Henry the First

Our little Herny is not turning the Eighth yet, just the First. Happy Birthday, Henry!

(I know, you're thinking that I already blogged about a birthday today. But the date on Jack's birthday post is CLEARLY published on the 11th. Maybe you just haven't been paying attention--afterall, who fakes a date on a blogpost just to not look like a negligent blogging momma?)

This year has FLOWN by. I can't believe that 365 days and a fe

w hours ago I had this little guy. He's gone from a tiny-ish newborn to a fork-wielding, cupcake devouring, dimple-grinning one year-old! (and, by the way, I have NEVER seen a one year-old kid do more than lick the frosting or destroy the cake--this kid literally ate EVERY BITE. Hey, don't be jealous, we all have different talents).

Last pict is him shoving the last morsel of cupcake in his face. Is that what you were drooling over all day? YUM!

Holy Toledo, Batman, he's 5!

Ah, November 5th...a special day for our family...the day our Oldest Kid was born!
Our big guy recently finished up his Birthday Celebration (which actually started in October while Grammy was here and went through his birthday weekend). It's crazy that our oldest is now 5--that's not a toddler anymore! Not that he has been for a while...reading, talking back, and flirting with girls has been going on for some time. He's practically a teenager!

Well, in October, he got to kick off birthday festivities with Tyler's mom (she was visiting from NJ). He did a great job sharing his new presents with his sister. Since Jack's been soooo into reading lately, he

thoroughly enjoyed his new GIANT book and read-along CD.

On his

actual birthday, we did the family stuff. Waffles for

breakfast, Mac&Cheese for lunch, and Pizza for dinner (he couldn't decide between blueberry pancakes and pizza for dinner...but I figured after waffles we needed a little somethin'

else). He finally got the

Imaginext Batcave he's been coveting for 6 months, and he spent ALL DAY playing with it. Great Grampa Larry and Great

Gramma Diane made it down in the afternoon and had cupcakes with us after his Preschool party. We were so excited to spend a little time with them--and we were even able to visit outside (it was in the 60's!). We spent all day doing the stuff he loves, but he informed me that it wasn't really his birthday. (oh no?) Nope, not until his party with his cousins!

So, Saturday was WARM AND WONDERFUL, which led to his first (and probably only!) birthday party outdoors. He's been really into dinos lately, so we made brachiosaurus hats, played T-Rex tag,

tossed dino beanbags into a volcano, and played pin the meat on the T-Rex. The friends and cousins were running around like a bunch of wild animals and had a GREAT time. The topper of it all was the dinosaur volcano cake that REALLY errupted. It was like magic! (it was pretty fun to redo this cake, since it's the same one we had on his 1st birthday!).I can't believe how quickly the past 4 years has gone (yup, 4....the first one was LONG and I wondered if we'd survive 2 months, let alone 5 years!).

We love our Axel Jack SO MUCH!!

Points of Fact

Tonight, we redeemed some vouchers Grammy gave us for Frosties. Jack wanted to try white, but Sheridan and I wanted brown.

Sheridan: Mommy, you have brown, too?

Me: Yup.

Sheridan: Mommy, girls like chocolate.

Me: Yup, that's true (oh, you don't know how true that is, my girl!).

Sheridan: Henry's a cute boy.

How can I argue with her points of fact?

Take the Shots You Can Get and Don't Complain

I've learned that with my kids, you take the shots you can get and don't complain. They didn't stay still very long. And they scream a lot when you try to make them stay still...or even minimize their movements.


The pirate, the princess, and the dragon.

They came.

They saw.

They hauled in some candy.

Jack decided to be a pirate after he got an eye patch at pre-K and had a costume party shortly afterward. Sheridan has wanted to be Cinderella since...well, last spring I think. She NEVER varied from that. Her Grammy was super-nice and gave her an actual Cinderella dres...but Sheridan had already decided (probably in Spring, unbeknownst to me) that she was going to wear the blue princess dress she already had...deep down, I think she kinda wanted to be Cinderella in the pink dress (the one the stepsisters tore up). She has very strong opinions. Henry got to be the dragon since we had the alligator costume from Jack's first Halloween--I only needed to add the long red tongue and wings. He looked SO CUTE crawling around (that little tail was adorable!) but all those pictures are a blur. Sigh. Photographing a baby is rough work.

We got to attend a friend's Halloween Party and made some fun spiders with glowing legs (the kids fought over the glowing legs ALL THE NEXT DAY). We ate tasty food. We trick-or-treated around our little neighborhood and the kids got enough candy to last me a week or so. I mean, to last them a little while. Long enough that I'll get sick of their sugar-induced craziness and I'll have to do something desperate, like eat all the rest (which shouldn't be too bad, cuz they like all the candy like strawberry drops and bubble gum and they're leaving all the chocolate).

Then our friends Uncle Corey and Aunt Jenni came over and hung out with us until the last of the trick-or-treaters gave up. They left fairly early...which is good, due to the time change. (Falling back is not a kind time change for parents. It means the kids will STILL get up at their "regular" time, except now their regular time is an hour earlier. I'm looking forward to springing forward already.) And then the kids got to come down off their sugar high and messed up sleep cycles on Sunday. The end.

Almost 11 months...

Really, the time is FLYING by! In honor of Henry's 5th tooth (another tooth beside the top middle one...Yeah, he only has one top middle one, weird!) I thought I'd put up some cute picts...He is such a fun little guy! He's getting vocal and cruising around everywhere. He LOVES his siblings! He ADORES his Daddy (in fact, we think he just figured out how to say "Daddy"--the first of our kids to say "Daddy" before "Mommy"). He cries whenever Dad or Mom leave the room. He loves exploring and is really eager to show off when he can do. He's more quiet than his siblings (not difficult to be!) and has a knack for finding trouble (today he pulled a speaker over on himself, tried to get into the toilet, and managed to get two solid fistfulls of cat fur...). He has the most infectious smile...We love our little Henry-boy!

Privacy, Please!

You know how everyone is going private with their blogs?

Yeah, we're not doing that. I figure that blogstalkers need blogs to stalk, right?

Anyhow, this is about more important privacy.

Our room.

For those of you who've been out of the loop or haven't visited our house, we sleep in the family room. There are only 2 bedrooms on each floor of our house and we weren't comfortable with having our little kids a whole floor away. Since Sheridan was in a crib and Jack stayed in his room when we moved in, it wasn't an issue that we didn't have a bedroom door. But, come on, after 2 years it got a little old.

So, we built one.

There was a cold air return agains the old wall, so we had to build out a 2 foot section into the entrance to the room. Studwork above the doorway, Sheetrock, door insertion, mud and tape, texturizing, and priming followed. I still need to put up the trim around the door, and air return above the door, and put finishing paint on, but hey! We got a door up before my brother moved in, which is a win for EVERYONE!

And then we fixed the paneling. You can see it in the back of some of the above picts, but here's a clearer shot.

I have hated the paneling in our room since we moved in. It's dark and a little creepy.

What, creepy, you think?

Let us take a closer look at that innocent paneling...

You thought they were faux knotholes, but they're hunting vignettes! Apparently, they were a big selling point for the previous owners...but then, if you've followed this blog since we moved in, you know that they had all manner of animal-centric decor going on (heck, not just decor...they were VERY into animals and hunt'n).

Oh, so here's what it looked like with the skim coat of joint compound (and on anther tangent, I LOVE JOINT COMPOUND!!! Give me that and some painters' caulk, and I am a happy little homie). And the final? MUCH better! It just looks like a normal old wall!

Do you believe in Magic?

So, speaking of Family Home Evening (see previous post)...

It's national Chemistry Week (what?!? You didn't KNOW that?!?).

All week at BYU they are having a FREE chemistry magic show.

Free.

I believe it's at 7 pm every night in the Benson Building (room 111 and 112--funny thing, I had chem 101 in room 111 my freshman year, which was about a billion years ago). You may want to check the website.

We went tonight for FHE (on the way, when Jack announced "There's BYU!" Sheridan belted out "Rah! Rah! Rah, rah, rah! Goooooo Cougars!" Tyler and I were so proud!). Lots of burning stuff, explosions, color changes, etc. It was VERY cool. Jack was enthralled, rapt attention the whole hour. Sheridan really liked it...for about 1/2 hour. After that point she started yelling very loudly that she had to go potty. (sigh). Henry was pretty happy the whole time...but a little antsy at the end.

We adults REALLY enjoyed it!

So for a cheap date or free family fun, if you're around BYU check it out!

(sorry no picts...but really, you have to see it to appreciate it!)

Goooooo Chemistry!