We’ve been having a lot of fun around here the last couple of weeks. Nathan’s sister and our nieces have been in town so we’ve been spending time with them almost every day. It has been so much fun to see Elias playing with his cousins since he is usually pretty shy about interacting with kids around his age. Simon has received a lot of attention from his cousins as well. Last night Audrey was leaning in to kiss him, and he kept “kissing” her right back…slobber and all.
Elias has been taking a few “risks” that he wouldn’t normally take as a result of being with his cousins. For example, last week at the park he played with Audrey and another girl he had never met before, then when he lost interest in their game of “house,” he went over to some stumps and jumped off of them. I got a fun picture of a jump:
But more fun for me, Elias has been willing to get a bit closer to Simon. Maybe seeing the girls loving on Simon has rubbed off a bit. Or maybe he is just ready himself. Either way, I got a picture I’ve been waiting for for a long time! Brothers!
I believe I posted the first version of this picture when Simon was a month old or so, and Elias was almost completely across the couch from him. Look at that…they are touching! Actually….now that Simon is mobile, he gets into Elias’ space a lot more than Elias would like. He is pretty good about it most of the time, but has on occasion elbowed Simon out of the way. It’s a work in progress. After I got some pictures of the boys together, we decided to try to get all of the cousins together on the couch. In the process, Simon got a little upset. Elias decided he had had enough, and moved off the couch…but not before I snapped this picture:
Everyone else stayed for a fun cousin photoshoot:
Then I bribed Elias to get back on the couch by telling him he could take a picture if he got on the couch and let me take one first. It worked!
In other news, Simon has been working on sitting up a lot lately. He has made a lot of progress in the last 5 or 6 days. Here he is practicing this morning before Elias woke up:
And here he is showing off his skills in the evening:
Simon also got to play a bit of dress up this evening. Audrey put the hat on him, and he tolerated it pretty well!
