection’ to our furniture.  I sprayed and rubbed and sprayed and rubbed.  Believe it or not, most of it actually came out.  Whew!  By the way, I have no clue where he got the sharpie.

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I am so behind on blogging…I still haven’t blogged pictures from their 2nd birthday party, Devin’s summer projects, some fun wooden toys, swimming pool fun, or our weekly summer theme activities with the kiddos’ friends.  Devin and I are going on a cruise with our friends and the kiddos are staying with their grandparents, so when we get back, get ready to receive a bunch of awesome updates.  Until then…hope you all stay cool! 🙂

These are some random pics of the kids after nap practicing their smiles! It’s their new favorite thing.  haha!