Walk walk

So Lucy bug is FINALLY walking. She has been standing steadily on her own since about November, but started taking more than one or two steps the last week in Thailand.  But in the past week, she has finally started voluntarily walking around the house and seems to suddenly prefer it to crawling (at least at home). She is pretty steady though still a bit wobbly and it is cute.  At almost 17 months, I think we are all ready.  When we want her to walk we say "Walk, walk" and she will repeat it.  Her brothers love to help her and encourage her.  Here is a very short clip, for speed of uploading sake (and even this 10 second clip was a LONG wait). Enjoy!

Miss Personality

We are back in the cold now, but it has not been too bad.  It is definitely less cold than when we left and we have even seen the sun a few times.  We have been listening to lots of fireworks, settling in, I am finally learning to drive stick shift (still not very confident but getting there), the kids are rediscovering their toys and very entertained by them.  Still no school for another week.

My little baby girl seems to have been lost in Thailand and replaced by an opinionated toddler!  I guess this has been coming on for awhile, but she has so much personality.  If she doesn't get what she wants the past few days, she lays prostrate on the floor and cries.  She loves to sort of growl when she talks, especially when she says "down".  Down means up or down actually and anytime she wants to get up on the couch or down off the couch or chair or your lap she growls "down".  She still loves people, waves bye bye at the drop of a hat and does this cute thing where she cocks her head to the side and smiles this huge smile. If her brothers are in her way or have something she wants, she has started pushing them out of the way... even Austin, who she often thinks hung the moon. Here are a series of photos from one of our last days on vacation that capture some of this spunk.

Boo- here I am!

You can't say no!

Come and find me.

Maybe I will take a few steps...are you watching?

I know you.

I can do it!

Peek-a-boo

Whee!

Hi Daddy...

Elephants, stingrays and crabs, oh my!

Big news in the Haney household...I am an aunt!  Harrison Price Davis was born to Emily and Mark right on his due date February 3.  It is hard to be far away, but we have skyped with him once and I am sure will do it more.  We are excited and send our biggest congratulations to the Davis family.

We have had lots of opportunities to experience God's creation on this trip and are enjoying all that we see.  This beach is full of tiny and not-so-tiny hermit crabs.  Several days there were so many starfish that were in the tide pools.  And no trip here is complete without an elephant ride. Only two more days and we are not ready to go.  The other day Bree and Austin were talking and Bree said she wished she could stay here 100 more days and Austin said he wished we could stay in Thailand for one year.  I suppose it is possible to have too much vacation, but it is hard to imagine going back to the cold in two days.  However we are very thankful for this time.

 A day's collection- a big hermit crab in the pink shell, 3 starfish and a few tiny hermit crabs.

 This stingray was washed up on the beach, right near our resort.

 We started out watching the elephant show...we saw elephants paint, ride a bike, play soccer and basketball and swirl hula hoops on their trunks.  Lucy was pretty excited. Here she is making the elephant noise and swinging her "trunk".

 Then we took our ride.  Bennett was especially happy to redeem himself since two years ago he was too scared and refused to ride.  Austin got to climb on the head and ride that way for a few minutes...but he was a little scared and was back on the seat in a minute or two.

 Daddy and Lucy's elephant.

 And finally, we paid about $3 for a basket of bananas to feed this cute little baby elephant.

 At first Lucy was not so sure about this trunk grabbing bananas (maybe she also thought the banana was for her to eat???) but soon she wanted to feed it and was clambering for more as she held out her banana willingly to the little guy.

Shakes, splashes and monkeys

Hmm, what do those three things have in common?  The things we are doing these days.  See for yourself.

So we took this boat to Monkey Island...a 15 minute boat ride right across the bay where we are staying.  It is indeed full of monkeys, eagerly awaiting our bananas.  We decided not to get off the boat (you could and possibly have monkeys climbing on you) but were close enough to successfully throw bananas and watch them scamper for them. The boys thought it was pretty awesome.  

Lucy was pretty excited too and kept saying "ee ee ooh ooh".

Austin discovered today he loves to be thrown in the pool.  "Throw me a mile Daddy!"

Back to the monkeys...if you can't tell, the two on the left were mommies holding their (dark looking) babies.  Super cute.

Bathing beauty.

Bennett's version of being "thrown" in...much tamer and more to his liking.

"Look Mommy I'm floating!"

In other news, I am about to be an aunt!  Emily is in labor as I write this and I am praying it will speed up for her.  Very suited to Emily's style, this little man decided to arrive right on time- on his due date.  Hopefully will have news on that soon.  So hard to be far away right now.  But if I have to be far away, I would pick Thailand as the place to do it. :)

Thailand, Thailand

We are so happy to have had a break from our regular routine, the cold and the SMOG (have you read the news?) and be in Thailand!  We are going on our third week here.  The first week was in Bangkok and was very busy (Chris led music, did a great job but was very busy).  The kids had childcare classes they enjoyed and we got to see lots of old friends.  Our second week was an opportunity to develop ourselves and Chris and I really enjoyed learning more about parenting from a couple we greatly respect.  While we went to Thailand with Lucy sick- she threw up on the plane and five more days and ended up on antibiotics- but now are all relatively healthy.

Now we are on vacation and really enjoying the pool, the beach, the lack of schedule and hanging out with good friends.

 Two years ago Austin sat at the top of this slide for about 2 hours, trying to get up the nerve to go down (which he finally did with the promise of ice cream).  This year he has already been done it about 25 times and loves it!  He is becoming a water lover, though still needs help with the skills of swimming.

 And Bennett buddy likes the water, but usually wants to be in his ring.  He even went down the slide a couple of times if Chris would catch him, but has decided he had enough.

 Lucy bug likes the water too, but is content often to sit on the top step with a cup and dump it over and over.  She has accidentally gone under a couple of times and has been pretty unphased by it.

 Chris is continuing his tradition of find and opening coconuts...pretty yummy.

 Friends and next door neighbors again...the hotel "randomly" put us next door to these guys.  Just like old times!

Our hotel is right across the street from the beach...it is a great set up.