Christmas Morning

Henry was only mildly interested in his presents from Santa. I think they only thing he was REALLY in to was the chocolates in his stocking.

RADZoo Visit

I took the kids to the RadZoo this morning and this afternoon. These are pictures from this morning. We went back in the afternoon to see them feed the animals. We had seen them feed some of the smaller animals and have been able to feed tortoises & turtles ourselves (which we got to do again today), but we had never seen them feed the really big snakes & the 12 ft. alligator. It was pretty cool.

Coloring

Henry is wearing some new jammies he received for a Christmas present from mommy & daddy in this picture. He & sister are having fun sitting at their picnic table coloring. I like that he likes to color already.

Christmas Eve: Family Presents

Well, Henry is showcasing his favorite presents. He was kinda tired when we were opening and ended up taking a nap afterward before dinner, so he didn't have a high interest in the present opening. So, his favorite present of the day is a hot rod big wheel from mommy & daddy. He is also wearing the hat mommy made him as a present in one of the pictures. Sister game him some new bath toys. The other presents he received were his puzzle blocks & counting (rice) bags (both homemade by mommy), a couple books, a couple puzzles, pajamas, a Toy Story piggy bank and a sock monkey.

Christmas Present from Kendra

Henry's First Trip to the Dentist

He actually did really well at the dentist and didn't need his paci until the very end. Through most of the appointment he sat on my lap and let the hygentist and dentist look in his mouth and poke around. They said everything looks good and couldn't feel the molars yet (He has 8 teeth in front so far). The dentist said his bottom teeth are a little crowded, but he wasn't worried because often the jaw grows at a different time than teeth come in and then they will separate more. The top teeth had some nice separation so far. The hygentist showed him all the tools and the light while he sat on me, but the the last thing we did was let him sit in the chair by himself & ride up & down. He did not like that (most likely due to the stranger & separation anxiety stuff he is going through.)

Holidays Joys & Tears

Well, we found out Henry LOVES mint (his sister does not!) and does not like Santa. It might be because he is in the middle of a separation & stranger anxiety phase, or it could be Santa too. We did not know we would see Santa this day since we thought we were just going to storytime, but it was a surprise. There weren't too many kids there, but Henry was the only one who cried.

On a related note, about the mint. Today, I watched Henry walk over to the tree and take off a candy cane. Then walk back over in front of me with his back to me and break apart the candy cane (he's figured out that's the best way to get the wrapper off the candy & into his mouth.) The whole time I kept calling him name (normally he would turn around and answer). Then he stuck a piece in his mouth and walked over to their little table and placed the rest of the pieces on there, then he came over to me with a big red grin and a piece of candy cane sticking out of his mouth. Too smart for his own good I tell ya!

Christmas at the M's

Grandma & Grandpa M wanted a picture of them with the grandkids. This was the only picture I had taken that night.

Loves Coloring

He is one smart little boy. He has got scribbling with crayons down. He was having a great time today coloring. I decided I better give him some paper because he kept taking sisters crayons and trying to color the couch. He has his own thick triangular crayons. And after he was done using them he would put them away.

The other thing he has learned us how to hold on to the bar in the tub (the one mid way up to use to hold on to) and start crawling his feet up the side of the tub. Might have to put this boy in gymnastics when he is old enough to do a class, although he does get to do these things at open gym gymnastics. He hasn't done anything exactly like this, but he has seen other kids.

Also, he is trying to crawl up the magazine stand int he bathroom on the main level. And the other thing he almost has figured out is how to open the gate at the top of the stairs. He's just no tall enough to actually see what we do, but he reaches up there and moves his hand around trying to figure out what we do to get it open. Too smart for his own good.

Toddling & Chatting Video

He is getting quiet good at walking, but watching him toddle around is just so darn cute. He prefers to walk places now instead of crawling. He chooses to crawl when it involves obstacles (like climbing over piles of pillows & blankets sister puts on the floor), stairs, or if he has to get somewhere really, really fast. But even then he has been choosing to walk sometimes and is getting much faster. Last night he was walking toward me and I I pretended to come at him to tickle him. He turned around and tried to "run" away from me, really he was going to same speed was when he walks, but he thought he was running away from me and was just giggling away. Anyways, here's a video of him toddling to me and then chatting away.

He does speak some when he chooses. He says mama, daddy, more, doggie, kitty, moo (when he sees a picture of a cow), and hi. We haven't been able to get him to say anything to call his sister yet. She is anxiously awaiting him to say Bel or sister. I haven't done as much with signing with him, but he will sign more & all done. I've been working on the sign for bath with him and I think he is getting that one too.

Christmas Crafts

Henry got to participate in one of the crafts, the fingerprint lightbulbs. I drew the strand and helped him with making his fingerprints. His is the top one.

Ninjas

St. Nick's Day

It's so fun that Henry can enjoy the Winter holidays and not just a baby sitting there. St. Nick brought him a christmas plate, a christmas book, some christmas ornaments, some candy and some wooden vehicles.

Although, the price labels were still on the bottom of the wooden vehicles and Isabel had to tell me, "Santa bought these! Why did he buy these? Why didn't he make them?" I said it was probably because they ran out of time because the elves probably needed a day off with the stomach flu like she had. Funny. Anyways, note to self: take all packaging and prices off Santa presents.

Family Fun Fridays

Daddy has off every Friday in December, granted two are because of the eves Christmas & New Years (& the actual holiday falling on a weekend). I am hoping we can do some fun things on each of these Fridays. This Friday, we went to downtown Minneapolis and met grandma & grandpa M there to go to the "Sleigh Ride" concert that the MN Orchestra was performing. It was a good production and I was so proud of the how well the children behaved. They were actually very well behaved for everything. I was very proud of them and there were so many opportunities and reasons they could have misbehaved or thrown tantrums.
Next we went to the Macy's 8th floor display of "A Day in the Life of an Elf". It was the same display as last year, but we had never seen it. And at the end the kids were able to meet Santa. Santa gave each of the kids pins that said they were there. Not sure why Macy's gave little kids sharp point objects. They should have just given out a sticker that said the same thing.
Lunch was at Potbelly's and we had some great sandwiches, chips & smoothie.
And they weren't in the car for more than 5 minutes before they both fell asleep and slept the entire ride home.

Cabela's Visit

How Do I Move in This Stuff?

Henry was just in love with the snow when he would watch it from the window fall in front of him. He was very excited to go outside, but was not a fan of all the stuff he had to put on. He couldn't figure out how to move in it. Poor boy. He did like being pulled around in the sled and really liked when I would run while pulling him and his sister. I can't wait to take him sledding at the park. He went inside while Isabel was sledding down the neighbor's hill.

Ag Power Tour

Since Henry can't really climb on the big stuff (yet) he just gets placed on things for photo ops.

Toddler Tuesday, Underwater Adventures 7 Lunch @ Famous Dave's at MOA

Table & Things

This is Henry's birthday gift from grandma & grandpa S. They made him an activity table. They did a really good job on it and I am glad they made it so heavy duty, because sister keeps sitting on it when she plays.

Cousins & Calves

Henry got a chance to play with his cousins when we went back visit mommy's family in WI. The ages in order in the picture are 1, 2, 3, & 4 (well, Isabel is really closer to 4.5, but the rest were close to their whole birthday.)

Right before we left I took Henry out to the barn. And he was super excited and started babbling a lot. I think he was saying "What? Their are animals here! Why have you been holding out on me?"

Halloween 2010

The top picture can also be seen in the collage below that was taken at our playgroup Halloween party. Henry wore 2 costumes that Isabel had worn when she was 17 months, a pumpkin & a mouse.

This collage is from when we attended Isabel's preschool halloween party. I thought it would be fun to bring him dressed too.

Last year, when Henry was 1 day old, we took him trick-or-treating to one house (closest neighbors). This year he got to do all the neighborhood trick-or-treating with his sister (until she got cold.) I pulled the kids around in their wagon.

We also took the kids to halloween event at RBNC. And daddy also took both kids to the haunted house put on my our high school SADD group. And I brought the kids to a Halloween/Monster storytime to which I let them go dressed in their costumes for.

More Birthday Pics

The top collage is actually the after than the one below is the before. He wasn't too happy about the candles & not being able to touch his cake and started having a toddler breakdown.

We had his big birthday party last weekend when we were in WI by mommy's family. The kids have 2 cousins their age there, so it's more fun. We brought a long our bounce house as a fun activity for the party since Henry loves the bounce house. We decorated with a homemade banner I made, streamers & balloons. There were goodie bags for all the kids. And I made spaghetti & pizza & fruit (Some of Henry's favorites) for 14 people for dinner. And I also made him some lego cakes (see below). It was actually kind of a pain to make them. I went much simpler in the cake department for this weekend. Right now I just don't have the time to do elaborate cakes when I have two little ones tugging at me all the time, maybe some day. And of course we did some presents.

Happy 1st Birthday!!!

I snapped these two collages while Henry was getting pictures taken by Skye. Tomorrow we will be doing family pictures & some more individual pictures of the kids.

This afternoon we had a birthday lunch for Henry and Grandma & Grandpa M. came over to join us. Here the kids are playing with the toy he received from them for his birthday (in combination with the toy Isabel gave him for his birthday). He is currently napping as I type and later we will have birthday cake with him (2nd time today since he had some this morning.)

51 Weeks

N.E.W. Zoo

Tundra Lodge Resort & Waterpark: Day 2

Tundra Lodge Resort & Waterpark: Day 1

Both the kids love to swim, so taking them to a waterpark is so much fun for them. We had a good time, but for the amount of money we paid, we could have been in WI Dells at the Wilderness. But we were coming to Green Bay to visit family and this is the nearest waterpark. The hotel room wasn't anything special and we ended up upgrading from the Cabin Suite to the King Suite (which cost us another $30) because it was just too small of a room and there is no closing door in the bedroom.

Anyways, we had a good time at the waterpark. Henry really loved swimming in the pool and shooting basketball hoops.

Minnesota Children's Museum

I took the kids to the children's museum this week. For 2 weeks they have a special Halloween exhibit called "Spooky Hallow", plus we also got to see the other two new exhibits, "Japan & Nature" and "Living in Space".

Henry was a pretty tired boy and needed his paci the entire time, otherwise I don't normally let him have a paci unless it is bed/nap time.

Henry really enjoyed this trip to MCM since he is mobile, last time he was just starting to become mobile.