Weekly Update 10.31.10

Happy Halloween! I'm going to start off this post with a pic from last week's fundraiser. I love pictures of Henry with his buddies. Okay, now on to the week....Henry got to wear his costume to school twice this week. Here he is with his friends Ellie and Sophia. Sophia is not feeling it. And then there's this...hum......
The weather has been amazing and Henry has been up for some super long bike rides. For a kid that just started riding his 2-wheeler two weeks ago, he blows my mind. He loves riding along the levee because he can make skid marks in the gravel. He also likes to go with no feet. And it's extra fun because every mile or so he says, "Man. This is awesome. What a great day." Last night we carved the pumpkins. Henry was the designated scooper. He got creative with it. Henry designed his own pumpkin: 3 eyebrows, 1 eye, 2 mouths. Papa did a Decepticon symbol. Henry saw it, gasped and said "Oh Papa. It's so beautiful." Henry was a Transformer for Halloween.

We went around the neighborhood and came home with quite a loot. At one house I overheard Henry say, "I'll pick this candy bar because it is my Mom's favorite." Then he came over to the sidewalk and gave it to me. Such a sweet little guy.
We've got an easy week ahead of us. Wade is playing music and Laurie is going to classes, but midterms are over (whew!). Parent teacher conferences are coming up soon as well as Henry's school pictures, which I'll be sure to post. The little man turns 5 in just a few weeks. Time goes by so fast, friends. Make the most of it.

Hope your Halloween was exactly what you wanted it to be. Have a great week.

Weekly Update 10.24.10

Busy week, friends. This post is going to be quick.
This weekend we headed out to the pumpkin patch. Henry took his pumpkin' pickin' pretty seriously. He found the perfect one....or make that three. I hope Papa has been working out his forearms because he is going to have a lot of carving to do this weekend.

On Sunday LCNS has it's annual fall fundraiser benefit concert. Wade's band played. The kiddos watched. I now understand the origin of the mosh pit.

Uncle John really needs to work on his silly face.

And this pic is from a show Wade had last week. It's a good one so I thought I would throw it into the mix.

These are more picks from the butterfly bio dome.

Hope your week is going well. I have an exam tomorrow and then midterms are officially over! I promise a better update next week.

Quotes

I've been cleaning out my computer this week. I have a document that I saved that I would use to keep Henry quotes. I think he must have said them in the last year. Hopefully they are not a repost.

"What this Mama, I'm incorporating some danger into my dance moves."
"Do cat bottoms taste good? Is that why they are always licking them?"
"Why did Santa make germs?"
"How do I get my nails to shoot out like cat claws?"
"Dear God, please make the Earth healthy. Please help it stay green. Please make tailpipes that do not release CO2."
"Stop at this station Papa. This music is nice. It makes me feel good. It smells sweet, like flowers."

Weekly Update 10.17.10

This is big time folks. Henry is riding his bike without training wheels! Just last week we were talking about giving it a try and he was still feeling pretty nervous. I figured we would go for it next spring. But on Friday, when I pulled up at Henry's school, I saw a tall blond boy ride past the front of the school on a bike with no training wheels. When he rode by again I realized that the boy was my boy. I asked him, "Henry, did you realize you are riding a 2-wheel bike? No training wheels?" "Oh, it's Braden's," he said. Like that made a difference. We went home, called 10 people to share our news and then headed outside to remove the training wheels from his bike. He is so excited about it and I think he actually likes riding more now. Every day this weekend we went for at least 1 bike ride.
Sadly, except for the bike riding and spending some time playing today (Sunday) I haven't gotten to spend much of the weekend with my boys. I worked 10 hours on Saturday and late in the evening on Friday. Today we put a lot of time into picking up the house and we made a long trip to the library. I'm afraid that the next 2 weeks I may be too busy to make a post. Midterms are coming at me rapid fire and I am feeling a little unprepared. I'll try to squeeze something in but it may be like this post: very few photos, a little boring, and short.
Have a great week friends.

No training wheels!

Weekly Update 10.10.10

A self-portrait by Henry B Kelly.

Happy 10-10-10 blog friends. This week and weekend were jammed packed again. But that's okay, we had a great time. The week was busy with the normal shenanigans of the Kelly household. Laurie worked 12 hour days to close month end and survived another week at school. Wade put the final touches on his EP. Henry had fun at school and with Gigi and Grandpa. Overall, I'd say we were a pretty productive bunch. But then the weekend came and the fun really began. For starters Mama and Papa went on their first date in 4 years. It took a little while for us to get the hang of it. We had a few moments where we slipped into Parent Mode and started talking about schedules and winter clothes...but for the most part we kept the conversation "date-ish" and by the end of the night I think we both felt rejuvenated and ready for the next date night. Hopefully it will not take another 4 years. Henry got to spend the night at Gigi and Grandpa's, something that he has been talking about doing for months. I hear he had a great time. I know he ate pizza and stayed up until 10. I imagine there were some sweet treats in there, but I've learned to not ask too many questions :) He suggested that he spend every Friday with Gigi and Grandpa. We haven't heard back from them about that...humm... Anyway, Saturday morning Mama worked, Henry played and at noon we headed to the LCNS FALL FESTIVAL. Which is basically a mini-carnival. Our school is the cutest school on Earth already, but with balloons, well it's just almost more than I can take. Henry helped make the signs and was very excited about the treasure hunt. It was our first stop. I think he walked away with 3 spider rings, 2 pumpkin erasers and a page of unicorn stickers. Not a bad haul. After that we headed to get his face painted. He requested a tiger. And not just a face on his cheek, he wanted to be a tiger. Julia's Dad did an excellent job. Unfortunately, a tiger face is no match for 2 hours in a jumpy castle. But before we got busy jumping we picked up a green balloon dog and a green sprinkle cupcake.

And we got busy dancing to the Minivans! (Henry isn't actually in this picture because he will not dance in public anymore. Very sad. But he was still feeling it, even as a wall flower.)


I love this picture because Rachel is actually down talking to her preschooler and playing the guitar at the same time. Ahhh parenthood. Personally I'm amazed she could do it. If only we could all be so talented. Next stop, the bouncy castle. It took some persuading to get Henry in there because just as he was taking his shoes off a little girl climbed out crying. He thought that kids were going in healthy and coming out with broken limbs. But we finally convinced him and I have never seen a mind change so quickly. One jump is all it took. This picture looks incriminating but I promise Henry did not just knock down those kids. The tiger face post 2 hours of jumping. Henry closed the place down in that bouncy castle. (This picture also reminds me how tall our child is. Now I know why people don't believe me when I say that he is 4.)
*
Today was equally as fun. Henry, Gigi, Kelly and I headed out to Pendletons to check out the butterfly Bio-villa. Like any good trip to a farm, there was a hayride. Henry, once again, gave me the one eye smile.

Then we headed inside the bio-villa. Lots of butterflies. The yellow ones were Henry's favorites.
The obligatory photo opt. Henry's head has been too big for these things since he was about 3 years old.
Next, the cool stuff. Like riding tricycles that can go off-road and ram into things.
And Aunts that will play along.

And a little squash catapulting. Way more fun then you would imagine.
After that it was back home for a long soccer game with Papa while Mama went to work AGAIN and a spaghetti dinner followed by an early bed time. Next week is going to be a busy one. Wade helps at school on Monday and I get to do field research in a stream. Tuesday is our 8 year wedding anniversary which we share with the birthday of my beautiful Mom. Wednesday Wade has a show in KC. On Friday we are going to an amusement park with Kelly and Cooper. And then on Sunday we are all going to poop out and be lazy all day long. Yeah right. Anyway hope your week is great. Henry should have some school pictures to check out pretty soon. And we have some great pictures from John and Lydia's wedding a couple of weeks ago. The little man managed to not give the photographer the squint eye. So grateful for that :) Click here if you want to get a preview. Anyway, have a great week!

ps I apologize for my inability to remain consistantly in either the first person or the third person for an entire paragraph. I also apologize for my lack of commas, not using spellcheck, and other grammatical mishaps. I'm throwing this post up at lightening speed so that I can get back to studying.

Weekly Update 10.04.10

I thought that the end of wedding season for the Kelly's would mean easy, relaxing weekends but boy was I wrong. This week and weekend have been crazy busy, and sadly not in a fun way. I have been at work every day for 3 weeks straight. I have been taking work home to do it in the evenings as well. How do I do my school work when I am spending all my free time doing my work, you wonder? Well the answer is, I don't. So now I am feeling behind at school and at work. Plus I have this great kid that I don't get to hang out with. Bummer.

On Friday I picked Henry up from school and had to chuckle at the group of boys lined up along the railing of the tree house. They just looked like trouble up there. I tried to take a picture but they are just too fast. I was able to take a photo with my phone on my walk to school. Those honeysuckle bushes smell so good. On Friday, after dinner, we packed up a few cupcakes and rode our bikes to the Train Park, which is the perfect park for a game of soccer. We ran around until it got so dark that we couldn't see the ball and then rode home eating our treats. It got chilly quick and has been cool all weekend. Wonderfully cool.

I worked all day on Saturday, which means that there is not photographic evidence of what they boys were up to. I hear there were bike rides and soccer games, and I got to sleep in the incredible fort that they built.

Since I was gone all day Saturday, Sunday become sort of a make up day. We cleaned, we shopped, we had a lazy morning. Henry learned how to spin a top. The first thing he said on Sunday morning was, "Can we see Gigi today? I miss her." I missed her too. We hadn't spoken to each other on Friday or Saturday, which is unheard of for us. So Henry and I called her while we ate our waffles and made a plan to stop by in the afternoon. When we got there Henry hopped on his scooter and we went for a walk and then came home to play ladders. Henry is still learning how to be a good sport. There were a few mini tantrums when his score was the lower score. But he is learning. I took some pictures of him playing with Gigi.

I know the coming week will be busy. We have school and work, like always, but we also have the Fall Fundraiser for LCNS over the weekend, which should be fun. Hope your week is excellent.

Quotes

Henry and Wade came to pick me up from work tonight. The sky was completely clear and the stars were bright and Henry, not being someone that is typically out after dark, noticed the stars. He could not believe how pretty they were. We decided to make a wish on a star. So we said the little star wishing poem, "Star light star bright first star I see tonight. Wish I may, wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight." Henry's wish, "I wish that we all stay together forever and always love each other."
We hugged and headed inside to brush teeth and go to bed. Mid-brush he realized that he had another wish for the star tonight. We ran back outside. Said the poem. Henry's wish, "I wish that there were no mosquitoes or ants in or around our house." We headed back into the living room only for Henry to realize that he had yet another 2 wishes. The first one was that the trees would start to change to orange, yellow and blue tomorrow. The second was that everyone have sufficient (his word) air and water and to help the Earth stay healthy and green.

Uncle John, Wade's brother, got married on Saturday. I explained to Henry that we wouldn't see John for a little while because he was going on a honeymoon. "What's a honeymoon?" Henry asked. "Well, it is a vacation that two people that just got married take to spend time together." That seemed to satisfy his curiosity. Then, that night when Henry and I were saying our bed time prayers, Henry said, "Take care of Uncle John and Lydia on their honeymoon. And help Uncle John to find lots of honey on the moon."

Weekly Update 9.26.10

"Without the sour you can't appreciate the sweet"

This quote applies to many things in life. It certainly applies to raising children. I think I am going to petition for it to be that state motto for Kansas (or maybe just Lawrence because often times I feel like Lawrence is a pocket of sweet surrounded by a flat land of sour). This morning I walked outside and could see my breath and yesterday the sun shined but the air was cool and we had to grab jackets for our bike ride and THAT is the sweet of Kansas. After 3 months of hot, humid, buggy, sour, the onset of Autumn feels like a cool drink after a day of laying hot asphalt. Three cheers for sweater weather!

Yesterday Henry and I went mum shopping. Henry is not easy to shop with because he feels very strongly that we should buy every single thing that we show any interest in. He cries. He yells. He even stiff-legs it, so that we get to be THAT parent: the one that is dragging their tear soaked preschooler by the hood of his sweatshirt, with his unbendable legs stretched out behind him. Henry felt that we needed at least 8 mums. One of each color. I explained to him that we would have to put each mum that we purchased into the ground, to which he said, "That's okay Mama. I worked hard today and now you can work hard too." Humph. So we walked out with 2 mums, 3 temper tantrums, and 1 Mama feeling slightly under appreciated. Wade spent most of Sunday doing yard work while Henry and I (emphasis on I, despite what the 4 year old tells you) cleaned the house. I'm not going to lie, it was a pit. Every single weekend this month we have either had a wedding or family in town, or both. Last weekend I don't think we spent more than a couple of hours at home. So we gave it a thorough scrubbing and now it feels like home again. Yesterday we also squeezed in a bike ride, a trip to the grocery store and a soccer game.
On Saturday we attended John and Lydia's wedding. Wade was a groomsman and Henry was the ring bearer. Henry did a good job...and so did Wade. He was very nervous ahead of time (Henry, not Wade) but he pulled it together and even sat pretty still during the ceremony. I'll post pictures when we have some. For now you can enjoy this one from Wade's phone. The wedding was lovely and they were a very sweet couple. Cheers!
Friday was jam packed with the rehearsal dinner and work and school. We got it all done but it wasn't pretty. Henry still needed a tie and jacket (which we couldn't find so we went with a tie only). Wade needed a black suit. I had to make a red velvet cake and buy a glass cake stand. Henry and Wade both needed black shoes. Basically, it was chaos. We dropped Henry off at Gigi and Grandpa's house after the rehearsal so that we could get all that shopping done quickly and when I returned to pick him up I found all three of them up on the bed reading stories. Grandpa was almost asleep. Gigi was wearing her new reading glasses and Henry was snuggled in under her arm in his jammies. It was so sweet I hated to interrupt them.
Our plans for this week involve mostly just trying to do as little as possible to make up for the chaos of the past month. We need to move a lot of plants in our yard and put up the frames for our garden. We need to take evening bike rides to enjoy this time of year, when the sun is still up in evening but the air is cool and the leaves are changing color. There really is no better time to be on a bike. We love to ride in Old West Lawrence, with it's tree lined brick streets and big old houses. Henry and I have some mum's to plant and a Halloween costume to start planning. I was hoping we would have one more year of fun homemade costume but it looks like we might be unable to dissuade him from the plastic Transformers costume at Target. Bummer. Any-hoo. This weekend or next weekend the local apple orchard will open for picking and I can't wait to stock my shelves with applesauce and apple butter and maybe an apple pie, or two.
I'll try to post some mid-week photos from the wedding and our bike rides, since this post is almost picture-less and, really, mostly just me rambling on for way too long, with questionsable grammar skills and far too many comma's and "ands". Have a great week blog friends. Try to enjoy the sour and the sweet.

Weekly Update 9.19.10

Good morning. Yes, it is 11 am on Sunday and yes, my family is just getting started with the day. Wade stayed up super late working on a flier for his mom last night and I took the opportunity to watch a chick flick without having to listen to him moaning or making rude comments about how unrealistic chick-flicks are. Lately Henry has been sleeping in until 9ish on the weekends. I think he is growing. I mean he sleeps 12 hours a night and I swear every morning he looks taller. I read in my "What to Expect: The toddler years" book that kids actually do grow overnight, in bursts, and I believe it.Sorry about the skipped post last week, but I'll bring you up to date. It was actually a very difficult week for our family. We had to put down our little girl cat, Girlfriend. She was injured over the summer and just was not recovering. It was impacting her quality of life. It was really hard for Wade. Susie and Ted were in town and Henry got to spend a lot of quality time with Susie. He loves Susie, they have a special relationship. Henry also got to go on a field trip with his class last week. They have been talking about neighborhoods so the teacher arranged for them to visit the post office and mail themselves a post card. The school is right in downtown so the post office was just a short walk away for the kiddos. They watched the sorting machine and checked out all the other equipment and postal vehicles. We got Henry's postcard the next day and he was super excited. Here it is: The next day the kids walked to a landscape business and got to see more big vehicles and play in the dirt. Then they headed back to school to pick grapes from the school garden to squeeze to make juice for snack. They planted the seeds from their grapes along the west side fence of the school. Henry thought that was very cool. On Friday the kids talked about bugs and one of the parents brought in some bugs for them to check out. For snack that day...chocolate covered crickets. Henry did not try one, but several of the other kids did.
Now on to this week. On Monday Wade helped at Henry's school. There is a little boy in his class that is not talking and is struggling with some behavior problems. He seems to respond to Henry and Henry took note of it and has been playing with him and teaching him words. It's pretty amazing to watch the little boy engage with Henry in a way that he hasn't with other people. We are so proud of our little dude for helping him out.
On Tuesday I woke up early to go to the gym and decided to walk out on our front porch to enjoy the amazing orange and pink sunrise. I proceeded to step on a rusty nail which resulted in a trip to the Prompt Care for an emergency tetanus booster. The good news is that I don't have to worry about tetanus until I am 42. Bad news: now both my foot and my arm hurt. The rest of the week was fairly uneventful. I had an exam on Thursday night I spent most of Thursday in the library. Henry and I built a fort on Friday and we decided to sleep in it all weekend. I have some more photos from my phone that I cannot download at the moment. When I can I'll post them. For now here is Henry and Ray Ray in the fort this morning. Enjoy the first week of fall.

Weekly Update 9.6.10

Oh man, are we making up the lack of photos last week???? Yes sir we are. Prepare for a feast for your eyes. But I think we'll take it in reverse order because, frankly, I can only remember the weekend.Today we woke up early and Henry played outside for an hour or so while Mama sat on the front porch drinking coffee and loving life. We also snacked on some apple cider donuts that we picked up the day before during our official "First cool day almost Fall tradition" which involves driving 30 minutes to drink fresh apple cider and eat fresh donuts. But now I am jumping ahead. Here we are devouring the donuts this morning. Yes, we were still in our jammies. Henry likes to eat his donuts pirate style. Then we headed over to Gigi and Grandpa's for a barbecue celebrating Susie and Ted's visit. Susie and I attempted to make the super epic rainbow cake. I like to call it the Super Epic Rainbow Flop. Here is what it should have looked like. Here it what it actually looked like. We had a fantastic meal with the family and Henry came home sugar high and having met his yearly requirement for food coloring.
Sunday was a pretty fun day. We slept in, of course, and then hung around the house, cleaning and playing and possibly cooking some food for future use (I may have a stocking the freeze addiction). Then, while we were outside playing with water balloons, we decided that we definitely felt a cool fall breeze which can only mean one thing in our house, time for the First cool breeze, almost Fall tradition which means a trip to Rees Fruit Farm. With the windows down we drove to Topeka and partook of the delightful treat. Evidently Henry likes to drink his apple cider slushes pirate style as well. Arrgh. Next stop, the sunflower field. Henry had a great time finding trails among the rows of sunflowers. On Saturday we went out for an early morning bike ride and then headed over to Gigi and Grandpa's house to say hi to Susie, Ted and Bagel. Henry got to pick the restaurant and then, when we got home Henry had his feet done on the porch. What a life! Look at this kid. It has been a wonderful, long, relaxing weekend. Now it is time to get started on a new week. Susie is in town all week, so Henry will get to spend his mornings with Susie and Bagel and his afternoons back at school. Mama has yet another week of work and school, and Papa has a busy week ahead of him with several meetings for the fundraiser for Henry's school plus playing music and being an all around great guy. Hope your week is wonderful. Now I am going to try to scrub off some of this food coloring. Hugs.