TWO!

Oh boy am I behind on blogging. I'm not going to start another post with a whole paragraph explaining how we've been house-hunting and getting our house ready to sell I'm joined the Vestry of my church and became chair of the grant's committee of the Arkansas Breastfeeding Coalition and busy teaching German and helping with some projects for the kids' school auction and teaching a college class and insanely busy at work and drowning in laundry and thank you cards and hopelessly addicted to Downton Abbey.... nope. Just gonna go right ahead and post about...

Henry turned TWO this month!!! His actual birthday was on the 7th, but we had his party on the 18th, so that all of our family who was in town for Wyatt's baptism could attend. It was probably the most mellow birthday party we've ever had, and it was perfect. I made a train cake - but because I make it right before the party and didn't really have time to do anything fancy, I just made a poundcake in a train pan and made some chocolate frosting to go on it. Davis ran to the store at the last minute to get me some Oreos for the wheels.

I don't think Henry ever really figured out that it was all about him!

He was totally dazed and wouldn't blow out the candle, even though he loves blowing out candles. Amelia couldn't stand it and blew it out for him. She told us later that she made a wish for him - that he would be a prince when he grows up. I think that's pretty awesome.

Henry and his best friend ;) William

Henry got a little tricycle for his birthday. Of course. Because he's two and a boy, and what two year old boy doesn't get a tricycle for his birthday?!

As Henry says, "happy day!"

Henry is the sweetest, snuggly-est, most spoiled little guy on earth. His vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds every day. He points to everything and says "see?" which means he wants to know what the word for something is.

This morning he walked into our room with only a diaper on. I said "Henry, where are your pants?" And he said, "No. No pants." I said, "Henry, where is your shirt?" and he said (you guessed it), "No. No shirt." He just has this sweet little voice - it makes me want to sit and talk to him all day long. LOVE that boy! I just wish he'd stop growing so quickly and keep his little chubby toddler fingers and round belly and funny way of saying "bilk" for "milk."

A Little Catching Up

Just a few happenings around here from the past couple of weeks...

I took the girls to a breakfast with Santa fundraiser - Santa at a children's hospital with firemen serving pancakes. It was like a medley of Curious George plots. It was fun too!

My brother, my sister-in-law and my little nephew came to visit us from California. They were here almost a week and it made me SO happy! Little Nate is the cutest - they came just in time to help us decorate the tree

and meet baby Wyatt

We always have a bunch of finger foods and appetizers for dinner on tree decorating night - yum! I know I blog about eating healthy, and we usually do, but to be honest I secretly want Bagel Bites for dinner every night.

The weather outside was frightful (I had told my brother weeks before that "it never snows before Christmas" so of course we had snow!) so one day while the girls were at school, we went to The Wonder Place. I know I've blogged about it before, it's just a fun indoor play place that lets the kids run around when they can't go out

Henry and Nate had so much fun!

Wyatt snoozed the whole time.

Then we took the boys out to barbecue and they both approved

Nate is the CUTEST!! I am so sad right now that they are so far away!

Henry also approved of Daddy's birthday cake - see that big bite taken out of the side?! Ha ha!

We had shepherd's pie for dinner that night and Henry ate SO much - you can see it all over his face and the tablecloth. He definitely likes his food!

Henry, Henry - I miss my little buddy now that I'm back at work! We had so much fun together when I was on maternity leave, while the girls were at school and Wyatt was sleeping. He is just SO sweet right now - I love the way he says "Mommy?" And he's learned to say "please" and "thank you" which pretty much makes every one of his requests completely irresistible to me. When I'd take him to story time at the library, they sang "open shut them, open shut them" and now he makes us do it ALL. THE. TIME.

I think maybe it's time for me to stop cutting his hair and bring in someone who knows what they're doing.

I miss Wyatt too, especially now that he's really smiley. He still spends most of his time snoozing, though. The sweetest thing in the world.

He is a well-loved baby, that's for sure!

We did break out the baby swing recently, and he loves it

All bundled up and ready to go - sadly he gets dragged around a lot, like I'm sure all fourth children do.

By the way, having a new baby at Christmas (a first for me) makes me spend a lot of time thinking about Mary and what it must have been like for her. I am loving this new perspective on the Christmas story.

Last weekend we had our annual gingerbread house decorating party - I just let each of the girls invite one friend and let them go to town with a bunch of candy and royal icing. Amelia and her sweet tooth got excited about the candy!

Amelia still wears her princess dresses 90% of the time when she's home.

I asked a friend's 11 year old to come help too - she helped Henry with his. Actually she just tried to make a house while Henry ate the candy off of it.

The girls had their Christmas programs at school, too. My friend took pictures, so as soon as I get those from her, I will post - they were really sweet. Now the girls are out of school and counting down the hours until Christmas!

Thanksgiving

I am so far behind with blogging... I have five days left before I go back to work, and I have been trying so hard to soak up every darn minute with my kiddos before I do! That means my nights are spend Christmas shopping (thanks, Amazon Prime!), and catching up on laundry and email and Parenthood. I have also been battling eleven kidney stones ("eleven" said in my best Spinal Tap voice) and a kidney infection that just keeps coming back.

But we had a PERFECT Thanksgiving this year! I was a little stressed out in anticipation of the holiday, since last Thanksgiving weekend was when we lost baby Violet. But there is no better medicine than spending time with loved ones... and food.

The girls each had a Thanksgiving feast on the Friday before their Thanksgiving break. It was also pajama day - so I came up there to see Sophia the pajama-clad Native American ha!

It was funny, after the kids got done eating, the grown-ups made their way through the line to eat up all the vegetables that were left.

Sophia and her best friend Claire - it's pretty much impossible to get a non-silly picture of these two.

Sophia wanted to come with me to visit Amelia's class. It was the sweetest thing in the world, to see how proud of Sophia Amelia was - she ran up and hugged her and then told everyone "this is my sister!"

Sophia holding court with the four year olds ha ha! She was pretty proud of herself too.

Thanksgiving Wednesday I spent the whole day at Davis's brother's house cooking and baking while our kids ran around and relatives trickled in from out of town. At the end of the day everyone came over to our house for beef stew, which I'd thrown in the crock pot that morning. Davis and his siblings stayed up by the fire in the backyard long after I went to bed.

Thursday is was so, so cold and cloudy outside, which made for a perfect day to stay by a big fire and eat and eat and eat and visit with family!

My main contribution to the meal was this healthier green bean casserole that I saw in Southern Living magazine - YES healthy and Southern Living. It was yummy and sooo much better than anything involving soggy canned green beans!

Baby Wyatt was never put down from Wednesday morning until Friday night. Not once. That child was passed from one set of arms to another. Then Saturday I tried to lay him down to do come laundry and he would have NONE of that! Just the way the baby baby of the whole family is supposed to be :)

And then Sunday baby Wyatt went to church for the first time and was welcomed by the congregation. This picture - "hey Davis, take a picture of me with the baby before we leave." Ugh.

"Wait! I'll take another one!"
"No! We're late!"
Ha ha!

The girls are good for picture-taking

but add two little boys and this is what you get

Being at our new church with our new baby, it was a perfect and fitting end to the weekend. So much has changed in the past year, it is overwhelming. But it is also a reminder of we have to be thankful for!

Books for Boys

We got Henry this set of books for Christmas last year, when it became very clear that he was going to fully live out the vehicle-obsessed boy stereotype!

Henry has a big metal basket of board books (plus more stacked up next to it) but he will dig through it until he finds one of these books almost every time. And once I've read it, he says "again!" before I even finish closing the book. And again. And again. And again.

They are really cute books, with bright colors and simple but not annoying sentences (you know what I'm talking about!) - if I were a toddler boy, I would love these books.

And as a mom, you know what is making me very happy these days? Having two little boys to read to!

Boys!

This boy, he learned how to get into the tub all by himself all of a sudden

There was a backhoe in our front yard this morning, and he yelled "OOOH! OOOH!" and watched in amazement clapping his hands the whole time they were here.

Last week, he grabbed the hot oven rack and burned his little hand :( and he didn't even cry, even though he had a big ol' burn across his palm

(he's ok)

He TOTALLY gets away with WAY too much, because he knows how to charm his mama!

Oh, he keeps us on our toes, that's for sure! And, I think, it's about to get even more interesting around our house!!!