Funny Faces ;-D

A few days ago I wanted to take some random playing shots of Henry, and tried my best to get him to smile. What I got of course from my toddler were some funny faces! We've always said that Henry has a million different looks, and since he was a baby, he has often looked like different kids at times. So here you go, he still has that characteristic about him - maybe not quite so much like a different kid but with many different faces.


We got this red chair at a furniture sale for a store closing, and Gabe calls it the Lifeguard chair. One day, I was sitting in it, and Henry drug his little chair over right next to it, and sat down. We both read some books together, and it was a very sweet moment between me and him.


Don't know what this was all about! He looks like he is in trouble or time out, but trust me, he wasn't!
And this made me laugh so hard! He saw his empty car, went and sat in it, and then saw all of his stuffed animals lying about the room. He pointed to each one and had me put them in the car with him. I had to run and grab the camera, too cute all stuffed in there with all his friends!

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Train Show

Last weekend left me searching for something fun and different for our family to do to beat the winter blues. I felt like we'd been doing the same old, same old for quite awhile (swimming, stomping outside in the snow, going to the library), so I was looking for something to for a change of pace. When to my surprise, a train show in town! Well, actually in Middlebury, IN, which is a good 50 minute drive. So not exactly in town. But, I was desperate. I managed to talk Gabe into making the drive to Middle-of-nowhere, IN, which actually was about an hour 15 on the way there since we got lost. What we do for our children. Middlebury, by the way, is in the middle of Amish country, so we saw lots of horses and buggies on the road, which Henry called sheep. But he liked watching them! And he was the perfect traveling companion both ways.

We found the train show, which included two train models, one made out of LEGOS, and lots of old men selling and swapping their toy train parts. Wow. It was quite the collection of train paraphernalia, and quite the collection of folk. Lots of little kids, of course. We learned that if Henry keeps liking trains, when he gets older and gets a real toy train set, there is a lot to learn about having the right parts and tracks and such. For now, we'll stick with some Thomas trains in a little while.

The Lego train was really cool, and all the kids gathered round.

Henry is recently obsessed with a cardboard train box that is named Dinah, as in "Dinah blow your horn", and he L-O-V-E-S his Ninah, Ninah. We have a book about Dinah, who is a speedy bullet train, which he has tried to take to bed with him. Luckily, there was a Lego Dinah! Oh, this boy's face just lit up at the toy Ninah going around the track. In fact the whole way home, he couldn't stop talking about Ninah, Ninah. I'll post some pictures of him playing with Ninah, Ninah soon.
A daddy sharing his love for Legos, and a son sharing his love of trains. A match made in heaven for these boys.

Just to give you an idea of the locals.....:)

CHOO-CHOO! What excitement on that little face!

My sweet baby and some trains. Glad we could find some trains for you!

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In my family...

....we call these guys "HOP"

Henry has a book called How Do You Hop So High? We read it one day and I showed him how to hop, which consisted of him saying the word and picking his two feet up one at a time, like he was marching, only really fast. And really cute. And now every time he sees Tigger or Pooh, he calls them Hop. In a store, on his toothbrush, on the book cover. It makes us laugh. Is it wrong that we haven't corrected him yet?

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Winter days at the zoo!

checking out the llamas

Last summer, Henry loved looking at the flamingos, and still loved looking at them this winter too, even inside.

quite possibly my newest favorite picture

in front of the leopards with momma

and we found some ah-buhs, of course!

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I Heart Reading

About a million times a day, Henry asks us to read a book to him. Which is great, we're definitely not complaining. We love to read to him, find new words in books, point to pictures of things he knows, snuggle with him and spend that quality time together, of course. There have been days when every single book has been off the shelf and opened. We love that he loves books.

We'll find him walking off and quite for longer periods of time now, and when we check on him, most often, he's reading to himself. A sure sign of more independence.

A few nights ago though, we were making dinner and couldn't exactly stir the food and read to Henry, so we sat him up with his baby doll and asked him to read to the baby. Which he did willingly. And so of course we had to stop cooking and snap some pictures! This baby doesn't have a name, but needs one. Any suggestions?

giving the baby a kiss - such a sweet boy

cuddling with the baby on his lap - so cute

and then chucking the baby off the couch - what a boy!

We're still working on gentle :)

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Ah-buh (and more)

let me translate....A bird, in Henry-speak. And actually, I'm noticing I'm needing to do a lot of translating on this blog lately. And as Henry is adding more and more words, we are doing quite a bit of translating for him.

Henry LOVES birds. LOVES them. We set up a bird pole with two bird feeders outside the window thinking that this winter Henry might like to watch the birds. Big hit! Henry asks for ah-buh first thing when he wakes up in the morning, and first thing when we walk in the door. He says "nigh-nigh" (night, night) to the birds when it gets dark out, and asks for "ma, ma, ma" (more, more, more). He runs to the window, and is especially excited when we are able to go onto the sun porch to see a closer look at the birds, despite the cold. And in fact, we checked out bird books at the library, which were also a favorite to read when the birds weren't at the feeder. He points out birds in books, and at the library during story hour, he *loudly* mentioned that there was ah-buh in the book the story lady was reading - on EVERY SINGLE PAGE.


Now, the original writing of this post would have ended here - tell the story, show the pictures, give Henry's cute words. But, a few days ago, looking out the kitchen window, I found the following visitor coming to play in our back yard:

RACCOON!!!! ARRRRRRGGGGGGH!
He sniffed around,
stood on his hind legs,
and Henry and I went out to watch him.

He stuck his nose WAY up in the air,
took a look at us,
and found the birdseed he was after. Henry smiled.
And then he continued his tour of our yard, posed for a few more pictures, and climbed over the fence.
RACCOON!!!! AGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!

They followed us here!!!!!

For those of you that don't know, we HATE raccoons around the Brown house. When we first moved into our rental house, that night at dinner we heard scuffling above our dining room table. Turned out, we had a family of raccoons living in our attic. I was 6 months pregnant or so, and we were mad and freaked out and frustrated that the house we had chosen to bring a new baby into had raccoons. It took 15 DAYS, many trips by trappers and rodent people, and nights spent in another house to finally rid ourselves of raccoons - one mother and four babies, 5 in all. And now, one here. This one better stay OUT of our house. WE HATE RACCOONS!!!

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fff-fff-ffffffff....

but-bal!!!

quarterback Henry with the handoff
"Here guys, here's a football!"

And in case you don't understand the reference in the title and first line:
Henry's been saying football (but-bal) since football season this fall. He recognizes it on tv, if he sees a football or football player picture anywhere, and in fact, all sports are called football. This Christmas, in an effort to improve his pronunciation, we would repeat the consonant F to him and say "ffff-ffff-fffff-football!" And he would repeat back, "ffff-fffff-fffff- but-bal!" We couldn't stop laughing, and it has been a running joke ever since.

In fact, later that week, we were working on "peek", and said "pppp-pppp-pppp-peek!" Henry, being the smart boy that he was, said "pppp-pppp-pppp-but-bal!" Every consonant we practice now is followed by but-bal! Never stops being funny!

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02-04-06

Pam, to Gabe: "Oh, do you know what day today is?"
Gabe: "Groundhog's day?"
Pam: "No, the anniversary of our engagement" (which was 02-04-06, convenient)
Gabe: "Oh, yeah! What day did we get engaged?"
Pam: "02-04-06."
Gabe: "Right."

Seriously, folks. Seriously.
He wasn't even being smart-alecky.
I do believe when we got engaged, it was he who pointed out that the day was 02-04-06, which would be easy to remember.
Good thing our anniversary is on a memorable day too.


Love you honey! You make me laugh.

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