Steven and Baby Hannah

This past week we went to Redding, and we finally got to meet my niece Hannah for the first time. It was quite funny to me because Steven absolutely adores her, which I didn't really expect. The first day we were there I was sitting on the couch holding Hannah, and Steven came over right next to me and started giving me his signal for "I want that" towards Hannah. Whenever he wants something he looks at it, gives me "popcorn hands" (like you do to the song Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree), and says "Uuuuh, Uuuuh, Uuuuh" over and over until he gets it. Well, he was doing all of this while looking at Hannah, so I sat him down next to me and set Hannah on his lap. He just smiled and talked to her. After a few minutes I took her off of his lap figuring they had both had enough of that, and he started giving me his signal for "give me that" again. He just wanted to hold her forever. Whenever she was in her carseat, he would lean over her and talk and smile and kiss her on the head, without any prompting at all. I was pleasantly surprised at how much he liked her. Actually I thought Elise would be the one to adore her, but she has not paid that much attention to her at all. She will look at her and say, "Aw, she's cute Mom." And she'll talk to her a little bit, but she hasn't even asked to hold her. Sometimes kids just surprise you. My sister Kathryn and Hannah came back home with us and are here visiting until Friday. Steven better soak up all the "baby time" he can get until then, because it is likely to be a while before there is another baby in this house.