Henry’s 1st Birthday Party

Today we celebrated Henry’s 1st birthday with a big bash, just a few days shy of his actual birthday. He had a great time seeing lots of grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles. He got all kinds of cool new toys and made a very big mess with his very own birthday cake. He didn’t eat much of his cake, only the bites I gave him on a fork. He didn’t understand he could eat the cake and frosting that was all over his hands and arms. I think he liked his post-cake bath better than the cake itself!

His big day wore him out and he was in bed and asleep at 6:45. It’s hard being an almost-one year old.

Big Week for Henry

Henry has learned all kinds of new things this week, including starting to take steps. Most importantly, he is now saying “ma-ma.” Finally! He also dances now. His dancing consists of him sitting down and swaying front to back to the music. Other new discoveries include pointing to other people’s noses and pointing to his own nose. And his new favorite is playing peek-a-boo. Now he knows how to cover up his face to play, instead of just watching us do it. He’ll do it with his blanket or with a cloth napkin, or today he started using his chubby little hand to “hide.” It just cracks him up.

And here’s a cute picture of Jack with modeling his new Spiderman house shoes. He was very excited about getting them, and wearing them with his Spiderman pajamas and robe. His plan was to sleep with the house shoes and robe on, but that didn’t happen.

Henry’s First Steps

Henry is just starting to figure out that he can stand up on his own and even take a few steps.  We haven’t caught any of his better attempts on video yet, but this one isn’t too shabby.  He seems to be more interested in hopping than just simple walking, but I think he’ll have it figured out in another week or two.

 

Preschool Thanksgiving Celebration

This morning Henry and I went to Jack’s preschool Thanksgiving Celebration. For the past couple of weeks, Jack has been talking about the songs he’s been learning for the celebration. One of them is a thanksgiving prayer that has been his prayer of choice before supper lately. The celebration was very nice and it was lots of fun to watch the kids perform their songs up on the stage. Jack’s class (and the other 3/4’s class) did three songs and then the older kids did a couple of songs. Then they all sang a song together at the end. He wore an Indian costume and got to hold up a red barn poster in one of the songs.

After the songs, the kids sat with their guests and we had a Thanksgiving feast – fruit salad, mini-muffins, candy corn and popcorn. Jack took the feast very seriously and ate six mini-muffins and lots of the other treats too. The kids had also worked very hard on the table decorations. They each made a placemat, a Thanksgiving book, a scarecrow complete with a photo of themselves, a paper bag pumpkin and a place card. What a fun morning!

11 Months

Our sweet baby boy is 11 months old today. I should be getting excited about his 1st birthday… but not quite yet. Tonight I am wishing he would stop growing up so fast. So here are some things I want to make sure and remember about our almost one-year old:

- He yells really loud whenever we are in a restaurant. He’s not crying, he’s just making noise because he thinks that’s what he is supposed to do.

- He jumps up and down as fast as he can when I go into his nursery to get him in the morning.

- He holds hands with Jack in the car.

- He can’t figure out how to use a sippy cup without sucking in way too much water and coughing like crazy.

- He crawls as fast as he can to the door when Nathan comes home from work, saying, “da-da” the entire time.

- He cries when someone else (other than Daddy) holds him and I’m in the same room.

- He loves reading books, turning the pages, lifting flaps.. anything with books.

- He’s already had his first haircut from Daddy and almost needs another one.

- He is happy to sit by himself and play with a pile of toys. He doesn’t often get left alone long enough to do this.

- He signs “all done” at mealtimes, or just spits all the food in his mouth out at you to tell you he’s done.

- He loves the stairs and can crawl all the way up them when we let him.

- He loves bath time and starts kicking as hard as he can as soon as he hits the water, and smiling.

- He points to George in his Curious George books.

- And last, he has his first ride on Jack’s tractor on Saturday. He just sat there and held on to the steering wheel like he’d been doing it forever while Nathan pushed the pedal and he rode around the driveway. Soon enough, he’ll be driving around by himself.

Family Pictures

We had family pictures taken back in September when Nathan was on vacation. Today we got the CD with all the pictures on them and I am excited they turned out really well. Thank goodness we brought a football so Jack would have something to do during the pictures. He wasn’t too sure about getting his picture taken so many times. Here are some of my favorites.

At the Park

The weather was beautiful today so we had a picnic at the park after preschool. Then we stayed for about an hour and played. Jack found lots of other little boys to play with and Henry enjoyed swinging and going down the slide with Jack... when Jack would slow down enough to hold him.

Overalls

The other day I realized Henry had a pair of overalls in his drawer that he had never worn. So I put them on and took lots of pictures. I think little boys are so cute in overalls. They are already too short for him so I guess he'll just get to wear them once.








And here he is in his bear hat. At first he did not like hats at all but now that we've had a couple of cold days and he's had to wear one, he's getting used to them.


And last here's a picture from today of me and the boys. Jack was very excited to have my birthday party today and could barely wait to eat cake. It was even more exciting because he helped Daddy make the cake and picked out my presents. What a great birthday!

Omaha

Last week we went to Omaha for three days for a short vacation. On Wednesday we went to the children’s museum when we got there. It was a really neat place and had tons of stuff for Jack to do, and had a baby room that Henry really liked. After the museum we headed to our cabin at Mahoney State Park.

Jack kind of thought we were going to Colorado since that’s the last time we stayed in a cabin. He was just as excited when he saw his bunk bed as he was last year in Estes Park. He thought it was so cool that we made chocolate chip cookies and played Uno in the evening.

On Thursday morning Jack and Nathan went on a hike and climbed a 70-foot observation tower (twice). After Henry’s nap we played putt-putt golf, which Jack enjoyed and Henry was not so impressed with. It was a bit chilly so I made Henry wear a hat and mittens in his stroller. He would have much rather been crawling around.

Later that afternoon we went to the activity center at the state park. It had a huge indoor play structure that Jack loved. Henry’s favorite part was the ball pit and Jack loved it all. He did not want to leave.

On our last day we went to the zoo. It was pretty cold when we got there but we were bundled up and they have lots of animals to see inside. This is the only picture I got of the boys together. They both look a little dazed, don’t they? It was a fun trip but we were all glad to get home.

Halloween

Halloween was very fun this year. Jack was Spiderman and Henry was Superman. We had lots of fun trick-or-treating with friends and Jack was very, very excited to wear his costume. He put it on at 2:00, after asking all morning when we were going trick-or-treating.

Maybe Henry should have been a cowboy.

Jack’s New Swing

Nathan put up a really great swing for Jack today. He used a  swing from the swing set and hung it from one of our big trees in the backyard. It swings much, much higher now and Jack loves it. He had a great time swinging several times this afternoon. And then his day got even better. This evening his good buddies Sophie and Porter came over and we (well the daddies) grilled hotdogs on the fire pit. Then we went to the Fairy Tale Forest at the nature sanctuary by our house. We got to go on a hike in the dark on a trail lit up by 100 jack-o-lanterns.

 

 

10 Months

Our sweet boy is now 10 months old. This month was a very busy one for Henry. He learned all kinds of new things, including crawling, pulling up in his crib and everywhere else, signing for “more,” and he got two new teeth (now he has six). He also finished with his helmet this month. He says, or tries to say, these words: da-da, jack, uh-oh and night-night. Still no mommy. Maybe next month!

Never a Dull Moment

The past few days it's been a little bit too cold to play outside, so we've been hanging out in the house. Now that Henry is crawling everywhere we have to keep an eye on him all the time because he gets into all kinds of mischief. Yesterday we played down in the basement and the boys had a great time. I tried to take pictures of them together. Henry was having none of it. He had places to go. He got his sixth tooth today, by the way.










Here is Jack bonking Henry on the head with his sword. Jack has a big surprise coming when, one of these days, Henry turns around and hits him back. And no, Henry isn't wearing socks because he takes them off and tries to eat them.



Today they thought it was great fun to get in the pack and play together and jump up and down and laugh. Henry is sleeping in the pack and play right now because he won't stop chewing on his crib and we are waiting for some new crib railing covers to get here.







Grandma Pam came over today and I tried to make Henry wear a hat on the way to pick up Jack from school. He decided he didn't want to do that and pulled it off right away.




The funniest conversation I've had with Jack in a long time happened yesterday. It was a follow up to a conversation from a couple of weeks ago... about his fishing trip on the 4th of July. Here's what he said in that first conversation:

Jack: "Mommy, I drank some beer while I was fishing with Grandma Donna."
Me: "No you didn't. You drank some Fresca because there was no water and you were thirsty. That isn't the same thing as beer."
Jack: "Well, that beer I drank was pretty spicy."

Then yesterday he had some witches brew (ginger ale and apple cider) during a playdate.

Jack: "This is spicy like that beer I drank while I was fishing."

Hillarious. We're going to our first of many Halloween parties tomorrow. Jack says he's going to wear his cowboy costume. So much for the Spiderman costume I bought from Target.