Busy, busy busy boy

Henry has been keeping me on my toes for I don't know how long. This January, he has finally started walking! Sam and I thought it would never happen. I thought he would turn 18 months old, enter nursery at church, and still be crawling. But he proved us wrong.

 So he started walking at 16 months old. This past week it has become more of his primary form of transportation. The only reason why he falls down is either a) he has tripped over all the toys that he previously threw/dumped to the ground or b) he is trying to run and isn't coordinated enough yet.

Looking back to when he could only crawl, things haven't changed that much. He was a really fast crawler and would get into everything. Now he's a bit slower (for now) and he still gets into everything.

If I don't have a structured play activity for him, he'll create one for himself. And his activities are messier.

Who knew he could unscrew mascara wands? I had no idea he could get into that!! Luckily it wasn't waterproof mascara, and it came out of the carpet and off his skin without too much scrubbing. 

He just discovered the drawer under my oven. All other drawers have baby locks on them. This is what my kitchen looks like everyday. Not kidding. 

Some of my activities include exciting outings to Petco!

This ferret (pictured above) was one of Henry's favorite animals. 

A close second was this rat (pictured below). 

I think this trip will happen again in his future. 

As I mentioned in a previous post, Henry loves climbing into suitcases. To broaden that statement, he loves to climb into anything and sit it. This bin was under his crib and held all our extra diapers and wipes. He took them out and I put a Boppy pillow inside to make it more comfortable. Next thing I knew he was lounging with it. 

Then, I shredded some colored paper with our paper shredder and dumped it inside the bin. 

What happened next was shocking. He played in it for THIRTY MINUTES STRAIGHT! I was amazed that this held his attention for that long! Usually a toy or activity only keeps him occupied for 5-7 minutes, which can be taxing on my activity idea list. There was minimal clean-up and he loved it! Win-win for both of us!

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Blue or Pink?

We had our 20 week ultrasound and decided to find out the gender. I had debated whether or not to find out. Maybe next time we'll wait the whole 9 months without knowing the gender, we'll see. 

Right before we went in, Sam and I made a guess about the gender. Then we said whoever was wrong had to plan Valentine's Day, unless we were both wrong and then we'd plan it together. Sam guessed it was a boy, I guessed it was a girl.

And...

We are both really excited!! I'm hoping that Henry is a good big brother and not too rough with her. The ultrasound pictures turned out pretty good and they said she looked healthy! Here is a picture of her foot:

I made cupcakes with pink frosting and Sam brought them to work and made the announcement to his co-workers. 

Christmas

Because Henry loves Christmas lights so much, we decided to drive through this light show just for him. It depicted the story of Christ's birth, and it was really well done. He was smiling and pointing the whole time (even though it was way past his bedtime). 

Matching father and son, heading to church. 

We spent Christmas in Kansas with Sam's parents and had a wonderful time. In order to keep Henry safe and to keep the Christmas tree standing, we had to do some baby-proofing...

He loved ripping the paper off of everyone's gifts. And he sneakily opened a chocolate truffle and started helping himself while everyone was opening gifts. 

We saw some friends while we were in town and Henry was able to have a few play dates. We're still working with him on being gentle and soft. He just gets so excited when he's around other kids that he doesn't know how to express it. 

Henry's new favorite activity is climbing into our suitcase, and then jettisoning our clothes. It's funny how such simple things can make him so content. We should have gotten him a suitcase for Christmas instead.  

Growing up so fast

In the past few weeks Henry has made leaps and bounds in his speech development. He surprises us almost daily in how much he can understand and what he attempts to say. Some funny instances of this include:

I had just picked Henry up because he had gotten into something in our house he shouldn't have (not a rare occurrence) and was going to take him to a different part of the house. He attempted to wiggle out of my arms and told me "dow!" (down). It was so surprising that both Sam and I started laughing. 

He can make a few animal sounds but his favorite animal is the cow. He says that a cow goes "mmmm." And he will point out all the cows in every book and show you his toy cow. 

Yesterday, Henry was sitting down with the book "Is your mama a llama?" and reading it to himself as he turned the pages. He would say "wawa", turn the page and babble, turn the page again and say "wawa", and repeat this until he had no more pages to turn. I think "wawa" means llama. I happened to have my phone near me to capture it. 

We're trying to teach Henry how to feed himself with a spoon. If there is food already on the spoon he has no problem bringing it to his mouth. We've practiced with yogurt and applesauce. A bath usually follows these practice sessions. He's not convinced that eating with a spoon is better than just getting your hands dirty and scooping it up.

The Magic of Christmas

This Christmas season, Henry is old enough to notice his surroundings and enjoy them. We put up some Christmas lights in our apartment, and they are his favorite. Every time he comes into the living room he points to them, crawls over to them and tries to touch them. I let him play with them for just a little while and he was in heaven. 

On the left, is Henry's 1st Christmas. And on the right, is one year later. Look how much he's grown!

We didn't put up a Christmas tree this year. Mostly because we were afraid that Henry would grab it and pull it down on himself. Plus, our apartment doesn't allow real Christmas trees. Bummer. 

Since we've been married we have had "nontraditional" trees, so we continued it again this year. 

2012: Our plant/tree with popcorn garland

2013: Tomato cage with lights

2014: Baby-proof tree (washi tape on wall)

We've started a new Christmas tradition of an advent calendar! I put it together so each day you either do an act of service or a Christmas activity. It wasn't too difficult to make and I think it helps us be more charitable and make memories. Some of the ideas I put inside included: 

Watching the Christmas devotional, putting up Christmas decorations, reading The Mansion and Christmas Carol, making paper snowflakes, making graham cracker houses, seeing Christmas lights, making/delivering holiday treats to friends and neighbors, complimenting people, smiling more, leaving quarters in a vending machine, holding the door open for someone, scraping someone's windshield, etc. 

A couple weeks ago we went to a Window Walk. There were ice sculptures, fire throwers, a tree lighting, and some other activities. The ice sculptures were my favorite. 

Our ward Christmas party was really nice. For dinner they served Mexican food! Yum! I signed up to bring enchiladas, and I had to bring enough to feed 30 people! I had to quadruple my recipe! 

We didn't know how Henry would do sitting on Santa's lap, but we took him to see Santa. He was fine in my arms until Santa started reaching out to hold him and then Henry had a meltdown. It was funny but sad at the same time. Maybe next year...

Thanksgiving Pictures

Here are some pictures of our family, courtesy of Alan Honey. Thanks again! Henry wasn't the most cooperative, but we took what we could get. I think the blooper shots are pretty funny and show Henry's personality.

He isn't walking independently yet, so most of the time he would just prefer to crawl. He was refusing to walk in these pictures.