Christmas {Part 1}

We had such a fun first Christmas with Hank!  

In our family, we get to open one gift on Christmas Eve.  Henry's first gift!

He started off strong...

But got distracted pretty easily.

This was his gift from his Uncle Adam.  

Christmas morning!  He wasn't still long enough to get good pictures, but look at his cute outfit :)

Henry Goes to a Christmas Cookie Party!

Henry was invited to a Christmas cookie decorating party with some friends from church.  He was the youngest one there, and really wasn't into the decorating part.  He had a blast playing and trying to keep up with all the big kids though!

He wasn't sure what to do at first.  "You mean, I can eat these?!"

 I don't think he's ever eaten a sugar cookie before.  I kept having to remove the cookie from his mouth so he would stop eating long enough to take a breath.

He picked each of the chocolate pieces off and carefully ate them one by one.

I was just planning on letting him eat one cookie, but he loved it so much I let him eat two.  STU-PID.

He missed his morning nap because we were busy partying. It was cold and rainy, and I knew he was going to take a LOOOONG afternoon nap.  We both put on sweatpants, and settled in for a lazy afternoon.

Just in case you were wondering, when you give an 11-month old 2 sugar cookies, they don't settle in for a lazy afternoon.  He just crawled in circles, talked non-stop, clapped, threw things, and generally did not stop moving.  He did lots of twisting and dancing, especially when Ellen came on.  He loves Ellen.  This child did not take a nap the entire day, and finally crashed about 6:45 that night.  Lesson learned.  Next year we will stop at 1 cookie.

Can I Get A "Hallelujah"?

I did not write this, I stole it from Facebook.  But I think surely I'm not the only one that needs to read this sometimes.

Because sometimes I feel like all I do is scrape dried grapes off the floor and pick up tiny pieces of magazines that have been shredded to bits by busy little hands.  And clean poop.  All the time, everywhere, constant poop.

"Motherhood matters because its Gods idea; because he wants us to train the leaders of tomorrow; and because he has lots to teach us as moms as we allow him to teach our children with excellence. When you hit the pillow tonight, take great joy in knowing that you can work on matching those socks eventually and finishing the project you started months ago. More importantly, God allowed you to impact your children today as only you can, and tomorrow is another fresh opportunity to be an even better mom to the glory of god alone. May God raise up an army of believers who will change tomorrows world. May our children be leaders in that army. "

So my legs might not be always shaved and my kitchen may have Tupperware containers and wooden spoons scattered all over the floor.  But lay off me.  I'm busy raising a leader in God's army :)  Now if you'll excuse me, my future leader is pulling hundreds of Ziploc baggies out of a box...

11 Months & Holiday Nakedness

My baby will be a year old next month.  Crazy.  I'm going to need lots of Kleenex I think.  

Henry took his first steps last week!  The most he has taken is 8 so far.  He gets super proud of himself and dances, flaps his arms, and bounces up and down.  He doesn't always cooperate, but he will get in moods where he wants to practice.

He has 12 teeth!  His back molars are taking forever to come in, and are really painful sometimes :(  I'm also excited that he has started to love books.  He will grab a book, then back up to sit in our lap.  He loves playing with his friends at school and still loves taking walks in his wagon and looking at cars.  We saw a school bus on our walk the other day, and the bus driver stopped the bus and opened the door because she said she HAD to meet my handsome baby.  Seeing a bus that close made Henry's day!

Henry is working on learning some new signs.  He does "more" and "all done".  We are trying to teach him "please", "thank you", "milk", and "grapes".  This kid LOVES grapes.  It's fun to see him try to copy what Sam and I do.  The other day we were at Chili's, and Henry pretended to dip his chip in the salsa like we were doing.  Sam pretends to bang his head on the door to make Henry laugh, so now Henry pretends to bang his head on the door.  I got cracker crumbs on my pants and brushed them off with my hand, so he brushed the "crumbs" off his pants, too.

This kid loves to be naked.  I mean, he LOVES to be naked.  We let him crawl around the house naked for a little while after every bath.  He crawls as fast as he can and giggles.  He's going to kill me in 12 years for these pictures, but I couldn't resist.  Check out that physique.

 My favorite part of the day is rocking him at night.  He's so snuggly and he's finally still enough for me to kiss his fuzzy head.  We stare at each other, and I love when he holds my hand or touches my face.  I pray for him, for his future, for his wife (heaven help her), and pray that he knows how much we love him.  I try every night to remember every detail of him, because it's all going so fast.   Oh, how we love him.

10 Months

Henry turned 10 months old this weekend!  My tiny baby is getting so big and is hilarious.

He claps, gives high fives, holds the phone to his ear, points, says "more" in sign language, and dances!  He is also constantly muting the tv, fake laughing, fake coughing, and TALKING. He is also very good at growing teeth (he has 10!)

He loves to make us laugh.  He will bump his head on furniture repeatedly and then look at us to see if we're laughing.  I usually am.

He loves school.  His teachers say he's very calm, laid back, mature, and serious.  I'm not sure they're talking about MY child.  

Henry has been sticking his tongue out constantly for about a week now.  And he's been waking up at 4:30 every morning. I hope both stages pass soon.

He does not like for ANYTHING to be on bookshelves, tables, in cabinets, etc.  He will work until he has everything on the floor.  You can imagine what our house looks like at the end of every day.  

Sweet little smile.

Henry's First Halloween

Isn't this the cutest lumberjack you've ever seen???

After most of his beard was "drooled" off

Latino lumberjack

Henry Goes to the Pumpkin Patch

We took Henry to a pumpkin patch today!  It had pumpkins, Dr. Pepper, kettle corn, and farm animals......just throw in some puppies and Jesus, and this is what my heaven looks like.  It's seriously everything that's wonderful about fall, thrown into a few glorious acres.  And the weather was perfect.  I want to go back RIGHT NOW.

This is a TINY potbellied pig that let me rub her nose.  I shall name her Pearl.  

We finished our day by eating kettle corn and watching the kids on the playground.

I can't wait to take Hank next year when he's a little older.  He's going to love the hayride, corn maze, hay house, face painting, and playground.  And it will give me an excuse to do all those things, too :)