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...

In like a lion, out like a lamb

This morning Henry started crying...and he cried for about an hour straight and I couldn't console him with anything, even blueberries, which are his favorite all-time fruit. Luckily, we had a trip to the Science Center planned so as soon as he saw his cousins and his best friend, his mood changed, but holy morning from hell- that was insane. He got progressively better as the day went on, and since he's still on a super late schedule we were up until 11 pm taking down the Christmas decorations. He loved scavengering around the floor for fallen candies off the gingerbread ornaments. Henry did a pretty good job of eating at least one per day, so they didn't all go to waste. I finally put him down to sleep, but since I have to squeeze myself in his toddler bed to snuggle for a minute, he had lately gotten angry at me for using his pillow or not giving him enough room, but tonight he was happy to have me there. After he had fallen asleep I tried to get up, but he instinctively, but half-asleep, rolled over and put his little arm around my neck to hold me down. I was so touched that he had his arm around me (which doesn't happen very often) that I stayed for a couple more minutes before leaving the room. He was so sweet and happy to be with me. I just love him so much.

Hoping for a better year

Well, it's the new year and if I could forget last year, I think I would. Anyway, there's so much to be said about our three week trip over Christmas and New Years, but for now I have to relate what's going on now until I can get Christmas photos off my new camera! yes! Henry learned how to crawl out of his crib, so we are borrowing a toddler bed and we're trying to get him to sleep in it. When I go in to check on him, he's sleeping in it about half the time. He does get up a few times during the night and knocks on the door calling out for either me or Justin. He really doesn't cry that hard, so I let him put himself back to sleep. Thank goodness he can't open the door yet, even though it's only a matter of time when he'll also be able to escape. I have big Birthday plans for his room, so there are a lot of changes that need to be made in order to create outer space:) Henry was kind of a nightmare on our trip, but he's back to his usual happy self and I'm so glad it was short lived. This is a pretty lame post, so I'll write when I have something better to say.

Blab Blab Blab

Henry is never silent and talks to himself if we won't talk to him. He's learning so many new words every day and he'll copy us if he's in the mood. Tonight we told him to say "fun daddy" and "goofy daddy" and then Justin retaliated with "you rock, mom," which turned out to be "rock you, mommy" when Henry repeated it back. So cute!

We're off to New York, Connecticut, and Dallas for an almost three week long vacation(is it still a vacation after you become a mom?) over Christmas and New Years. I am really praying that no one gets sick and that we can enjoy ourselves because this could be really painful.

Crazy morning

This morning was a disaster. I was woken up by Henry exclaiming, "eeeewwww poo poo, yukky, eeewww" and sure enough, he had had an explosion of poo and it came out the back of his diaper and was all over his bed and blankets. I had to take every blanket and his changing pad out of his room and fumigate the place. I put the poo soaked blankets in the wash and then we went to take a bath. While I wasn't looking, Henry had pulled our very absorbant outer shower curtain into the tub and it had soaked up half of the bathwater. Just last week we had to have someone come and recalk our tub and paint the stain in the downstairs ceiling where Henry's splashes had come through so I've been really vigilant about keeping the water in the tub until Hurricane Henry struck again. Then after I had told him not to put the curtain in the tub, he turned around and took our phone and threw that in the tub and now it's fried. I don't know what it is about the men in my family. Justin and Henry keep getting our phones wet so we can't use them. This phone was actually we got at the Relief Society exchange, so it was free, but we really hate it anyway so I wasn't too angry. We're actually cancelling our home phone on Wednesday, so take note to call our cells from now on. Anyway, I drained the water in the tub and then Henry got into the soap. Usually when the water drains out and he's cold, he gets out and wants me to dry him off. This time he stayed in there and when I came to see what he was doing, he had taken the soft and soggy soap and dug his fingers into it, and now there were huge chunks of soap all over his body and under his nails. This put me over the edge and I washed him off without making sure the water didn't get in his face or was perfectly warm. Take that! lol! Plus, Henry saw that I was dissappointed and not smiling and he sorrowfully said "sorry mommy" and even used the sign for sorry, which is just so cute that I forgot the mess he had made all morning long. Henry was in a great mood for the rest of the morning until I started to take him up to his room for the nap and he started screaming in protest, "No nap, yukky poo poo, eeeww!" hahahaha! He thought I was going to dump him back into his crib filled with poo. lol! He cracks me up!

Octopus for dinner

Tonight I cooked baby octopus for dinner in this incredible Asian stir fry recipe I have in my Williams Sonoma cookbook. I really didn't know what I was doing and I had to improvise because the recipe called for beef, but it turned out really great with octopus. Justin and I were really excited to see if Henry would have eaten the baby octopus because he LOVES octopi to death. He has two finger puppets that are probably two of his favorite toys and he carries them around wherever he goes. We set one in front of him and he ate all the tentacles off of it and was trying to eat the head, but was just a bit too chewy. The tentacles were nice and tender though and he gladly ate them up. While he was eating it, he put his finger in the hole that went into it's head and kind of played with it like it was one of his finger puppets too! haha! We tried not to look at him or laugh because we knew he would just get inspired to play with it more. I'm genuinely impressed that he would eat such an alien-like looking thing. I think I'm going to try to introduce some very strange foods to him so he'll keep eating anything I put in front of him. I heard that the age from two to three is when they can get picky about what they eat. Maybe I'll try the dried crickets from the Mexican food market. If I get him to eat those, he'll surely eat anything else I make! I'm going to make grilled octopus tomorrow night, so maybe I'll take a photo of Henry eating one to go with the story.

Crazy Chaos

Well, it's been a long time since I wrote anything and it wasn't just that I was busy, but Henry had, until just recently, been kind of a nightmare. A week after Thanksgiving, my mom came to visit and that day he got the worst sickness he has ever had. You name it and he had it. It seemed like a combination stomach virus and chest cold. He had a fever every day and night for over 5 days and cried and cried and cried the entire time my mom was here. Even after he got over it, it has taken him quite a few days to get back to his normal happy self. I thought he may never go back and I had this horrible feeling that this was what the terrible twos was going to be like. I truly hope it's nothing like the screaming, clingy creature that was hanging off of my legs these past two weeks. I really had no cute stories or anything worth mentioning the entire time, except that my mother is such a champ and even though the past two times she's come Henry has been extremely sick, she is always so patient and non judgemental. I hope she still believes me when I keep telling her that he's the sweetest and happiest boy in the world! lol! He's not living up to his reputation when she comes to visit.

He has been doing some really cute things lately though that I have to note. He still has somewhat of a cold and whenever I tell him to wipe his nose, he goes and gets a tissue, wipes his nose, and either throws it away, or tries to put it back in the tissue box. It's so cute. He is also getting really finicky about cleaning up certain things. If he spills any of his food on the ground or especially milk from his bottle, he runs over to get a tissue and he cleans it up. I don't really want him using up all the tissues, but I think it's too early to try to teach him to grab a rag from the drawer because I don't want him throwing those away. I guess I'll wait until he gets a little older.

Henry also likes to sing parts of the ABC song now. I often hear him singing "WXYZ now I know my ABC's something, something, sing with me." He changes the in between words every time, but he loves to sing and he's also on tune. Yes! He also is starting to sing the songs I sing to him every night as he rests his little head on my shoulder and rock him to sleep. I always sing him the Primary song, "Henry I love you" and he sings along with me in the sweetest tiny voice. He also sings words from the other song I always sing, which is "Just the Thought of You" from Natalie Cole's remake of her father's old songs. I adore that song. I know it's a love song, but it's such a mild one, that it could apply to a mother and child. The words go..."It's just the thought of you and I forget to do the little ordinary things that everyone ought to do. I'm living in a kind of daydream, I'm happy as a king, and foolish as it may seem, to me that's everything...I see your face in every flower, your eyes in stars above. It's just the thought of you, the very thought of you, my love." Henry sings every "do" on tune and at the end he'll sing "face, flower, eyes, stars, my love." It's seriously the most adorable thing. He has also started up again kissing me every once in a while as he's falling asleep. He'll turn his head and push himself back and give me a kiss and then lay back down on my shoulder. I also taught him butterfly kisses and Eskimo kisses and he thinks they are really funny. He did Eskimo kisses to me tonight too.
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Today at our friend's graduation party, Kaitlin and Wee-o left before we did and when Henry was left at the screen door to watch them leave he said in such a sad voice..."Kay Kay and Wee-o, bye bye" and then he yelled in protest, "don't go!" and "NO!" It was very sad and incredibly sweet to see how much he loves those little kidlets.

I'm so glad he's back to his old self again. If Henry is like he was last week during the terrible twos, I don't know if I'll be inspired to write it all down! haha!

Christmas is Upon us...

As soon as Thanksgiving was over I started thinking about the Christmas preparations I had neglected to think about all year long. I was usually so good at buying things for people months in advance, but since I haven't been walking around the streets of New York City looking for the best sales every day, I haven't run across as many opportunities to buy cool gifts. I've decided to make things this year instead of buy them, so Henry and I have been busy making things to send to our friends and family. Today we made chocolate suckers and chocolate molds, candy canes and I also made a huge amount of gingerbread dough to make cookies out of tomorrow. We're going to decorate them when Grandma comes. So fun! I also have a cookie cutter for gingerbread houses too, so we're going to have a party.

Henry hasn't been himself lately and I think it's because I've allowed myself to take my third eye off of him while family was in town and while we get together with our friends for our culinary exploits. He isn't obeying like usual and doesn't say thank you or sorry very often. It's amazing how quickly they revert to primal behavior when we aren't there to remind them of what to say and do. I hope this week it gets better while my mom is visiting. She'll learn him all she knows:)

Henry is getting bored of his toys. I think I'll clean out his playroom tomorrow and take out the baby stuff since there's no baby to play with it.

Thanksgiving Mayhem

I am in the middle of Thanksgiving preparations right now, so I don't have that much time to write and I'm not paying that much attention to Henry either, so I don't have a lot of fun stories.

Today we went to the store for a couple of things and Henry found the big bags of candy, so he picked up a couple and threw them in my cart, then when we were all the way at the other end of the store, he ran back to the front of the store, screaming "candy,candy!". He took a couple more bags and instead of putting them in my cart, he started putting them in random carts passing by. People were so nice and let him throw the candy into their carts, which is good because he probably would have cried if they put them back right away. He put about 10 bags of candy in people's carts by the time I dragged him away. Then, I thought he lost his hat and I couldn't see it anywhere on the ground, but after a little while I saw that he had hung it up where there were some outfits hanging for sale. He cracks me up.

Also, Henry is saying some really funny things, like he finally said "Thomasin", who is one of his good friends. He used to say "Tabas" all the time, and I would try to get him to say "sin" at the end, and yesterday while driving past Thomasin's house with Justin he finally got it! He started saying "sin, sin, sin" and then he said "Thomasin"!. Justin also taught him to say "pistachio" and I taught him to say "recycle" today too. He is getting pretty good with the tricky words.

Road Trip!

Henry and I went on a road trip this week to DC this week to visit our friends Christi and Dave and go to the baby shower that was thrown for her. The drive down and back was significantly improved by a DVD player that we borrowed from a friend. We seriously have to get one of those. We had a fun time at the shower. Henry played with the family dog in the basement with the father of the mansion we were in. We painted bibs for Christi and I made one that said "tax refund" on it and Henry made one with his hand print in tie dye colors (for Christi's little hippie baby:). We spend the next day exploring Leesburg and the surrounding area. We found a fabulous baby shop, a bakery that charged us $2.00 for a sugar cookie. We also went to a farmer's market and discovered some Thai religious retreat ranch place with huge statues of Buddah surrounded by children and some other Thai lady. There was also some kid play equipment, so we let Henry play for a while. We left when Henry tried to climb up the religious statues yelling "jump?, jump?" haha! Um, no.

After his nap we hung out in their five acre back yard where they have a horse, a trampoline, and a killer raspberry patch. Henry was feeding the horse and the horse mistook his finger for a carrot and munched it a couple times. Henry's finger was totally flattened and I thought it might be broken, but five minutes later he ran back over the the horse and wanted to touch it again. When he hurt it, I kissed his finger a million times, so now when he notices his swollen and bloody finger, he runs over to me with a concerned look on his face, holding his finger up whining "horse, horse." All I have to do is kiss it and he goes on his merry way. This morning I caught him in his crib kissing his own finger. lol! After the horse we jumped on the trampoline and I WISH I could have had a video camera on my head because I have never seen anything cuter than Henry on his back being bounced by me standing over him. His hair was getting all fluffy around his face and he was laughing and loving every minute of it. He really loves a trampoline. Too bad we'll never get one since Justin sees kids with broken skulls from trampoline usage all day long. I also have weak ankles:) Then we strolled over the the underpicked raspberry patch where Henry gorged on raspberries. His face was smeared with them and we all got to eat our fill in raspberries. I can't believe they were so neglected! I don't think Henry and I lost one single raspberry off of our four bushes this year. So basically, our trip was a success and now I feel like I can go anywhere as long as I have a portable DVD player (hint to grandparents for a Christmas/Birthday present). hehe.

Henry's first real sentence...maybe

Today Henry was climbing on our bed, which is probably at least 3 feet high, with an apple in his hand and the apple came loose and hit him in the head as he fell back down to the ground. He cried a little bit and as Justin was carrying him down the stairs he whined, "Apple fall off the bed". haha! Justin and I both looked at each other, totally stunned at the complexity. I also think it may have been an accident that he said it so perfectly, but he has said all of those words before, but just not all together like that. He continues to amaze me. The "experts" say that 20 month olds learn about 10 words a day, so we really need to be careful what we say around him, not that we say bad things, but there are just some things you don't want a toddler repeating over and over in public.

So, I don't know if anyone has really internalized the lyrics to some of the Winnie the Pooh songs, but some of them are hilarious. My favorite line is during the song before they finally pull Pooh out of Rabbit's front door hole in which he's been stuck for days. They line goes, "think heave-age, think ho-age and out the Pooh will go-age". I wonder how the writers laughed at getting "out the Pooh will go-age" published and recorded by a professional choir.

Henry and I are going on a road trip to DC tomorrow to visit my friend Christi, so we'll post the details when we get back.

What do we do when Daddy's home?

I'll tell you what we do...Play! Yes, Justin was home all afternoon and he got many things done with the computers while Henry napped and then we all went to the Pitt Basketball game. We actually arrived really late, but the game was such a blow out that we didn't mind missing most of it. Henry loved the loudness of it all and couldn't wait until the crowd clapped and cheered so he could join in. He really loves to cheer sports teams on. We then went with our good friend Venkat to his temple for the Indian festival of Diwali. We ate some great Indian food, listened to some live music and saw many beautiful women all dressed up in their sauris. Henry didn't really eat much, but had a great time spooning the yogurt/pickle mixture(not my favorite thing on the menu) from my plate to his plate. He also played in the water jug. People were very entertained. He ended up eating some of the pickle sauce that was actually really spicy and he immediately looked at me and said "spicy!" and sucked in a bunch of air. haha! We had a lovely time even though we had to walk all the way up a huge steep hill just to get there. We saw it as our pilgrimage and our duty to work hard to finally make it to the temple where dinner was awaiting. Plus, I may have worked off that brownie I ate.


Earlier today Henry and I made gourmet apple pies. I found a really fancy recipe online and we all agree that it does have something special about it compared to other pies. I had bought some tiny ABC cookie cutters for Henry to play with in Tahoe and I broke those out and let him play with the spare dough. He was in heaven eating buttery dough as he recognized and yelled out every letter he saw. He learned how to make cut outs and we ended up writing "Henry Jackson Hohl" on one of the pies. I should have taken a photo of it before we ate it, eh? I'll make another one later. I also made lemon and lime curd yesterday, which turned out fabulous. Henry even loves it! What a good little eater!

Sleepy Sounds and Bare Bottoms

Henry loves the "snore and whistle" sounds of sleeping. Every time I go into his room in the morning and after his naps, or if he's on our bed or I tell him that Justin is sleeping in our room, he makes the sounds. He doesn't understand that the snoring sound is made from breathing in, so he makes it while breathing out which makes it sound more like clearing phlegm from one's throat. Yuk! He was doing it this morning when I went in, but he soon stood up, holding out his bottle from the night before and he said, "mommy, milk, yucky." He also frequently says "mommy, poo poo, eeewww." that's when I run to get him from his crib since he has recently been interested in fully undressing himself if he is uncomfortable in his diaper or clothes. I have to admit, though, that I love seeing his cute little naked body hopping and bounding around the house as he laughs and screams for me to chase him. haha!

He has been so good lately. No tantrums or problems sleeping. He doesn't throw his food anymore and he picks things up when he drops them. He throws garbage away and helps me wipe up his messes. He's gentile with babies and is friendly with everyone. He lets me comb his hair and put on his clothes and shoes without much trouble and he's finally starting to listen to reason, which means that I can finally start using the skills I learned from "Parenting with Love and Logic"! Yes! I really hope this keeps up because there's really no sign of the "terrible twos" in him at this point:) We connect with each other so much and we really have fun together. The other day I put on a DVD for him and he looked at me and patted the couch a few times next to him so that I would sit down and watch the show with him. I seriously felt so honored to have been invited and I left the cleaning and cooking for later so I could be close to him while he wanted to hang out. I'm glad we're becoming such great friends.

Walking Backwards and S's

Henry has learned to walk backwards and today at the Children's museum he walked right back onto the lap of an unsuspecting little girl sitting cross legged during story time. Luckily, she and her friends just giggled. He gets himself into trouble with that backwards walking. Henry has also figured out the difference between words with and without S's. He is now saying "books" and "ex"(for the letter x instead of "ek") and many other words. He doesn't say it very smoothly though and there's usually a pause between the word and the "s" sound, which is really funny.

Henry, Justin and I played together tonight and Henry was acting so cute and funny. He really craves our attention and loves to play staring and looking games as well as wrestling, horsey, and his new favorite toy, the old school cube with blocks of different shapes that fit in the holes. He is constantly laughing and smiling which brightens our day. I finally broke down and bought Henry a DVD of the old school Winnie the Pooh stories that we used to watch as kids. He loves them and walks around saying "Pooh" and "Tigger" all day long. I hope he really loves it as much as I remember loving it. I remember that I memorized all the words to all four movies when I was about 10 years old and I still remember most of the dialog as I'm listening to it after almost 20 years(I'm old). Nothing beats Pooh Bear.

Small Talk

Henry has been talking more and more lately. He even puts together two to three word sentences. He loves copying what I say and sometimes it really shocks me when he says something I think would have been too difficult to say. Today he was saying "nuts" when he saw my cinnamon sugar toasted pumpkin seeds and I told him that they were actually pumpkin seeds and he said it! "Punkin seeds" is what he said! He also says things like "farm book", "happy boy", "daddy seeping", "baby, mommy, daddy + (any animal) and "socks and shoes". It really seems like he's communicating more with me and not just copying words just to say them. He really loves to talk to me and hear what I have to say back.

You know by now that he loves the letter "W". While he was in the tub, I showed him that a W upside-down is also an M. He was so intrigued by it. He is so amazed that he now makes me turn all W's upside down to show that they make M's. When he sees it, he says "woh" under his breath. haha! He also walks around the house muttering to himself "W, M, W, M" and sometimes "ABC, W" or "AB, M". When he catches me watching him, he gets embarrassed and usually does something goofy like flop all over the floor like a rag doll screaming nonsense.

Henry also loves to say animal words like, rhino, giraffe(which he can say now), horse, zebra, panda, and others. He also loves it if they're on his PJ's or his clothes. I can't believe how much easier it has been to get him dressed if there's some sort of animal on his shirt. Even Ralph Lauren's shirts with the tiny polo player on them is enough for Henry to let me dress him.

Henry's Celebrity Look-alikes

Apparently Henry looks like a supermodel or a Japanese girl. Did anyone else pick that up? You have to check out this site. It's so fun!

Candy enough to feed an army

I don't know if it's written in Henry's genes to run from house to house collecting candy, but as soon as the idea got into his head, he was out of control! We went trick or treating with Kaitlin, Wee-o, and Thomasin tonight and Henry was in heaven. He was screaming out "Wee-o, Wee-o!" and "Tommy, Tommy!" as well as "punky, punky! for pumpkin. He also learned how to say ghost and witch and was equally amazed by every kid or dog that was dressed up. When I say Henry was excited, I mean that he was running, screaming, and yelling every word he uttered. He never waited for the nice people handing out the candy to put in his bag. As they bent down to say hello to the nice little giraffe, Henry would dig both hands into the candy bowl, almost knocking the person off their feet and the bowl out of their hands and take as much candy as his little hands could hold. Then he would turn and run back to daddy, screaming "woh, woh!" who was holding the already 10 lb bag and secretly glad that Henry got the extra illegal stash, and watching as the person staggers to their feet, needing to replenish their bowl of candy. I have to admit that it was really fun to watch. Most little kids were so calm and normal, walking from house to house, being so polite and cute, then there was Henry, tripping over curbs, screaming out for his pure love of candy and his cousins and friends, stuffing his face with jujyfruit for fuel. hahaha! We basically laughed the entire time. He really was that wild and uncontrollable.

When we got home, we dumped all the candy out and Henry jumped all over it and tried to get us to open up more and more pieces. Henry knows how to say "sucker" and now "Starburst," which Justin apparently taught him during sacrament meeting. Basically, Henry loves candy and will do anything to get it.

Long Neck

Henry got a giraffe outfit from grandma for Halloween, so I've been trying to teach him about giraffes. He has a hard time saying giraffe and really doesn't want to attempt it, but every time I talk about them I show him the sign which makes a gesture showing a long neck and I say "long neck". So instead of saying giraffe when he sees one or sees his outfit he says "long neck," but sounds more like "yong neck." L's are still hard for him. It's pretty funny:) We had a trunk-or-treat last night at the church and our friends have a cute little boy who was dressed up as a rhino and when he saw him, Henry was saying "rhino, rhino!" It was so cute that he recognized what his outfit was and could say rhino! Our nephew, Wee-o, was a caveman and when Henry saw him he wouldn't leave his side. They were getting pretty distracted looking at everyone's costumes as they went from trunk to trunk, but whenever Henry realized that he was separated from Wee-o he would yell his name over and over until we got them back together to walk to the next trunk. Henry loves his cousin:)

I don't have a photo yet, but I hope to have some soon!

Alphabet Boy

So Henry officially knows his ABC's in sign. Yesterday was his 20 month Birthday and as I was warming up his bottle to go to bed I decided to test his knowledge. I signed the entire alphabet with my hand and he was able to tell me every single letter with little problems. Every time he said a letter he would throw his hands up in the air, jump and yell out the letter with a huge smile on his face. Every morning he also wakes up reciting letters. He now says "ABCD" over and over with other letters interspersed. His all time favorite letter, though, is "W". He says it a hundred times a day and tries to find it in every book and sign. He and I do a little dance and say "dubba, dubba, dubba-u" over and over. So all day long we just look for letters. He also loves numbers and knows 1-5 and 8, but is still more interested in his letters.

Grandma and Grandpa come to visit

Grandma Teri and Grandpa Jim came to visit this last week and I think it was the busiest and most fun week we have ever had! We also lucked out with the weather, so we got to do everything we planned. This will be like a log of everything we did, so it might be a little boring, but I want to record it for posterity;)

The first day I took Dad and Teri down to the Strip District where we have a top ten bakery in the country, the best Italian grocery store in the world, and many other shops with fun and interesting things. Worth mentioning are the macaroons at Enrico's and the incredible selection of spices at Penzey's. You have to go there to experience it all. In the evening we went to the Bodies Exhibition which was really cool. The "skin only" body grossed Teri out and we thought $22 was a little steep for admission, but it was a must-see.

The next day we went to the Zoo and miraculously most of the animals were up, awake, and walking around. The best was the giant Kodiak bear with only his gigantic mammoth sized head poking out of his pond getting a drink. His head was seriously huge and he sure was thirsty! The aquarium at the zoo is fabulous and Henry ran around the entire time screaming "fish, fish!" In the evening we went to Andy Warhol Museum. Wa-heird. I hope Henry didn't see all the homosexual neon signs. lol! If you didn't know, Andy Warhol grew up here so there's a pretty decent sized museum here in Pittsburgh. Henry's favorite piece was a room filled with silver rectangular helium balloons that were blown all around the room by a fan. That was probably my favorite one also. I think I'll do that for his next Birthday party:)

We were supposed to go to to Ohiopyle (state park), but it looked like inclement weather, so we decided to go shopping at REI and H&M instead at the South Side works where there's also a fun in ground water fountain that the kids can run through. We took all of Henry's clothes off and let him run in the water and he was attracting a pretty good crowd. We then went to Jimmy Tsang's for dinner and ate some really great Chinese food in honor of the Birthday girls (Teri and Me).

The day they went home we went to the Strip one last time to get some bread and macaroons and then spent a few hours at the Phipps Conservatory where Chihuly has a spectacular exhibit. We absolutely loved it. Wow! We ate yummy Panera sandwiches for lunch while Henry slept in the car and then drove to the airport. Our little adventure had to come to an end even though there was so much more I wanted to show them. I suppose we have quite a few years to show them all that Pittsburgh has to offer.

We had such a fun time hanging out with them. Henry was so excited to have them around and even a couple days after they left he kept looking for them in our guest room. Poor little guy:(

Finally Lake Tahoe Revealed

Henry and Lake Tahoe are like peas in a pod. Henry and I arrived early and left late to get used to the time change, so we had plenty of time to relax. We stayed in a condo right on the beach, so every morning we woke up to sounds of the small waves on the lake and an incredible view. Lake Tahoe has such a unique landscape with enormous mountain ranges encircling the entire lake. There are something like 11 ski resorts in the area and we had fun going to the resort villages wishing we could buy everything in the high end ski stores. Henry, my Dad, Teri, and I hung out together the whole time. We also had fun hanging out with the other cousins and aunts and uncles. Henry took particular attachment to my uncle Grant, whom he called "Grandpa" the entire time. He loved it over at their place with all the toys and especially the train set. I think I'm going to have to get a train set for him for either Christmas or his Birthday. He liked it so much, in fact, that he wouldn't eat meals and by the end of the day he was so starving that he would finally eat massive amounts of dinner. Our favorite thing to eat was Judy's home-made wheat bread or pancakes in the morning. Ya-hum! Henry also had a fabulous time with his cousin Wil and my youngest cousin Markie. They frequently hung out together on the beach catching crawdads, digging in the sand, and climbing on rocks. I also had a great time hanging out with my cousin Liz. We shared philosophies on life and it seemed like we were very much alike!

Just like when we went to DC for Easter this year and his signing exploded, his vocabulary exploded on our trip and it hasn't stopped. He continuously learns new words and always tries to say everything no matter how difficult, which is consistent with his "no fear" outlook on life. That's our boy!

Mom's Birthday Party

Well, it was my Birthday today and Henry had a great time. He knows what Birthday means, so he knew it included some sort of a party and a cake. We had a bunch of family and friends, including my dad and my step-mother, Teri, who have been here having a blast for the last 5 days. Henry and the other three kids his age actually ate their dinner without a huge mess, then danced around on the deck to Norah Jones until they started to get dizzy and bumping into each other which led to crying. haha!. Henry especially loved the train cake pan that Stef gave me. He LOVES trains and I'm going to make him his train cake for his Birthday. I'm really excited to do it for him.

Before the party we went on a hike at Fall Run Park where Henry took a pretty bad face plant on the trail and a rock embedded in his lip. The entire rest of the day he had a flap of skin hanging down off his mouth and a fat lip. So sad. He was a trooper though and as soon as he saw another rock, he totally forgot about his lip and started running again without a thought about the hidden rocks on the trail. It was such a beautiful place and there were so many leaves on the trail and we all enjoyed kicking them up.

Check out the Lake Tahoe photos. I'll write about it next!