Busy toddler

Looking through our recent pictures, they are mostly of Henry doing active things. He is loving spending so much time outside but also working on fixing things.

Most days on walks Henry rides his tricycle (with a push bar) or in the stroller but I decided to try out the Ergo carrier again since we don't have so many layers of clothes on any more. I was pleasantly surprised I could still carry him pretty easily and he liked being up high. I guess 5' 2" is considered high when you're less and three feet tall.


We hadn't had much rain so Henry enjoyed watering plants every evening. Some were quite well watered.

Henry "talked" with Grandma Cathy and Grandpa Howard over skype this weekend and was very excited to show Grandma this gift we were taking to a baby shower.


This weekend it did end up raining so I broke down and brought the basketball hoop inside. Just as popular as it is outside.
Working on fixing his automoblox car.

Random photos

Here are some interesting pictures that I thought I should post even though I should be going to bed. These all were quite entertaining.

I'm not sure what was going on here. Upside down hammering?? We finally found some sunglasses and now he won't part with them. He slept with them for his nap today. We'll try to get some better pictures tomorrow which shouldn't be hard since he won't take them off.



Henry is trying to pump up a bouncy toy (horse??) called a Rody that I found at a garage sale. I would have had no idea what it was but Henry's cousin Maia had one at Christmas which provided quite a bit of entertainment. Sadly, we don't have the right adapter to get full enough for him to ride. He has been talking to Rody a lot though so I guess it's provided at least some entertainment already.

It's been 2 years.

Almost exactly two years ago I (Derek) ran the Mad City Marathon and we posted about it here. That was Memorial Day weekend 2007. Tina was very pregnant with Henry and it is just amazing how different our life is two years later.

Yesterday (Sunday) Tina ran the Mad City 1/2 Marathon. Henry and I were there to greet her at the finish. Tina should be proud, she did very well.
Today we went to the local free zoo. Here is a picture of Henry with the tiger.
There is, of course, glass between him and the Tiger. He stood there for quite a while and really enjoyed watching the Tiger walk past. Henry's highlight of the day was riding in the little train with Tina.

Lately Henry has had fun playing with our neighbors' grandchildren. Last week they were blowing large bubbles outside of our house. That led to the following photo shoot:

Oh, and the pink pedal car is not ours. It also belongs to the neighbors. So does the tractor (and trailer) below. Henry is trying to pull the neighbor's 3 year old granddaughter. He kept saying, "this is very hard."
Finally, on a completely unrelated note. I guess not really because it has to do with Henry. Do you think the following picture gives us any insight into the personality Henry is developing? Just for the record, he came up with this on his own while he was sitting on the potty today.
Yes. That is correct. He took all of his magnetic letters and placed them into four different containers based on color.

Nothing that exciting.

We haven't done anything too exciting or new here. Just life with an almost 2 year old and trying to keep up with his daily changes. Here are some pictures of recent activities.

Henry loves playing with play-doh and making "nakes." Henry speaks very clearly but for some reason has trouble with s at the beginning of some words. (school, snake, snack) but does fine with other words like six. Who knows. He's not even 2 so I'm not worried at all. He still talks about Zoe's "ear hematoma" surgery and can say that word and use it correctly somehow. I'm discovering that language acquisition is very fascinating!

Still loves books. We had this airplane book from the library for quite some time.

Henry still loves to help out with various things. He helps cook (mainly scooping and mixing), wash the car (this was a first but thoroughly enjoyed it), fix things, fold laundry, pull weeds, etc. Of course many times Henry helping makes things go slowly or not happen at all but it's still amusing and quite entertaining.

Mother's Day

We had a very nice Mother's Day. We started with a relaxing waffle breakfast and then went hiking at a nearby park. Henry was a trooper and climbed up a huge set of stairs to an overlook and a little chapel on top of the hill.



Hiking is also much slower with a toddler. There are so many "interesting" things to look at. One example are these tree parts that were laying everywhere. Henry called them snakes.


Unfortunately, Henry ended the hike with a fall. He was running down the hill, lost his balance and fell on his face. Not too much crying though, just a fat lip and he still has some scrapes on his face and lip. It didn't scar him too bad though because he wanted to go hiking again the next day.

No pictures, only Henry quote

I don't have any new pictures but Henry made me laugh this morning so I thought I'd share the quote. We were getting ready to leave this morning and I like to tell him what we're doing and why just so he knows what's going on.

Me: "Henry, we need to put on your jacket because it's still a little chilly outside."
Henry: "Like the soup!"

I'm sad to say it took me a bit to get what he was saying. He really does entertain us with his take on life.

We've been too busy...

...playing outside so we haven't had time to blog. It has been so nice lately and it's very hard/impossible to get Henry back inside sometime so we've been doing yard work, taking walks, visiting playgrounds, etc. However, I finally have some time to do an update.

The first picture is from about a month ago but he is on the blue chair from the weekly pictures from last year so here is mid April 2009:
Here is mid April 2008 (orange shirts are a coincidence):

Friday Henry and Levi woke up from their naps early so I was trying to find something new to do outside. We tried to play red light/green light. They had a blast even though they didn't really understand the point of the game or how to play. More or less they would line up and then run when I said green light and they would stop when they ran into me and I would say red light. It worked...sort of. Derek came home from work and immediately ran inside get his camera and get some great action shots.





Henry fell in love with the way-too-big orange sweatshirt and had to wear it the next day inside and with the hood up.


Follow up from last post: Henry is now able to tolerate some dairy and we're wondering if it was just a short phase he was going through after have a bit of a flu bug--who knows. Zoe ended up having another ear surgery on the same ear. It was healing fine but closed too quick so it filled right back up again. She had the second surgery over a week ago and thankfully it seems to have worked this time and we only had to pay for medication the second time (and not another complete surgery including anesthesia)! She should get her stitches out this week which means we can finally get rid of the E-collar.