Mad Santa

I took Henry to the mall yesterday to see Santa and since I've never done this before I wasn't prepared for the $24 minimum for a photo in a really gaudy frame or some lame snow globe so I asked if it would be okay if I just took a shot with my own camera because I really wasn't going to buy any of their stuff. The kid working the line was like, "well, we just ask you to buy a package, but I guess you can do whatever you want, I dunno." So I just hopped down in front and took some photos with Henry and when the huge flash didn't go off, Santa asked angrily, "well, aren't you going to take a photo?" to his elves and they shook their heads "no", he rolled his eyes, pushed Henry off his lap and didn't want to give him a candy cane, but did anyway. I guess I understand that he's just trying to make a buck, but that price is just not something I will pay at this point. They should make it a little more affordable for those of us who are poor and on a budget!

Wild Man

Instead of just jumping off of the furniture to pillows on the ground, Henry has started trying to jump from couch to chair. They are pretty far apart so he basically lands with his arms over the arm of the chair with his face slamming over the side. He seems to like it and hasn't gotten hurt yet. The furniture is getting a pretty good beating, but part of me hopes he ruins it so we can get something new! haha! Oh, and an update on his teeth...they haven't turned brown, yea!, and have come back down to almost normal level. His scar, however, is not as small as I had hoped, but luckily it's the winter time and so it will fade to white quicker.

Some funny things he says... "cinderella" instead of "mozzarella", he answers "no, I'm not" to every question no matter if it makes sense or not, and he's starting to say, "like" all the time and I'm realizing that I also say it a lot and need to stop! Ugh! I just have to keep reminding myself that at least I don't use profanity. I don't know how those parents do it.

He's still so tender and sweet with Bea. He calls her "Bea B" and he always hears her crying before I do and is so excited to rush to her aid. He even comments on how cute she is all bundled up and he's always lying on top of her, trying to make her smile, which isn't difficult, and loves to see her smiling face. He is getting frustrated with all this winter gear because he can't find her hand under her gigantic winter bunting so he has to revert to holding the empty sleeve that her arm doesn't quite fit into yet.

The pink water is from this foam soap I got at the dollar store. He used an entire can....

In Dallas with Nanna B

Until we left for Nanna B's house, Henry had been counting down the days and now he asks when we're going back to Nanna B's house every few hours. Poor little guy. He just LOVED being there. My mom's place has two red poodles, a swimming pool with hot tub, lots of toys and movies, Uncle Will whom he adores, and really good food. Henry was in heaven! He played with his cousin Jefferey many times and had some fun adventures at his favorite baby store Cutie Atootie (Cutie Patootie). One of the nights we went country line dancing and ate delicious steaks. We also spent Thanksgiving down there with the best food in the world and spent some time with our good friends, Justin and Amy Evanson. Henry was also fabulous on the airplane and I think we're getting to the point where I don't have to worry about him anymore on the plane. Bea also sleeps the whole time so I guess I'll just savor the easy travel moments until she gets older and more mobile.

Quick Road Trip

Henry, Bea and I decided to meet up with our friends Christi and River for a couple days out in Amish Country this weekend. Christi found the most awesome Mennonite family on couchsurfers.com who let us stay at their place for free and even fed us dinner and breakfast. We learned a ton about them and their life and surely made some lifetime friends:) They had three darling daughters who were just the age of our kids and Henry had fun reading and coloring with them. One thing they did that we wanted to adopt into our daily routine is singing songs before eating dinner. That was really fun. I totally regret, though, that we didn't get a photo with our host family! Anyway, thanks to Ernie, Elmina, Evelyn, Erica and Emily for your generosity.

To keep Henry happy on the drive out there I told him we were going to the world's largest pet store and when we got there we found a gigantic rabbit and lots of really cool reptiles. Henry loved it. While we were in the area, we basically hit all the places we could find that had anything to do with food. The Amish stores out there give out samples of everything they make so we found ourselves not even needing to buy much food because we snacked all day long. On Friday we went to Lititz, PA to tour a chocolate factory with an museum of antique chocolate making items and then got a tip about a pretzel factory just up the road, which was the first place to commercially sell pretzels in the nation and I finally found out how to make pretzels! If you want to know, you have to check out hohlfoods.blogspot.com. They let us roll out dough. showed us the antique brick ovens and then we ate samples of all their interesting flavors. My favorite was pretzels with a hint of cinnamon sugar baked right into the dough so it wasn't really desert-like, but you could still taste it. I was also inspired to make peanut butter topped pretzels covered in dark chocolate. They were really expensive so I'm just going to make them. Yum!

On Saturday we spent time in Intercourse(yes I know you're giggling)going to the touristy places, eating more samples and freezing our fingers off. Henry in particular didn't want to wear his gloves or his hat so after about an hour, he was crying from the cold. I hope he learns his lesson about bundling up! We were also noticeably younger than the average tourist, like 20 to 30 years younger, and we had a hard time moving from place to place without having to show our babies off to all the elderly folk. Henry especially loved the petting zoo where they had a llama, miniature goats, sheep, horses and chickens(not miniature, though that would be totally cute). We decided that it was too cold and so we headed up to Hershey, PA for yet another food adventure and spent our last hours there. Most of what's there at Hershey is free, but we splurged and went on the trolley tour of the town to see the Hershey's kiss street lamps and the Hershey mansion. Henry met Santa Claus and didn't freak out, which was good, and got a little ornament from him. We left in a gigantic blizzard and found our cars covered in at least two inches of snow, but it stopped as soon as we got on the road, thank heaven. Then it was a long four hour drive home in the dark. Yea for Amish Country. I love eastern PA.

Teeth Diagnosis

Before

after
Well the dentist did not have any good news for us about Henry's teeth. One of his front teeth is cracked at the root and both front teeth will most likely have bruising/discoloration. On top of that he has six cavities and that's just what he can see. Since he's so young we have to go to the hospital to have them filled and that's not covered by insurance, so we're looking at over $1,000 to have everything fixed. Merry Christmas.

Accident Prone

It's finally happened, Henry has fallen backwards in the kitchen chair and really hurt himself. Friday night was when it happened and this is definitely the worst accident to date we have had. As Henry fell back in the chair, he instinctively tried to counterbalance the falling chair which brought him to a sitting position (sparing the back of his head from hitting the ground) but as the chair hit the floor, he got a sort of forward whiplash and he completely bit through the skin half-way in between his lip and his chin. The cut was almost an inch wide and went all the way through. What was worse is that his front teeth hit his mandible so hard that his teeth are now jammed up into his gums - one more than the other - so his teeth are now half as big as before and uneven. We have plenty of dentists in our ward who told us many possible scenarios ranging from, worse case, his teeth dieing and turning black and possibly damaging his permanent teeth that are forming in his gums to, best case, his teeth naturally re-emerging after a week or two back to their original position. So far the teeth are still white but haven't moved. He has a dentist appointment tomorrow so we'll see what the x-rays tell us. After the accident, Justin used surgical glue to close the wound and we've kept it clean and closed for the past few days and it looks good. Then on Monday while playing at my sister-in-law's house, he fell down the stairs doing what looked like cartwheels all the way down. Apparently he didn't get hurt or hit his chin because he didn't cry much and stopped crying for a piece of candy - telltale of faking it. Today he fell off his kitchen stool while sitting on it and bumped his head in the cabinets and ran into a shopping cart at Costco being pushed by a woman who couldn't see him over her large load. I am so sad to realize that he inherited my genes for being accident prone. Poor Henry. I just hope Bea is more careful with her face!

Halloween Enaflent

Even though he mispronounces it every time I never correct him because it's so cute the way he says it. Most people don't understand what he's trying to say, but he'll say it correctly soon enough. Henry was the most darling elephant in town in his costume and it was nice and warm so he didn't even have to wear a coat out trick-or-treating. He made out with a ton of candy, which Justin and I are eating after he goes to bed each night, but still had a hard time with the concept that he was supposed to collect the candy first and THEN eat it later. He was pretty intent on eating the candy as soon as he got it. We went around with a huge group of kids: our in-laws, Henry's future wife, and many other friends. It was such a nice night and the kids were all pretty good. We love Halloween in our house!

Beach Bum

Ever since we got back from the beach (Lake Tahoe and Monterey Bay) Henry has been asking to go back to the beach. Nothing is more fun to him than playing in the sand and waiting for "the big boy wave" but then getting caught in the "daddy wave". In Tahoe Henry played on the beach all day long, even after the sun went down and it was under 60 degrees outside with wet clothes. His five or six year old cousin Wil was the only kid to play with, so they spent a lot of time hanging out together, although I think he got sick of Henry following him everywhere and wanting to play every second. We were hiking one day and Henry was yelling for Wil who was way ahead of us, but when we caught up with him Wil only wanted to walk with his mom and I could see Henry's confused and sad look when he got ditched. I feel so bad when he's stuck here all day long with no one to play with and now I'm so busy with Bea and THEN when we go on vacation he finally has a buddy to play with and he gets tired of him. He's not annoying or anything, but he gets really excited and talkative and maybe a little bossy. I think it's darling.
Anyway, Henry went on many hikes, climbed on rocks and caught a ton of crawdads, which are his favorite new creature. Before Justin joined us, Henry only had one pair of shoes AND socks (forgot to pack them) which he kept running into the water with and they were constantly wet. My dad even removed them before they got soaked one afternoon and he took them and threw them into the water himself and when I asked him why he did that, he had no idea. Just wanted to do it. We also took a detour to the redwood forest and Henry climbed into the center of gigantic trees. Check out the album for photos.

Henry is such a good little traveler now. He never cries in his carseat, takes naps on the run, and sleeps through the night wherever he goes. He was very good on the plane (for a two year old) and doesn't mind hour after hour in the car. He's much improved from his jealous behavior, although Bea sleeps like 18-20 hours per day, so he's now getting most of the attention anyway. He LOVES his little sister and I always find him holding her hand, trying to get close to her and giving her little kisses. He thinks it's so funny when I put her in bed with him, or let her lay on his tummy for a while. Sometimes he hugs her so tightly she cries, but I know he's just trying to get as close as he can. He really is a good brother.

Meltdown at the zoo

Today I took Henry to the zoo. We had a great time until he took his shoes off on the spiderweb rope thingy and somehow they got lost or stolen because they were nowhere to be found. We searched and searched, even enlisting some older kids to look, but after they announced the zoo would be closing I told Henry that he would have to walk to the car with no shoes on and he started crying because we were leaving them behind, then he fell and scraped up his toe really bad and was screaming, "I need a band-aid" over and over again as he followed me to the car. I was trying to make an impression in his mind about not taking his shoes off without giving them to me, but it backfired. Ugh. He cried himself to sleep in the car and I took him to the hospital where Justin was waiting with some surgical equipment and fixed it up while he was passed out. He now has a gigantic wrap on his entire foot, appropriate for someone who has just had a foot transplant. I've been trying to get him to go to sleep for about two hours now, but he's still humming the ABC's under his door. What am I going to do with this boy?

Hiking Master and Ladies Man

Henry went hiking twice in less than 24 hours this week and he's loving it! Justin came home rather early (5pm) from work on Monday night so we went on a fun hike at the National Audobaun Society of Western PA reserve. He went inside a mud wigwam, swung upside down (or upside up as Henry likes to call it) on a vine and played with pond scum while he looked for tadpoles. We tried to catch a frog but they were too fast. Then that next morning we went with a group of people from church, which happened to be a gigantic group of girls and Henry. He's a lucky guy! One of his best friends, Thomasin, is so fun and darling. They really enjoy holding hands together. We're excited that we'll have all these fun photos to show at their wedding someday. lol.

Henry's lullaby to Bea

This is a duplicate of what's on Bea's blog because I thought they should both have a record of this one.....

Lately Bea has been really having a hard time sleeping and has been extra hungry. I was up every hour last night and she hardly slept today. Needless to say my house was a disaster, and after getting up, exercising, getting everyone ready to go visiting teaching the house had not been cleaned and it was already 5pm! Where does the time go? I tried to put her down and she kept crying after a few minutes each attempt. The last time I thought it was going to work, I was downstairs for ten minutes when she started screaming again and I had only emptied one half of the dishwasher. I drooped my head thinking my house would never be clean again when Henry said, "Uh oh, baby sister is crying. I go see her." I would have normally told him not to bug her, but I didn't stop him from going up for who knows what reason, but I'm so glad I did." With the monitor on I heard Henry say, "It's ok Bea." and then start singing the Winnie the Pooh song, "Deep in the hundred acre wood, where Christopher Robin plays..." and she stopped crying after about a minute. I heard Henry gently close the door behind him as he left my room and came downstairs. I turned to ask him if she was alseep and he said, as if it was no big deal, "yeah, she's asleep." I asked him what he did and he looked at me, shrugging his shoulders, " I sang deep in the hundred acre wood" with a slightly embarassed smile on his face. She stayed asleep for over two hours after that and I was able to clean the entire house. Even though Henry is usually driving me insane and making huge messes, he totally redeemed himself today. I know the Lord inspired him and me to let it happen and I'm so grateful that Henry is so sensitive to Beatrice's needs. They're going to be great friends.

Adventures of Henry's Evil Twin

Ever since Bea was born, Henry's evil twin comes while I'm busy and does things that make my jaw drop. On a daily basis Henry has been immersing his hands in whatever food I give him from pasta to catsup to yogurt to applesauce and beyond. I always know when he does it because he'll say, "Uh oh" and then say "sorry mom" over and over again with an apathetic look on his face. When I take his food away, he'll start to cry and say, "I said sorry mom, I said I was sorry" like everything is okay as long as he says sorry after he does it. The other day he pulled the cover off our heating/cooling vents and dropped apples down in it's depths. As they were tumbling down, he said, "sorry mom, sorry mom, sorry mom" for every apple that he dropped. At the pumpkin patch he was throwing pumpkins around like yesterdays garbage, breaking and bruising them in the process. He also pulled one of the wagons that is supposed to be used to cart around the pumpkins down the slightly sloped parking lot and it started to go too fast for him, almost ran him over, but let go just in time for it to crash into a beautiful display of mums. I have never felt so helpless in my life as I was holding my newborn and couldn't run after my crazy toddler as he was potentially going to kill himself and/or ruin property. I really hope every baby I have doesn't inspire my children to behave so badly.

Henry Drama

Today Justin and my parents went on a "quick run" without me and the kids and Henry really wanted to go. He bawled his eyes out repeating over and over, "I wanna go on a quick run, I wanna go on a quick run too. Blaaaah, blaaah," I thought it was cute that he copied Justin which he is doing even more these days. We have to be really careful with what we say these days, not that we really say anything that bad, but there are a few things that I have said only once or twice that have stuck with him, like "I'm mad" or "oh my gosh" and it doesn't sound great coming out of his mouth.

Henry's favorite thing to say this month is, "mommy, what you doing?" and then I have to tell him what I'm doing, then he says, "oh". I then have to ask him what he's doing and then say, "oh." at the end. If I don't remember to ask him what he's doing or to say, "oh" afterward he reminds me exactly what I'm supposed to say. It's very endearing.

Big Brother Henry

Henry is finally a big brother to a tiny little sister, Beatrice Isabella or Bea(Bay-uh) for short. He is so gentile and sweet with her and is always concerned with her well being. Early on we had noticed some subtle changes in his behavior for the good and not much bad, but recently he's been driving us totally insane to get our attention. Some of the cute things he's done with her are in the car he was very quiet because he was just watching her sleep and when Justin went to get Henry out of his seat he was holding her hand. He constantly kisses her and gently rubs her head. This morning he was downstairs yelling out, "mommy, baby sister! baby sister, mommy!" over and over until my sister went down to calm him down. He touched her soft fuzzy skin and said, "she's like a peach" (we eat peaches all day long around here) and before he does ANYTHING he has to go kiss her first. He is really enjoying her presence in our home. He, however, has been acting out a ton and trying to get away with things. He broke the refrigerator drawer, he's been climbing up on everything, not listening at all, won't go to bed anymore, won't let anyone do anything for him but me, and is pretty much driving me crazy. I hope things calm down soon because I miss my sweet little boy who was so tender, thoughtful, polite and helpful. Where did you go my son!

Beatrice now has her own blog with photos and the story of her arrival at http://beabella.blogspot.com/

Very, Very, Very Hard Day

I have taken away Henry's naps and for the past week he has been fine with it...until today. I don't know what happened but he was a little monster and I planned a huge shopping trip all day long. I thought I deserved it since I spent all week doing things for him. That's apparently not what he thought. For example, we were at The Strip District and his most favorite sample ever, mozzarella and tomato salad, was on the counter and because he was in such a bad mood he said he didn't want it, but when I ate it instead he screamed bloody murder and I had to weave in and out of people waiting to buy cheese to get another sample. That's when it started and it wasn't even noon. When we were at Babies R Us he saw some shoes he wanted to check out and instead of just saying, "mom, I want to see those" he burst out into tears and completely freaked out before I could figure out what he wanted. Then when I showed them to him, he didn't like them anymore and continued to bawl his eyes out. After a while I couldn't handle him crying right next to me so I took him out of the cart and encouraged him to cry a few isles away from me which threw all the mothers in the store in a panic thinking he was lost or hurt. I had to reassure them that the situation was under control and as long as I could hear his distant screaming I knew he was okay! Ugh. My friend that was with us(poor thing) commented that "at least no one will kidnap a kid that's freaking out already!" haha. He finally calmed down but he acted like everything he wanted to do was okay. He was taking things off the shelves and thinking that I was just going to buy them because he wanted them, so when we put them back he threw more of a fit. I don't know where he got the idea that I buy him everything he wants. I NEVER buy anything for him. He also got up into the display window at Children's Place and the employees were coaxing him to get out while he was knocking all the manequins over trying to hide. We finally got home at 7pm, so about 8 hours straight of bad behavior and screaming. It was probably the worst day in months and if this is what terrible twos are like, I feel for the parents who really get it bad. The only thing that was cute today is that he collected a bunch of things at Babies R Us and when he gave them to me, he said that they were for "baby sister." I think he's really going to love her! Can anyone sympathize with me? Has anyone gotten to the point where they felt like it was hard not to scream at their kid or slap them into consciousness? When we got home I just put him in his room for 10 minutes and let him cry while I cried and prayed for patience and wisdom. When he saw that I was crying he started crying, "sorry mommy" over and over which helped me calm down and then we talked about things and he finally fell asleep. Nightmare over!....for today.

BI Summer Adventure...

This summer we haven't been able to do too many adventures and I doubt we'll have too many more before I can't travel because of pregnancy, but we did go to Block Island for 10 days which was a blast with our fabulous and generous friends the Smocks. I finally uploaded the photos so I can post. Is that totally lame? Our computer was not turning on so I just didn't post things because I didn't have any photos. We had fabulous weather out on the Block even though the two days we spent in New York City were pouring down rain. Oh, and we also just got a ticket in the mail from running a red light in the Big Apple from a street camera. I guess they're not content with their apple so they have to take a bite out of our apple too.

Anyway, we spent Father's Day with Justin's dad and a long lost friend with her daughter and triplets. We took all five kidlets out on the pond in an inflatable boat and had a grand time trying to keep them all from falling in. Henry actually did fall in about 30 seconds before we were going to leave for church on the day we went home in a brand new outfit. I come to expect these sort of catastrophies in my life. I shouldn't expect anything other than that, you know?


We spend a wonderful 6 days out at Block Island with the best weather possible. It was sunny and warm every single day and thunderstorms rolled in every night giving us spectacular shows and cooling us off even more. We spend lazy days sleeping in and made sure to keep up all our traditions of virgin mojitos on the widow's walk at sunset, clamming and then eating the clams for dinner, eating our yearly ceremonial lobster dinner as well, hiking, catching fiddler crabs and finding sea stars(no longer called starfish I've been told). We also added some more traditions like a campfire on the beach where we roasted hotdogs and marshmallows, snorkled (where I had a serious fight with a crab and won), and then we ditched the puzzle for the second year in a row. We only do it when it's not good weather and we've lucked out the past two years with warm sunny days.

Henry, Nate and Buddy Gabe(what Henry calls him) really had a blast together playing in the ocean, on the beach, and exploring the rocks and ponds. Henry was pretty afraid of the water this year and I hope he gets over it soon. I think it's just the coldness factor and the waves are kind of scarey for him. One day he was having a tough time after he got soaked and the wind chilled him (after he also got pinched by a fiddler crab) that I ended up having to wrap him up in a towel and sing him "Frosty the Snowman" until he fell asleep.
Hen is also a huge Italian food fan and will eat just about anything. He was devouring our "linguine alle vongole", or linguine with clams, that has hot pepper flakes in the sauce and every time he would suck the linguine up then ends flipped up and sprayed spicy sauce in his eyes. He would start to scream and then we'd wash his eyes out and it was back to slurping and spraying again. There he was, with tears in his red irritated eyes and running nose from the spice and he was still trying to drink up the last of the broth. We eventually told him to close his eyes and eat his dinner and that seemed to help. Poor little guy! He's such a good eater.

We ended up going to NYC for church on Sunday, then meeting up with my sweet sorella Emilie and her family for lunch in The City before heading home. It was one of the most relaxing and satisfying trips we have taken in a long time and I couldn't tell you how much Justin and I needed to relax for a while. Thank Heaven for vacations...and Henry!

Potty Power

Henry is starting potty training, but it's not going as smoothly as I had expected. For the past few months Henry has been really interested in going potty on his potty chair...when he's naked. If I strip him down he'll go potty all day long in his potty chair. He gets to put stickers on his chart and eat a gummy bear each time. However, when I suggest that he put underwear on or even a pull-up, he screams, "noooooooo! I want my eneflant diaper! Ahhhhhhhhh." When he has his diaper on he doesn't think about going potty, so I don't know what to do. Something tells me that I should just wait to potty train him until he's three, but that's in the middle of the winter and I just don't think I could keep him naked all the time when it's so cold outside and I really would like him to be on his way to being potty trained by the end of the fall. Anyone have any suggestions? I don't think I've been so unprepared for something since before Henry was born. With my track record, you'd think I would have read 10 books about potty training before attempting this, but I'm feeling lazy lately. I'm checking out ASL DVDs though so I can learn more sign language. I want to use it on a daily basis so "baby sister" can get the same or better opportunity as Hen. I also don't want to have Signing Time on the TV every day because it's honestly driving me nuts. I can't stand hearing that woman sing any longer! I hope to be semi-fluent soon and then I'll use it to start teaching Henry Italian. I can't wait until he can speak Italian! Italian children have the sweetest little voices.

Busy Boy

Henry and I have been really busy lately tending to our growing garden, hosting visiting family members, working at church, traveling and trying to get in a little play when we can. We are also working on getting to sleep at a decent time. After a few weeks of him finally falling to sleep at or after midnight(even after 1am at times), I decided that things had to change. They have since been better, but it has been painful to keep him up from his nap so that I may put him to bed super early. He has been one cranky baby, but he's now on a way better schedule and is a lot happier. Has anyone had this problem? I guess it was perpetuated by the fact that I kept him up to hang out with Justin when he got home from work and since Justin's rotations have been easier, he's been staying up later as well and I just let Henry stay up until Justin went to bed.

Henry is also saying some really hilarious things like "spilled-ing" for "spilling" and does his best to describe things that went on during the day. Today there was a thunder/lighting/hail storm which Henry described to Justin by saying, "Thunder and lightning and hail and crash and really scary daddy." He is also totally engrossed in his make-believe world. He brings me rocks and tells me that they are cheese and cookies and I have to pretend to eat them. His little face lights up with a huge smile when I make up stories and use funny voices with his plastic animals or his animal shaped food. He is also obsessed with the library and constantly piles up animals and books in the umbrella stroller and tells me that he's going to the library. I made up a library song that he also makes me sing while he pushes it around.

I have to take photos of our garden to post, but we are just starting to reap the benefits of our labors. Henry and I have been eating strawberries from our huge patch for the past week. We get about 20 each day and they are de-lici-ous! I hardly get to taste any of them because Henry wants to eat them all. I am glad because they are taking the place of his unhealthy snacks. We also just got our first batch of peas today which are so crispy and fresh. Henry was pounding them down. He even learned how to pick them so he didn't break the stalks. Such a good boy. Our raspberry bushes are crazy big and have hundreds of fruit growing which we can't WAIT to harvest. We have many other veggies that are just starting to take root and get large, but we won't get to eat for at least another month, I'm thinking. We'll have to survive on peas and raspberries. We do have giant sunflower plants that are getting huge too. Henry is going to freak out when he sees how big the flowers get. We're going out of town this weekend for an entire 9 days, so I'm really worried about our plants. I just hope nothing dies while we're gone. Summer vacations stress me out more than relax me because I don't like to leave my garden!

BTW, for those of you who haven't heard, I'm pregnant with a baby girl and am due in August. Henry put his little head on my stomach tonight and felt her kick him. He's really excited for "baby sister" and calls every baby, boy or girl, "baby sister". He is all of a sudden not jealous when I hold other babies because I think he's ready to have someone else to play with. I guess life gets pretty boring with a pregnant mother. I can hardly dance to Ellen with Henry anymore! I miss being able to dance hard core for an entire 2 minutes with Henry.

Mantis Mania

I didn't take any photos of this event because it would have probably given people the willies, but the praying mantis egg sack that I harvested last month decided to hatch in the middle of the night last Thursday. I was planning on containing it, but there were so many other things on my list, you know, and I just didn't get it done. So they were basically crawling all over the kitchen eating aphids and ants. When Henry saw the 200+ mantis babies, he screamed for joy. I spend the last few days collecting them and putting them outside around my garden plants. I don't know if any of you know have ever interacted with one of these creatures, but they are pretty confident little guys, never run from you, and usually try to put up a fight. You wouldn't want to be bit by a large one, but the babies are harmless. They were so cute as I tried to pick them up, one by one, and their little arms reached out to encounter the strange finger that approached them, cocking their little heads back and forth. I just love their personalities. The second day after it happened, there were still many lingering around the kitchen and when I went to do another gathering, there was one little mantis baby sitting on the top of every thing I had on the counter, just hanging out like they owned the place. It made me smile at their audacity. They apparently love my parsley plant as they have congregated on it outside in my planter. Henry has really loved seeing them in the house and takes good care of them, as he does other bugs, carrying them around the house with both hands and saying, "It's okay sweetie pie. Good job sweetie baby" and so on. So, that was an adventure. I might have been the only mother on the planet that enjoyed a million praying mantis' running around her kitchen. Now I'm just waiting for our orb weaver spider egg sack to hatch. It's right outside our sliding door...

Big boy in DC

Henry and I took a quick trip down to DC to visit friends and we ended up going on some fun adventures. We went to the National Geographic Museum to see the frog exhibit, to the Museum of Natural History and to the Air and Space Museum the first day and then to Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington, the second day. Henry was a little high maintenance on the trip which made us lag behind most of the time and we found ourselves alone quite often, so it turned out to me more like a mother-son outing. Henry loved the frogs, the airplanes, slept through the Natural History museum and got in trouble everywhere he went. He angered a bag lady by running through the pidgeons she had given bread to and ended up announcing to all the passers by that I was a bad mother and since I let him do this senseless act, he would grow up and kill me someday. Hmmmm...I don't see a connection. At Mount Vernon he also dove through the sheep corral fence and scared out all the sheep. I am not in any shape to be climbing over fences, so I had to coax him back out by telling him that sheep can be dangerous and will ram him. He was insistant on climbing in to see the animals. The cutest thing was that he ran up to the statue of George Washington holding hands with his wife and children, looked at the little boy and said, "Henry!" and indeed the boy had his exact same haircut and was just about his size. I got a great shot of that.

He also called our friend's baby, who's name is River, "baby waterfall". While we were driving home and I found myself in the back seat entertaining the kids again, Henry was making me sing the ABC's, but he stopped and said, "I want baby waterfall to sing it!" in a perfect sentence. He's getting really good a talking...when he wants to. He digresses when others are around, but he can say exactly what he wants to when he's in the mood. It was a long drive, an exhausting trip, but some good memories were made and I got a few amazing photos.

A few things...I really love how his hair curls at the ends sometimes and instead of saying "gorilla," he says "gooderilla" and "chlocklet" instead of "chocolate."He is very independent and sometimes I think he could already survive on his own with all the skills he has obtained in order to get food and do whatever he thinks of doing. He still loves to play with obscenely large wolf spiders and loves it when I play the "Henry drum" (I drum on his back). He likes to play the mommy and daddy drums as well. We have a great time together:)

Spring planting and "spider in da bag"

Henry and I have been busy outside in the backyard getting ready for the vegetable garden season. Justin has been putting up our new fence and I have been busy digging up around it to make room for all the new vegetables I'm planting. Henry and I found some unharvested carrots left over from last year which were still pretty tasty and he screamed with joy at the sight of them. I can't wait for him to enjoy his enormous garden this year. Henry is speaking in full sentences now and he is a big talker. The other day as I was digging in the garden, I would give him a potato bug (roly poly) or a millipede and he would check it out and usually would tell me to "put it back home," but this day he had a snack bag and was putting his bugs in the mixture of snacks. He would come over to me saying,"uh oh mommy, tato bug in da bag." and I would have to fish the poor thing out. I did it a couple times while Henry looked on with a very concerned look, but then Henry came over to me saying, "spider in da bag." I let Henry pick up small spiders and he enjoys watching them spin their web as they hang and drop to the floor. I looked in his bag and I saw a gigantic wolf spider that Henry had picked up with his fingers and put in the bag! It was the largest one I had seen to that point this summer and our yard is crawling with them. I don't mind because they eat all the pests. When I coaxed it out, Henry put his hand out like it was any other insect and held it in his hand until it dropped to the ground. Henry is not afraid of any bug or animal. I love it, but I am also feeling compelled to look up what kinds of poisonous animals and plants are around this area so he doesn't get bit by something dangerous. I know my bugs pretty well and haven't seen anything I don't recognize at this point, and I see a lot of bugs. so I'm not too worried that there are poisonous spiders lurking under every rock. In short, every day is entertaining with Henry Jackson Hohl

A Bittersweet Easter

This weekend was the anniversary of our son, George McGregor Hohl's death. He died after just 5 months of pregnancy. After it happened, people I knew for years came out and told me that something similar happened to them and I never even knew about it and many times, the family never even discussed it either. I thought it so tragic that children lost before their lives really began were so hidden in their family's lives when so much good could come out of teaching children about the plan of God and that they have someone so special and perfect waiting for them in heaven. So, I vowed to keep him alive in our lives to keep us all on the straight and narrow and even help us all understand the concept of loving someone who we've never met, like ancestors and even our Savior, Jesus Christ. Since just about every other child we hang out with gets to talk about brothers and sisters, I have tried to teach Henry that he does have a brother and occasionally I show Henry the drawing of Georgie and some of his photos. I tell him that it's his little brother, Georgie, hoping that he will someday understand what I'm trying to say. On Sunday we decided to pull out the recording we made of his memorial service and go through the photos, which made us cry a few tears, but we got through it without too much drama until we took Henry into the music room and looked at his drawing together. Justin was holding Henry and he asked him who it was and he said in his sweet, angelic voice, "that's Georgie" and then after a few seconds he said, pointing at him, "brother," and that's when I totally lost it and sobbed as hard as I did during months following his death. I wish so much that Henry could be enjoying having his little brother Georgie around right now. He would be just learning how to crawl and interact with Henry. All day long Henry calls out for his friends and cousins and it is apparent that Henry really craves interaction with the people he loves, and I know he loves his little brother. We still miss our darling boy, Georgie, and we're counting down the days until we will be with him forever.

Our Little Adventurer

Every day is such an adventure with Henry. I am more excited than ever to do all the fun activities this summer that we have missed over the winter. Now that Henry is more self sufficient and more capable, he can learn to swim, go on long hikes, help me with the gardening, and maybe even learn to ride a bike with training wheels. I seriously can't wait!


Justin has had some much needed time off which has allowed us to play outside when the sun is shining. Justin went sledding with Henry down our neighbor's back hill after our last big snowstorm. We also went on our favorite river walk/hike and found a tributary that we hadn't seen before that had a great waterfall and just enough water for Henry to be able to climb up it. Henry has great rock climbing skills and even though he was freezing cold and totally drenched, he never cried and was more focused and content on what he was doing than I've seen him in a long time. Henry cought a little moth that I think had barely hatched because it wasn't moving much, but it was alive and Henry noticed it on a rock and gently picked it up to show us. We also found a baby centipede in the base of our lime tree which we played with and it was really fun. Henry wanted me to "put it in the grass," which was actually the carpet. That boy really needs to get outside more! When the sun went down, we had to drag him out of the river and luckily we weren't far from our car because as soon as Henry was out of the water, he quickly felt how cold he was and we ended up taking him over to Kaitlin and Wee-o's house with no pants or shoes on. lol!

Henry and Wee-o, his favorite cousin, went to the Aviary one day and then to the park to play since it was about 70 degrees outside. I love the random warm days! They had so much fun together. It's so funny to see their different personalities because when Henry gets around his buddies, he doesn't listen and likes to show off, so he ran through the muddy baseball diamond and stepped in every puddle until he was disgustingly dirty, while Wee-o wanted me to carry him across every muddy spot and after playing at the park for an hour, had not one speck of dirt on his clothes. haha! I also tried to get the boys to feed the birds at the aviary and both of them were afraid of them at first, but Henry ended up warming up to them and even though they were biting him a little bit, he still tried his hardest to pick them up. lol! Wee-o spent most of his time avoiding the birds at all costs. They are a good balance to each other. We all are predicting they will room together at BYU someday and I'm also predicting that Henry will bring a little spontanious adventure into Wee-o's life, while Wee-o will prevent Henry from getting himself killed! haha.

Oh, cute story, I was playing with Henry today at the park and I hit my head pretty hard on an overhead bar and I was saying "owie" when Henry came over to me and said, "happened, happened?" with a concerned look on his face and I told him that mommy hit her head and he said in the sweetest voice, "it's okay, it's okay mommy, kiss, kiss?" and I leaned down and he kissed the top of my head. I was so touched that I almost cried. He is such a sweet and thoughtful boy....sometimes:)

Henry turns TWO!

I have been so busy lately that I've slacked on posting things on the blog and now I have material for at least three posts. I'll just start with Henry's Birthday party. So as you may know, I spent the last two months making over Henry's room into an outer space themed room which I revealed to him during his Birthday party with all his friends watching. When he walked in, he screamed for joy, turned in a circle did a little dance and yelled, "woh!" I couldn't have been happier and Henry LOVES being in his new room and in his new twin bed. His party was a zoo train party, mainly because I got this really cute zoo train cupcake mold from my sister-in-law and I had to put it to good use. We had a fabulous party and Henry got a ton of really fun gifts. I also painted his old white rocking horse to look like a zebra and now he rides it even more often. I made a DVD of the last year to show everyone as well and at the end we had some footage of him skiing before his Birthday and loving it! The hilight of the party was Henry blowing out his candles. Instead of a nice blow, he put his lips together and blew/spit them out. I put one candle on every train piece so he had nine candles to blow out and it was hilarious! I'll try to put the video up. Anyway, Happy Birthday Henry! We love you so much!

Hard Core Henry

Justin has been really excited that Henry is getting to the age where he may be able to understand and like winter sports, so this month we took Henry ice skating and Skiing, both times during his scheduled nap, so it was dangerous, but with Justin's impossible schedule that's the only time we could go.

Ice skating was first. He didn't seem to have a problem walking around in his skates on the rubber, but when we got out on the ice, he just wanted us to hold him up and push him around. He was all smiles until he tried to get some snow off of the ice and his hand immediately froze and then he freaked out. Henry is always wanting to touch the snow, but every single time he does, after a couple seconds, he turns and starts screaming and instead of trying to clean off his hands by himself, he slowly waddles over to me so I can do it and then "hhhaaaa" my warm breath on his frozen hands until they are warm again. So you ask why Henry doesn't have gloves on? Well, the few pair of gloves we have don't allow Henry to use any of his fingers, so he hates wearing them. We might have had some functional gloves, but Daddy had to buy gloves for a 10 year old thinking he would quickly grow into them and that it would save money. Well, all we have is a baby with cold hands. Ugh!
So, after we took a breather we went back out and Henry finally understood that he could stand by himself and he even balanced and moved around for a good 10 seconds before he fell again. His favorite thing was to be sitting on my skate looking backwards as I went around the rink. Everyone with screaming children thought it was a great idea.


So because we were impressed by Henry's general ease with having strange shoes strapped to his feet and that he was so easy going as we dragged him around and around the rink, we decided it was time to take him skiing. There is this really great place called Boyce Park that's about a half hour from us and the rental for Henry's skis and ticket were a total of....$12! His lift pas was only $4 and since he only went up the lift once, it ended up actually being a really expensive ticket. Once again our only choice was to take him during his naptime, so we were ready for the worst. When he doesn't get a nap he is easily excitable, but also easily annoyed. Since it ended up taking FOREVER for Justin to park and get all his gear down to where we had been waiting and get dressed and get everything in a locker, it was already a rocky start. We also had to wait in line for a while to go up the bunny hill's "flying carpet" which is a rubber moving walkway going up the hill. By the time we got to the top, he had had enough. After failing to soothe him, Justin snowboarded him down the mountain and I took him in for a while and Justin went back out to take a few runs. We got chile cheese fries (which no one out east knows about even though they have the fries, the chile and the cheese at every resort, they never think to put them together to make the ultimate ski treat)and I had to beg them to make it since they "have no idea how to price it." I'm sure it's really hard to figure out. So, that basically did the trick and so we went back out again and instead of going up the huge bunny hill, I stayed at the bottom and put him on this smaller hill and let him go down a bunch of times with me running backwards in front of him. He LOVED it and after a couple times would say, "ready, one, two, free, go!" and put his arms out like Titanic and go down the hill with little help from me. He finally realized how much fun it was and he even learned to walk around with his skis on his feet and seemed to really enjoy it as well. We took more video of him than photos, so maybe I'll figure out how to put that up. These photos aren't all that great and he's not smiling. He did, however take a major fall and face planted in the hard snow, giving him a snow rash on his upper lip that actually bled. He cried for a while, but wanted to keep going after we hugged him and kissed his wound. I guess the photographer for the resort was taking photos for a new brochure that day and was taking photos of him, so we'll see if he's in it when it comes out. Already a celebrity:) haha! The world better watch out for Henry Jackson Hohl!

I think Henry remembers Jesus

You know how we all believe that babies remember the pre-existance and that they see angels and ancestors, but they slowly forget just as they might be able to tell us what they know? Well, I seriously think Henry remembers Jesus because no matter how abstract the art and even if he has never seen it before, he always knows if it's Jesus. I think he must just feel the his spirit when he sees the paintings and drawings. Henry has a toddler Bible that he makes me read to him every night. Every night as we walk up the stairs to his room he starts yelling, "Jesus Book! Jesus Book!" and I've actually had to limit reading it only at night and not for his nap because he never wants me to put it down and often we look at it for over 20 minutes when he should be sleeping. So far he knows the story of Adam and Eve, Noah, David and Goliath, Daniel and the lions, and Jonah and can recognize them all by name. His favorite pages are Eve eating the apple from the snake and Goliath who he calls "Go-wy-fuf." haha! After we go through the Old Testament stories he starts chanting, "Jesus, Jesus!" and loves hearing about him helping people, especially the little children. When we ask him "what does Jesus say?" we taught him to say, "follow me" and now whenever he sees Jesus with his hand outstretched in any photo he points to it and says "follow me." It's so adorable. There is one really cute illustration in his book where a blond boy about his age is being held by Jesus and it's just them together and no other kids, so it looks really personal and special for that boy. I always ask him who the boy is and he he says that it's Henry and then I tell him that Jesus loves Henry and he repeats it back to me, "Jesus loves Henry." I really wouldn't have guessed that he could understand so much at this age, but they are smarter than we think. Henry is already starting to count everything he sees and he understands how to do it! It just blows my mind sometimes. Well, I'm going to start really emphasizing the presence of Christ in our lives by talking about him more often when I point out things in nature or when I try to help him understand why we need to share and be reverent. I think he'll really respond to it since he seems to be gaining a great respect for our Savior.

I also found out earlier tonight that our wonderful Prophet, President Hinckley died. I was shocked and couldn't hold back my tears. It occurred to me that Henry wouldn't ever remember living under President Hinckley's time as Prophet like I did and it made me feel sad because he was just inspirational beyond what words can describe. I'm sure President Monson will be just as fabulous, but we'll surely miss our beloved Prophet who loved us so much and did SOOOO much to bring this church into such a positive light to the rest of the world to see. We love you President Hinckley!

A cold nose and baby toes

Last night our furnace turned off at some point and since Henry rolls around in his bed a lot, he usually doesn't have any blankets on him even when I pile them on when he goes to bed, and then again when I go to bed. I was awakened by his crying and immediately noticed that my nose was frozen, so I got up and brought him into my bed. Luckily Justin was on call or else it would have been pretty crowded in there. He curled up into a ball with his hands wedged in between his knees and I snuggled against him and put his frozen little toes through my thighs and soon we were asleep again. We woke to an absolutely freezing house. Henry was trying to burrow his way to china against my body like he usually does when he sleeps with us, but I tried to pretend that I was still asleep. He kept putting his frozen little hand on my cheeks for some reason, then when I turned over towards him he put both of his hands on both my cheeks and looking at me very seriously from one inch away said, "food, food." I guess he wanted to make sure I saw and heard him. haha! So we made some eggs and salsa, which he threw all over the floor and then we headed off to the bathroom where he took about a two hour long bath in deep warm water while I cleaned the bathroom, then turned on the blow dryer which warmed it up even more. Since the rest of the house registered at 50 degrees, we liked our little warm nook. The moment I took him out of the tub he started shivering and shivered and cried until I put him down for his nap dressed in two sets of pajamas and ten blankets. As soon as I put him down, I heard the heater finally kick back into gear and it took the rest of the afternoon to warm the place back up again. I'm afraid to look at the heating bill. Ugh.

Couple of stray photos that I love

These are from Thanksgiving, but I had to put them up because they're so darling...