Two Weeks

I Like the Night Life
It seems little Reese is something of a night owl. She loves to party from 11:00 to 12:30 with a post-party shortly after around 2:30 to 4:00. Bless her heart, she’s so cute and we love to cuddle her, but we need to get her nights and days turned around. She’s amazing though. She’s so mellow and easy to please. She sleeps right through Henry’s role playing of being a monster or his imitations of train whistles, dogs or just when he’s shouting at the top of his lungs.

Henry quite likes his little sister and likes to feed her and “help us” change her diapers. For the first few days he was obsessed with her umbilical cord (belly owie) and wanted to kiss her all the time to make sure she didn’t hurt. (By the way, Reese’s cord fell off while Henry was at school last week and he was so upset it wasn’t there anymore when he got home. However, he was delighted to find out that I had saved it for him to look at)

Tonight, when Henry got wind that Reese was taking her first “big girl bath” as opposed to the “spit baths” we’ve been given her, he insisted that he take a bath too. So Jeremy bathed Henry in the tub, while I had the infant tub on the vanity and bathed Reese. Henry kept shouting hello to Reese and wanted to make sure his sister was okay.

Pictures are Worth a Thousand Words So, both of my kids are beautiful, and Henry is a ham and does such funny things. I’ve posted a bunch of photos below instead of boring you all with stories. But stay tuned for TALES OF TERROR in my next post as we deconstruct Halloween and all our activities we’ve done throughout the month to celebrate our favorite holiday!

G-I-R-L

She's Beautiful!

Beautiful Reese Michelle was born Sunday, October 14th at 10:13 pm. She weighed 7 lbs exactly and measured 19 inches long. She's beautiful and wonderful! Her parents, Keely and Tim were so wonderful to us and treated us so well. They welcomed us into their lives for a little while and I hope we get to see them soon.

While You Were Waiting

While brave Keely and Tim were in the hospital, we did the best we could to keep Henners busy and occupied. Here are some pics that Henry took over the weekend.

October-Smocktober

Bird is the Word
Sunday, October 6th, we had our annual early Thanksgiving dinner at Great Grandma and Grandpa Young’s house. I can’t speak for my two men, but anytime eating a turkey is involved, count me in. It was good to see everyone we hadn’t seen in so long. The kids (cousins) all had a great time playing in the backyard in Hank’s fort we built. The kids did not have a great time sharing the Spiderman sing-a-long toy, however.

Skee-Ball Assault
Friday the 12th Jeremy, Henry and I headed to Fat Cats in Ogden to burn off some nervous energy in the arcade. It was nearly empty except for a few other smaller kids like Henry and some larger kids in their mid 30’s (why aren't you at work?)

Of course Henry remembered the arcade the minute we stepped inside. Who could forget blacklights, blaring whistles and bells and the faint smell of sweaty kids? Henry ran around hypnotized by all the lights and held out his had asking for “More money, Dad.”

At his age now, Henry isn’t motivated to actually win the games for more tickets, he’s more interested in crashing the car or motorcycle and watch the explosions. He is, however, motivated about Skee-ball. When Henry spied the row of Skee-ball machines, we warned those playing around him that he was prone to hurl the heavy balls in every direction – and so it began. I can only describe the 15 frantic minutes we played Skee-ball as a blur. Jeremy and I took our usual positions as clean up for any stray balls that may be thrown to the sides of Henry’s alley. Henry took several positions. First, he tried rolling the ball up the alley from the ground, next he tried over-handing the balls. When that didn’t work, he was convinced his was broken and he tried machines, even if someone else was using them. After that was useless, he got up and stood on his machine’s alley. And finally, when all else failed, he walked right up to the top of the alley and tossed the balls in. The results of our winnings are posted below.

Dino-mite!
Later that night the three of us went to the Dinosaur Park in Ogden for their Night Out With The Dinosaurs. Grandma JoAnn and Grandpa Brent met us there. Henners was so excited to see the park at night, all lit up with lights and scary Halloween decorations. He scored some candy, a scull straw and a “long neck” dinosaur courtesy of one soft-hearted (or sucker) Grandpa. Henry ended up going home with Grandpa and Grandma and left us by saying, “You go away now, Momum and Dad. You go away.” We love you too, Henners!

Random Stuff We've Done

The Power of The Power Wash
Wednesday I saw a sign advertising "Syracuse City Fire Station Open House, 6pm-8pm". I thought it might be fun to take Henry to hang out on the fire trucks and check out the station. We arrived at the public safety building around 6:30 and discovered we were the only ones there. Turns out the city didn't advertise very well. I think I might have been the only person that saw the one sign posted down the street. After we climbed on the trucks for a bit, we watched one of the firemen pressure wash the truck bay. If you're waiting for some clever or humorous twist to this story, don't hold your breath. The power washing was the highlight of this excursion.

Magical Moments...um, Sure
Things I learned about my family while trying to capture magical moments on film:
1. 2 labs+2 year old=chaos
2. Bat is a camera hog.
3. Max thinks having his picture taken will steal his soul.
4. Henry will hold still for approximately 2.5 seconds.
5. Bat thinks the camera looks delicious.

Gym-nice-stics
Tuesday, Henry was invited by his cute cousin Zoe to participate in her gymnastics class. So, that morning, we loaded up and headed over to “The Peak” to let Henners run out a little energy. I wasn’t sure that he’d go along with being separated from me and running around with a bunch of other kids while I watched him through the huge glass wall. But once we got there and he saw his cousin and all the other kids running in to the gym, he couldn’t get away from me fast enough. It was like he’d suddenly aged 10 years and was in junior high and embarrassed of his mom!

Henry had the best time with Zoe in class! He was able to run around all he wanted, hang from the rings and the high bar. He learned cartwheels and jumped on the trampoline until his little legs could jump no more. Grandma JoAnn sneaked down to watch him and we tried to conceal her so he wouldn’t want to run out to be with her the instant he saw her. But, we were busted right off and he saw her. He got a huge smile and waved. We could tell he kept telling the teachers that his Grandma was outside.

Friday Night Lights
Friday, the three of us decided it would be fun to go to a prep school football game. Well, actually, Jeremy and I thought it would be fun, Henry was up for anything. Although, on our way to the school, Henry did chant over and over “Football game! Football game!” even though he had no idea what he was doing or where he was going. I have to give him props though, he sure was excited.

Once we arrived at Northridge High School, we discovered it was their homecoming and they were hosting our home town. Yes! There was bound to be a half-time spectacular (spectacle) of some sort.

First off, Henry was very intrigued by the Emo skater crowd that was doing tricks in the parking lot on their skate boards. (Now, I mean “tricks” in the loosest sense here. If skating over a speed bump and falling down 70% of the time is a trick, well, then that’s what we witnessed.) Nonetheless, Henners is easy to please and clapped when the boys wearing tight jeans and eyeliner fell and when they didn’t.

Next, Henry made friends with some female freshman softball players. I think it was the uniforms that got him. The girls were standing in line just ahead of us and on the back of their jerseys were a skull and crossbones, with the skull wearing an eye patch. I believe they were the Pirate Princesses or something like that. Henry kept asking them if they were “captains”. They thought he was cute, but didn’t get the captain reference, until I explained that anything that has either an eye patch or a skull on it is a “Captain” to him, as in pirate captain. They giggled, flirted a bit and then they were on their way.

Once we got up to pay for the game, Henry leaned in and let the ticket booth attendant know that he was at a football game and he was going to watch a football game. She smiled and waved and stamped his hand. Henry loved that stamp the rest of the night.

We decided to sit at one of the end zones on the grass so Hank could run around freely. He spent a good share of his time running up and down the grassy hill and ducking onto the track because we told him not too. He made a few little friends and enjoyed stomping and rolling around with them. He loved seeing all the people, hearing them cheer and dancing along with the band music. To him, all of that was a football game. I don’t think he ever saw the actual football field. Jeremy and I enjoyed watching him catcall the softball girls whenever they would walk by…

“Hey Captain!” he would say, “Whatcha doing?”

What can I say, he’s got skills at age 2.