Adorable Children

During my Midwest trip in October, I spent about half the time with small children and about half the time drinking. (Just joking, but I did go to homecoming at Mizzou.) Two very different experiences, of course.

Ben (front) and Bekah

The first cute children I saw were in Chatham: Amy and West's adorable, well-behaved, enthusiastic and not-shy son, Andrew, and Cindy and Nate's very cute, smart, also well-behaved, sweet and friendly daughter Hannah and their also-adorable 1-year-old twins, Ben and Bekah.

Andrew (left) and Hannah ride the holiday train.

We had a great time. Andrew gave me a tour of his house and introduced me to Annie the dog. We watched some Rugrats and we played some pirate ship. Hannah let me play kick with her and read her bedtime books.

Nolen lines up his trains to watch Thomas on TV.

Then, when I reached Herrin, I saw my 3-year-old nephew, Nolen. He's a huge Thomas the Tank Engine fan, and he has loads of trains. We built and rebuilt train tracks and moved trains around and watched Thomas videos.

Nolen helps make cupcakes.

We also baked cupcakes. Nolen was very helpful with dumping in ingredients. When it came time to add the flour and chocolate into the wet mixture bit by bit, we had an interesting arrangement. He was scared of the noise made by the hand mixer, so we worked out a deal. He pushed his stool up the counter, climbed up and helped me dump in some flour. Then I said, "Time for the mixer," and he would run to the other side of the kitchen and sit on Mom's lap and peer across and watch me mix it. Then, when I turned off the mixer, he'd run back over to help again. Over and back and over and back. He also helped decorate. We were putting in filling and adding frosting, and then he measured out some sprinkles and helped me put them on each one. He called them "Nolen and Sara's cupcakes."