Still here....

Still cute!

We haven't been doing a whole lot lately, so I don't have much to say. I am REALLY looking forward to Spring Break. We don't have any plans yet, but I'm excited to have a week off from work.

Henry has been growing up so much! He's pretty tall & thin, but he has started to fill out a bit recently. He wears 2T pants, but they're always too big around the waist unless they have the adjustable waistband. The last week or so, I have had to loosen all of his adjustable waistbands! Tonight I made him eggs & sausage for dinner. He wouldn't even touch the eggs, but he ate SIX sausage patties. Usually he won't even finish two. I made two patties, and he gulped them down, and urgently asked for more. I cooked two more, which he devoured, and then he shrieked, "How 'bout MORE sausage?" I couldn't believe it when he ate two more plus a container of applesauce and a yogurt smoothie. Maybe he's having a growth spurt?

Henry's 2-year molars haven't come in yet, but he's been working on them for several months. I can feel them just under the surface of the gums, but they just won't pop through. Lately he's been really chewing on his fingers, and he even says, "Teeth hurt!" His hands are ALWAYS in his mouth.

I honestly think that this is the cutest butt in the whole world. Henry loves to be naked. Every time we change his diaper, he asks to "Look at Henry penis in mirror?" Hopefully he will get over this obsession...eventually.

Henry also loves to look at the computer. He likes the Thomas the Tank Engine website (no surprise). He also loves to watch The Elephant Song on Youtube. If you have a 2-year-old, let them watch this video. It's so cute!

Funny Boy

Henry is so funny! He makes me laugh EVERY DAY. Whenever he does something funny, I think that I should write it down because later I don't always remember what it was. I'm going to try to think of some recent Henry funnies.

He has started understanding and using the word "or." When I ask him to sing a song, he'll ask, "Twinkle Twinkle or ABC or Thomas song or I Love You?" Yesterday was really nice out, so I wanted to spend some time outdoors. I asked Henry what he wanted to do.

Me: Do you want to go to the zoo to see the elephants, or go to the playground?

Henry: OR...go store, buy lollipops?

Henry really likes to play with words. He'll change certain sounds in words, like "Stell-ay" or "Stell-o" or "Stell-eye" instead of Stella. Or he'll call Rocco "Bocco" or "Docco." He also makes up names for us. He calls Daddy "Dandy" and Me "Momby" instead of Mommy. He calls his sitter, Tamara, "Tambra" and he calls Grammy "Gramby." So, of course, we call him "Hendry." He thinks it's really funny when we play along.

Tonight after Henry's bath, I put on his pajamas, and we were playing in the big bed with Daddy. Henry got down and ran away, but I waited a few minutes before following him to see what kind of mischief he'd gotten into. I couldn't find him anywhere, so I assumed he went outside through the doggy door. I turned on the deck light, and I saw that the bubble machine was turned on, and he was playing in his castle in the dark. I hate to see him growing up so quickly, but I'll be happy when he can't fit through the doggy door anymore!

Henry loves to play "Wake up Daddy" or "Wake up Mommy." He'll just randomly call out "Wake up Daddy!" and that means that he wants Jeff to pretend to be asleep. He used to blow raspberries in our faces and say "HI HENRY" to wake us up, but that has changed. Now he flings himself on top of us, so we have to peek through our closed eyelids to make sure we are ready for him. His most recent wake up technique cracked us up. While I was pretend snoring, he put his face right up to my face, and then used his fingers to pry open my eyelids. Funny kid!

This isn't anything funny, but Henry got a haircut on Saturday. He looks really cute, but so grown up.

Here he is just before his haircut, with his long, shaggy look....

Here he is with his new short look....

Henry in the bath tonight....

Relaxing....

I don't know what happened to Henry's curls, but they appear to be gone. I'm so sad! His hair was still curly in October around his 2nd birthday, but after his last hair cut, it's been much straighter. Now that it's even shorter, it's definitely straight. I don't know if it will become curly again someday, or if that's it for his curly hair forever. He still has beautiful hair, but I really miss his curls.

Happy Valentine's Day!

We hope everyone had a Happy Valentine's Day today! Jeff made us a special steak & lobster dinner last night, and he bought roses for me and a giant balloon for Henry. We celebrated a day early because we weren't sure whether Jeff would be home tonight. It turns out he is home, but we just hung out and watched Survivor.

It has been beautiful here this week. Henry & I played outside on the deck when we got home. Henry wore his special Valentine's Day outfit today. His hat says "Prince Charming" and his shirt says "Heartbreakers" with a #14 on the front.
We played with the bubble machine again. Henry LOVES IT!

Here's another little trip down Memory Lane...

Henry's 1st Valentine's Day (4 months old):

Henry's 2nd Valentine's Day (16 months old):

Henry's 3rd Valentine's Day (28 months old):He's such a little BOY now! Here's a video of Henry playing outside:

Bubbles

It was so nice out yesterday that Henry & I went outside to try out his new bubble machine. He LOVED it!

His fast, excited running reminds me of the Flashdance running/dancing scene. He's a maniac!

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Jeff's birthday was yesterday, and guess what we did for him? Nothing. How lame is that? Jeff asked me not to do anything. Usually he says that, but I do something anyway. This time he said, "It would make me happier to receive NOTHING than any present you could get me." Hmmm...what do you say to that? So, I did nothing. And I hated it. I love birthdays. Not just MY birthday, either. I love giving presents. I love celebrating. It was very sad to let Jeff's birthday go by without any kind of celebration.

I don't think we'll do that again. I'm sure when Henry is a little bit older, he'll want to make something for his dad. He'll want to bake him a cake. Jeff can tell ME not to do anything for his birthday, but can he tell HENRY not to? I don't think so.

Watch out, Jeff. Next year HENRY is going to make your birthday special!

Henry loves his daddy so much. He's always loved Jeff, but in the past month or so, he's become much more attached to him. The first words out of Henry's mouth this morning were, "how 'bout Daddy?" They have so much fun together. I just love watching them play.

Here's a cute video of some daddy-son fun. Henry was feeding a fake hamburger to Jeff, and Jeff was making him laugh SO HARD. Have I mentioned how much I love seeing them together? Well, I do.

White Men Can Jump!

Now that Henry CAN jump, he DOES!

Henry Loves Target

A few weeks ago I took Henry to Target. As soon as we got there, he started asking to go home. To keep him interested, I told him that we'd look at Thomas stuff. We spent quite a bit of time in the Thomas aisle, and of course, ended up buying a train. So, over the weekend, we went grocery shopping at Safeway and had the following conversation as we got out of the car:

Me: We're going into the store now.
Henry: Yeah, we going Target.
Me: No, we're not going to Target today. We're going to the grocery store to buy food.
Henry: Yeah, and Thomas stuff.
Me: They don't have Thomas stuff here. They just have food.
Henry: How 'bout Thomas stuff?
Me: We're going to buy food and then we're going home.
Henry (with a big smile): And THEN we're going to Target.

Nope. Sorry, Buddy!

The other morning I had to wake Henry from a dead sleep to get him ready for daycare. As I put on his jacket so we could leave, we had this conversation:

Me: Let's go bye-bye now.
Henry: Yeah. Let's go Target!
Me: Well, maybe later we can go to Target. Right now we're going to Tamara's house.
Henry: And THEN Target.
Me: Maybe we'll go to Target this afternoon.

We drove to Tamara's house, and as I was kissing him good-bye...

Me: I love you. See you later, Buddy. Mommy will pick you up after your nap.
Henry: Then we go Target, buy Thomas stuff!
Tamara: I guess you're going to Target today!

2-Week Catch Up

It's been two weeks since I've updated the blog. How did that happen? We got back from Las Vegas on a Monday evening, and I had to work the next day. It was a busy week, and then Lannie, Henry's Grammy, flew in for a visit on Thursday. Auntie Kathleen drove down from Seattle on Friday, and they both stayed through the weekend. The following week was blur of work. Then last weekend we celebrated Uncle Greg's birthday and had a Super Bowl party. Well, it was supposed to be a Super Bowl party, but we only ended up having one guest! That's o.k. We had a fun time hanging out with Greg. We taught him to play our favorite game, Ticket to Ride, so we played that 4 times over the weekend. That's what's been going on over here for the last two weeks.

In Henry News...

Henry is getting cuter and smarter and more funny every day. He had a great time during Grammy and Auntie Kath's visit. He was sitting between them during a drive to a restaurant, and he kept turning from one to the other, saying "Hi Grammy! Hi Auntie Kath!" He really loves spending time with them...they need to visit more often.

Henry is obsessed with popsicles. He asks for one first thing in the morning, and several times throughout the day. He doesn't eat just one. He usually eats 2 or 3 in a sitting, which is funny for our very picky non-eater. He likes them best when I cut them up into bite-sized chunks. Henry can sing the whole ABC song (and a few others) all by himself. He gets almost all the way through it in this video:


Henry started taking a new class at a place called My Gym. It's a lot like Gymboree, but it's a smaller place, and there's a bigger variety of activities. His class is every Saturday, and we've also been going to a Free Play session there on Wednesday afternoons. He really loves it. Practically every time we get in the car, he says, "Go My Gym?"

Henry has started speaking in full sentences! He's been using sentences here and there for a while, but now he's speaking MOSTLY in sentences. He says things like, "Mommy bought me Duncan" (a Thomas train), or "I WANT juice" or "I NEED Mavis" (another Thomas train) or "Daddy be right back." On Sunday morning, I went to the store alone, and came home with a Starbucks latte. Henry saw my cup, and said, "Mama's coffee...try some coffee?" I gave him a sip, and unfortunately, he liked it. I don't think he would have liked Daddy's strong black coffee!

Henry plays with his train table EVERY SINGLE DAY. It is definitely the best purchase we've ever made, as far as he's concerned. He used to say "Go home Rocco Stella?" when we were away from home, and he wanted to go back home. Now he says, "Go home, play with trains?" Henry absolutely LOVES playing with his Daddy. He's always loved Jeff, but recently, he has become far more attached to him. Here's a cute video of some tickling and rough-housing between my two favorite guys.

If we pretend to sleep while playing with Henry, he has funny way of "waking us up." I don't know why he does it, but he'll get up close to our faces, and then blow a raspberry at us and then say "HI HENRY!" It's pretty funny...