Happy Birthday Henry!

September 29, 2016

Our Henry turned 7!! We love Henry so much! He is such a sweet, curious, energetic little boy that is a joy to have around. It has been a fun year of Henry. He has grown and learned so much and it is fun to watch him grow. Sometimes, when I go to tuck him in at night, I look at my little boy and wonder how and when he got so big, and at the same time want to soak up every last second of him being as little as he is now. He's growing up so fast and I don't like to think about how much growing he'll do in the next 7 years.

Henry's favorite things are Star Wars, Pokemon and Minecraft. He loves playing with his friends. He frequently tells me that his first best friends are Wyatt, Shad, Tyson, Andee, Tyler and Seph. His second best friends are Sarah and Isabella, because they're girls. Funny though. He seems to play outside with the girls as much as the boys.

Poor Henry. For his actual birthday, he got sick. Like stomach, make you wish you could die, sick. He missed school, his school "party", where I was going to eat lunch with him then read to his class, plus being the teachers special helper. After school there was a carnival, that I usually dodge but felt obligated since he was so excited AND it was on his birthday. Poor kid missed it all. I went another day to do his birthday things, but I don't know if it was the same.

Others of us had already had the bug, and it was a swift moving one, so he was feeling better by supper time. To at least acknowledge his birthday on the day, we let him decide what we should have for supper. I was totally surprised when he picked a Costco hot dog. I asked him several times if he was sure about that and he insisted he was up for it, so Nate picked Costco food court up on his way home from work. Henry only made it part of the way through, but I think it was fun and different enough that he was happy with his day.

Once we all were recovered from our turn with the bug we actually celebrated his birthday with a family party. He wanted a sharks and army cake. I provided the cake and decoration supplies and he set up a whole battle of sharks vs. soldiers. Cutest kid decorated cake I ever saw. :D

Henry's 1st Day of 1st Grade and Toothless

August 15, 2016

This little boy started 1st grade!! 

Also, He's toothless!

Summer

August 14, 2016

School starts tomorrow.

Looking through all of the pictures, we are reminded of all of the things we were able to do the past few months. There are so many pictures, but also entire weekends that are entirely undocumented. We have had a summer full of Utah adventures and outdoor fun. We've discovered new favorite places for weekend camping (with G.G. and Granddaddy!) and swimming. We've seen petroglyphs, dinosaur bones, sage brush, old homes, red rocks, and swimming pools. Nate and I even went on our first river kayaking adventure (no pictures) for my birthday. It's been a fun summer. I believe we are all looking forward to a return to routine and consistent bed times, but it's been fun and we have more adventures to go on before the snow comes. In honor of a fun summer, here are some pictures that have yet to be posted. I recognize there are a lot more pictures of Clara than Henry, but that would be because Henry spent a good chunk of his summer out playing with friends. That's a good summer for a kid, right?

Henry:
Henry had a lot of fun with friends this year. He spent a whole lot of time outside. I love that we live in a neighborhood where there are so many kids his age that is almost as safe as any neighborhood can be.

Clara:
Clara tried to keep up with Henry, but I was not comfortable spending time outside of our yard without me. She did make friends with the adorable little girl across the street that is only a week or two older than her. Her vocabulary has skyrocketed since spring and I love hearing her talk. Two year olds say the cutest things in the cutest ways. One of my favorites is her need to announce me almost every time someone comes anywhere near us. "This my Mama." and "I need my Mama." Other things I love to hear her say are:
Beppy/Buppy - Pizza, which evolved to Puppies. Now she says "I want to eat puppies now!" Oh the looks we have gotten! Bahaha!!
Nanny - Candy
Mon - Come on
Bye-bye Wawa - hotel with a pool - She thinks the old Novel building is a hotel and begs to go every time we drive by.

Her nanny (candy) dress. Her absolute favorite Sunday outfit.

Clara's Bob Ross inspired trees and water

4th of July Weekend

July 1, 2016

Dance Camp

A couple Young Women in our neighborhood put on a dance camp this summer. Henry only participated in the last day, but he had so much fun, I left kicking myself for not signing him up sooner. I just wasn't sure how he'd feel about it, but he loved it! The girls did a good job teaching and the kids had so much fun.

Back yard camp out

Friday fun also included a backyard camp out! We had hamburgers, ice cream, and camping under the stars. This was on the summer bucket list and worth doing again!

July 2, 2016

Freedom Fest

Mr. Mike, the awesome guy at Henry's school that does reenactments for the school and for fun, told us we should check out Freedom Fest this year. It was so much fun! I couldn't believe how many activities there were for the kids to participate in!! We kind of followed the gun fire coming from the various demonstrations, but Henry did get to participate in a few of the activities and he had a blast! We'll do it again next year, only we'll go first thing in the morning before it is stinking hot.

July 4, 2016

This is one of my favorite pictures of the summer. They're watching fireworks and being sweet to each other. They're almost always sweet to each other, but it's not often you get a pictures of it. So sweet!

St. George Vacation

June 9 - 11, 2016
St. George and the swimming vacation

This year our goal is to get a certain 2 year old that driving long distances can be fun. This trip we decided on St. George. She made it down without total scream fest, but not without a lot of effort from everyone else in the car.

As soon as we made it into our hotel room, we all changed for a couple hours of swimming. Supper that night was especially of note because of how excited Henry was. We had a Cracker Barrel right next to our hotel!!! Henry's favorite! So night #1 was Cracker Barrel! With full bellies, we went to the St. George temple, where the kids had fun exploring the visitors center and temple grounds.

Hiking Snow Canyon

The stopped at the very first hike we could find as soon as we entered the park. We had no real idea of how long this hike would be, only that it went to lava tubes and we are fans of a good lava tube. We made good pace to the scenic overlook. We thought we had a ways to go, but when we got up the scenic overlook we discovered we were practically to the lava tube when we split off to go to the overlook. Henry and Nate scurried up the overlook while I kept Clara safely on the ground. Henry was awesome and grown up at the top of the mountain, while Clara helped me watch a bunny hop around and look for "rar" (dinosaurs). In hopes to make her day, I pointed out the first lizard I could find and convinced her it was a teeny tiny "rar". She was pretty excited.

(The outlook the boys climbed)

After the outlook we made our way to the lava tube. It was a bit steep to get down into the tube, so we decided not to climb down and the do a lava baby toss to get Clara down and then back out, so we headed to the car. This was not the best marked trail ever, so the way out was a little interesting. There was one intersection with particularly confusing signage. Nate and I were standing there trying to remember which way we came from. I vaguely remembered wondering where one trail went, so I was pretty sure which one we wanted, but not certain. In the mean time, Henry was standing there looking at his shoe, then the ground, shoe, ground, shoe ground. The says, very confidently, "Guys. These are my shoes. We came this way." We were pretty proud of our brilliant, never been trained to track, just knew it on his own tracker guy!

Seeing the Sights and looking for "Rar"

After the hike, a dead battery, a jump, and lunch in the car, we headed to find "rar" like we promised. We found our way to Johnson Farm, where they found all kinds of dinosaur tracks and bones on what used to be the edge of Lake Dixie. Clara was in heaven, discovering all of the dinosaur tracks and fossils. It was pretty need to see the remnants of the edge of the lake and all of the life that once was there.

(borrowed from dinosite.org because we took zero pictures)

We also visited Brigham Young's winter home and the home of Jacob Hamblin, who worked to build a relationship with the Native Americans of the area. More swimming concluded the evening. The kids were pretty worn out and happy to climb in bed for a show and sleep.

Driving Home & Cove Fort

Our trip home was almost melt down free and included a stop at Cove Fort. I was again happily surprised by how much there was to see and do there and how hands on it is for kids. The kids had fun seeing how the Hinckley family lived in the fort and what life was like for them. It made for a fun ending to our St. George adventure.