Henry's favorite things

• Climbing
• Pointing
• Driving trucks (and saying 'vroom')
• Throwing balls
• Giving open-mouthed kisses
• Biting (uh-oh!)
• Developing new tricks (like "upside down Henry")
• Being with Daddy (his favorite person in the whole world!)

Madeline's favorite things

• Coloring and art projects
• Dressing up like a princess
• Disney princesses
• Having a "dance party"
• Singing her "new songs" (every song is new)
• Watching movies and The Backyardigans
• Reading books

Fun with friends at the Children's Museum!

There are some shananigans captured in these pictures, and not surprisingly it was the Knutson kids that were the instigators. Henry taught Finn the "let's put the grimy balls in our mouth" trick and Madeline was all about the face paint. It was great to get the kids together! (Our friend Sam was there, too.)

Sick little Henry

Our little babe has been sick, sick, sick. He had the norovirus last week and today he has pink eye. Poor guy. His eyes are all red and he's got a terribly runny nose. The good news is that he has hardly ever been sick before this, so I guess we should be grateful that this is his first real string of illnesses.

He had his 1 year appointment. He is 33" tall (97%) and weighed 25 lbs, 6 oz (80%). Everything checked out a-okay, which we continue to be grateful for. Now that he's one, we've cut down two daytime bottles, but he still has a morning bottle and an evening bottle before bed. We've also introduced whole milk during meal times, which he has either completely rejected or guzzled down depending on the day.

The only other *BIG* news is that Henry has officially taken his first steps! Nathan said he saw them last Friday, but I think I saw his first *real* balanced steps tonight. We've been playing "pass-the-Henry" between Daddy/Madeline on one end and Mommy on the other. Madeline is so proud of her little brother. It's pretty fun to all be excited about his first steps together. It'll be interesting to see how long before he ditches the crawl all together.

Hope all of you are keeping healthy and staying warm!

Henry's 1st birthday party

And the fun just doesn't stop around here.... on Saturday, we had Henry's first birthday party, complete with a hint of Masters of the Universe undertones, which included "He-Man is my homeboy" custom t-shirts, a He-Man cake, and a Castle Grayskull display. (P.S. if you ever want to get a rise out of Nathan, then just ask him how his various He-Man e-Bay bids went. He has unbelievable "luck.")

Henry was in such a great mood. Lucky for him, he had big sister Madeline nearby to take over unwrapping the gifts. He also was a great performer - completely digging into his blue angel food cake with absolutely no prompting or help. He had blue icing up to his elbows!

Thanks so much to all of our family for celebrating Henry's birthday with us and to our friends for the birthday wishes! What a fantastic year it has been for our family....

Halloween 2008

We had quite the entourage join us for trick-or-treating this year, and it was so much fun to have all of our family together for Halloween.

Henry was a puppy dog, Madeline was a kitty cat (who did her own make-up), and Landon was Horton the elephant.It was the first year that Madeline really "got it," and it was hilarious to see her literally run/run from house to house. It was tricky to get all of the prompts down - "trick or treat" then "thank you," especially when we got tired near the end. At one house, the man was saying you can take one more, then another, then another. After her third dip into the candy bowl, she asked "can I have one more?"












Lots of mediocre pictures here, but I challenge any of you to get a decent shot with two 1-year-olds and an independent 3-year-old.

Lots of visitors this weekend!

With Halloween and Henry's birthday party so close together, it was a good excuse for a long weekend with our family. Nathan's sister Laura was in town from Chicago, my mom and sister Amanda were in town from Indy, and my other sister Katie and nephew Landon were in town from Philadelphia.

Trying to get 3 kids to look at the camera at the same time is an impossible feat, so we didn't try too hard....