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.

Weekly Update 8.29.2010: List Style

This week Henry:
Learned about all different kinds of families in school.
Learned to sing a song about families in Spanish. His Spanish skills now almost surpass Mama's after 3 years of Spanish in high school.
Perfected his robot dance.
Drew 500 pictures of robots.
Managed to convince Gigi to buy him more Transformers,
Played with his friend Tay-tay for 3 hours, a record in the world of 4 year olds.
Brushed his own teeth.
Amazed strangers at the store with his adding and subtracting skills.
Watched some of the Transformers movie and then stood up on the bed and said "This is the best day of my entire life."

This week Mama:
Started a running program
Made 3 kinds of soup, lasagna, black bean burgers, muffins and granola (it's like the show Hoarders, freezer style).
Finished her 16th to last week of school.
Ate too many Fig Newtons
Did 25 loads of laundry
Teared up when she realized that she is in school with people that were born in the 90's

This week Papa:
Mowed the lawn
Stressed about work
Made a really cool t-shirt for friends that are adopting a little boy from Ethiopia
Changed the words to Goodnight Moon in a way that made Henry and Mama laugh so hard they both almost peed their pants.
Wrote music
Played with Transformers and Legos

Next week you can expect:
More food hoarding.
More music being made.
More close calls with the peeing in the pants.
More laundry.
Aunt Susie and Uncle Ted in town.
Hopefully a few photos.

Enjoy the week.

Weekly Update 8/22/10: Mini Version

And so begins Henry's last year of preschool and Laurie's last semester of college.

This is going to be a quick update folks. We are fully immersed in the chaos of school and work, so much so that I only have a few minutes to post. 5 day preschool seems to be going well. Henry has some buddies and is having fun. He obviously (see above) is growing like a weed. At this point he is mostly just legs and a blond puff. He has grown 3 inches and a whole shoe sizes since May 31. We ran into a friend at the grocery store this weekend and she asked Henry how old he is now. His response, "4 and 3/4 plus 3 inches."

On Saturday Henry went downtown with Papa and Rachel and Estrella and they put up fliers for his show this week. Henry really likes Estrella. They are close to the same age and Henry loves holding her hand. After their visit downtown Henry said "Well, I have 4 girlfriends now and the good news is that when I get to 5 we are going to have a parrrr-teee." Ridiculous.

I spent most of Sunday in the kitchen preparing for the week. I feel like the only way that we are going to get through the next 15 weeks of me being on campus 9 hours a week, plus my full time job and Henry in school every day, plus Wade playing 3 shows in the next month (whew!) is for us to be super prepared. I am trying to make some dinners to freeze for busy nights, plus get all of my beans soaked and my tomato sauce made so that I don't even have to think about those things during the week. Speaking of tomatoes, heirloom cherry tomatoes are one of the only things that make mid-August in Kansas bearable. I grabbed two pints at the farmers market this weekend. Yum. While I was busy stocking up the freezer like we were about to be snowed in, Wade and Henry made plans to shoot some hoops at the park down the street. It was hot but Henry was ready for action. I acted as ball chaser/paparazzi while the boys played. We also hung a Henry "H" above his bed. Here is he pretending to sleep. Enjoy the rest of the week blog peeps.

Weekly Update 8.15.10

It's a scorcher out there friends. We spent most of our week in a dark, air-conditioned house, trying to save our energy for those brief moments when we had to burst out of the house and run to the car.

I'm not going to lie, coming up with indoor activities for an active 4 year old is challenging. Poor Gigi had Henry all day Monday-Thursday this week because preschool has not started and it was so hot they couldn't even play outside in the mornings. On Thursday they took a trip to the Natural History Museum. Henry was very excited about watching the bees work. The rest of the exhibits were just a little too old for him. Lawrence needs a Children's Museum. On Wednesday they went to the movies. They had a great time.

Smelly markers have also come in really come in handy this week. On Tuesday Henry spent hours making his own transformer book. He took the one that we checked out from the library and copied the pictures and then Gigi wrote out the story, making note of a few changes-mainly that all the good guys had become bad guys. Henry is very interested in bad guys right now.

On Friday we had a massive thunderstorm. The sky was dark by 7 pm, which is at least 2 hours earlier than normal. It was the perfect opportunity to set up a flashlight on the bed and make shadow puppets. Henry made a very good alligator and bunny.

The guys also wrote a song on the piano about Transformers. It's called "The Battle of the Ages". I'll try to get it on video, although it is a lot harder to get him to sing on video these days, he is a little more self-aware then he was back in the Moon Walkin Cowboy days.

On Saturday we went out for breakfast at our usual place and then hit the farmers market. Henry worked on his second Transformers book.

In the afternoon Henry and I both decided that the only real way to combat the heat was homemade ice cream sandwiches. We made coconut ice cream and chocolate chip coconut cookies. It was good and messy.

The weather on Sunday was fantastic. Wade spent at least 3 hours in the morning working in the yard while Henry and I ran to the store, make homemade pita and hummus, did 500 loads of laundry, watched a little Star Wars, played with Transformers and cleaned the house. In the afternoon friends came over to play in the sprinkler and go for a bike ride. The weekend ended on a sour note when Wade got a speeding ticket while trying to rush our overdue books to the library 5 minutes before it closed. Ouch!

We have a busy week ahead of us friends. Monday is the first day of school for Henry. He starts the afternoon class at preschool, which is only 4 and 5 year olds. I start my last semester at KU on Thursday. I'm taking 9 hours this semester so I apologize ahead if I am grumpy for the next 16 weeks. Wade has 4 shows coming up in the next 2 months. Plus we have 3 weddings, a couple of birthday's, family coming to town and a trip to Colorado. Whew! See you in December ;)

"I like to live close to danger"- H

Henry has been doing all kinds of new things all by himself. One of these things is washing his own hair in the shower. Last night, while he was working up a good lather, I reminded him that his shampoo is tear free. He decided that the next logical step was to squirt of blob of it into his eye.

**Result: Not tear free when placed directly into the eye.

I'm thinking of keeping a log of all the items that he has consumed as a child, so when he is an adult and discovers that he has an abnormal tolerance for dangerous household items, he will understand how he made it happen.

On Thursday Henry attempted to knock out his two bottom teeth by jumping out of the car and directly into Gigi's forearm.

**Result: Blood, tears and two prematurely wiggly front teeth. The upside is, of course, the potential for an earlier visit from the tooth fairy. Better get busy making a pillow.

10 things I love about Henry

1. He is soft all over. From his blond curls to what's left of his baby thigh roll.

2. He loves to make us laugh. He'll stick with a joke for hours as long we are laughing.

3. He is fully committed to play. It reminds me to slow down, stop cleaning and enjoy life.

4. He likes to sit on my lap when he eats, and I let him, even if it means that I will have orange Nacho Cheese Doritos powder all of my shirt.

5. He tells me every night that he loves me 150 million hundred times, to cyberspace (a little confused on that one) and back and that he will live with us until he is 100 years old.

6. If the music is right he will start dancing anywhere-restaurants, the store, the sidewalk.

7. He likes to help me fix dinner and pretend that we have a cooking show. He says that I am the Head Chef and he is my "Sushi Chef".

8. After he uses the potty he yells "Clean up crew, wiping system".

9. He really loves people and he tells them he loves them and shows it every time he is with them.

10. He calls the piano "the pea-an-yo". It kills me.

From the Archives

I was digging through our photos today and I found some old videos. They are two of my favorites. Watching these is bittersweet, on the one hand it is so amazing to watch Henry grow and get to know him and on the other hand I miss him at almost every age and these videos are a reminder of that. But I'm still so glad that we have them.

Weekly Update 8.8.10

Hi party people. Well, we have just completed the birthday weekend extravaganza. I had a great day on Saturday with my guys and my little sis. Henry and Wade gave me some beautiful flowers and I got to spend some quiet time on the front porch planting and enjoying the breeze. Quiet time doesn't happen much at my house. :) (A blurry one, sorry. It's all I've got. )
After a relaxing breakfast and a trip to the garden center, Wade and I sipped on coffee with one hand while playing transformers with the other and contemplated going to the fair. But then we realized that we were insane and that it was 100 degrees outside, so we called up Henry's buddy, Rosa, and headed for Aunt Lillie's pool. Henry jumped in by himself several times. He had two floating rings on at all times, plus a life jacket, so I'm pretty sure that he was actually only in the water from the knees down, but hey, everyone has to go at their own pace. And by the end of the day he was blowing bubbles and feeling very brave. Then Henry and Wade headed to another friends house for a bike ride. While the boys were out I threw together a birthday cake that ended up looking better than it tasted. Henry coated it in about 3 layers of sprinkles, so it had a nice crunch. We went to The Burger Stand for dinner. Kelly joined us and was kind enough to share her truffle oil fries. Henry had his first corn dog. He is a fan. Papa had a beer. He is a fan. After dinner we headed home, way past Henry's bed time, to sing Happy Birthday and eat a very tiny sliver of cake. Henry was concerned about the fire hazard of having so many candles on one cake. I was not amused. At bed time Henry asked for an extra hug, because I am the birthday girl, and he told me that he would always love me and always be my friend, even with my stinky armpits.
Since we goofed off all of Saturday, we spent Sunday playing catch up. Right now I have about 8 loads of laundry to fold on the bed. Wade is out for a super run to combat the all the treats we ate this weekend. Including a lovely Sunday dinner downtown with Gigi, Grandpa and Aunt Kelly. Henry got some smelling markers and drew pictures of robots, bulldozers and crocodiles with Grandpa the whole time. Kelly gave me a slice of one of the best cakes I have ever eaten and Mom and I planned our strategy for trying to mimic the recipe at home. Other items of note during the week:
Henry ate an entire 8 inch sub. His feet fell asleep half way through so he had to stand up. We skipped the fair and opted for a ride that was in air conditioning. It's lame, I know. We've promised Henry a trip to Worlds of Fun in the fall to make up for it. And last but not least, we got a lovely card from Wade's grandmother, Nana, on Saturday with a photo from her mother's 102 birthday. This is Henry's Great Great Grandmother, Eva. There are 5 generations alive in his family, which is so very special. When she celebrates 103 next summer, we are going to be there. :)

Weekly Update 7.31.10

This past week has been jam packed full of fun with family in from out of town. Henry was ecstatic to see his Aunt Annie last Saturday. His primary objective was to spend as much time educating her in the ways of Transformers, and I think he accomplished that goal. I am fairly sure Annie walked away with a solid knowledge of the major players in the world of Transformers and I personally witnessed her successfully transforming level 2 (age 4+), which is better than Mama or Papa did after just a few training sessions. Aunt Annie does have a PhD, which could explain it. Next time we see her, we'll work on the level 3's. Henry also spent a lot of time playing with his Aunt Susie and Uncle Ted. I think he really enjoyed having the whole family together.

But playing Transformers with Papa is also pretty great. Unfortunately, I managed to go all week without taking a photo of Henry with his Aunts. This is all I've got, a crappy, camera phone photo of the ladies getting their toes done. Notice the wee little bean running the massage chair controls on Aunt Annie's chair...Note to self: pedicures are not as relaxing when a 4 year old has control of the massage chair. One of the ladies pointed out that there were little treasures hidden in the brick wall on the North side of the room and Henry had a great time finding the treasures and taking pictures of them with Annie's phone. Other things to note:
-Henry loves root beer. Real beer, however, tastes like "trash". Let's hope that sticks.
-I completed my Microbiology coarse on Thursday by taking a 3 hour final exam. I learned a lot. Now, go wash your hands.

-Wade has been busy at work this week. He had a Turnpike interview on Friday night so if you have local channels, check it out. I can't watch it because it makes me nervous, but I hear he's pretty good at it.

-Henry has taken to calling people by their first initial-Dog (example: Papa is P-Dog) thanks to the creative efforts of Kelly and Cooper. He called Grandpa G-Dog and Grandpa became very confused and asked What is happening with the dog? Does Henry want a hot dog? He also gives the peace sign when he leaves.

-Tomorrow Wade is helping his sister move to Lawrence. Our lucky little boy with have another fabulous family member living near by. I tell you, this is one lucky kid. Surrounding by people that love him.

Well, off to bed. Later Dogs.

Dinner Attire

Weekly update

It has been a hot July in Kansas, my friends. All week the heat index hovered around 105-110F. Right now it is almost impossible for me to get Henry out of the house. But when there is a promise of splashing Mama involved, well, it helps. This week has been super busy, as usual. I had class in KC on Tuesday and Thursday nights so Henry and Wade had fun visiting friends and eating Mexican food. Henry is in summer school too, in the mornings. He comes home every day soaking wet from playing in the sprinkler and with lots of fun and interesting art projects.

Today Henry and I headed up on campus to stick our toes in the fountain for a quick cool-down. Henry knows how to work those fountain sprayers and it wasn't long before we were both soaked.



And afterwords he said, "Now that I put my toes in the fountain, I'm a real jayhawk."

Last weekend Grandpa and Grandma B came to visit to celebrate Grandma's 60th birthday. Grandpa calls Henry "Henry-O" so I've been calling him "Grandpa-O", we'll see if it sticks. Unfortunately, I forgot to get a picture of the three of them together. Henry also got to spend some time with his Aunt Lillie and Uncle John, two of his favorite people.

Tomorrow Aunt Annie arrives and Susie and Ted will be here on Monday. Should be a great weekend. Later Gators.

Prayers

One of my favorite parts of the day is bedtime. Henry likes for me to rub his feet and we say prayers. It's usually something like: Hi God, it's Mama and Henry. Thank you for a great day. Please help me to not be scared of monsters or have any bad dreams. Thank you for Lego's. Amen.

But lately he has really been chatty during prayers and it is giving me some wonderful insights into how his day has been. It's hard to be away from my baby all day, and when he does get home and I ask how his day was I usually get "It was good." So, tonight when he said his prayers I just sat back listened:
Hi God. It's Mama and Henry. Or Laurie. Or Laura. Thank you for a great day. Thank you for show and tell. Thank you for playing pretend no pants guys with Utah at school. Thank you for snack. Thank you for Bagel and Gigi. I love Gigi. Thank you for the house we built in the living room. Thank you for cupcakes. Thank you for transformers and Lego's. When you see Santa ask him for some new ones for me. Please make me not be scared of monsters. Amen. Also thank you for chocolate milk. Amen.

Tonight Henry was shucking an ear of corn and said, "Whoa, this corn has more hair on it than Grandpa."

I thought Henry was in bed, asleep, when I heard a noise in the bathroom and then, through the monitor I heard, "Whoo-hoo...my poops comin' in for a landing."

Happy 4th