The Hunt clan has survived our first full year as a family of four and it has been full of excitement and adventure.
We recently celebrated Athena’s first birthday with a party that included some of our friends from the neighborhood. While Athena was a bit overwhelmed, Balin and the other kids had a great time playing with the balloons.
As expected, Athena is on track to be long and lean like the Hunt boys. At her recent check-up she was 30.25 inches long (90th percentile) and 19 pounds, 9 ounces (25th percentile). Our little girl must have some crazy metabolism, as she eats all the time. It is not unusual for her to spend over an hour eating dinner. Anyway, this means we’ll continue to keep her car seat facing backwards for a while and Athena will continue to walk her way out of some of her less snug jeans.
Athena is sleeping most nights and she makes us smile with her waves and chatter. She always wants to be around Balin, and he is happy to play with his little sister–except when he is trying to park his cars.
Here is a rare photo of both kids looking in approximately the same direction. Check the album for a few more.
We had a great holiday, considering all the sickness that was going around. Here are a few pictures. As always, there are more in the online photo album.
We love this Hunt family tradition, which Sherri has proclaimed we will enjoy/endure every year. This year our friends Clint and Jen met us again to be embedded in the Hunt family for an afternoon. We headed out west towards the country and the hills to Corn Maze in the Plains. This fun spot has a great playground that I think Clint and Josh like to play in as much as Balin does. There are huge slides, big pieces of pipe to roll in and a large tire filled with corn. On arrival, we were a bit concerned because some of the corn looked very short. However, most of the maze was actually quite tall.
Athena liked standing and smiling by the big pumpkins and trying to eat the hay. Balin liked playing everywhere and, as expected, liked the tractor ride best. We had fun exploring the maze, but apparently our direction skills were off that day as we spent much longer being lost in the maze than any of us wanted. Athena fell asleep as we were wandering and Balin really just wanted to find the way out so that we could ride the tractor. Clint took on some of the carrying duty and Balin liked being up high in spite of his pouting lower lip. Jen wanted to get to the Farmer’s market and get some peaches before they sold out. We just missed them.
We finally found our way out of the maze and had a delicious lunch consisting primarily of kettle corn. By the time we left the Farmer’s market and said goodbye to Clint and Jen, it was time to feed Athena, so Josh Balin headed back in to wait. This turned into one more tractor ride before heading home. It was a long day, but we definitely feel like we seriously did the corn maze this year.
Last weekend we headed up north to pick some apples with our friends Tracy and Trevor. It was a great day to be outside and the farm was packed with families. Once we met up with our friends, we found a wheel barrel and headed out to the trees. It took a bit of walking to find some trees with apples, but once we made it to the right spot, Balin and Trevor both had a great time picking the apples and chucking them in the basket. For boys of that size apples are just as much fun to throw as they are to eat.
Once we were certain that we had more apples than any of us could eat, we headed back over to the pumpkin patch and the hay pile. All of the kids had a great time in the hay and we loved watching them. Next, we saw the ducks in the lake and the other farm animals. It was a bit of work to coax the boys back up the hill, even with the promise of snacks. We ate lunch, which included caramel apples, treats from home, and hot dogs. Amazingly, the boys were not exhausted, so we loaded up to take the hay ride. The boys had lots of fun riding along and Trevor composed a great song - “Chicken Song.” We had fun listening to them sing and laugh while putting hay on their heads.
At the end of the day, we were worn out from the fun. On the way home, Balin was asleep almost as soon as we got out of the parking lot. It was an excellent fall adventure.
Birthday Bash:
A couple of weekends ago, we went to a big birthday bash for Balin’s friend Aylin. There were a ton of kids and we got to see the band Rocknoceros. They are now Balin’s favorite music (and our least favorite…) Balin loved seeing Aylin again, swording the pinatas, and eating cake.
Last weekend I took about eight hundred pictures of Athena in this cute blue dress. Comparatively, only a few are posted. She is amazingly cute sitting up and playing. She really loves the feel of grass and very much wants to eat it.
In other news, Athena has been eating lots and lots. She is starting to get almost as much food in her tummy as on her face during a meal. So far, she seems to like sweet potatoes best.
Lately we have been on the move a lot. Athena has mastered sitting now with only the occasional tip-over. This means lots of super cuteness from our little girl. She has also become very vocal and likes to say things like “ahhhhh” and “da, da, da.”
When she’s not sitting, Athena is rolling and moving. Not quite crawling yet, but she really can make her way around a room. We’re already teaching Balin about moving small things that Athena might try to eat.
Balin continues to be an awesome big brother. He loves to give Athena hugs, make her laugh with a tickle spider, and share toys with her.
It is so fun watching the two of them interact together. If seeing these two kids in their matching shirts doesn’t make you want to protect the environment, then I honestly don’t know what will.
Balin’s birthday party was last weekend. We had so much fun seeing the kids playing together and spending a bit of time with their families. This photo is probably one of the best of the kids in action.
On Monday night, we had a picnic birthday dinner of letter noodles and red sauce over at the porch, which is where Balin loves to go to drive his cars. Balin had a momentary bit of confusion when he thought we were going to his birthday party (coming up in another week), but he recovered quickly. After dinner, we had cupcakes made from banana bread mix (as requested by B) and then opened presents.
Balin loved his Mack truck and has been driving it every night this week. We even took him for a drive at Target on Thursday evening.
Athena rolled her way happily through the past month and has now enjoyed several meals of rice cereal. We are getting lots of food on her face and hair and probably a little in her tummy, too.
They both got shots and Balin actually laughed and said “that was funny” after his. (This was the result of some prior playing (and awesome parenting) by Josh.) Athena did not think her shots were funny, but she recovered okay.
We ended the evening with a trip to one of our favorite places for beans and rice, followed by a little browsing in the hardware store nearby. It was a really nice family day and we are happy to have such fabulous kids.
Tonight I pulled out the whiteboard while we were waiting for dinner, and after much erratic scribbling (by both of us,) Balin started talking about names. Then two unexpected things happened. 1. Sherri said that Hunt was the name for her, me, Athena, and Balin, and he said, “All four of us?” Nice to know he’s conceptualizing numbers that way. 2. I started to write ‘Hunt’ on the board, and he stopped me.
Last weekend, Balin had the honor of being the ring bearer in the wedding of a high school friend of Sherri’s. This was a great day and a lovely wedding, which gave the entire family a reason to get dressed up.
I know that all the Balin fans will agree that there’s not much cuter than our little boy in a tux. Athena was also a little charmer and much of the bride’s family said that our little girl looked just like a doll.
Our little Athena is growing and growing. She’s now 5 months old and she loves to roll around, wiggle, chomp on fingers, toes, and anything else she can get to her mouth, and to watch people - especially Balin.
We all love how content Athena is. Here’s a little video. Sorry it’s a little shaky.
Recent Comments