A week without Henry

It was wild around here without Henry last week.

One nice thing about it was that it gave me some precious time with Jonah and Bridget. They missed their big brother but also stepped into new roles while he was gone. Jonah enjoyed the 'social director' position that Henry usually takes over. Bridget was willing to follow along with most anything Jonah wanted to do, but Jonah was also willing to spend copious amounts of time playing dolls/dishes/dress-up with his sister. He's sweet like that. Plus he likes wearing the high heels. ;)

We kicked off the week with fireworks on the Fourth. We went up to Sky Ranch; even though we had to watch from a different area from the campers, we got to see the same show. It was incredible! They did such an excellent job.

We saw friends there, like Jonah's favorite person in the world-Joe Bellinger:

Bridget was SO very excited to see the fireworks, but when they finally started she was very scared. She liked the way the look up in the sky; however, she was just terrified of the sounds. So she spent the evening like this (even though it was 80 degrees out):

Before the fireworks, the kids and I headed out to the lake to swim a bit. Then Dave and Mary Beth joined us for the show:

We bought some small fireworks for the kids to see at home, and Bridget felt a little more brave about the whole thing. She still isn't a fan of the noises but discovered that if she just plugs her ears it isn't quite so bad. :)

The kids and I went to a dollar movie while Henry was gone too. We very rarely see movies in the theater, so it was a pretty big treat! We watched "Ice Age 2: The Meltdown" which, even though we've seen all the other Ice Age movies, we somehow hadn't seen before. It was very fun! The theater even offers one dollar popcorn and drinks, so we had the full experience.

After the movie I treated the kids to ice cream. We love Braum's, but it's all the way on the other side of town so we don't go often. Both Jonah and Bridget chose Cherry Lime-ade ice cream (which sounded very odd to me but was really refreshing!) and they enjoyed every last bite of it.

Also last week, Sam and I watched the mileage in our car turn over from 999,999 miles...

...to 100,000 miles! It was a fun milestone for our van. :)

Jonah and Bridget enjoyed a few bubble baths together while Henry was gone also. It's a little crowded in the tub with three kids now, so they don't often get bubble baths together anymore. I think I had forgotten how much they enjoy them!

We also attended a story time summer reading event at our local library one day, and another day we headed into Dallas with Mary Beth to get some shopping done.

It was a fun week and we tried to stay busy so we wouldn't notice how much we missed Henry. :) It's amazing how one child can change the dynamics of a family so much. Even the way that Jonah and Bridget interact was very different while Henry was gone.

He left a hole in our lives while he was away at camp, but he's back home now. It's so good to have our family all together again! :) This week really gave me a new perspective on parenting. I've always known that I am raising my children for the purpose of sending them out into the world, but I had a lot of time to reflect on that this week while Henry was away. It's given me a renewed vision for how I want our parenting to look and which things I really want to focus on during these younger years. Thank you Lord for my kids! May they always strive to know YOU and make YOU known. :)