Weekly Update 1.16.11

It snowed! Henry had 2 snow days this week and, actually, we were really happy because he needed those days off to recover from stomach flu. The poor kid had stomach flu for over a WEEK! We were all feeling pretty exhausted and worried for him by mid-week. Not only was he not feeling well but he also just seemed really sad and worried about it. Our boy is a sensitive little guy, I really learned that this past week. But I could tell that things were looking up when, on Wednesday, I picked him up at Gigi's and he handed me an envelope with Aunt Kelly's address on the front. "What is this?" I asked. "It's an invitation to my party. My HENRY IS FEELING BETTER AND DOES NOT HAVE A SICKNESS ANYMORE PARTY." At my party we are going to eat pizza and decorate our own chocolate cupcakes. And so we did...


We also blew up 8 balloons for each room in the house and played balloon games. This was a balancing the balloon on the top of your head game, created by Grandpa. Papa cheated.
And then there was sledding. It started in our yard and then ended with several hours of sledding down the biggest hills we could find in town. Henry loved crashing. He loved bailing off the sled mid-way down the hill. He and Papa when down one particularly steep hill and actually went into the air for a second. It was great. We are hoping for many more snow days this winter.

Graduation/Christmas/New Years/Stomach flu

Sorry for staying away so long. We've had a great month. Laurie's graduation get together was super fun. We had our first snow of the season that day and got to enjoy it sat around warm camp fire enjoying the company of family and friends. Henry got to meet many second and third cousins and see great aunts and uncles that he hadn't seen in years.
Christmas was wonderful. Henry was SO excited about Santa. We tracked him on NORAD and every few minutes Henry would run from the back bedroom to the living room and yell "Santa's in S-W-E-D-E-N" now. I didn't know if he was actually going to be able to fall asleep, with all the giggling and wiggling coming from his room. But he did finally fall asleep and sure enough, Santa came to our house as well.
We had such a wonderful time with Susie and Ted and Bagel and Annie in town. We both took the week before Christmas off so we got to enjoy lots of pre-Christmas celebrating, shopping, cooking baking, gingerbread house making, gift wrapping and visits to the Christmas house (a house that has set their lights to music, very cool). The day after Christmas we started a new tradition of bowling and burgers. Henry discovered the joy of bowling and I discovered the joy of gutter guards. I am usually the queen of gutter balls, but not this time. After bowling we went to the burger stand where Henry was introduced to Foosball and pool. Both activities he enjoyed while snarfing down a hot dog and fries.
But this past week the fun ended while Henry dealt with a serious case of stomach flu in combination with an ill-timed chicken pox shot. The poor kid has had a week of feeling terrible and just when we got our big snow storm of the year, perfect for sledding. Here's hoping that he feels up to it this weekend.
Anyway, I'm pooped so to follow is a big hodge-podge of photos from the past few weeks. Enjoy.

Hiatus

We are shutting down shop for the next couple of weeks while we get through finals and graduation. We promise to update you on all the news in the Kelly house as soon as we return. Rock-Chalk-Jayhawk!

Weekly Update 11.27.10

Happy Thanksgiving friends. We hope your day was relaxing and filling and that you got to spend it with loved ones. We spent Thanksgiving with Gigi and Grandpa and Aunt Kelly. Gigi made a feast, at least that is what Henry and Aunt Kelly called it. And Henry was very curious about the roast beast Gigi made (he had just watched The Grinch).
We have had a jam packed couple of weeks and I am afraid it is going to get worse before it gets better. But we only have a couple of weeks to go before finals are over and we can celebrate Christmas, so we spent a little time this weekend preparing for it. But first, the little man turned 5 this week. We had a little get together with the family to celebrate. We did not have a buddy party because Henry had was completely booked with his friend's birthday parties. Sofia, Utah, and Estrella all had parties this week/weekend. Henry was the only boy to attend Sofia's princess party. She told her mom that she wanted to invite him because "He is a wonderful man" which we all found very sweet, and hilarious. He seemed to have had a good time, although he did mention that girls squeal and scream a lot. :) This was the year of TRANSFORMERS, so he had a Decepticon cake. Lemon icing, vanilla cake and strawberry ice cream: all his choice and not a bad combination, I have to say. On Friday night Santa arrived in Lawrence. His reindeer dropped him off on the top of the Weavers department store and he helped the city count down to light up down town. Henry sat on Papa's shoulders and waved to Mr. Claus with the sweet look of excitement and magic that only comes from Santa Claus. Then firemen came in and rescued him, which was also pretty cool. On Saturday we decided to put up our lights. We dug all the Christmas decorations out of the attic, put up the tree and then discovered that our big ceramic outdoor lights did not survive the summer in the attic. So we headed to Target to get some new ones. This time we went with small multicolored LED lights. Wade climbed all over the roof, making my legs go numb over and over again, which Henry found completely hilarious, and we ended up feeling pretty happy with how it turned out. Last night we drove around the neighborhood sizing up the neighbors and listened to Christmas music. Today we are headed to Sears to pick out a new bike, which was a birthday gift from Henry's Nana. He has been talking about it since he woke up this morning. If the weather is nice this afternoon we'll take it for a spin and I'll post a picture. Have a great week.

I was four my whole life

That's what Henry told me this morning when I asked him how it felt to be turning five. "Sad. Poor four, " he sighed. "I will miss four. I was four my whole life."

I admit, I am going to miss four too. When Henry lines up against the wall after a growth spurt or his 5T jeans fit like highwaters only 2 weeks after we bought them, I share in his excitement about growing bigger and feel thankful to have a healthy kiddo. But birthday's are a different kind of measurement. This morning I snuck into his room and snuggled up next to him for a quick birthday snuggle: his curly hair was matted on one side, his fat baby cheek squished up against the pillow, and I wiggled my finger into his fist and thought about the fragility of it all. I reminded myself that it is essential that I relish every moment with my little boy. I remembered back to when he was just a few weeks old, not sleeping through the night, crying for what seemed like no reason at all, Wade and I beside ourselves with fatigue, anxiety and frustration. My Mom told me not to worry, that he would probably start sleeping through the night at around 6 months. SIX MONTHS! That's forever. But it is not forever. In fact it was 4 1/2 years ago, and it flew by.

Tonight, at Henry's birthday dinner, we pulled out a piece of paper and pen and wrote down everything that we could think of about being 4. His favorite color: Green and pink (together). His favorite book: Transformers. His favorite game: Uno. His favorite song: Anything with a good beat. His favorite food: Pizza with spinach and olives. His least favorite food: Soup. His favorite smell: Cinnamon. His favorite toy: Transformers. His favorite number: 10. What he likes do at school: Ride bikes and make art. What he wants to be when he grows up: A paver. His favorite friend to play with:Utah and Papa.

Then we made a list of all the great things that he can do now that he is 5: Ride roller coasters. Go to kindergarten. Be older then some of his buddies. Ride a bigger bike. Read books. Eat more food. Grow bigger muscles.

I told him about the day he was born. How we were sure that he was going to be a girl and had convinced our families and all the nurses. How surprised we were when found out he wasn't. How Wade ran out to the waiting room, threw his arms up in the air and proudly said, "Well, it's a boy." and everyone jumped up and clapped and gave each other long hugs. How lovingly his grandparents looked at him when they first got to hold him. How he had dark hair with little blond tips and the nurses joked that he looked like he had just come from the salon. How Wade did not let him out of his site the entire 2 days we spent at the hospital.

We celebrated the day he was born with a cake and ice cream and more presents then he even knows what to do with. And he blew out 5 candles and told me his wish:

"That we always love each other." -Henry, age 5.

Weekly Update 11.7.2010

Welcome to this weeks edition of: Blurry Camera Phone Blog Posts. Apparently no one felt the need to drag along our actual camera this week, even though we actually had lots of fun, photo-worthy moments. The work week was pretty standard. Both Wade and I had to stay extra hours this week to keep up at our jobs. Unfortunately, that meant that we had to do what we call in our family "Divide and conquer", which leads to not as much time together. But it's only temporary.......5 weeks people, we are counting down!
So, Susie was in town this week. Which, I have to say, is fun for people of all ages. Susie is like a breath of fresh air. Henry LOVES her, well we all do, but Henry is especially fond of her. Occasionally over the weekend he would just sigh and say, "Aunt Susie is awesome."

On Saturday evening we all got together to make applesauce. Henry chopped and peeled and was a big help.He worked so hard that he had to take a break with Grandpa. Here he is learning all about football. He cheered for the purple team, which is unheard of in our house.

I worked all day so Henry and Papa went on an adventure at the lake. This was the first day of Henry's new "style": wearing shorts over pants. I'm hoping it is a phase, like the rainbow suspenders that were tragically lost recently. ;)

On Sunday I did a little shopping in KC while Henry and Wade cleaned the school and went on even longer bike rides. The kid can ride miles on his bike, it's really cool. But the best part of the weekend was last night when Henry read a bedtime story to me, front to back, with only a little help. :)

This week is going to be pretty busy. I have an exam on Thursday. Wade has a TON of work to do and we have parent teacher conferences on Friday. Here's hoping for a good report.
Have a great week!

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.