Day in the Life

I thought it would be fun to record what a normal day at home is like for us right now, when Henry is 1 and Jack is almost 4. A week ago Henry started walking everywhere, so that changed our days a fair amount. Henry is a man on the move that is for sure.

6:15 – Henry wakes up.

7:15 – Jack wakes up.

8 – We eat breakfast and then Henry looks for birds and squirrels on the back deck. For breakfast, Henry eats a bowl of baby oatmeal and about a million Kix. Jack’s breakfast favorites include waffles with peanut butter and syrup, egg muffins, cereal, smoothies and oatmeal.

After breakfast on Tuesdays and Thursdays we get ready to take Jack to school. This consists of Henry trying to escape while I try to put his hat and coat on. Jack does a great job of putting his shoes and coat on by himself and getting his backpack. On non-school days we usually read books until naptime for Henry.

9 – Naptime for Henry and playtime for Jack and Mommy.

10:30 – Henry wakes up and they play until lunch. Lately, they walk around constantly, especially Henry. He is not still very often anymore and Jack will walk around with him for awhile before he gets bored.

11:30 – Lunch and then more playtime. It takes Henry about an hour to eat it seems. They love getting everything out of the cabinets in the kitchen of course. On school days we pick Jack up at 12.

1:30 or 2 – Naptime. Henry doesn’t always take an afternoon nap if he has taken a long morning nap but he still stays in his crib awhile. And Jack never sleeps anymore; he “rests” in his room for a couple of hours. Lately, resting means playing with Legos. He is all about Legos right now and this morning we put his little table in his room so he could have a special Lego table. I’m hoping this will keep them off the floor but it probably won’t work.

3:30 or 4 – Playtime until Daddy gets home. And snacks. Henry decided he needed to start having an afternoon snack this week because he Jack has one.

5:30 – Henry starts eating his supper because he takes such a long time to eat. That way he is almost done when we eat, so I can eat too.

6 – Supper time.

6:30 – Bathtime for Henry – one of his favorite parts of the day because he loves the bath and because he gets to be with Nathan by himself.

7 – Henry’s bedtime and Jack gets to play with Nathan.

8 – Jack’s bedtime. Aunt Regina got him his first chapter book for Christmas, the 1st of three in a series. We are already on the 3rd one. We’ve also been reading the Jesus Storybook Bible lately. Nathan and I agree it is quite an amazing Bible and that maybe we should read it everyday without Jack it is so good. We also pray and sing 2 songs at bedtime.

Snack Cup

Henry discovered the wonder and joy of a snack cup today. Jack had one this morning before breakfast filled with Cheerios and Henry very quickly decided he wanted some. So he chased Jack around for awhile until we realized what was happening and made Jack share. Then at lunch Henry spotted the cup on the counter and refused to eat any more food until he had it. Then he put his peas and pears in the cup and ate them that way. After lunch the obsession continued until I finally gave him more Cheerios to eat on the floor.


Jack wanted his picture taken too. When I told him to look at the camera and smile, this is what he did. Oh, and Henry is officially a walker now. He is doing it on his own and choosing walking instead of crawling. It's pretty cute.

1 Year Old

My baby boy is 1 year old. This year has flown by and I know that all too soon he will be running around and talking nonstop. He is growing up so fast and just gets cuter everyday. At 1 year-old, he:

- has 7 teeth

- loves blueberries, mandarin oranges and peas

- says da-da, Jack, uh-oh, dog, and the occasional Ma-ma.

- roars when he sees pretty much any animal -- alive, stuffed or in a book

- can walk when he wants to, but prefers crawling when he needs to get somewhere fast

- loves bath time and cries every night when Nathan gets him out

- loves to swing and ride Jack’s tractor

- still takes 2 naps, despite trying to go to 1 a few weeks ago

- plays peek-a-boo in his crib at bedtime and cracks up every time

- gives hugs at bedtime

- sometimes will blow kisses

- isn’t afraid to go to other people, but lots of times prefers Daddy over everyone else

And last but not least… we’ve been waiting for him to start defending himself against his big brother. The other day Jack was bugging him while Henry was standing up holding onto our bed. So Henry just looked at Jack and started kicking him. Very much on purpose.

This week he has a cold, so he has been waking up at night and wanting me to rock him back to sleep. At 2 in the morning it is not at the top of my list of things to do, but there is not much of anything better than a snuggly little boy asleep on my shoulder. He is precious and truly a gift from God, given to us at just the right time. We are so thankful for him and pray he will grow up to know the Lord and follow Him. We love you Henry.

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.