Happy 1/2 Birthday, Henry!

Weight: 16# 14.5 oz (50% percentile)

Length: 27 3/4 in (90% percentile)

Not too much bigger than his 4 month appointment, but he's right on pace to be a long string bean. :) He got a perfect bill of health and we don't go again until 9 months AND no shots that time!

Well at 6 months Henry, you're rolling over from your back to your belly constantly. You're still not quite sure how to get back to your back most of the time and after a while become quite frustrated that you're on your belly. We turn you over onto your back and over you go onto your belly. We do this for a lot of the day. :) You sit up pretty good, but still topple over if we're not supporting you. No teeth yet, but that hasn't stopped you from eating. You've now eaten: rice, pears, butternut squash, peaches, avocado, peas, egg yolks, and oatmeal. You are still being a great breastfeeder (though you're becoming increasingly distracted and like to play with my necklace as you eat) and you bottle good for daddy too. You play with your blue bunny the most right now, but are becoming increasingly interested in lots of toys. And most of all you just like looking at lights, being read too (we're reading Stuart Little right now and Daddy changes out "Stuart" for "Henry"), and giggling at us when we play with you. Daddy can really get you going when he says "Casters!" -- one day he said that talking about looking for casters at Home Depot and you laughed and it just stuck. :)

Six months Henry! We've loved every moment and we especially love you!

O Christmas Tree

We went to cut down Henry's first Christmas tree the day before Thanksgiving. We were worried about him being too cold, but he looked like he was having so much fun in the cold and with the snow. We found the one we wanted pretty quickly so that he wouldn't get too cold -- that's it behind us in the picture above. The place we went, Santa's Evergreens, is right by our house and the owner's couldn't be any more helpful and just so pleasant. We went last year, too, when Henry was still the size of a lemon. :) I have a feeling we'll be making this a tradition for a while. They said they just planted 3,000 trees this summer. Who knows, maybe next year we'll have another little lemon with us! (No news yet, I'll keep you updated!)

Here's the finished product all decorated. I just love sitting in front of it all lit up. Henry seems pretty mesmerized by it too, but isn't crawling yet to reek any havoc. :) Next year might be a little different, I bet. :)

Henry will turn 6 months in about 2 weeks and I'm thinking crawling is just around the corner. He flips back to belly and belly to back with pretty much ease and scoots (mostly when he's on his back). We have A LOT of baby proofing to do before the crawling starts!

He's been eating like a champ lately: squash, pears, peaches, avocado, brown rice cereal, and most recently peas. He always makes a disgusted face with the first bite, but then opens his mouth wide for a second bite anyway and takes it good from there on. I think he's getting his 2 front teeth soon cause his gums are looking a little red there. Hard to believe he'll have teeth soon! And we just bought him his first sippy cup last night!

Well, Henry and I are off to St. Louis tonight to celebrate Christmas. Daddy's staying at home to work. I'm sure I'll have pictures to post of Henry and family when I get back. Oh, and Saturday will be his first exposure to Santa. I'll post pictures next week! Have a good weekend!

Henry's first snow!

We got our first snowfall of the winter and about 5 inches of perfect snowman making snow fell. Henry went down for a nap this afternoon and Daniel and I got dressed up to go make snowmen in the backyard. We made a small family by Teddy's tree and then made a big one on the other side of the yard. We came back in after making them and waited for Henry to wake up. Then we put on his snowsuit and got the video camera and camera ready. Here's some of my favorite from the day.

Hope the weather's not too frightful wherever you are! Try to stay warm!

Look who's eating!

It's Henry and rice cereal. Though most of it is on his bib. His first feeding was yesterday, November 1st. We got video and I'm going to try to upload that onto here because it was pretty cute. He didn't like it much yesterday. His "yucky" face was really adorable. Then today he still showed his "yucky" face, but he opened his mouth a little more this time and seemed a little more interested in the spoon. We got to get him eating so that he can partake in the Thanksgiving and Christmas meals. :) I'll keep trying to convince him that it's rice today, but applesauce and mashed potatoes and squash tomorrow. :)

Oh and he started rolling over this weekend, too. I went out of town for a yoga retreat and Henry and Daniel stayed at home. I was gone less than 48 hours and, of course, he rolls over for the first time! But Daniel caught it on video on his cell phone and sent it to me. He's rolling belly to back right now, but I think he's close to mastering back to belly too.

He's learning something new everyday and it's just amazing to watch him take off. He's still sleeping through the night (8pm to 7am) most nights and eating like a champ (he took 8 ounce bottles for Daniel this weekend!) So we are counting our blessings that he's so easy going and hoping it just keeps on right through toddlerhood, grade school, high school, and college. :)

With Daniel and I both working night shift, we often take a picture just before bedtime to send to the person working. I'll leave you with a couple from this week.

Happy Halloween!

Greetings from the Scarecrow Family! Well, Henry wanted nothing to do with his costume, but we were able to get him to wear the hat for short periods. We "trick-or-treat"ed at our next door neighbors and Henry got his first candy -- Twizzlers and he became enthralled with the wrapper. :) We skyped some with family. Then we just hung out at the house giving out candy all night. A group of 13 or 14 year-olds told us we were "the coolest parents" because we dressed up. Is that all it takes to be considered cool by teenagers? I'm not quite sure, but we've got over a decade to figure it out. :) Hope everyone had a good one!

Dressed by Daddy

Yesterday, Daniel went up to get Henry after his nap and got him out of his pajamas. He brings him down and this is the outfit I see. I couldn't help but just laugh. There's been days where the outfit is a little mismatched and I don't say anything and just smile. But this outfit, the laughter was inevitable. Luckily, I didn't hurt Daniel's feelings, but he then asked "I know it's a lot of stripes, but what's wrong with it?" My response: "What's right with it?" At this point I had laughter tears streaming down my face because he had NO idea how bad this outfit is. I'm not sure he could have picked out two items that go any worse together. Both stripes, one navy blue and white and one black and grey, the top has a car on it, the other has a pumpkin on the butt.

It brought tears -- lots of them. It brings a smile to my face even now. It is incredibly endearing. It reminds me of my dad, who also has a hard time figuring out what "goes together."

I guess I will have to set Henry's clothes out before school when he gets older. Or else he might just get dressed by daddy. :)

Four months old!

Henry, you're already four months old! How come I feel like I've known you all my life? How come I can't imagine you not in my life? It's like you were always meant to be. Always destined to end up my baby. In my arms and holding my heart in your hands. You are the best gift I've ever received. I thank my lucky stars for your daddy who gave you to me. I love you both more than anything. Four months....

Stats: 15# 11oz (70th percentile)

26 3/4 inches (95th percentile)

Daddy says to me "I can't believe you gave birth to a baby giant!" Well, we love you "baby giant!" :)

Spending time with family

The first weekend in October, Daniel worked his first weekend stretch at work and Henry and I went to Iowa to visit family and go to cousin Mason's eight year old birthday party. Here was an attempt of getting a picture of all the cousins with Henry -- wow, that was difficult, but we captured the moment, with Henry tears and all. :)

We stayed with Daniel's parents, Kenny and Shirley. It's so fun going to visit and seeing Henry with his grandparents. I can't decide whose face lights up more. :) Plus, we got to go to an apple orchard and to the vegetable stand in Waukon -- I made lots of baby food when I got home. Here's hoping he likes apple sauce cause we've got lots of it! Thanks for such a great weekend Kenny and Shirley! And Happy Birthday Mason!

Then the following weekend, my sister, Emily, came up to visit for a few days. We had such a great time just hanging out, shopping, playing yahtzee and watching Henry be Henry. Oh, and watching "Biggest Loser" while we ate our large Cold Stone Creamery ice cream! :) Thanks for coming up Em! You're always welcome (especially if you'll eat ice cream and watch Biggest Loser with me)!

So now we have to wait until the holidays to see family, but we've got 2 trips planned to Iowa and 2 trips planned to St. Louis. I'm hoping Henry doesn't even realize that we live so far away from all of you guys. :)

Rockin' the knit pants

At what other point in your life can you wear knit pants and look this cool?! Only this point (especially if his daddy has any say in it)! :) No worries, Henry, the pattern only goes up to 24 months so I won't make you wear these to kindergarten or anything. :) But you sure do look cute!

Talented friend

My friend, Laura DeSouza, had come out to our house to take some pictures of Henry a month ago and I just had to put some of them up on the blog because I'm so impressed with her abilities! How come when I take pictures they NEVER turn out this good? She captured so many classic Henry faces that Daniel and I love. I'm printing these and putting them in my bedside drawer so I can always remember his cute little baby face -- which will come in handy on terrible toddler days and during the trying teenage years! :) Thank you so much Laura! I will cherish these forever.

ReSLUnion

Henry and I drove to Chicago a few weekends ago in mid September to get together with some friends from college. Daniel stayed home to paint our bathroom walls, which turned out so great! He was a trooper with us being gone and we all realized how much we missed each other when we were apart. Henry and I were both happy to see Daniel when we got home after being gone for 3 nights!

Like I said in a previous post, Henry was so great in the car. It took us about 8 hours to get there, but we stopped twice and took our time. Plus we hit Chicago traffic going into the city for the last 10 miles which took us about an hour to get through! Gotta love Chicago! :)

We went to see Erin, a friend from high school who also just had a baby, Eleanor, about a month after Henry was born. It's been a few years since we had seen each other and it was great catching up and getting to talk about the babies. Erin's husband, Jimmy, took this picture of Erin and I with the babies and I love how Henry looks like he's trying to talk with Ellie and she is looking so serious in return. Jimmy said "I want you to keep looking at boys like this for the next twenty years, Ellie... and the drool helps too." :) It was so great to see them!

Then we went to Laura and Justin's house and got to catch up with Samantha. We had just seen them 6 weeks earlier, but the babies had changed so much since then. We got lots of pictures of them together! We went for a walk with the babies in our wraps and a lady stopped and asked if they were twins! This is even funnier because they look SO different from one another -- Henry pale, Sam bronzed; Henry very boyish, Samantha all girl with her ginormous eyelashes.

We got to see Mary and Brianne and their adorable dog, Hershey, who was so good with the kids and made me really miss Teddy. Marcie and her little boy, Louis, flew in from Seattle. Marcie's due in Feb with a little GIRL! And we saw Amy and Jeff and their twin girls, Ella and Sophie, who came in from Cincinnati. Amy is also due in Feb with a little BOY! Jennie and James came in from St. Louis and Maria and Jess were there too.

It was so great seeing all of them again -- it had been a while. I loved looking at Louis, Ella and Sophie and seeing where Henry will be in just a year. They do grow so fast! Hard to believe that next time we all get together there will at least be 7 kids/babies and that Henry will most likely be walking! What a great weekend! Thanks for all getting together guys. I'm so glad Henry got to meet you all!

Naughtiness

We had our driveway repaved a few days ago and about an hour after the guys had finished up and left, I look out our bedroom window to admire the even black color of our driveway and see our neighbor and her little boy walking away from our driveway. Hand in hand. And the soles of his bare feet -- completely black! Then I see the little footprints in the corner of the driveway. I tell Daniel about it and we go take a look. We couldn't help but laugh and take a picture because the footprints were just too adorable. We checked with the neighbor and her little boy was fine; they got the black off his soles with just water she said. The footprints have disappeared now that the driveway is dry, which is kind of a bummer, since I thought it'd be a good reminder to laugh at the naughtiness -- we might just need that reminder soon. :)

Henry update

I can't believe it's almost been a whole month since I've written on here! Henry's growing like crazy (15+ pounds now) and I feel like each day he's doing something he hadn't been doing the previous day. He's screeching a lot lately. He rarely talks in a quiet voice with us. Mostly it's really high pitched screeches. They're really cute and you can tell that he thinks he's really cool that he can make such a loud noise. Plus, we laugh every time he does it, so why wouldn't he want to keep performing?! :) He's also sucking on his fingers a lot lately and, as demonstrated in the picture above, his forearm seems to be quite yummy for him too. I'm thinking if he's a forearm sucker later in life, rather than a finger sucker, he's going to look a little barbaric. Oh well!

He's been quite the traveler, going to Chicago a few weekends ago to see some college friends of mine and this weekend going to Iowa to visit Grandma and Grandpa O'Hara, Uncle Michael, Aunt Kari and cousins for Mason's birthday party. Daniel's back to work this weekend so it'll be another solo car trip with Henry, but he was a rockstar on the Chicago trip so I'm hoping for a repeat performance.

Aunt Emily comes in town next weekend on the 10th! And then we'll be going to St. Louis for Christmas the first weekend in December. It seems so far away, but I'm sure the time will fly now that we're back to work.

I'll post some pictures soon of our weekend in Chicago!

2 month pictures!

We got pictures taken of Henry a few weeks ago when he was 2 months old. They were taken by a photographer, Tamika Garscia, that had taken some baby pictures for a girl we work with and I loved the pictures. She came out to our house and got some pretty good ones. Here's some of my favorites.

You can see all the 130+ pictures she took by going to: http://www.tamikagarscia.com Click on "Client."

Then scroll down and click on "Henry -- 2 months!" Password: Breuer (which is case sensitive so make sure you do a capital "B").

We love the pictures and hope you do too! You can order pictures through this site or just let us know if you want a print. We have a disk with the rights to print. So just let us know and we'll get it to you!

A friend, Laura DeSouza, came over to the house and took some pictures of Henry too. So we'll have some more good ones. So much talent!!! And it's a good thing cause my pictures don't come out nearly as good. :) More updates soon!

The "uh-oh" haircut

Okay so Daniel's hair do. When we got back from St. Louis, our house had warmed up to a nice 90 degree temperature with the AC off for the week. After putting Henry down for the night, Daniel was ready to shed some hair and was wanting me to shave it! I've wanted to try cutting his hair ever since we started dating and the answer has always been "no." So I knew his brain just must be fried from the heat and we got started right away, before he changed his mind.

Daniel wanted about a 4 blade cut -- so that he still had some hair. We knew we'd do it in stages so we could get the funny pictures of mohawk, etc. We got some funny pictures including this one where I told him to act tough. Then he shaved the goatee off. All was going according to plan. I began to shave his head again and "uh-oh" I didn't see that he had taken the blade off!

BALD SPOT! Well once you have a bald spot you have to pretty much have to make it all even with the shortest, i.e. go completely bald! Daniel took it pretty well and was extremely forgiving. As time passed he was even joking: "When people ask me about my bald head, I'm going to say that I lost a bet with my wife. When they ask 'what was the bet?' I'll say 'That she could cut my hair.'"

It's now grown back a bit (probably the 4 blade cut he initially wanted) and I love it! He thinks he's grown to like it too. Sometimes mistakes turn out okay. Especially if you give it a few weeks. :)

The 'do

So yeah, there's a story to this, but we'll just let this pretty picture sink in. I'm going to bed, but I promise I'll explain the 'do in less than 24 hours. :) Try to be patient. :)

Henry goes to St. Louis and Branson

A few weeks ago we went to St. Louis for a visit. It was Henry's first airplane ride and he did really well. We flew Southwest where you don't have assigned seating and a guy in his 30s chose to sit next to us. I told him right away that it was Henry's first airplane ride and I really hoped he was good for Henry's sake, our sake and this poor guy's sake. He explained that we didn't have to worry; he had a 7, 3, 2, and 1 year old at home -- all boys! Yikes! The plane ride went without any problems and we landed in St. Louis.

The day we got in Emily came over with the kids and they all got to finally meet Henry. Emily had to fight for some holding time cause Audrey was extremely excited about Henry. You can see in this picture how disappointed she is that she's not holding him. :)

We stayed in St. Louis for one day (this is when we got to see Laura, Justin, and Samantha) and then we drove with my parents to Branson, where they have a condo on Tablerock Lake. My whole family went: my parents, my sisters and their families. It was so nice to spend a week with no distractions, just family time. Henry's cousins couldn't get enough of him and there was lots of arguing over who was going to get to hold him when he was awake and not eating. I got lots of pictures of each of them holding him, which in the years to come will be funny and sweet to look back on, considering they are all little yet, too.

The kids spent a fair amount of time on the boat (swimming, tubing, Liv and Grant got up on skis!, and swinging from a rope swing) and time at the pool. Since Henry was so little (7 weeks at this point) we didn't boat with him or swim in the pool, but in years to come, I'm sure he'll get lots of boat and pool time in! So we would hang back in the condo, play games, nap, and relax, which wasn't so bad considering the 100 degree weather.

It seemed like Henry had a calming effect on everyone! There was lots of pictures of sleeping Henry with a sleeping holder. :)

After 7 days at the lake, we headed back to St. Louis. We drove both ways (a 4 hour drive) with my parents and it couldn't have gone any slicker. We stopped when Henry needed to eat and we would all eat too. Then we'd be back in the car and he'd be sound asleep. Here's hoping I'm this lucky when Henry and I drive to Chicago in a month!

We were in St. Louis for a few days before heading home to Minnesota. We got to see my Grandma Rose, Aunt Sue, Uncle Tom, Sarah, Cash, Miah, Helen, and James. Here's a picture of all my Grandma's great-grandkids. I can't believe they all sat still for this picture!

And here's one of Henry with his only great-grandparent! The other 8 great-grandparents are ever present in thought. But I think Henry loved cuddling with Great-Grandma Rose!

And finally a picture of my sister, Anna, and Henry. I took this on one of our last days in town! I almost forgot again! I guess I just get so caught up in the moment that I forget about capturing the moment. :)

We had such a great time seeing everyone and missed everyone so much that we got Skype all hooked up. Now Daniel's parents, my parents, and my sisters have all seen Henry on Skype and it's been so fun to be able to see them too! Now we just have to get Michael and Kari set up with it. I think Henry's going to love this when he gets a little older and can call grandma and grandpa and Aunts and Uncles and cousins all he wants!

I will post again tomorrow -- Daniel's new hair-do!