Henry-isms

A few things I want to remember that make me smile & giggle.....

Oh how my heart skipped a beat the first time I saw Henry jump off of the couch, that little dare devil!  Sometimes I bust him going down the stairs saying "hop" as he jumps down a step, not the safest technique, I know.  

Here it is.....

....."hop"

When you ask him what his favorite piece of construction equipment is, his response is "baaaa-cat" with the emphasis on CAT (BobCat).  He says "baaaa-cat" over and over when we go on walks, just hoping to catch a glimpse of one.  

He can't stand it when you're playing with him in the living room and you lay down on the floor.  He'll push you up, saying "up, up" and gets very frustrated if you don't get up, and fast!  No resting on the job, I guess.

So, all of the literature out there says "make sure your baby sees you reading so that they understand how important reading is to you too," well not this kid.  He hates it if you try to read a book or magazine of your own.  He'll take it away and go put it in the magazine rack.  Not on his watch, folks!

Watching his blankets go in the washing machine is devastating to him, as he thinks they'll never come back out again.   But yet, loves it when I pull laundry out of the dryer to fold. 

He can recognize all of the upper-case letters and numbers 0-10.  Most everything is still the color "ba-lue" (blue).

He's "needing" to sleep with more and more things lately.  He'll pick up a stuffed animal and say "scheep" (sleep), "night-night" and go put it in his crib.  I'll try to sneak them out of his crib and hide them underneath, and most of the time he busts me doing it. 

Oh, how my little wild man makes me laugh!

Memorial Day

What a beautiful sight to see as we pulled into Stillwater this morning, flags at half mast, as we honor each and every service man and woman on this Memorial Day.

 We were first-timers to Teddy Bear Park and it did not disappoint.  It was so super cute, and slammin' with tons of little ones and parents on this warm & sunny day!  As you can imagine by the name, teddy bears were everywhere!  They had the cutest park equipment shaped like building blocks, choo-choo trains, tree houses, and more.  They also had a sand pit (which we managed to successfully steer him clear of for fear of the mess that would be coming home with us, I know, how terrible of us) and a few rock walls too.

 Henry enjoys climbing.....what?!

When we got home, I asked him what his favorite part of Teddy Bear Park was?  He said "schides" (slides), "coo-coo" (trains), and then "tetty baes, ROAR" (teddy bears, and apparently they ROAR too, just like the bears at the zoo).

Yep, teddy bears!

 A slide coming out of tree house, way awesome!

Check out the view.....Teddy Bear Park seems like it's is nestled right into a cliff, and off in the distance is the St. Croix River.

 The boy seriously has a smile on his face every time he goes down a slide :) 

You guessed it, more teddy bears!

 Just a quick stop by the river before heading home.  As you can see, the water is extremely high, too high to even walk where you should be able to walk, bummer.  Of course he wanted to swim in it, bummer again :( 

Road trip

While Phil was off to California last week for work, Henry and I road-tripped it back to NoDak for a few days.  Day 1: Drive, drive, drive.  I hooked up the DVD player for first time in the car and got Henry a few DVD's - Mickey Mouse, 2 construction ones, and some Dr. Seuss.  The boy had absolutely no interest in it yet.  He much prefers his iPod touch, where he can constantly be touching buttons. 

Day 2: Trip to Bismarck

We met up with Auntie Jackie for some lunch and then off to the nursing home to see Great Grandma Yantzer, who couldn't resist snatching Henry for a big bear hug when he walked in the door. 

 All my photos of Jackie and Henry are blurry because these two were too wild, can't you tell!  Henry was spoiled with a trip to Target to pick out his Birthday present from Auntie Jackie - new trains, a train track, and cars, what more could a little boy ask for?!  When Mama wouldn't open up the Hot Wheel cars in the store, Henry batted his eyes at Jackie, who of course ripped it right open for him.  He is too spoiled by those aunties :)

We decided my cousin, Anthony would go by Tony today (simply because it was easier to say), or "To-To" as Henry still refers to him as.

Oh, time to say Bye-Bye, and Henry was going in for his hugs & kisses.

Then a quick stop by Auntie Jo's house before heading home to J-Town and Henry had to check out Anthony's paint-balling, just what I need!

Day 3:  Tour de J-Town

What to do in Jamestown you might ask?  Well, Frontier Village and the World's Largest Buffalo, of course.  This was Henry's 2nd trip up there, but this time around the village was open for us, so we got to check out all the little buildings!

First stop, the bar.  I'll have a Grain Belt please :)  

Next stop, the post office.  How much does this parcel weigh?

Unfortunately, the real buffalo were all roaming quite a ways away from us.  See the white blob in the distance, that's her, White Cloud, the albino buffalo.

Aside from the buffalo, we spotted quite a few horses, a couple goats, and a mangy looking kitty too!

 At the end of the day, Henry said his favorite thing was the "coo-coo" car, shocking I know :)

One quick stop to ride a buffalo, then we were outta there.  

 Next stop on the Tour de J-Town, the outdoor pool.  Yes folks, this is where all the magic began, where Phil and I first laid eyes on each other 15 years ago as lifeguards, the Jamestown Municipal Swimming Pool, ahhh memories.  Unfortunately, she hasn't changed too much.  I think these murals were brand new when we were working there.

Henry stood at this gate and cried his eyes out, "pool, pool, pool."  The boy wanted to go swimming soooooo badly, but it wasn't open yet.  Here's a fellow lifeguard getting it ready for the big Memorial Day season opener.

Yep, same ol' playground equipment that I played on as a kid at the park next door!

Later that night, off to the Knights of Columbus for Grandpa's Birthday dinner and then to the Dairy Queen for dessert.  Before heading to bed, Henry got to check out Grandpa's motorcycle (notice the smile on his face)!

On Day 4, we trekked it back home.  Good times in NoDak, as always :)

Mini Murph

It sure seems like we eat a lot of pizza in our house, ok, so maybe we're pizza monsters!  But who doesn't love pizza?  It's delicious, isn't it?  So, Papa Murphy's has this new little pizza kit called the Mini Murph, where the little ones get to essentially make their own pizza.  It's pretty darn cute.  Being the pizza monsters that we are, Henry got to make his own Mini Murph for dinner!    

Step 1: the sauce.....

.....but not before I added my secret ingredient, cauliflower puree!  As this little boy won't get near most veggies, I've been sneaking them in more and more.

Step 2: the cheese (unfortunately, I think more cheese was consumed before it was baked)

Step 3: the pepperoni, mmmmmmm

Step 4: try to sneak some more of the ingredients off before baking it

Voila! 

And made with love :)

Thursday's with Henry

Henry sure does LOVE Thursday's, aka garbage day.  Unfortunately, one thing Henry's doesn't love is when the garbage cans "teeeeeep" (tip) over.  Today, he was on neighborhood garbage can patrol!  Due to all this crazy wind we had here, there were an awful lot of garbage cans "teeeeped" over when we got home from work.  After picking our garbage can up and lugging it up the driveway, he couldn't possibly go inside without also picking up some of the other neighbors' garbage cans.  He checked on Miss Sue's and Miss Barb's, they were ok, phew, thank goodness.  We had to stop by his girlfriend, Dya's house and help them out, then finally we could go inside!

Oh, my little garbage can lover :)

Happy Mama's Day

Thank you to my boys for greeting me with this this morning!   

Boy, I sure was spoiled today.  My request for Mother's Day was a trip to the Minneapolis Farmer's Market to get all my flowers to pot and maybe a few treats too.  They didn't disappoint, and we had a beautiful morning yesterday to do it! 

We spent this morning with The Krump's, Gillespie's, and Richter's at our house as the boys grilled, baked, and cooked a scrumptious brunch for the Mamas (and cleaned up too, bonus).  Again, a warm and sunny day outside to enjoy some play-time too :)

Thank you again to my boys for a wonderful Mother's Day!

Florida, Part 3 of 3

So, everyday there were lots of kids' activities going on at the resort.  This day, we chose to partake in the "treasure hunt" out on the beach, and boy did he find some treasures.....  

.....check out these beauties!  Unfortunately they didn't last the whole trip (in fact, I don't think they lasted the rest of the day) :(  He also rounded up a pirate's patch and a neon orange bracelet!

Just lounging around :)

 I think this was Henry's favorite outing, the Loggerhead MarineLife Center!  He would run from tank to tank to tank and just point at the turtles, over and over again.  The turtles were HUGE!  They were right at his level, it was perfect.

After checking out the turtles, we headed to Palm Beach Gardens for some Cinco de Mayo food and drink.  Nothing says Cinco de Mayo like pepperoni pizza, right?!  Phil and I said we've never seen him eat like this, 4 1/2 pieces of pizza and a huge bowl of fruit, barely taking a breath (but did stop to smile here for me).  Swordfish tacos and margaritas for us, please :) 

After dinner, Henry got to ride the ponies (very seriously I might add).....

.....and the "coo-coo" train!  What - are you supposed to keep your arms and legs inside the train at all times?  There was a 13 year old girl in our little train car that was NOT impressed with Henry's lack of rule following (yes, she read him the rules and did not understand why he kept trying to lean out of the car).  

 Our final outing was to the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center where we got to check out more turtles, other little reptiles, and a butterfly garden. 

Aaaaaahhhh, relaxing on the patio every night 'til the sun went down.

 And finally, the almost 4 hour flight home.  This little boy absolutely amazed me on both flights, I was shocked!  He sat between us the whole time, reading books, playing with stickers, and loving his iPod (getting some instruction on Angry Birds here).  In fact, when we landed down in Minneapolis, he wanted "more, more"!  

That's it, that's all the photos, enjoy (I know we sure did)!