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...

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.