Henry gets so excited when we get ready to go outside. He will get his shoes and coat when you ask him where they are (he got his coat last week when I asked him where his clothes were… I guess “coat” and “clothes” are pretty similar). He really loves his hat and gloves! They are a set given to us by Tyler’s grandparents in Oregon. He laughs when I put on his hat and again when I put on his gloves and make sure his thumbs are in the right place. The other day we went outside and took a walk together and he had so much fun slipping on the ice while I held his hands. It is so great how much happiness he finds in little things!
soft sunrise
Another one - this time a bright show of colors
Amanda at 12 weeks
I am not sticking out my stomach in this picture. It took longer for me to start getting bigger this time around, but I think I am making up for it now as I’m moving into the second trimester…
Henry with his new toy - a Mr. Potato Head from his Aunt Lindsay
Helping mom with laundry - thanks, Henry!
It looks like he is singing me a song in this picture, but it was probably a happy squeal. He loves to crawl around on clean laundry and has a blast trying to stand up on the piles of clothes.
Eating a pear through the core
Henry still has quite the appetite. Sometimes I just give him a piece of fruit to work on, since it takes him a while to get through it and he can walk around while he eats. (ie I don’t need to be in the kitchen making him food or cleaning up after him) He is adamant that he eat fruit straight through the center, and gets very mad if you try to rotate the fruit for him. The other day I sliced an orange up and he really wanted a piece that wasn’t opened up from the peel, so I finally gave him one and he ate right through the skin to the orange. He didn’t act like it was tart at all!
Eating an orange slice - right through the peel!
orange peels taste good
ravenous
pretty much done - whew!
As a side note, you may notice in the pictures that Henry has a rash around his mouth. I think it is because his skin is sensitive and his mouth is wet a lot with all the eating, washing off, drinking, etc. So we have tried Vaseline and Eucerin, but I am now moving to hydrocortizone cream, after checking with his doctor that it is safe to use around the mouth. Hopefully it goes away!
This evening we cut Henry’s hair. I mean I cut his hair while Tyler showed him a video. It’s great because Henry will sit still like a stone statue while he is watching a video. So I can sit next to him and cut his hair. Once in a while he will pull away but for the most part he completely ignores me.
Haircut for Henry
And here are a few videos:
Here’s Henry and his belly button. Usually he gets it right on and does it a few times in a row but this is the second time we quizzed him that day…
Henry has also been dancing a lot lately. He is making up some fancy footwork and still loves to turn around in circles and move his head. His ultimate move is squatting down over and over but we have yet to get it on camera. Henry is always busy so dancing sometimes happens while he is doing something else - walking around, carrying something, looking at a book, etc.
(Pardon the mess, we are doing some major spring cleaning at our house!)
This weekend I’ll be rounding up my 12th week of pregnancy and moving on to the 13th, which means the much-anticipated second trimester is right around the corner! The highlight of this week was going to my 12-week appointment and hearing the baby’s heartbeat for the first time! That was definitely my favorite part of every appointment when I was pregnant with Henry, and I think it will be the same this time around. It is just so miraculous to me that there is a separate (well, sort of) and distinct being inside of me with its own sweet little heartbeat. My midwife said it was in the 160’s, which indicates a healthy fetus. We feel so blessed to have another baby on the way. I have a feeling this pregnancy will seem to go faster than my first.
Henry is changing every day. He can now point to his belly button and his nose. (we’re working on his other parts) I feel very lucky to be with him so much, even during his little fits and frustrations. When he is very upset he hits his head against things and then starts crying. If there is nothing close by he kneels down and bumps his head on the ground, somewhat carefully. I can’t help but laugh to myself sometimes because it is such a passionately sad display. I can’t believe he has become a toddler!
We are expecting our second child this August, and we are very excited! I have been sick the past 6 weeks but hopefully that will go away within a week or two so I can start enjoying the pregnancy more. It is much more fun to eat a lot when you aren’t sick before and after meals!
Backing up a bit, we had a fantastic Christmas with Tyler’s family in Provo. Henry was entranced with all the Christmas decorations, especially the tree. His favorite ornaments were the candy canes and he helped himself to whatever he could reach until we moved them all. Christmas Eve was spent with extended family and we had a great time with everyone. Tyler participated in the traditional Naytivity and we all enjoyed Christmas treats. Christmas morning was really fun and Tyler surprised me with some gifts I wasn’t expecting. Henry was showered with lots of toys and specialties, including fancy sippy cups, a dinosaur, push-cars, and the cutest little stuffed dog ever. We only took one toy for him - a refrigerator magnet toy that he mostly uses for dance music. Henry also got to know his cousins, Garrett and Caleb, much better! He came away with two new words: Grandpa, which came out as a mix between “umpa” and “bubba,” and Grandma, which came out as “umma.” I think he has memorized the words and actions to “Ram Sam Sam,” for which he will readily give you his hands to help him perform. He also learned how to go down stairs the right way - backwards!
We spilled the news of my pregnancy to our families over Christmas dinner. This was Tyler’s idea, since exactly two years ago we announced I was pregnant for the first time during the same dinner, with everyone around the table. Tyler’s parents were joking and asked him if he had any news, and then Tyler clinked his glass, cleared his throat and then said “well, actually…” and at first no one believed him. No one, that is, except those who had noticed me eating everything in sight and acting unusually lethargic and ill. I figured everyone would suspect by then!
We spent New Years Eve at Tyler’s family’s house. Tyler’s extended family joined us in a celebration of food and entertainment. By tradition, all the girls gather together and watch a stage-video version of “The Little Matchgirl,” and I joined them for the first time this year. Very interesting experience. I don’t recommend this film to anyone…
Toward the end of our vacation in Provo, I started to get depressed about going home when I was still so sick, especially after getting so much help from Tyler since he wasn’t at work all day. So we postponed my trip home (thank goodness for Southwest!) and I went to stay with my sister Sabrina for about 10 days. What a saint! She totally made me comfortable, changed Henry’s diapers, made me food, talked to me and just let me lie around and be sick. I did miss Tyler a lot, especially when Henry would wake up and call “Dada!” like he sometimes does in the morning.
While I was away, Tyler worked on his computer, got a lot of hours in at work, and watched plenty of movies. He also started going to the gym regularly, which hopefully we’ll both keep up this year! Something else to report from the end of last year - Tyler got a really great rating at work! I am so proud of his hard efforts to succeed in his position, and glad that he was recognized for it. Here’s to his first year of work as an engineer!
So now I am home with Tyler, and starting to feel better. Hormones are crazy things. I really thought things would be different this time around, since I have very little stress in my life. But I guess it is more biological than environmental. We have had some beautiful warm days, so Henry and I have gone out for walks in the clean air. So nice. I am now further than a fourth of the way through my pregnancy! That is definitely exciting.
Henry is doing great and getting more mature every day. His favorite place is still his high chair with food in front of him. He now wants to do everything I do - comb my hair, flush the toilet, pick things up, put shoes on, wipe with the sponge, and especially cook. I am afraid for the day when he can open the fridge and the oven! He is very smart and shakes his head “no” a lot. That’s the default, so if I say “did you poop?” or “do you want to get down?” he almost always shakes his head. If I asked a question he should definitely say yes to, like “do you want a candy heart?” he won’t do anything for a second and then he will smile or give an anxious little squeal. He still loves baths and wrestling. Henry has also learned how to kiss, although we need to work on the open mouth thing! Watch out, Sydney! (his little girl friend) So far he will only kiss me, although he will kiss his stuffed animals if you tell him to sometimes, so he is starting to branch out!
So besides Henry’s teething bouts, this week has been really busy. This is what Tyler began doing a week ago:
Getting everything laid out
Intense!
What is all that stuff?
Proud - and maybe a little worried
All the parts came in on Thursday or Friday, so Tyler had is work laid out for him. He woke up early on Saturday and pretty much took over the whole kitchen, since we have carpet everywhere else and static electricity is bad for building a computer. It took him overall about 4 hours. He was worried that something would go wrong and it wouldn’t turn on, but it did the first time he tried! He just had a few wrinkles to crease out over the week, and he did a great job. We now have a computer with amazing capabilities that you can’t buy anywhere. (That’s all I know - I’m not one for computer specs!) It has a lot of memory and boots in about 35 seconds, which I thought was long until I turned on one of our laptops and counted to 60. Tyler has much more to say about his really cool computer in a later post…
Henry and I met friends at the Y a couple times, did a lot of errands as well as Church-related duties, and did some baking at home. His favorite part of the week was probably a visit from his girl friend, Sydney. Their personalities are coming out more and more so it is so cute to watch them interact. Laura suggested Sydney give Henry a kiss so she followed Henry around puckering up her lips. Usually he is the one following her! He thought it was the best when she hid behind the curtains and then came out again. They kept each other busy for a while!
Sydney puckering up for Henry
Shy Henry
Sydney giving Henry a hug
For now, we are busily preparing for a big trip to Utah to see Tyler’s side of the family! The whole family will be together for the first time in a few years, which is pretty exciting. I know Henry will have so much fun playing with his cousins! We leave on Tuesday, so we just have a couple more days to prepare…
We found out at Henry’s 15-month checkup last week that four back molars are coming in at the same time. One has broken through the skin - maybe that’s why he was so fussy during Thanksgiving! He has had trouble off and on the last few days, and tonight was pretty bad with saliva, runny nose, hot forehead and crying. He wouldn’t eat anything for dinner except macaroni and cheese. The poor little guy… I hope they come through soon!
Things have been drab outside with a freezing cold storm the past few days, and they have been pretty drab inside since I have had a cold. Henry and I have fun here and there but it is hard to be cooped up like this. Going outside has been tough since it keeps getting below 0. So, to lighten everyone’s minds I thought I’d post something humorous. My cousin’s wife posted this on our family website and we thought it was funny. It is an article by Dave Barry.
This is the time of year when we think back to the very first Christmas, when the three Wise Men — Gaspar, Balthasar and Herb — went to see the baby Jesus, and, according to the Book of Matthew, “presented unto Him gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh.”
These are simple words, but if we analyze them carefully, we discover an important, yet often-overlooked, theological fact: There is no mention of wrapping paper. If there had been wrapping paper, Matthew would have said so: “And lo, the gifts were inside 600 square cubits of paper.
“And the paper was festooned with pictures of Frosty the Snowman.
“And Joseph was going to throweth it away, but Mary saideth unto him, she saideth, `Holdeth it! That is nice paper! Saveth it for next year!’
“And Joseph did rolleth his eyeballs.
“And the baby Jesus was more interested in the paper than, for example, the frankincense.”
But these words do not appear in the Bible, which means that the very first Christmas gifts were NOT wrapped. This is because the people giving those gifts had two important characteristics:
1. They were wise.
2. They were men.
Men are not big gift wrappers. Men do not understand the point of putting paper on a gift just so somebody else can tear it off. This is not just my opinion; this is a scientific fact based on a statistical survey of two guys I know. One is my son, Rob, who said the only time he ever wraps a gift is, quote, “if it’s such a poor gift that I don’t want to be there when the person opens it.” The other is my friend Gene Weingarten, who told me he does wrap gifts, but as a matter of principle never takes more than 15 seconds per gift.
“No one ever had to wonder which presents Daddy wrapped at Christmas,” Gene said. “They were the ones that looked like enormous spitballs.”
I also wrap gifts, but because of some defect in my motor skills, I can never COMPLETELY wrap them. I can take a gift the size of a deck of cards and put it in the exact center of a piece of wrapping paper the size of a regulation volleyball court, but when I am done folding and taping, you can still see a sector of the gift peeking out. (Sometimes I camouflage this sector with a marking pen.) If I had been an ancient Egyptian in the field of mummies, the lower half of the Pharaoh’s body would be covered only by Scotch tape.
On the other hand, if you give my wife a 12-inch square of wrapping paper, she can wrap a C-130 cargo plane. My wife, like many women, actually LIKES wrapping things. If she gives you a gift that requires batteries, she wraps the batteries separately, which to me is very close to being a symptom of mental illness. If it were possible, my wife would wrap each individual volt.
My point is that gift-wrapping is one of those skills — like having babies — that come more naturally to women than to men. That is why today I am presenting:
GIFT-WRAPPING TIPS FOR MEN
– Whenever possible, buy gifts that are already wrapped. If, when the recipient opens the gift, neither of you recognizes it, you can claim that it’s myrrh.
– The editors of Woman’s Day magazine recently ran an item on how to make your own wrapping paper by printing a design on it with an apple sliced in half horizontally and dipped in a mixture of food coloring and liquid starch. They must be smoking crack.
– If you’re giving a hard-to-wrap gift, skip the wrapping paper! Just put it inside a bag and stick one of those little adhesive bows on it. This creates a festive visual effect that is sure to delight the lucky recipient on Christmas morning.
Here are some fun videos of Henry we have taken lately.
This one is from Thanksgiving, when he realized what fun baby swings can be.
Toddlers love to get dizzy.
Henry loves to play on top of the washer and dryer, and yesterday he figured out which button starts the dryer. He is very proud of himself and claps whenever he does something he thinks is neat.
My favorite - hopefully this is the beginning of a trend! Henry was walking around and using my glasses cleaning cloth, and left it on the coffee table at one point. It was so cute to see him cleaning the walls, door, etc.
Tyler’s cousin, Sam, actually gave us the tree a few years ago, but this is the first time we have put it up. It still needs decorations, which Henry and I are working on. It is so much fun to decorate for Christmas! When we were in school we put up icicle lights along the ceiling molding in our apartment, and one year we put lights on our sad, dying palm plant. But this is the first year we have gone a traditional route, wreath and all. Although we will be in Utah for the holiday, it is nice to have our house looking and feeling festive.
The chalk board came this week as a gift from some friends of ours who used it for school but don’t need it anymore. I can’t wait to get some chalk and show Henry how to draw on it! We will probably bolt it to the wall a few inches up from the ground. I think it would be fun to convert half of it to a magnet board, but we’ll see…
Tyler began ordering his “super cool computer system” today. I’m a little nervous, but he knows what he is doing. We almost bought a screen this week, but decided he should order his computer parts so he can start assembling the computer before we get a screen for it. He has organized his part-buying in four “waves” because there are so many components to put together, in sequence. Good luck, Tyler!
