Halloween 2013

Well, I am ready to post about Christmas, but I am not about to let myself do that before I do Halloween and Thanksgiving!! Geez! Where has the time gone? Thank goodness for Christmas break so I can do some catching up!

We had a fun Halloween this year despite the yucky rainy weather. We had the Bushes and they Wayes over for trick-or-treating and dinner afterward. Henry went through a lot of costumes before being ok with this dino one (or dragon or whatever it is). He would fuss and want out of whatever we put him in. I didn't want to buy anything, but luckily was offered lots of costumes from friends! We tried a monkey, an airplane, and a few others, but when we put the dino one one he was cool with it. I think it was because it was fleece and just felt like pajamas. It fit him well and he was pretty darn cute in it if I do say so myself!

Practicing his dino face?

The Bushes came all decked out and looked AMAZING!! They made Bennett's Thomas outfit complete with a light and everything. He was so proud of it and it was perfect for him because he is really into trains right now. I love that they get so into dressing up-they're great sports!

This is the best view of Henry's costume. The tail made it!

B was looking adorable in his doggie costume.

Looking good!!

Our crew coming up to another house. We kept saying, "Who are the idiots who would do this in the rain? US!"

Henry was all about the trick or treating. He held Steven's hand the whole time and marched right up and would say "trick or treat" and loved getting something from everyone (he doesn't even know what candy is, so it was just the receiving/interacting he was into!). We would always tell him to say thank you, and he would say it, but it was always when we were half way down the walk leaving. Oh well!

Henry also did not want to be held, but wanted to walk the whole way. He wanted to hold his bag himself and would not let us take it for him (and it got quite heavy I might add!). It drug along the sidewalk the whole time and was a soggy mess by the end of the night.

We walked all the way to the back of the neighborhood to Ethan's house and took a break. This was the first time Henry really realized there was stuff in his bag that he could go through I think. He took everything out one my one and laid it all around him. We waited at the Potters until Ryan brought his truck to drive us back home since it was dark, we were wet, and it was getting cold!

Here we are back at the house-wet, but happy!

And here is Henry with his bag of loot on Saturday morning. Again, he was taking everything out one by one and "organizing" it. He never even tried to open anything!

He kept saying, "trick or treat?" and then enthusiastically, "thank you!" while he was going through it. He was re-living the night!

22 months

Henry turned 22 months the day after Christmas. He's growing like a weed and keeping us on our toes!! See below for a bit about this month for him.

Henry is a serious talker and has added a bunch of phrases and words this month. It seems kinda ridiculous to keep up with them at this point, but my goal was until his second birthday, so I am going to try to keep it up! I think it will be fun to look back and remember all these, plus it will help us remember what he was interested in during this month of his life.

eyebrows, chin, cough, big cough, sneeze, sneeze achoo, toothbrush/toothpaste, shock-a boom boom, chicka chicka boom boom, hohoho Merry Christmas, loud, too loud, work, dada work, broken, dada fix it, screwdriver, snowman, presents, snow is white, lights, tickle, alright, ok, bicycle ("bike-cycle"), doughnut, thank you lady, coffee, necklace, lotion, bonk, bonk noggin, smooth, scratchy, heavy, just a minute, I'll get it, blow, dump, lamb, where are you?, I see you, graham crackers (dam crackers), hungry, I hungry, awesome, hooray, ring, stroller, no drop it, down stairs, upstairs, vacuum, sleep, broccoli (bra-coe-lee), mess, cook, almost, I hold it, pine cone, braces, No Maggie. Move., sunny, santa, sofa, sweet head (from away in a manger), I want it, I no want it, money (how does he know this one?), bugles (sounds like noodles), music (sounds like meerkat? mutack?), yes sir, yes mam, time out, sorry, bless you Henry, you're welcome, eat it, Henry do it, walk, candy (again, how does he know this?), backpack, purse, puzzle, food (pood), treat (no r), chocolate-Aunt Mae?, rock-a-bye baby, snuggle in, want other one, my room, mini wheats, Christmas tree, applesauce, this way, burp, George, Emma, Mary Ellen (sounds like melon), Lee, Marie (sounds like re), Steven, Kelly, Ian (school friend), pound it (followed by a fist bump)

This month Henry has started referring to himself as Henry, which is very cute. I always wondered when that would be. So he says stuff like, "Henry do it", "Bless you Henry", "Thank you Henry", etc. He leaves out the n in Henry. He has started telling us that he is hungry, now, too and will go to his high chair and say "I hungy, I hungy" or will say it sometimes when he wakes up in the morning along with "downstairs?". This morning I asked him what he wanted to eat for breakfast, and he said, "raisins (What else I asked), cheerios (what else?), milk!" His standard breakfast right now is actually Kefir, mini wheats in milk, and a sippy of milk, but I guess he was asking for a little change up!:)

Henry can count from 1-10. I had only ever done 1-5 with him, but in the car I heard "8, 9, 10" from him in the backseat, so I started from the beginning with him, and realized he can do the whole thing! Six and seven are sometimes tricky for him and he has his own twist on how to say them, but I think he knows it all more often than not now. He must have picked 6-10 up at school. Silly me for limiting him to 5!

Henry has a lot of obsessions right now, and these show his "personality" for sure. Notice I creatively say personality rather than stubbornness. He can be so laid back at times, but there are certainly things he is passionate about, and he is not afraid to show it. He loves to feed Maggie, so we let him get her cup of food and dump it into her bowl, then he watches her eat and gets the biggest kick out of it. Lately he has been holding her bowl WHILE she eats (poor Maggie), and he will even sometimes hand feed her.......it is quite the ordeal, and he gets such a kick out of it. He does the same thing with her treats. He begs to do tricks with her, then Steven and he work on it together. He will tell her "shake", "come", "down", etc. then give her the treat from his hand. But when she's all done, he wants to get her more, and we tell him no.....it is a serious melt down. If he can't get a handle on it, this leads to timeout where he sits in a chair for like a minute (and usually re-gains composure I might add), then we come back to him and he says "sorry". Timeout is also something used at school, and, at least for right now, it seems to really help him. I would think having to sit in a chair would make him all the madder, but he generally calms down and is very ready to say sorry when we come back to him. He has even tried to put himself in timeout when he is whiny and dada mentions it, which is kinda funny. He has also said "sorry" unsolicited several times lately after he has done something naughty, and will even rub/pat our shoulder as he says it. I think for a 22 month old, he has a decent understanding of the whole thing. He's started learning to say, "No! Stop!" (learned from cousins), so we are working on saying other things instead of this like, "no thank you, mama" or "yes, sir dada". He repeats it, but I'm not sure exactly how much of it he actually gets. The first of many, I know.

So, he is also totally obsessed with lotion, chap stick, etc. and will throw fits if he can't have it or it gets taken away. I was letting him use it some, but it just became too big of an ordeal so I try to hid them all now! I have to really be careful with soap/hand sanitizer and just let him have one squirt, or it spirals out of control.:) It's the little things, right? Steven and Henry worked on replacing some batteries in his toys, and now he is kinda obsessed with screwdrivers and "fixing" things......

This month has been lots of fun with Christmas, and Henry has gotten to do advent each night (that we remembered!). All we do is light the candles, sing a few songs, then blow them out. Of course, blowing out the candles is his highlight, but he also was into the songs (mainly joining in on Away in a Manger, and Jesus Loves Me). We read lots of nativity stories this month, and he got very good at talking about Baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, etc. and loved playing with his Little People nativity set. We went and picked out a tree and watched dada unload it off the car, then set it up in the sun room (undecorated). Steven and I decorated it after Henry went to bed, then the next morning Henry got to see it and put on the ornament we gave him this year. He kept pointing to the tree over and over and saying, "Good job, dada!" Every tree we would see while out and about, he would say the same thing. Steven got a lot of credit this year for all the trees around! I thought the tree/ornaments would be a source of contention for him, but he has been content just to look at it and talk about it. He occasionally touches an ornament or two, but overall has been great with it. Phew! He knows all 4 of our stockings and points to them and says each person's (mama, dada, Maggie, Henry).

We've taken the pottying further this month. He continues to be overall interested in it, so we continue to expose him to it. He really has had lots of poopoo and pee pee success, and when we are at home he has been in underwear-since I have been off work it seemed like a good time to try and since we've had family around who can also help get him to the potty more often. He wears diapers at bedtime and naps (we aren't even going there), but has only pee peed a couple of times in his underwear and we have not had any poo poo accidents yet. He just gets praise for a reward and this seems to be enough. He is so proud of himself when he goes. His pooping is hilarious, because when he goes he turns around and looks and says things like, "yay!" "hooray!" "big!" "yucky!" and "Ewww!"...sometimes all in a row!:) He has a dance he does, too, where he bends his knees up and down and pumps his fists in and out simultaneously. Like I said, he is very proud. I should video it sometime, but he is usually indisposed at the time. :)

Some Saturday mornings Steven takes Henry with him to the doughnut shop down the road (terrible habit-we know) to get a few. Henry can't have them (eggs), but is usually happy with animal crackers instead. The last time they went, though Steven was feeling bad because he was saying, "dada, doughnut" then "Henry doughnut?" like "Can't I please just have one?" Then Henry and I were at Publix  a few days later and Henry spotted the Krispy Kremes and kept saying, "dada, doughnut?" I thought it was hilarious that dada was his first response to a doughnut:) I was giving Hank a bath one night and Steven popped his head in to see how it was going. Henry said, "Peek-a-boo. I see you!" Then as Steven started to play peek-a-boo with him, he said, "Where are you?" and again, "I see you!" He has become very tactful about getting out of us making him get into a stroller or grocery cart. When we get him out of the car and he sees those things, he stuggles into us so sweetly-lays his head on our shoulder, etc. Eventually we have to put him in, but it is funny how he has figured that out. With the cold weather, as we walk from the car to a store, we will tell him to "snuggle in" and he does it. Now he says it himself and does it which is very sweet! :)

He sometimes calls us Steven and Kelly. This is weird! The other night he was saying Steven for dada, then Steven asked what about mama, and he said "Kelly"! He knows we think it is funny, so he as turned it into a little teasing game.

Well, this is certainly lots of ramblings! Henry, you are so much fun and such a mess! We love you very much!

21 Months

Henry turned 21 moths old on Nov 26th...that's dangerously close to having a 2 year old, folks! Sheesh, how time is flying by. Henry is a lot of fun and is changing and learning every day. It is amazing to see a little person develop right before your very eyes!

Henry talks and sings ALL the time. When he wakes up in the morning, I can hear him loudly and enthusiastically singing Jesus Loves Me and the ABC's from his crib. He is saying more and more phrases, and I've heard several 3 word phrases this month like, "No barking, Maggie!" Whenever he sees something new or interesting or something that might be forbidden, this month he has been saying, "ooh!" with lots of inflection. When we walked around the corner and saw the Christmas tree up in the school foyer, be said, "ooh!" immediately. It's neat to see things fresh with a child's eyes.

He's been saying tons of new words, and I try to catch as many as I can. I know this is not all of them, but some of the words he's been saying this month are: Grover, Cookie Monster, Burt, Ernie, choo choo...all aboard!, animals, mouse, ooh!, cute!, nice!, good job! color, run, grapes, popcorn, dirty diaper, pen, sunny, bright, tight, train, home , open roof, angel, donkey hee haw, turkey gobble gobble, toys, ouch, hot , cold, sour, kick, lid, silly puppy, little, pajamas, come, drop it (those last 2 are when he's playing with Maggie-poor dog), and love you (ie, "love you, Grandpa" and "love you, Peggy" when we were saying goodby after a recent visit).

Some kids call their grandparents unusual names, and we are among that group for my mom's name. George, the first grandchild who is now 13, tried to call my mom "grandmother" (which is what we call my mom's mom, too), but it somehow developed into "my-nar" (I think it's his version of mother). It stuck with the siblings who came after him, but since there was such a gap between Henry and my brother's kids, I figured we'd let Henry figure out what he'd be calling her. With older cousins, though, and even us saying it, he picked up on it pretty quickly. He's been saying "manar" for a while now, but since her last couple of visits with him, Henry has come up with his own variation. He's changed "manar" to "mayonnaise"-a word we've never used with him and a food that I totally disgust-to refer to his grandmother. Everyone thinks it's hilarious! I think it's what she gets for having an off-the-wall grandparent name:) And speaking of grandparents, Henry loves my and Steven's family. He very much knows who they all are, and wants to go to them right away. It's sweet to see that connection even when we don't live in the same state as they do.

A major thing this month for Henry has been coloring. He has done some of this in the past, but lately he begs to "color, color?" and will lay on his tummy on the floor for long periods of time and color or scribble with a pen or beg to color while sitting in his car seat in the car. Afterward he says, "good job!" in a very enthusiastic way (you can tell his momma is a teacher!). We were at my parents for Thanksgiving, and I heard him saying over and over, "good job!" and pointing to something on the fridge. He was pointing to his hand print that I had put in mom's bday card back in the summer. He recognized and complimented his own "art" even there!

Another major thing for Henry this month is the way he has been saying "thank you". Since we've just been with family for Thanksgiving, he got to use his manners A LOT. He voluntarily says "thank you, momma" (or fill in the blank to whoever he's talking to) ALL the time. No matter what I hand him, he is very consistent about saying it to me. He has said it over and over to all of the family...afterward he gets a big grin on his face and sometimes says it again. Let me just say that it is a CROWD PLEASER-everyone loves it, of course!:) It is so cute, too, when he says one name, then corrects himself if he's thanked the wrong person. It goes to show he knows what he's trying to do! When he uses it,  it's always it at the right time which seems very mature to me!:) He's also thanked Maggie for rolling off of his toys before- "thank you, Maggie!"

He has gotten tall enough to reach the kitchen counter and is constantly pulling stuff off. He can also reach the top drawers in the kitchen now (the ones we did NOT put latches on) and he opens them and fishes around for the forbidden things inside. He can also reach the door knobs and has opened the bathroom door, but I am hoping maybe he has forgotten this and it won't be a huge bother (crossing my fingers??). I guess we can always go 100% baby proof and put those stinking handle locks on, too.

Henry has added a few new foods too his diet including Kefir, which he loves, and beef jerky (I was trying to figure out how to get some protein in him that I can send to school). We are still struggling in the food department, and he is so finicky that it drives me bonkers, but we will just keep trying. I keep reminding myself that there are very few adults who struggle with this issue:) Steven and I certainly don't! He's a great sleeper and sleeps about 12 hrs and night and takes a 3 hr afternoon nap (sometimes a little less, and sometimes more). I guess if I had to choose, I would selfishly take a good sleeper over a good eater any day.

Henry had his first rough cold of the winter this month. It lasted 2 weeks, and we debated and debated about taking him to the doctor, but decided to treat it as a true "cold" and let it take its course. And it did! He got better on his own, and he did not develop an ear infection, so the tubes are doing their job! I am SO thankful for them.

There is so much more going on in his little life, but I will stop there. We love you Hank! You are getting so big so fast! We love watching you grow!

Gone But Not Forgotten

My maternal Grandmother, Mildred Long Walker Wright, passed away on October 29th, at the age of 90. She had been slowly declining over several years, and had been in assisted living since the summer of 2010 after she had suffered a mild stroke during Christmas of 2009. Prior to that she had lived with my parents for several years. She was from her beloved Gadsden, AL, so the move to Tennessee was hard for her, but ended up being a real blessing for us all. We got to spend even more time with her, and she got a lot of joy from being around us and especially my brother's kids and watching them grow up. My mom was a wonderful caretaker, even when being put in a position that was so unnatural for her. She was selfless and loving toward her mother for many years.  

Many elderly people get combative and mean with dementia, but not Grandmother. She was so sweet and kind, even to the very end. She was always greeting the other residents and became very childlike in her ways. She was extremely faith-filled and was always talking about Jesus and Our Savior...praying and singing hymns even when she couldn't carry on a conversation.

 I can remember spending the night at her house as a kid and getting to sleep in the bed with her (a real treat!!). She would always hold my hand, and we would pray before we went to sleep. I remember one time when she was living with my parents the four of us went to the beach. Steven must have had to work, because she and I shared a room with twin beds. I can remember her kind of "sleep talking" in the middle of the night, but she was praying and saying things like, "thank you, Jesus" and "we love you, Jesus". What a Godly legacy she left behind for her family! I love you, Grandmother. You'll be missed, but we will keep you alive in our memory and share those memories with our children.

Just two weeks prior to her death, Henry and I went to see Grandmother during Fall Break. I'm so glad we did! I had taken him several other times, but was so glad to get these pictures of them together and interact with her. For me to say goodby and tell her I love her before she died brought a lot of closure. I could see she had declined, but she was still her sweet self. She was trying to talk to us some, and when she was able to focus on Henry, she did say a few times, "precious" and "oh, how sweet". Grandmother truly LOVED children-she was the type to come up to your child in the store and want to talk, the type to always have a trinket or candy for the kids, the type to light up around children, especially her own family. She knew what was important in life.

We got Henry to sing "Jesus Loves Me" and Grandmother joined in for a little bit of it. So sweet. I'm glad I got pictures, but am so mad that I didn't video this.

There were two funerals held-one in Tennessee where Grandmother had been in assisted living, and a service was also held in Gadsden where she was buried. Above is the majority of the Walker clan......my mom and uncle Larry with 5 of the grandkids and 11 great grandkids (Nicole is in college and could not come, my other 2 cousins would be at the Gadsden burial the next day). Let me just say that Grandmother would have been in her element with her whole family around!! She would have loved seeing everyone. 

An attempt (feeble at best) of the Sherrod cousins...:)

Afterward the whole gang went out to lunch and Henry was in his element.....he was a total ham and was pushed around from table to table to all the family while they ate. I think we took up half of the restaurant. Maybe Henry will have Grandmother's personality-she was a true people person and loved interacting with others.

The next day, Nov 2, we drove to Gadsden for the service in this beautiful chapel and the burial afterward. She was buried beside her parents and three sisters.

Afterward with my two other cousins, Christy and Jeremy, who are from Birmingham, plus Mom, Dad, and Uncle Larry.

Henry and Walker took a real liking to one another! Walker is my cousin Christy's 4th grader who we rarely see! In the background is Christy's husband Phil Jackson and Jeremy's wife Summer Walker. We loved catching up with them!

And here are my handsome boys:)