This year the blueberries ripened really early and I found some really tasty ones at the grocery store for a great price so I bought 60 pints. You might be thinking, "wow, that's a lot" but I bought 50 pints last year and we ate or gave away about 10 pints and we ran out about four months early and I was rationing them every time we took out a bag from the freezer. So this time I ended up freezing 50 pints and this year Henry helped me during the entire process! When I bought all those blueberries, the first thing Henry said to me was, "Mommy, what were you thinking?!" with his hands up in the air. Couldn't agree with you more my son.
His job was carrying a crate of 6 pints over to the sink and emptying each pint into a colander and rinsing them off. He also had to stack each crate and the empty pints in neat stacks. I poured the washed blueberries onto towels to let them dry and picked out the squished ones and stems. After they were dry we put them into bags and carted them down to the freezer. I have rarely seen Henry so dedicated to his work. He even came up with a few songs about blueberries while we were working. This was the best one...
We love to froze blueberries
We love to froze blueberries
We love to froze blueberries
Wash 'em, smush 'em, put 'em in a bag
Apples are disgusting
Let's eat 'em all up
I have to agree with him that we haven't eaten a good apple in a really long time. Afterward, Henry and Bea built some awesome towers with the cases. Here are the proud architects!
Thanks Henry for helping me do the blueberries this year.
Henry and Bea have had some really great Dad time recently. They have had so much fun together, however you probably won't hear about much of it because Justin won't write it in the blog. Here is a pic of the three amigos and the card that Henry made for Justin for his Birthday last week. Henry made the whole thing and it's of the two of them fishing, even though they didn't catch any fish and some guy gave them one to take home since he felt bad for Henry.
Henry wants me to take photos of him and Clementine all the time. He has been pretty good at protecting her and unless he's seeking for attention, in which case he copies what Bea is doing to her. I can tell, though, from the sparkle in his eyes that he really loves her.
Henry spent the last couple months playing soccer with a bunch of his friends. It took a while for him to get into it but in the end he really loved it. We had an awards ceremony last week where they all got a cupcake and a medal for participating. Thanks to Stef Chou for putting it all together!
The kids in the photo are...(from top to bottom and left to right)
Henry, Daniel, Stef's neighbor Chloe?, Kaitlin, Emmalee, No idea
Avery, Thomasin, Wee-o, Kennadee, Katherine, Hudson.
Yesterday while Henry was sitting on the potty he took the end of the toilet paper roll and put it in the toilet and then he wrapped it around his neck a few times to create a scarf to keep himself warm while on the sat. When he emerged from the bathroom he said, "Mom, if you see a scarf coming out of the toilet, don't flush it or else it will become clugged". Good thing Justin watched the whole thing go down so he could explain it all to me. Thanks for the good laugh Henry.
Henry drew me a picture today. I'm holding Clementine and the circle next to us is the earth. We talk about the earth like it is part of our family. Henry is still obsessed with throwing littler away and is always shocked when he sees people "messing up the earth". Reminds me of the day he ran after the garbage men yelling, "you're messing up the earth!" when they let stray garbage fly away as they collected the trash. I really love my boy! He's been so good with Clementine too.
Ever since it warmed up we've been enjoying the outdoors and Henry and Bea have had so much fun outside finding all sorts of bugs and animals. The other day a toad hopped past me so I caught it to show Henry. He was so excited about it that he played with it too much which caused something inside of it to hemorrhage and it eventually died. It's still in our tomato garden, totally shriveled and Henry still insists that he's just sleeping and shows all his friends. Poor little thing. Henry also discovered a tiny wasps nest inside our deck umbrella when he observed a wasp going up into the cover. We opened it up and found the nest with ten or so little larvae inside. We kept it for days and those gross little maggots were still moving in there with their little alien mouths begging for food. It was pretty gross and entertaining. Then, one morning I noticed that the ants that have invaded our kitchen were piled massively over the little hive, which I left on top of the microwave, and I guess they had finally died and the ants were desperately trying to get what they could from them. (shudder). We're working on the ant problem but I don't want to do anything toxic! Any suggestions?
Just yesterday we caught the most beautiful moth. It's a Giant Leopard Moth and I think he's on his way out because he put up no struggle when we caught him. He's the most beautiful moth I've ever seen and he just hangs out on my finger, hanging on for dear life. He's still alive, but shows no signs of vitality. One of the most fun things Henry likes to do is take his tennis racket outside and swat the wood boars. They have such crazy personalities! They love to come right up to your face and hover, checking you out and egging you on like an annoying sibling. They when you try to swat them away, they skillfully avoid you and then fly right back into your personal space as if to say, "haha, you missed me." Henry's oversize tennis racket, however, is tough to avoid and he hits them quite often. I always see little wood snowflakes falling down on me as I'm gardening by the deck as they dig their way through the only pieces of real wood on it. A real bumble bee landed in our pitcher of water the other night as well and after we flicked him out and sent him on his way with a fork, Henry and the other kids were excited to drink the "honey water".
So far it's all been fun and games but when the Japanese Beetles come to eat my raspberries, the war begins and now I have an organic defense option! I can't wait to use it. Muah ha ha!
For Mother's Day the primary put together jars with slips of paper in them with thoughts about all the mothers. This is what Henry said about me....
My mom's favorite sport is......baseball
My mom's favorite thing to do.......go home
My mom's favorite place to go......playgroup
My favorite meal my mom cooks.....candy
My favorite thing to do with my mom....watch a movie
My mom's favorite color......blue
My mom's favorite food.....everything
I think he may have me confused with someone else. lol.
Henry is on a T Ball team this year and so far, we've had some pretty interesting experiences. His first practice was filled with tears and frustration which was mostly my fault. I really had no idea what he was supposed to wear and I forgot to go get him a glove so we show up in shorts and a tee shirt when all the other boys are wearing mini professional uniforms with gloves. Henry would not participate or focus and when he finally did, he cried every time he didn't get the ball and when all the boys dived into the dirt, Henry's legs got all scraped up and he cried even more. To top it all off, when it was his turn to hit, which he actually wanted to do, he had no idea what to do after he hit the ball and decided to run after his own ball which he picked up about 20 feet from the T and all the other boys stood there, confused, and one boy said, "uh, you're out". All the parents thought it was hilarious, as did I. It was pretty painful though and I wasn't sure if he was ready to play.
Since then he's done better and has generally participated and has enjoyed it. The games are really fun because every child gets to run the bases every inning and no one counts the runs and even if the kids manage to get the ball and throw it to first base before the runner gets there, they're still not out, so no one feels bad and everyone scores. This is the way Henry needs to play a game: no winners or losers. Last weekend he went to the father and son's campout with Justin and didn't get to bed until midnight and woke up early to get to the game the next morning. He was understandably cranky and distracted. He sat on each base to rest, came in from the outfield when he saw our friend's daughter eating candy, wanting some, didn't focus at all and the last time he hit the ball, he dropped the bat, lowered his head and slowly walked to first base with his hands hanging down to his sides. I thought it was hilarious, but Justin said that it just stresses him out to see his son so distracted and clueless. Well, it's hard to teach your son every sport during residency so we're just going to have to deal with it!
All in all, he's having fun and learning a ton and I'm glad we signed him up!
We took Henry and Bea down to VA to visit our great friends the Romneys since we haven't seen them in months and it was an eventful trip. Justin and I went to the temple for the first time in probably over a year while Christi watched our kids trample the temple ground flowers and make a mess all over the grass. After the long drive down there and the dirty clothes I bet some passing people wondered if they might be homeless. Lol! I do love dirty kids though. Henry had a great time playing with River, whom will hopefully end up being more like a brother to him when they move next door to us someday(fingers crossed). They played outside trying to avoid getting attacked by the family's crazy dog and spent some quality time talking together on a short hike where Henry caught a frog all by himself. Since River is almost two and a half, he's not at Henry's comprehension level yet which led to this hilarious conversation....
Henry: (Talking to River about frogs and other things for about five minutes)
River: (Speaking softly, with no inflection indicating a question and repeating about a million times during the conversation) What. What. What. What.
Henry: Hey River, do you even know what I'm saying? Do you know what I'm saying, River?
River: Yes.
Henry: Then why do you keep saying, "what"?
Henry and River: (giggles)
It was an unforgettable moment.
We spent some quality time listening to General Conference where all I heard was that I had to be a better parent. Were there any talks on any other topics? Haha! I guess that's what I needed to hear from our Prophet and Apostles.
Sunday morning we all went down to see the cherry blossoms in downtown DC. River tipped over in his dad, Dave's pack and now has an identical cut on his lower lip to Henry's and Dave's. Justin, however, is not in the cut lip club, although he was very excited to be able to use the vial of human superglue that he always keeps handy for emergencies. He glued the cut together and we were on our way!
Henry, Bea and River played really well together and when they were apart because of nap time or because Henry and Justin got lost on our hike they were constantly asking where the other was and truly missing each others company. Good thing they'll be hanging out all weekend this weekend up at our place! We can't wait to host them at our house.
Henry has had some pretty serious melt downs lately. These can come from anything including when I cut his strawberry wrong, when I drew a wrong line on a picture we were supposed to be drawing together at school and whenever I refuse to dress him and undress him like he can't do it himself. Yesterday I was driving in the car and during a calm moment we had this conversation...
Mom: Henry, what I can do to help you to be happier and not freak out so much when things go wrong?
Henry: Well, I was thinking...if you just give me what I want every time I want something I will always be happy!
Mom: You know I can't do that Henry. What if we always talk nicely to each other and work out problems together when things go wrong?
Henry(very seriously): Mom, I just don't think I can do that because I'm crazy. I just keep getting crazier and crazier and I just can't stop the craziness.
Mom: (laughs out loud and starts getting seriously worried about when baby #3 arrives)
Well, if any of you can help me "stop the craziness" I will invite any suggestions.
Ok, so I realize that Henry's Birthday party was over a month ago but if you can believe it, only yesterday did I just finish scraping the last window that I painted with glue and poster paint to look like an aquarium with sharks swimming around. I wanted to have his shark party at the zoo, but that would have cost 500 dollars just for the space so I made my own aquarium with the many windows in my living room complete with over a hundred balloons covering the walls to look like the water.
This party was pretty much out of control and whenever I don't blog about something ever(like my trip out to the NW by myself for two weeks while I was in my first trimester of pregnancy=exhaustion) or very late it means that it's taken that long to recover or it's just a blur from being too tired. Some details of the party include...a total of 45 people in attendance, a really cool shark pinata filled with 20 lbs of candy and probably weighed more than Bea, singing the jaws song, playing pin the fin on the shark, reading a book about sharks, playing shark attack with a giant shark balloon to the theme music of JAWS which really scared some of the kids. It really makes you realize how music influences how we feel. Some people deny it but you can't deny a two year old who has never seen JAWS freeze in absolute fear after hearing the movie theme music. We, of course, ate a ton of really yummy food that included shark cheese crackers, shark shaped sandwiches, three types of seafood dip with crackers and a giant fruit salad.
The highlight was, however, the cake, which I painstakingly made over two days time. I tried to copy another woman's cake on this awesome website but my perfect shark head coming out of the water turned into a super scar-faced shark with a collapsed mouth. No one noticed though and the kids all loved it. It was also pretty scary! The bottom of the cake was the most delicious cake I've ever made though which was a whole wheat version of this dulce de leche cake. Best cake I've ever made and possibly ever eaten. I also made my dulce de leche from scratch using a real vanilla bean and milk(as opposed to using a can of sweetened condensed milk), and that took three hours in itself to make. I highly recommend it.
After the cake we watched Henry's 4th Birthday slide show which was the best yet and he still wants to watch it over and over again. I did it to one of my favorite Coldplay songs, "Death and all of his friends," which seems like a weird song title but I didn't even know exactly what the words were until I uploaded it for the show because they're almost inaudible and most of the song is just an instrumental, and a really fantastic one at that. Anyway, the show was great and I know those slide shows make Henry feel really special so I'm going to keep doing them as long as I can manage. I'm getting faster at creating them anyway.
Henry then opened all his presents which were mostly transformers and other action figures. He really needed some age appropriate toys since everything we had was either baby oriented or just blocks and puzzles. He really loves his transformers and he and daddy spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to transform them and they also love playing with legos together now too.
Henry still tells everyone, especially complete strangers, about his shark party. The best part about it was that we were able to coordinate it with Gammie and Grandpa Hohl along with favorite aunt Courtney(she chases the kids for hours on end) who helped out immensely. I couldn't have pulled it off without them unless I had woken up at 4 am to get things started that day. Thanks to everyone who helped out and who came to the party! I hope to never do anything that crazy again.
These last few days Henry has gotten the idea into his head that he has to make a present for our new neighbors. If you haven't been keeping up, we haven't had very good luck with our neighbors. Henry has pooped and peed on our neighbor's deck, the YW scared our other neighbor half to death playing hide and go seek, we got in trouble playing in our other neighbor's yard, etc. etc. I have felt kind of bad because we haven't even gone over to meet our new neighbors yet so when Henry said he was making a present for them I was thinking that this would be a great opportunity to formally meet. He worked for three days drawing, coloring, and writing at least 20 different items. He wrote "I (heart) you neighbors" and "welcome neighbors" and of course wrote Henry all over everything. He traced his hand a foot on at least half of the papers and if you see him you will notice his fingers and toes outlined with blue and green marker. He put them into a giant box and I made some meyer lemon squares to go along with the strange gift. We've been busy over the last few days so every night he's been disappointed that we haven't gone over there so this morning at 9am he convinced me to let him go over there to deliver the box. I was SURE they wouldn't be home at that time so I let him go over while I stood in our driveway. He rang the doorbell and looked back at me saying, "I'm going to wait for a long time mom". After about one minute I said, "well, it looks like they're not home so we'll come back later." That's when he proceeded to open the front door, which was unlocked for some reason, and he poked his head into their house and yelled, "Hey, there's a package out here for you!" Then my poor neighbor, in his underwear, came to the door saying that he had just woken up and thanked Henry for the announcement. At this point I was in shock, hands over my mouth, at what had just happened, totally embarrassed, I yelled back that Henry had actually made that for him and that I didn't think they would be home and that I was really sorry. I asked him if we could come back later sometime and he said to come back at 10am. We went back and guess what? No one answered. Big surprise.
Four years after you were born I find myself doing exactly what I was doing in the hospital before, during labor, and after your entrance into this world: watching the Olympics. Now that your dad has finally had a breakthrough with your desire to ski, our dreams for you to eventually dominate the snowboard cross event in the Olympics in the year 2026 are slowly becoming a reality. You should know that your father and I gave you your middle name Jackson thinking that if you were in the Olympics some day, Jackson Hohl would be an unforgetable name and therefore you would easily be a favorite to win! You are the perfect combination of your parents with energy that never ends and to your mother's dismay you use most of that energy to search for and ask for candy. I have noticed that you have trouble discerning what your body is trying to tell you and every day it's a constant battle to get you to figure out if you are hungry or tired. It's usually accompanied by lots of tears and many discussions about problem solving. Cutting things out of magazines and junk mail occupies much of your time. There are ziplock baggies all around the house that are full of coupon clippings and photos from The Friend magazine. You are an extremely thoughtful boy and announce every day that you want to make a present or card for someone which is really hard for you because your baby sister always climbs on the table and sabotages your projects. You are usually very patient with her though and always scream for help with a laugh and a smile, knowing that she just wants to be a part of your life. You are an amazing big brother and always complain when Bea takes naps because you are bored without her. She copies everything you do and you laugh and wrestle all day long together. Her Birthday present to you is that just yesterday she started saying your name instead of calling you dada. Every time you cry she comes to give you hugs and frequently makes tears turn into laughter as she pokes you in the nostrils and lifts your shirt up to find your belly button. You are going to preschool but your teachers still have to drag you, in tears, away from me and Bea. You are learning how to read at home and we do a science experiment almost every day together. We also sing and play instruments every day and I always catch you making up funny songs, especially as you lay down in the tub waiting for me to drag you out. You and I cook and bake everything together and get just as excited as I do when our bread comes out perfect and when I make home-made popsicles. Your greatest passion, however, is the scriptures and several times per day you ask spiritual questions and we have many deep conversations about Heavenly Father, Jesus, the Spirit, the prophets in the scriptures and scary Satan. You have read through the children's Bible and Book of Mormon three times and are now reading about Church history in the Doctrine and Covenants. You always talk about making it to heaven where Jesus and your brother Georgie are waiting for you AND where you get to eat the fruit of the tree of life. I hope you're not disappointed when you realize that it's figurative! Speaking of food, your favorite food is sunny-side-up eggs and any kind of fruit. On your Birthday you set a record of eating 5 eggs in one sitting! You love your daddy and ask every morning where he went, even though you know he's at work. You rejoice when he comes home and you always have a blast together trying to figure out transformers and putting together race tracks. This winter has dumped down almost four feet of snow which you and your dad used to make a giant snow cave/tunnel with fort in the front yard which our entire family fit in. Even though I don't think you've grown out of your terrible twos(or accepting the fact that you aren't the only child/center of attention yet) you still have many moments of pure sweetness and kindness. I love looking into your big gray green eyes and at your dimpled smile. I can't wait to find out what this new year will bring and what new adventures we will have together. You are the most darling boy in the world and I love you with all my heart. Happy Birthday sweet Henry boy. I hope you have had a wonderful four years of life!
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