Halloween

7 Month Clara

October 6th

You are so sweet!  Your 7 month birthday was while we were on vacation in Georgia and North Carolina.  A sweet lady at the swimming pool we went to gave you a purple sparkly hat.  You are so cute and happy that people love you every where you go.

Your favorite thing to say is "A-ba-ba-ba-ba". You have happy "a-ba-ba"s and angry "a-ba-ba"s. When you get mad, you swear it us.  Sorry, but we find it funny.

You love sitting up now.  You would rather see everything.  You sit up as much as you can in your car seat so that you can see out of the windows and watch what Henry is doing.  At home you love to sit up and play with toys.  You are getting very good at sitting up straight if you are leaned back a little.  You are also getting good at catching yourself so you don't tip over.

You hold your hands together all sweet and proper.

You like to sleep with me.  We are working on getting you to sleep on your own, but we all sleep reasonably well together, so we are having a hard time forcing the issue.  Daddy does end up on the floor sometimes, but the bigger you get, the easier it seems to be to all sleep together.

You still love Henry and he loves you.  Sometimes you get sick of him being in your space (either for hugs and kisses or for poking and playing) and you will use both of your feet, grunt and push to get him away.

I may have mentioned this before, but you are still a sweaty sleeper.  My shirt gets soaked while I hold you every night.  That's okay though.  I get to kiss your little jaw, cheeks, and nose, play with your fingers, hold your hands, eat your ear, pat you on the bumm, pet your soft head and I love it all.

You love real food!  If we are eating, you should eat.  You started on them a week or so before your 6 month birthday and haven't slowed down.  Today you ate almost 3 whole large containers of baby food. Two of them had rice cereal mixed in.

You do not love picking raspberries, as we can tell from your face while you're in the wrap on my back.  We, however, love this picture!  And we love you so, so much!

North Carolina and Flying Home

We stayed at Lake Lure, NC.  We had a nice cabin close to the lake.  The cabin had a pool table and a dart board.  I think Henry could have played pool all week and had a blast.  He was pretty excited when we went down to the lake and found some peddle boats.  Daddy, Henry, Nate and I went on a peddle boat tour around a tiny section of the lake.  We saw a ton of turtles, got some sun and 3 pairs of sore legs.  You can guess which pair was totally unaffected by a new form of exercise.  (Hint: It's the pair that couldn't really reach the peddles.)  

  Later that night, we went on a real boat tour of the lake.  It took us around the whole lake in half the time.  It was a lot of fun and beautiful!

Our very first morning at the cabin Henry practiced fishing off the back porch.  That very same morning he had liver pudding with eggs and toast for breakfast.  He loved liver pudding!  Even stole mine off my plate.  The boy is part Southern!

We spent two days at the Biltmore House, or the "castle".  I thought Henry would think it was boring, but he really enjoyed it.  His favorite part of the house was the swimming pool in the basement.

The first day, we did the self guided house tour then got to the shops just in time to get some ice cream.  After the ice cream, we walked around the gardens.  I cannot imagine having a yard like that!  So beautiful!  I don't know if I like the gardens or natural spaces better.   

I would not have guessed that Henry would want to go through the house the second day, but he did!  The second time around we had to go to the basement first to see the swimming pool.  I thought that after the swimming pool, he would be done and want to go outside and see more of the gardens, but we went back upstairs for a second time.  After the house, we went to the village that we missed out on the day before.  They had some cool demonstrations and things to play with or on.  We got to watch a wood worker turn a log into a box.  We watch the blacksmith work for a while and give some lady a bottle of the cooling water for her kids poison ivy problem. 

We went graveyard hopping/genealogy doing.  This meant driving all over to find teeny cemeteries hidden up in the hills.   We spent some time at Round Hill Cemetery, looking through our Johnson family graves and finding tombstones we had not noticed before.  While we were looking around, Clara got to hang out with a Johnson tombstone.  Henry spent his time taking pictures of all of the tombstones.  My phone is FILLED with his pictures of this cemetery.

At one point we were searching for this teeny graveyard.  We went around a lot of mountains and down a couple driveways that were not so welcoming.  Nate was pretty sure we were going to happen upon a some moonshine-ing, feuding family fight and be disappeared forever. 

We spent part of a day at a Seawell family reunion.  I have no pictures, but we got to visit with our extended Seawell family.  Henry made new friends and Clara met her very distant cousin, who is also named Clara and is basically the same age.  Afterwards, we found an apple stand so that Grandmother could take apples back.  Henry got his very own peck of apples.  I got some sourwood honey!  Oh the things I wish we could find in Utah...

There are a million pictures that I want to put in our blog book when I make it some day.  There are pictures that I need from Nate and Daddy, but I got some good ones too.  By the end, we were all pretty pooped.  Nate had to fly home early to be at work first thing Monday morning.  We drove Grandmother back home to Georgia and got to visit some old friends on our way.  I took this picture of the pines to show Nate.  He liked southern Georgia but didn't get to see this little town that I lived in until I was 8.

My pooped little children and I flew home all alone.  Mama and Daddy flew out about the same time.  I don't know if I would have made it without them!  The kiddos and I had a layover in Denver.  Both flights we got all kinds of horrible looks.  We occupied 2 of the 3 seats in the row so I did not settle everything in until we found out who was sitting next to us and offered them their choice of seat.  One lady that was sitting a row or two back (who was initially GLARING at me) nodded in obvious approval when I told the flight attendant my plan.  After a very good flight for the kids, I'm pretty sure she even cracked a smile at me on the way off the plane.  While we were waiting to board the next flight, there was a group on their way to a health drink conference in Salt Lake that complimented the kids on how well they did.  I was WAY nervous about being alone with the kids for these flights, so I was happy to hear that I was not the only ones impressed with how wonderful my babies are.

I am so glad we were able to go on this vacation!  We needed the break and it was wonderful to get to the South again!  It was fun to spend time with Grandmother, Mama and Daddy and make some great memories!

First Day of Preschool

September 3, 2014

Henry started preschool!  I think he is excited about it, although you would not guess it by his first day of school pictures.  I think he has a great teacher and I am excited for him to take this little step towards being all grown up.

A teeny window into Henry today.

When I grow up I want to be: A firefighter and a builder.
My favorite colors are blue and green.
My best friend is Clara.

5 Year Old Henry

Can anyone believe my baby is getting so big?!

He comes up with the best expressions!  They sound so grown up and are said with such passion, you can't help but love them.  One such expression is "We have a situation!"  Said with hands and everything.  I love it!

Henry is a persistent negotiator and has excellent reasoning skills.  He is becoming quite good at applying both of those skills.  It is exhausting to parent a negotiator but there are several qualities that people do not like in children but cherish in adults.  His ability to apply reason and negotiation is a useful skill that we do not want to kill.  We are just learning how to work with it.

Henry is a loving, helpful big brother.  He loves his sister so much!  From the moment he wakes up until the time he goes to bed, he is excited to do things with Clara.  He hates it when she takes a nap because he misses her.  He is practicing being patient and waiting for her to wake up on her own.  I love how much he loves her and how much she loves him back!

He loves to pretend!  I think this is a fun stage.  He is big into Star Wars and I absolutely love listening to the battles, trucks talking to each other, all kinds of things.  He still plays trucks and building, but the buildings and the trucks play in to the scene he has set up.  His building skills are getting pretty good too.

Now that Henry is 5, he is excited to do all of the things that big kids do.  Ride the bus and go to school are the biggest.  He does not quite understand why he cannot do these things yet.  You go to school when you are 5.  He is 5.  Why can't he got to school?  (Missed the cut off.)

We love our Henry!  He's the sweetest Henry we know and he is getting so big!  He knows he is getting to be a big kid, and tries to live up to it but sometimes he wants to be my baby.  He still loves to curl up in my lap and crawl into bed to hug up.  I know these things won't last much longer, so I am going to love it as long as I've got it.  I love my little boy!

Flying to Georgia

In our year of vacations, we were able to visit Georgia and North Carolina!  This was Nathan's, Henry and Clara's first trip to Georgia.  We did not get any pictures of Clara on her first flight but she and Henry both did very a great job being so good!

Mama and Daddy flew in the day after us, but that left us with a whole day to play and see Georgia!  We wanted to go to the laser show after we flew in, but I think that may have been too much for the kids.  Instead, we drove around Winder and got to see the sights.  Sunday we were able to visit the lovely people of the Winder Ward that were part of my childhood.  I wish I could have seen more people while we were there, but I am so glad I did see so many!

We were meeting Mama and Daddy in Macon that evening, so after church we started down.  On our way from Winder to Macon we hit up the first Brusters we could find and then drove to Stone Mountain.  We got there just in time for the last tram up to the top.  Some nice lady pulled us out of line and gave us her friends and family passes!  We all had fun seeing Atlanta from the top of its only mountain.  Some day we will go back and do the hike, see the laser show and maybe stay in the hotel in the park.

That night, we met up with Mama and Daddy.  The next day (Henry's birthday!!!) we drove to Albany to visit Grandmother, Faye, Cindy and Jan.  They had a birthday party all planned and ready for Henry when we got there.  Henry got to meet cousins he didn't know he had!  He still asks about the cousins whose names he does not know (my cousin Will and his family).  :)  

We enjoyed our trip to Georgia.  Next time we go, we are picking some cotton, seeing a laser show and visit more old friends.  If we really have time, I have a whole lot of things I want to show my little family, but we made a good start!

Washington Adventure

This year is the year of traveling.  After our Idaho trip we decided to go on a trip to Washington to visit Grandma Talbert.  This time we decided to try to make it all the way to Tacoma in one day.  When we go to the north west, we usually stop half way-ish and break up the drive.  The day before we left we decided that the car probably needed to be checked out by our favorite local mechanic.  The car needed a new timing belt and our wonderful Mr. Abbott took care of it before we had to leave in the morning.  (We really love our mechanic!)  But, because we had to have a new timing belt we weren't able to leave at 4 in the morning like we had planned.  We got out of the house about 9:30 and made it all of the way to Tacoma!

While we were there, we visited with Grandma, swam at the hotel and checked out Nate's old stomping grounds.  It was good to see Grandma and visit with her for a weekend.

It happened that we were in town for "Milton Days".  We were able to watch a parade (where someone in the parade recognized Nate and shouted at him but Nate didn't get a good enough look to figure out who it was.  I'm still curious about who that was.)  Henry also got to play on some tanks that were at the festival and play on the exact same playground equipment that Nate played on when he was little.

Henry likes to build himself a tent when were on road trips.  I love the tent.  We have good car kids.  I couldn't count the hours we spend in the car together going on adventures.

This adventure got a little more adventurous than we really care to get.  We were coming down the middle of Washington on I-90 when I decided that I was a little bored of the Pendleton to Boise stretch of the drive and that it would be REALLY fun to take the slightly longer drive home through northern Idaho and Montana.  We saw some cool new country and enjoyed the drive.  Then we pulled in to Spokane.  We were winging it and finding a hotel when we got as far as we wanted to go that night.  When we called the first hotel on our list we learned it was going to be a LONG night.  He informed us that ComicCon (or some Con) was in town, along with school starting back up, plus some other event and every hotel in a 200+ mile radius was booked solid.  WHAT?!  Surely that could not be true!  Clara was losing patience with with the car, along with the rest of us and we were ready to get out.  Nate and I started calling down the list of hotels in the area.  By area, I mean everything between Canada, Moscow, ID and Missoula, MT.  NOTHING!!!  Not even at the nasty, might be the lair of a serial killer, side of the road creepy places.  NOTHING!!!  We decided to just drive.  It was dark and I think we missed a lot of pretty mountains.  What I saw before it was totally dark made me want to go back in the daylight when there are open hotel rooms.  As Nate drove, I broadened my call radius and constantly harassed every hotel clerk, asking about cancellations.  About 10:30 I FINALLY found an opening!  It was at a Days Inn, 12 miles south of Missoula and the interstate.  It was well after midnight and we were so very grateful for, literally, the last room in the Inn, I mean in western Montana, northern Idaho, and eastern Washington.  The next day the tension had subsided and we were able to enjoy the remainder of our BEAUTIFUL drive.  We want to go back some time.  Certainly not an adventure we'll forget!