Taa Daa!

My first do-it-yourself haircut!

Happy Birthday To You

Happy 40! from joelle harrison on Vimeo.

Wow!  Stephen is 40!  Personally, I think we are way too young to be 40.  To celebrate, Jack and I made yummy vanilla cupcakes (Jack's choice) with chocolate frosting (mama's choice).   Jack, who loves every opportunity to help and every opportunity to use a power tool of any kind, mixed up the cupcakes with the hand mixer and then used a little pitcher to scoop up the batter and pour in in the cupcakes tins.

Notice he is still in his jammies.  Jack could NOT WAIT to get going on these cupcakes.  It was one of the first things he said when he woke up.  If it was hard to wait to make them, imagine how hard it was to wait to EAT them!    He held it together until just before Stephen got home when I was explaining our plan - dinner then cupcakes.  This was just too much for him.  So, we decided that even at 40 it was a good idea to enjoy every moment and to eat dessert first!

Happy Birthday Daddy!  We love you!

shhhhhhh

We don't want Stephen to know about his birthday present - a backyard fire pit for roasting marshmallows on sunny summer evenings.  It arrived on the doorstep several days before his birthday and is way too big to hide so we wrapped it and decorated it.  As you can see, my helpers were a bit distractible.

Ten (almost eleven!) months old

I can't believe that our little man Henry is already ten months (well, actually almost eleven!) months old.  That is almost one year!! Time is certainly flying.  Henry is such a fun little guy.  He shares his wonderful smile eagerly and often and when he does his eyes twinkle and his whole face lights up.  He is very social - when we are out and about he happily crawls to and reaches out for strangers to meet them and give them some love.

Henry is very busy (got toys to eat and brothers to follow, you know) and is very fast on all fours.  When he is in a big hurry, he puts his head down and charges ahead.  He is also a big cruiser now, holding on to furniture and walls (spider-man style) to get where he wants to go.  He loves to push his crocodile walker or to hold on to our fingers - round and round through the kitchen, dining room, hallway and back again.  We have to keep close guard on the stairs and furniture because he climbs every chance he gets.  We also have to keep the bathroom doors closed as Henry thinks splashing in the potty is great fun.

Although he does not have any words yet Henry certainly finds ways to get his point across.  He has a LOUD voice and has learned to shriek from the best.  Although he will use this to let us know when he wants something, most of the time he is shrieking in glee.  And when Jack answers he thinks it's the best thing ever.  A true example of "monkey see, monkey do",  Henry will shriek at the kitty when he sees him, just like Jack.  Poor Ernie - Jack has actually created a new verb to describe this:  "Mama, I 'ahhhed' the kitty."  Henry is also beginning to use a few signs to communicate.  He knows all done, more and for some odd reason, bunny.  He is still working out when to use these - when it is urgent, he will try all of them to see if he will get what he wants!

It looks like Henry is not going to wait until his teen years to eat us out of house and home.  He decided about a month ago that he was done with baby food purees and wants EVERYTHING we are eating and LOTS OF IT.  Even if he has the same thing on his tray, he reaches eagerly for ours.  He is not dainty - fistfuls of food go into his mouth at a time.  We will load his tray only to discover that it is completely empty by the next time we turn around!

He is getting to be a better and better sleeper.  He has always been a good napper (one in the morning and one in the afternoon) but until recently was still waking up in the middle of the night and having trouble getting back to sleep again.  We realized that he just really needed his own digs.  Now that we have moved his crib down to the playroom he is sleeping for ten hour stretches.  He will sleep from 6pm-4am or 5am - wake for a quick snack - and then sleep for another hour or so.  This sure beats the 4:30 wake up calls we were getting last month!  Go Henry!

Henry loves books - listening to them and exploring them on his own, turning and eating the pages.  He also loves cars and balls.  He has just started making his own car/raspberry noise.  He is truly like a puppy when playing with balls.  He will pick a ball up in his mouth and carry it as he crawls along - I even saw him do this with a small basketball recently!!

I love watching Jack and Henry interacting and playing with each other.  Jack works hard to make Henry laugh and he is readily rewarded.  Although Jack doesn't always love Henry in his space and stuff, he can't wait to see him when he wakes up in the morning or after his naps and takes great pride in showing him how things work.  "That's how it works, Henry...."

I have to say again - I just can't believe Henry is almost one.  It has been such fun getting to know him and we are loving all the exciting new things he is doing and learning.  My personal new skill favorite - big wet sloppy kisses!  We look forward to much more joy, laughter and pride as Henry continues his adventures.

pajama night

Tonight was Pajama Night -  we all donned our favorite cozy jammies and enjoyed a pancake breakfast and playtime with our friends for our last day at Northwest Toddlers Co-op.  Jack and I went to preschool every Friday morning.  We made some good friends and had lots of fun.  Jack loves teacher Janice, especially when she is leading circle time.  We sang songs, read stories and even did a little dancing.   About a month ago we realized just how carefully Jack has been paying attention as he took on the role of teacher Janice and re-enacted a day at preschool with AMAZING attention to detail.  We went from playtime, to clean-up time, to singing time (where Jack led songs and tickled children just like teacher Janice), to getting hand stamps at the end of the day.   

Robots

a fun morning with our buddies Luca and Karin

first radish!

Here it is - the first radish of the summer...

 Jack discovered that he doesn't like to eat radishes - "too zingy" - but they sure are fun to pull out!  

P.S.  The shirt that Jack is wearing in these pictures used to be Stephen's shirt when he was a little boy.  How neat is that?!  Thanks Liz for passing it on to us!