Henry–Right Now

Last week Henry and I played outside all morning one day. The weather was perfect and we just enjoyed being outside and having nothing else to do. I grabbed the camera and started taking pictures… sometimes an overwhelming sense of peace comes over me when I’m with the boys. A peace of knowing I am right where I need to be. This particular morning was one of those times. I am so thankful to be their mom and to get to stay home with them, and to play outside with them all morning.  What could be better than a shirtless little boy with big brown eyes?

Henry’s First Day of Pre-K

This little guy started his second year of preschool today. He was very excited to go back to school and see his friends. Three of his good friends from last year are in the same class with him again. Last night he picked spaghetti and pumpkin bars for his back-to-school dinner. He had never had pumpkin bars before… first he wanted a pumpkin pie and I convinced him to switch to bars. He’s not so sure he likes cream cheese frosting.

He was very excited to wear his new Paw Patrol shirt today. He also got a new backpack and, since he’s eating lunch at school this year, a new lunchbox. HIs teacher is Ms. Margaret and he’ll go to school on Monday and Wednesday from 9-3.

He was pretty tired when I picked him up. On the way home, I kept hearing little sighs from the backseat. He told me his favorite part of the day was lunch and told Jack it was reading a book. The only bad thing that happened was he fell down outside and hurt his hands. But he didn’t cry.

He is finally the oldest at Second Friends! He was only 8 months old when Jack started his first year of preschool… I remember thinking I couldn’t imagine when Henry would actually go there. And now it’s his last year before kindergarten. Where did those four years go? Oh sweet Henry, I am so thankful that you love school but I wish time would slow down just a bit.

Jack–1st Day of Second Grade

 

Jack started 2nd grade today. He says the best part of his day was lunch  -- because I sent a brownie for him and he got to sit by his good buddy Preston (who just got in to EPiC a few days ago). We celebrated the start of a new school year last night with his favorite dinner of spicy pasta and chicken parmesan, and chocolate cake.

He had to get up about an hour earlier this morning than he’s used to from his summer schedule. And he wanted Henry and I to walk in to his classroom with him this morning. He had a great day with his new teachers, Mrs. Peck and Mrs. Torres. One of the great things about EPiC is that the same 50 kids are together every year. So he already knows everyone in his class and it sounds like they had a great time seeing each other after their summer break. While Jack was at school, Henry and I made a batch of our new favorite treat – homemade lemonade. For this batch we had to juice 11 lemons!

We were excited to pick Jack up and hear about his day. He wanted to come home and play on his iPad for a little while (he had to leave it at school all summer). Then he a snack of chocolate cake and we went to play outside. The boys played in the rice box, which I realized I made before Henry was born! It’s back to school tomorrow and Thursday, and then they have a half day on Friday.

Clearwater Beach Vacation

We had a great trip to Florida. If you ask Jack what his favorite part was, he’ll say the beach. Henry will tell you playing Uno. Nathan says we flew a pretty long way for Henry’s favorite part to be Uno.

We spent our first day on the beach, which was just out the door – our balcony had a view of the ocean. We didn’t even have to wear flips flops it was such a close walk. Jack preferred being in the water and jumping over the waves, while Henry spent more of his time building sand castles. The waves were pretty strong (Jack got slammed into the sand and shells and got a cut on his stomach), so Henry couldn’t be in the water by himself. He really liked it when Nathan or I held his hand and helped him jump the waves.

On the second day we went to LegoLand, which was about an hour and a half away. We had a good time, but confirmed our suspicion that we are not summer-theme park people. It was so hot! Even the boys were ready to leave by about 3:30. And Henry is a bit of a roller coaster snob after our Silver Dollar City trip. The LegoLand coasters weren’t quite up to his standards.

The next morning it was raining when we woke up. But after LegoLand, we were all ok hanging around the condo for the morning while it rained. The only toys the boys brought were their Lego boxes, and they were perfectly happy with them the entire week.

That afternoon we headed back to the beach and got a couple hours of play in before another rainstorm arrived.

The boys loved chasing the birds and they discovered a huge hole in the sand that was great fun.

And they always enjoyed watching shows on the iPad after coming back to the condo from the beach. They would take showers, get dry clothes on and snuggle up together to watch Octonauts or Paw Patrol.

The next day we woke up and (surprise, surprise!) it was raining. That’s when we discovered the deck of Uno cards in a drawer. We played it so many times we lost track of the number. We also taught the boys to play “I Doubt It”, which was equally hilarious. Here are their victory jumps after winning Uno.

One good thing about all the rain was that it created huge puddles at the back of the beach. The boys played in them for hours. They built elaborate castles with rivers connecting them together.

The next morning it rained again! By lunchtime it was clearing off, so we headed out to a cute little diner for lunch and then headed over to Pier 60 for a quite hilarious event. I had seen a sign that the Hooters National Chicken Wing Eating Contest was taking place. So Nathan looked it up and it was a big deal, in the world of competitive eating at least. Big eating stars like Joey Chestnut and Matt Stoney were there to compete. So we waded into the crowd in the pavilion and waited for the games to begin. This was pretty funny because the contest was sponsored by Hooters, so there were Hooters girls all around passing out free Hooters stuff. Both boys ended up wearing stickers that said “I Love Hooters.” It was pretty disgusting watching these people eat chicken wings for 10 minutes. The winner ate 241 chicken wings in 10 minutes! After the context we walked all the way down the beach to our condo and played some more.

The next day we had a nice, sunny morning and we headed back to the beach. Nathan bought the boys each a boogie board on the second day and Jack loved playing on his. Henry discovered two things on this day: he loves his sunglasses and he loved wearing the lifejacket in the water. He was much more comfortable with the waves when he had it on.

I made Jack take some pictures with me. Look at the second picture: you can see the wave approaching us… we didn’t know it was coming!

That evening we walked down the street to a great restaurant and took some silly pictures.

On our last full day, it rained again. It looked like it was going to rain all day, so we headed to Tampa and went to the aquarium. It was a really neat place and a nice change of pace from the beach everyday. The next, and last, morning we let the boys eat ice cream as part of their breakfast. We were getting rid of all of our food from the week and they loved it!

Then we headed to the airport, blissfully unaware of the travel challenges we were going to endure by the time we got home. Our first flight from Tampa to Atlanta was fine. The flight from Atlanta took a bit longer than expected… we arrived home 5 hours late. We got on the first plane and it had brake problems so we moved to a second plane. We sat on that plane for about an hour and learned it had mechanical problems. So we got on a third plane and finally got home. The boys couldn’t have been better behaved. They took it in stride… the packages of M&Ms and Doritos the captain passed out on the second plane also helped. The low point of the whole thing was poor Henry laying half on the sidewalk and half on my lap outside at KCI and just crying because he was so tired as we waited for Nathan to get the car.

Despite the rain (we should expect it on our vacations by now!), it was a wonderful trip full of great memories.