Just Some Randoms

Finger painting

Makeshift table (he'll sit here for.ev.er)

Henry's tree

Juice box head rest

Mommy's shoes/Monopoly

Flying fish/Pants hike

These are pictures I've been meaning to post for a while but just could never figure out how to use them in a post. Anyway, it kind of shows what we've been up to lately...basically a whole lot of goofing and counting down the days until we're in Washington (tomorrow y'all!!!!) Actually I should be packing right now but I'm a little overwhelmed by the thought of cramming a month's worth of winter clothes into one suitcase. And I'm lazy.

A Henry Poem (by Carly)

Henry's Aunt Carly just mailed him this little poem she wrote:

Baby Henry

Baby Henry with curls of gold,

Baby Henry is very bold.

He laughs and smiles,

and plays all the while.

He always knows the latest style.

He's cute and all, but not very tall.

Please, oh please don't be whiney,

unless you've got poo poo on your hiney!

- Carly (age 14)

Christmas Parade

This weekend we took Henry downtown to look at all of the Christmas decorations around our city. The whole time we were walking he kept yelling, "Santa tings! Frosty tings! Ahahahaha!" What is he going to talk about after Christmas is over? At the end of the night there was a huge parade with firetrucks, marching bands, and dogs. Henry was INTO IT.

Oh, and btw this....

Bwahahahaha.

Christmas!

We put up our little Christmas tree last weekend! I thought we'd have to be pulling Henry away from it every second but surprisingly he leaves it alone. I even let him play with the ornaments before we put them on the tree and he doesn't try to take them off. Maybe he's too busy bothering "Butts" the cat to bother with the tree?

I'm really really excited for Christmas this year, it's so fun watching Henry get into everything that I liked as a kid. We've already watched Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer five times and he's filling in the blanks to Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas is You (he sings, "Youuuuuu BEE-BEE!") I'm almost done with school and we're flying home to Washington on the 8th. Life is exciting!

Time

Lately I've been feeling like I'm loosing my "Baby" Henry. He's really developing his own personality and while that's so awesome and fun, it kinda breaks my heart. I don't know, I guess I wasn't prepared for this. It's too soon! Don't get me wrong, I'm totally looking forward to these next years with Henry, it's so fun when they can talk to you and play like crazy. I just wish I could snuggle that little boy forever, I'm not ready to replace our morning cuddles with 7 am hide and seek and energetic, "Get me mama!"s.

Henry still likes to cuddle but I can feel the amount of time he needs me in that way growing shorter almost weekly. Someday very soon he's not going to need to twist his fingers in my armpit. He's not going to need to just. be. still. While it's hard, I am glad that I can recognize this speedy transition into toddlerhood. It helps me to slow down and truly enjoy the feel of his tiny body in my arms, as he makes doe eyes at me from under our covers.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the things I will miss most about the baby Henry. You know, all of those little things that you swear you'll never forget but life happens and then you do? I'm writing a few here so time can't steal them from me.

• Henry doesn't say, "Please", he says, "Boof" (this one is almost gone).
• He can totally say "Cookie" but he still calls Cookie Monster, "NomNomNom".
• His favorite game is "On Pop" where he hops on Garrison's shoulders.
• He calls the cat "Butts"
• Sometimes when I leave the room for a minute and then come back in he yells, "Ohhhh, mama home!"
• When I tell him he's cute and smart, he'll say, "And funny...."
• He has about 8 stuffed animals in his crib because he keeps tabs on all of them and freaks when I try to take some out
• He calls the TV the "Bitobee" and numbers "Munno-mos"
• When he hears a song he likes, he shrieks really loud. Lately it's been Band of Horses and Foster the People. Also? Brittany Spears (wth?)

Florida Thanksgiving 2011 (photo dump)

We had such a great Thanksgiving! We drove down to Florida and spent time with Garrison's family. Henry was awesome the entire ride down, we only had to break into the Cheetos once and listen to Raffi about 250,000,000 times (what's with that guy and ducks anyway?). I thought he would go nuts over all of the new foods this year but he refused to try anything. All this awesome food and the only thing he ate were 7 wheat thins and a cupcake. Wth? Henry spent a lot of the time destroying Aunt Lisa's house and getting so jealous over the little baby. Like, he'd go out of his way to take her toys and hug her (neck) a little too hard. It's been easy to think that I have the most well behaved, perfect child because it's just me and him all day. But put Henry around other babies and breakable holiday decor and I'll quickly realize that I might have been living in a fantasy world for the past five months. On the plus side, he was totally awesome in the hotel room and gave lots of high-fives and crumbled wheat thins to his Pap-Pap. Thanks for having us Florida family, we can't wait to see you again!

hey kid.

reassessing his actions

(someone should have quoted me years ago when I swore I would never put my kid in time-out)

Pocket wheat thins for Pap-Pap/Jumping with Stephanie

heyooooo?

baby petting/turtle riding

stick with what you know

riding clifford

flying dad

(to see more photos from Thanksgiving click here!)

RoboDad

You Know, Just Pooping in the Park