Henry's 2nd Birthday

Last Saturday was Henry's 2nd birthday - how is that possible? Patrick, Mary and Addie drove in from "the Big City" to help us celebrate. Henry's birthday dinner was a memorable one: pork chops that shrunk and looked burnt but actually tasted great, fajitas (the back up dinner when the p. chops burned), baked potatoes (made to go with the original plan of pork chops), fruit and ice cream dessert. As you can see from the pictures, Henry had lots of fun with the Walker family! We are so thankful for their friendship and that they were able to be here to celebrate with us.


Patrick and Henry reading "The Runaway Bunny."


Henry giving Patrick a kiss while reading.

Patrick was a sport - he read "The Runaway Bunny" about 7 times! Henry really likes Patrick...a lot!

Aren't they too cute? Henry and Addie "playing."

Opening presents - this has been a favorite.

Addie is just the sweetest!

Henry is saying "Cheese" for this picture. He loves the songs on the CDs that came with this book. He likes clapping along and singing.

Addie gets familiar with the trucks!

Playing trucks together. Henry was very suprised that Addie could crawl now...maybe he was also a little concerned that she was going for his trucks!

Tea Parties & Wild Rice

This was a big week at our house. Henry turned two and discovered tea parties!

At least 10 times a day I hear the sweet sound of Henry calling me, "Maaaaah me." He crawls underneath the arm of the dinning room chair and stands while calling me. When I come into the room, he pats a place at the table where he wants me to sit. Cat and Puppy usually join us when Daddy is at work.

Then he pretends to pour juice and eat hot dogs.


This is a tea party "mommy style."

The next pictures are from a "Henry style" tea party.

Making a hamburger.



Hmmm. A scene from Animal House? That's my dinning room table he's standing on!



What a delicious pear!

Now the Wild Rice...

This is what we discovered after dinner last week. He loves eating fish and rice...especially the rice.

The Not-So-Good-Haircut

Normally, we go to Great Clips in Willmar to get Henry's haircut, but a few months ago there was a long wait so we dopped into Fantastic Sam's. Henry got his best haircut ever, he didn't cry, and we could make an appointment with Amber (the "stylist") in the future! Two weeks ago, Henry really needed a haircut and we were in Willmar. I hadn't made an appointment but I thought we could swing by and see if Amber was in and available.

I should be honest and admit that it was super-time and we had just finished grocery shopping. What was I thinking?

Amber wasn't working but Henry seemed to like the lady who greeted us, so I thought we'd go for it. Then the lady takes us back to the chair and says, "This is "Sylvia"- she's going to cut Henry's hair." Immediately I knew this was not going to be good because Henry has never seen someone up close who has purple hair and a pointed metal stud coming throught their lower lip. Henry took one look at her and covered his ears (this is what he does when he doesn't like something) and said, "No."

Personally, I didn't have any problems with her appearance, but Henry was frightened! Of course, I went through with it because I didn't want her to think that I had something against her because of her look.

Anyway, for a variety of reasons (turns out Sylvia is not a kid person and the other kind customers thought they could solve the problem by telling Henry how handsome he was, even though he would start crying all over again whenever they talked to him) his haircut was not so good! His bangs were super short and started lower on one side than the other. The back of his hair is also the same and there are all these long hairs hanging over his ears that didn't get cut!

I called Grandma Jo on my home (while Henry was sleeping without a shirt because his clothes had been covered in hair) and asked if she could fix a haircut. We attempted this in the carseat while he was sleeping, but he of course woke up. Grandma did a great job of hiding behind the carseat hoping for him to fall asleep but to no avail. She came over to our house later that night instead. We sat him on the counter, handed him a spatula covered in chocolate frosting and Grandma worked her magic!

So I learned my lessons. Never get a haircut:
1. After grocery shopping.
2. When my child is tired.
3. When my child is hungry.
4. When my child is afraid of the stylist.
5. When Amber is not available.

In short, next time I'll make an appointment with Amber!


Grandma trying to fix his bangs. Too bad she couldn't make my hair look any better!


Yes, we bribed him with frosting in order to get him to sit still while Grandma Jo worked on his hair.

Just a cute pic of my little boy

Busy little guy, isn't he? Maybe he has his own blog...

If You're Not Laughing...

If you're not laughing after you look at these pictures, then either you didn't look close enough or you have no idea what you're looking at!

Somehow I thought maybe I could make Henry a cake in the shape of a tractor for his birthday. You know that I am NOT artistic at all...so I have no idea why I thought I could be artistic with cake! Anyway, after looking at some cake websites I thought I'd give it a try. I should have known that when I wasn't able to mix the ingredients before Henry woke up, it wasn't going to work out.

So here's the cake - we have laughed pretty hard (it's a pink Farmall - I did use the entire bottle of red food coloring and it was still pink!). Henry was eating the cake while we took pictures so it couldn't have tasted too bad, but needless to say this will be my first and last attempt at an amazing-looking birthday cake. Henry was very happy with it but I was not (for obvious reasons), so I came to the conclusion that these fantastic cakes are really more for the moms than the kids! I will leave the tractor cake to the pros and stick with Nate's favorite ice cream dessert and Grandma Leverentz's Chocolate Cake!


The Pink Farmall with one tire falling apart (the left one).


Yeah, I know, it's missing two front wheels. I didn't have any Oreos ( I wasn't about to buy a whole package so I would have 2 tires for a trial cake and then eat the rest of them all by myself on Monday while Nate was at work!). It looks like something from a monster truck rally - look at those enormous tires!!!



And the night gets better...

I finished the cake 10 minutes before the 6:30 evening church service started. Our pastor's family invited us over for supper after the service. I missed the entire sermon for the second time in one day because Henry was making really loud car noises. After the service, we headed over to their house.


They served Raspberry Crystal Light as a beverage. Do you know where I'm going with this? Lots of yummy food. Henry found a toy he liked, put part of it in his mouth, gagged, and the next thing I know he has vomited Raspberry drink and a variety of other things in my hand and all over his shirt and pants, my (khaki) pants, the chair and the floor! Yum! Of course I had extra clothes for Henry but not for me.

Needless to say, we were the first to leave after I washed the floor. Thankfully, Nate didn't get pulled over for speeding because I'm not sure I could have explained why I wasn't wearing any pants! So as Nate is falling asleep, I am waiting for the washing machine to be done so I can survey the damage!

1 Year Anniversary

I can't believe it, but as of yesterday, we have been a family for 1 year! We are so blessed to have him here with us! God is so good...


Having a treat with Daddy.



Making coffee cake with Mommy. From the moment I poured the sugar into the mixing bowl, he was dipping his finger! It looked like he had a goatee by the time I had the batter in the pan! Don't worry about eating at our house, I don't let Henry dip and lick when guests are going to be eating with us...of course I can't make any guarantees...



Riding with Boppa at the lake! Can you tell how much he LOVED this?
Henry would sit at the sliding door and watch Boppa dump gravel. He would jump and yell, "Boppa! Boppa!"

Dad's Fishing Trip - Day 4

Nate sacrificed Day 4 of his fishing trip to help my dad work on removing part of a 3 ft thick cement slab at the lake! What a guy!

Henry and I went to a big birthday party that we had with our Korean play group. We celebrated all of the kids' birthdays on one day (most of the kids were born in June!). It was nice to see our friends and meet some new friends too. We even reconnected with a couple we met while in Korea!


Henry and Mom: Tired out and ready to go home!

The following pictures are of Henry and Olivia playing with the car together. My favorite is the first one, where Olivia is almost bent in half while trying to push the car!
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Henry having fun in the bouncy thing.