Monster Jam

 This is the start of Monster Jam....

It was LOUD! Even with ear plugs.

This is by the end of Monster Jam. 

He loved it and likes to play "Monster Jam" at home a lot now.

Opening Christmas Presents

 Here is Henry on the Saturday before Christmas, opening up the grain auger present that grandma & grandpa M. bought for his.

 The next 3 pictures are from Christmas Eve when we open family presents. Here is is opening the cape and masks that mommy made for him.

 Gotta love that he is wearing his Easter shirt on Christmas eve. LOL!

 Here he is wearing the Viking scarf and mittens that mommy made him. He was not thrilled to have to model them.

 Darn, I didn't realize this wasn't in focus. This is of Henry looking in his stocking for his presents from Santa.

And finally (but not lastly) the kids are opening the big presents from Santa. Henry got 3 pieces of speciality track to add to his train sets (A magic tunnel, a bridge, and a big curvy S piece.)

A Madeline's Christmas

We took the kids to Stages Theatre to see Madeline's Christmas (after having read the book to them many times the  weeks before.

Making Christmas Presents & Learning Style

Here Henry is painting a wooden toy he plans to give to his friend Ben for Christmas. Now that Henry is old enough to do these kinds of projects on his own, I have been encouraging the kids that it is the thought that counts and that people like homemade gifts. He has made his sister a present (in addition to buying one too) and he painting this wooden dinosaur for his friend. We plan to make some candy cane play dough next week for another one of his friends.

I was very impressed with how well he did on this project. He wanted to do a good job and was very thorough. He made sure to paint all of the wood so that there was no wood showing through. I was not expecting that from him. Whenever I ask him to color something he will scribble in something and say he is done and will only color more if I tell him he has to use a certain number of colors in his picture and then does quick scribbles of that many colors.

I am learning his "working" style and he really seems to be a kid that likes to figure things out (like puzzles - he LOVES those) and likes projects with steps. He does not care for coloring but if I give him a project where he has to glue things and follow steps he is all over that. He also loves to do worksheets. I have a variety of booklets and he seems to like them all.

He does know how to spell his name now and knows my phone #. Although, he couldn't learn it the way I taught Isabel so I had to figure out a new way to get him to learn which involved using gross motor skills.

He has down most of his letters, in fact for some reason "D" seems to be the only letter that he gets stuck on. He knows the rest when I point at them randomly. Now to get him to know them phonetically.

He also surprised me by counting to 25 from rote. I was not expecting him to do that. He does get confused about 15 and says "fiveteen" but I think he will get that figured out soon. He does seem to know most of those numbers when I point at them randomly too.

The other thing he can tell you is pretty much what any type of automobile is. He just loves anything with wheels and every time we drive anywhere he will tell me everything he sees. I never realized how many different types of vehicles we see on a 6 mile rides.

Santa & the Candy Cane

This will not be another picture of Henry sitting on Santa's lap, because that did not happen. I took him to storytime in Frbo where I knew Santa would be at and we were meeting some friends from his playgroup (The Baby Mamas & A Papa). At the end of storytime, Santa came out while the kids were singing Jingle Bells & well, jingling bells. Kids were invited to come up to Santa to sit on his lap and tell him what they wanted. Two little girls were brave enough to get within a foot of Santa  but not sit on his lap. So, Santa picked up his bag and pulled out a candy cane to show the kids and said he would give them one. I then said to Henry, "Santa is giving out candy canes. Do you want one?" To which he said "Yes" and I told him "Well then you need to go up to Santa and get a candy cane." so, he got up out of my lap and walked straight over to Santa grabbed the candy cane from his hand and turned around without saying a word to him and plopped back down in my lap and proudly showed me his candy cane. Which all of that was followed by laughter by all the parents there and I heard a couple of parents from out group say "Oh Henry" (I suppose that may be where it came from). He is such a character that no one was surprised, but he still gave everyone a chuckle. He is a silly little boy.

Santa at Harley-Davidson

 This was an impromtu Santa visit. I had read on teh Frbo HD status update that Santa was there, so we decided to go since we had been happy with their Halloween arrangements the past couple years.