23 months

Henry turned 23 months yesterday. WOW! His second birthday is looming! I would be sad about this if he weren't just so much fun right now! I'm going to try to make this short and sweet, but I know I always end up being long-winded. 

Henry is talking up a storm, and he's saying so many phrases. He is a chatter box really. I don't normally hear them in the halls at school, but one day this month I could hear his little voice coming down the hall. I waited til they passed, and he was chattering all the time. When I poked my head out, I saw he was not the only one getting to go on an little outing, but the other kid was totally quiet. Henry was narrating everything (a running theme), and I could hear him saying, "downstairs, downstairs" as they took the three steps down the stairs....I'm sure the nursery workers are thinking, "Sheesh! Be quiet kid!", but we love it.:) It's just fun to hear him make connections.

 Some things he's been saying this month are: "I pet big doggies!" (after we'd been at the dog park), "see you later!", windy, cold, brrr, "this way!", "lick it" (said this when he saw I was mixing icing with beaters-how did he know this??), "push button!", chicken dance (LOVES this), battery (baa-lu-lee), "we fixed it!", "I wanna hold it", all Winnie the Pooh and Sesame Street character names, "I need bibbett!!" (when I was putting Henry to bed one night I realized that I did not have his night time frog lovie, so I yelled down to Steven to see if he could find it-Henry proceeded to yell down, "Dada! I need bibbett, Dada!!", warm, cozy (when describing his blankie), napkin (he likes to get out napkins from the drawer before we eat and open them up and give everyone one), "no sir", "too much", "so much", "too loud", "like Layna!!" (when he got to sit in the big part of the cart rather than in the front part with strap for the first time), "all done milk", "big kids!" (when he sees the older students as we leave school or when we see kids in the neighborhood riding bikes), "Henry did it!!!!" (so proud when showing us his art after church or school), "Go away, bug. Move." (I heard this coming from the back seat while driving one day...he thinks anything little and black is a bug, so he was saying this to some lint on his pants), "I NEED it!!" or "I NEEDED that!" (this one has gotten frequent and annoying! Especially when we are in public and we are taking something away from him that he's ruining or that will harm him, and he says this, it sounds like we are torturing him!).

 "Rain, rain go away" (I didn't know he actually knew this song, but he broke out into it when it was raining one day and we were running to the car), "moo,  moo here" (etc.), "Henry Hough, Kelly Hough, Steven Hough, mama Hough, dada Hough" (he says these randomly...Steven was trying to teach him his last name, and he caught right on-its weird to hear him say it, but cute, too!), "I take raisins in!" (from the car), "Touchdown!!" (this is hilarious! He goes right in front of the TV when Steven is watching sports, bends down, smacks the ground with his hands, and says, "Touchdown!!"), "Tennessee hat" (tee-see-hat), "toilet paper", "What mama doing?", "Robin baby belly. Big! Mama baby belly", mickey mouse, sit down, come on, Maggie!, Arkey, arkey (for Noah's ark song and book), "MINE!" (oh, dear!), "No, MINE!", "ouch, my bottom hurts" (after getting strapped into his car seat one time), "no...no....here!" (when working puzzels), "dada, sit other sofa" (when Steven walks in and we are already sitting on the sofa, Henry likes to boss him where to go), "like big boys!" (when on his 4 wheeler), "like Layna, like Kaia!" (when drinking from a cup), rainbow, "owe! It hurts me!" (sometimes true, sometimes dramatic), "monkeys jumping on bed", "plug it up!", "dada work, dada working", "meet dada"

He's also been answering lots of questions lately, like, when he was on Facetime the other night with Grandpa, he asked him what he had for dinner, and Henry said, "I ate beans!" (a true statement!). He also asked what mama was doing and Henry said, "Cooking!" Steven asked him what he wanted to do the other day, and he said, "play puzzels". When we ask him what does the fox say, Henry says, "wha, pah, pah, pah, pah, pah pah!" and it's so funny. He's been putting "me" at the end of a lot of statements lately like, "all done me". I guess it's his way of saying, "I'm all done" instead of just "all done".

A few other notes...he's slowed down on the potty, which is fine with me. I took a potty ring to school to see if he'd use it there, but evidently he was kind of anti-using it, so I told them not to worry about it. It is a big, cold, sterile room where he would go, so I can kind of understand his hesitation. We do it when it works for us, and don't really push it otherwise. We've put child safety handles on the pantry door. He just couldn't keep his little hands off it-it's a plethora of fun in there! He seems to be back into exploring again in general...he went through a phase of opening drawers, emptying, dumping, etc. a while back, and now he's into it again much to my chagrin! Oh, well. At least I know it is a phase. He's getting better at knowing his colors, but just when we think he has the basics, he will say a random color for one he "should" know. Oh well! He knows the letter "H", and we are starting to talk about some others...he's capable of knowing these. I feel kinda bad I haven't worked with him on it more! I'm realizing what a good sleeper Henry is. After our little bedtime routine, Henry wants to snuggle for just a second, but then he says, "night, night!" and he kind of lunges for his crib. He LOVES his blankie, and as long as he has that he is great with getting in it. He kind of giggles as he is getting lowered into bed and snuggles right in! It's certainly a blessing. He still has 12 hr nights and 3 hr afternoon naps. One more thing-he was such a ham for the above pics! When he saw we had the camera, he plopped himself right down and proceeded to say, "cheese!!" and over. I didn't mean for his wet hair to look THAT slicked down, but oh well! It's either this or total wildness:) He loves to see videos of himself and pictures of himself, and this provides us with some distractions sometime, which is a handy-dandy thing to have in your back pocket!

Well, this has ended up being so long. Sheesh! We love you, little man. Can't wait to see what next month holds!

Christmas 2013, Part 2

Once family left on Monday, we had a few days at home with just us before heading up to TN to see my family. Steven took the week off, so that was great! Unfortunately, at this point our camera battery had died and we could not find the charger, so the quality and frequency of pics decreases....while I am VERY thankful for my iphone camera, it does not hold a candle to the real thing. Since this we still have not found the charger, but bit the bullet and got a new one:/

We went to breakfast at Cracker Barrel Christmas Eve morning. We went to the Christmas eve afternoon service at church that day, too.

We were up and at em on Christmas morning...these sleepy heads are ready to open some gifts!

Henry got an umbrella in his stocking.

After all was said and done, the animal crackers in his stocking might have been his favorite gift:) Here he is showing one to me.

"Helping" feed Maggie on Christmas morning-just look at that grin!

Here's Henry is with his big gift...

His very own slide!

He also got some musical instruments that he's been enjoying playing with!

After naps on Christmas day, we headed to my folks to spend a few nights. We had our Christmas with them on Thurs, and my Aunt Brenda and Lawrence came for a visit (above).

The girls!

The boys!

Henry had so much fun with his cousins!

He got a kick out of the "kissing monkeys" my mom has.

His gift from mom and dad was this power wheels, which he loves. We got to take it outside for a little spin. He's not very good at steering, but gets a kick out of driving it all around.

Before heading home, we went to Murfreesboro to get together with friends. We hadn't gotten to meet Jane, Ben and Britt's baby, and since they were in from Philadelphia, we took advantage of it! Henry was very sweet to the baby, but I felt like I needed to keep a close eye on him! He kept wanting her to have her cup.

Here he is back at home getting more comfortable on his car. He rode it all over in this position with a big grin on his face-so funny!

 

Christmas 2013, Part 1

We had a wonderful Christmas season! It was busy, but fun, and I have LOVED being at home!! See below for the first part of our celebrations.

We started the Christmas season by lighting the Advent wreath with Henry each night before bed. We would sing a few songs, sometimes read one of his Christmas books, then (his favorite part) blow out the candles. This is a tradition I hope we will do each Advent season!

We also picked out our Christmas tree the week after Thanksgiving. Steven and I both grew up getting real trees, so we will continue that special tradition, too! Henry thought Steven did the whole tree (setting it up, decorating it, etc), so anytime he would see our or any tree he would point to it and say, "Good job, dada!"

Our small group does Tour de Christmas ever year, and we look forward to it all year  long! We get babysitters, and each couple provides a course for the night. We were last and had dessert. Above was the dessert table: cheese cake pops, marshmallow pops, fruit and fruit dip, strawberry santas, peanut brittle, oreo truffles, cracker candy, and chocolate dipped peanut butter bugles. Yum!

Here is our good looking group! We started at 5 and didn't end til like 1! We had a great time.

I held out a few extra oreos for Henry from the oreo truffles I made because they are egg free. Here is his first bite...

He was a fan for sure (smart boy). Here he is showing us his cookie:)

Henry did this cute craft at church on Sunday. He was SOO proud of it and kept looking at it and saying, "Good job!!" and "feet" and "toes" because he had to put his foot in the paint. Then we talked about how it was baby Jesus in the manger, and he kept pointing to Jesus and saying, "Baby Jesus!"

I made this felt tree/presents/ornaments for Henry this year. Robin had actually given me her leftover supplies last year, but I just couldn't pull it together enough to make it. I was determined to make it this year! While he was way into it while I was making it, when it was actually on the wall Henry played with it some, but not as much as I thought he would. Oh well! There's always next year!

We went to the library Christmas party one evening and met Bennett and Ethan there. They were all excited to see each other and had lots of fun singing carols, listening to books, and playing outside.

At the library, Henry kept staring and even waving to Roary from afar, but he was NOT a fan of the creature up close as you can see by his facial expression. He didn't cry, but he certainly did cling to dada and kept saying, "no, no, no". Oh well!

We had a half day of school Thursday the 19th, and the Bushes rolled in on Friday to start celebrating! The girls were feeling kind of puny, so they went to a doc in the box while Camden, Henry, Steven, and I enjoyed being outside. It was unusually warm weather. Look at Henry's form!

What handsome guys!

And what a cute little Santa mouse! He is so happy outside.

On Saturday we had our traditional brunch once Jim and Peggy arrived. Then we opened gifts! Henry was really into opening presents this year, so it made it extra fun.

Henry got a pair of Carhartt overalls and some John Deere toys from Grandpa and Peggy, but his favorite gift from them was animal crackers. He was super excited to get them and cried and cried when we took them away (after he'd been eating them a while). We have finally realized that we can take out half the crackers for later and let him have the box and what is left in there so that he thinks he can eat the whole thing. Baby psychology!

After naps Grandpa and Peggy left and we went to Bridge Street to stroll, search for Santa, and shop. We got some really great shots with Santa!

Henry was fine with Santa. He was pretty serious about him, but didn't cry. This is the same Santa we got pics with last yer, so I was happy to see him again! He looks great in his Victorian garb, and you can't beat an outdoor pic.

Here is Henry check the big guy out!

We went to early church on Sunday, then to lunch. I tried to get a group pic of all the kids by getting the three big ones set up, then putting Henry in their laps. He was NOT happy about this and fussed and wanted up. I just let him go play and started taking pics of the three Bush kids. As soon as he looked back and realized what was up, he sat himself right in a row with the rest, then looked at the camera and said, "cheese!". He kept looking down the line at what the big kids were doing and would imitate them. I love the above of Henry and Layna, the two "babies', checking each other out. :)

Grandma rolled in after naps on Sunday and we opened gifts again!

Diana brought the gifts from the Grandparents in Iowa, so we opened those. Henry was really into this! He wanted to "help" Steven put his gift all together and sat right beside him the whole time.

Once it was built, Henry had lots of fun with his Little People amusement park! They also got him the Winnie the Pooh DVD, so he officially owns it now.

Kaia playing with Henry after the chaos of opening gifts had subsided:) These two are great buddies.

During this time Henry has been in undies a lot! We bought him some Spider man ones, and they are so darn cute on him! He was proud to perform bathroom "duties" for the family, especially Aunt Mae. :)

Thanksgiving 2013, part 2

Now for the rest of our Thanksgiving celebrations:

This pic is back at home during the week...everyone always wants to talk to Henry on the phone, but at home he will walk around with it, get distracted, and just want to push buttons, etc. We realized that in the car, however, he is much more a "captive" audience and will focus and talk. It is so cute to hear him respond to questions and "chit chat" with whoever is on the other end.

I've had these cute little Dutch wooden kid shoes for quite some time now. I used to have them out, but must have put them away for some reason. I was digging through the junk closet, and Henry spotted them. He wanted to put them on right away and was so proud-you can tell by that face! He walked all around the house (they make quite a racket!). They are the perfect size for him, so I'm glad we got them out!

We drove to Lex on Wed and celebrated Thanksgiving with the fam on Thursday. Here are the cousins all together before lunch.

Could it be that Henry is eating some yummy Thanksgiving food? Turkey? Perhaps a vegetable? Nope, just his standard yogurt...the rest was pretty much rejected. Oh well!

Holly, me, Heather

Thankful!

It was cold there-we drove in with snow on the ground! These brave few got out in it to run a few plays, though:)

We played LOTS of games all day...Henry was WAY into it...you know the kind of way where it's kind of cute but also kind of annoying when you are trying to get something done?:) Don't worry, Hank, we all love you. You are just full of curiosity and it shows!

Saturday was the game. Camden was SO excited to tailgate-he had been planning this shin dig for months. We took dinner to grill and one UT and one UK corn hole board. The weather was actually not so bad during this time...

hanging out

Aunt Heather and the girls stayed home with Henry, but Holly came along- I was happy to have another girl companion!

Playing corn hole

The game was fun, but cold. We were prepared for miserable temps when we found out it would be a night game at the end of November (can we say gluttons for punishment?), so I think this helped our psyche.

Go Vols. We may not have won much this season, but at least we won this one!:)