Warning: this is cheesy

Made this video tonight while playing around on my computer. It's cheesy and not very interesting, but thought I'd share it anyway. :) There will be funnier ones in the future now that I know how to do it. :) Enjoy!

We've got snow!

A foot of snow! Henry wasn't so interested in it because he mostly just wanted to play in the garage since he hasn't been able to play in there for a couple of months because it's cold out. Daniel said it's like when you get a child a present and they just want to play with the box. I guess our garage is Henry's box. :) It was fun while it lasted though and I'm sure as time goes on and there's a sled involved, snow will get more fun.

Hope you're all not snowed in and if you are that you are in good company sipping something warm! :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

My friend Ember, Elleny's mom, took some pictures of Henry the other day for our Christmas card. They turned out absolutely adorably! I think a cozy coupe is the only way to get a great Henry picture nowadays because he's just so busy. "Henry sit down and be still while I take your picture. And smile!" Not so much. :) Hope everyone's having a great Thanksgiving and enjoying yummy food and good company! We leave for St. Louis on Thursday to celebrate Christmas and I can't wait! And Daniel's parents might visit on Monday to celebrate a belated Thanksgiving with us. I'm going to feel so spoiled by so much family time! Happy Thanksgiving again!

Computer shots this week

Henry's babysitter, Devina, brought this costume over to him weeks ago. He always thought it was scary until his best friend, Elleny, wanted to put it on and wore it while over playing at our house. The other night he wanted to wear it to bed. Here's hoping Elleny never jumps off a bridge cause you know the saying. :)

He's finding his smile. :)

Contemplative with a tube of toothpaste 

And this is the "Daddy monster" that Henry loves. Every now and then it scares him and then him and Daniel have it all worked out that you just have to kiss the "Daddy monster" and he becomes just Daddy again.  It's one of my favorite things to watch right now. 

Hope everyone is doing good. Big election tomorrow! :)

Greetings from Bedrock!

From Oz to Bedrock! We had been planning to go to Iowa for Halloween, but at the last minute we asked Daniel's parents if they would mind coming here, mostly because on Saturday night I still didn't have any fabric to even start the costumes. Kenny and Shirley said that would be fine and we got the costumes done in 3 days! Daniel was actually the mastermind behind the costumes and accessories (making Henry's bone and the necklaces from clay). They all turned out spectacular and we had a great time handing out candy! We of course didn't go to far from our Flinstone's home that night because no shoes gets quite cold. :)

Henry wasn't loving the idea of dressing up. I think there must be something at the age of 2 about not wanting to look any different -- he doesn't like when Daniel takes his glasses off, when I have a towel on my head after a shower, etc. We struggled for a bit (as evidenced by the last 2 pictures), we gave up for a little bit and then I think he saw how sad I was and agreed to put it on just for a few pictures and that's how we got the picture at the top.

When he didn't want to put it on, I felt the impulse to use the mom card and force him to. Daniel reminded me to respect his wishes and I had to remind myself that he is his own being, a little being, but a being nonetheless. A being with ever growing independence and passions. And I can't fault that. :)

Happy Halloween everyone!
Love, Fred, Wilma, Barney, Betty and Henry :)

A slice of two-year old time

Henry: "Here's a booger mama." (smears it from his finger to mine)
Me: "Thanks Henry."
Henry: "It's from my nose."

It was the most beloved little booger this mother could have ever imagined.

This isn't going to last long, is it?

He loves the vacuum.  He likes putting new attachments on it.  He likes putting buttons in it (makes great noises when you do turn the vacuum on). He likes sucking up his shirt with the hose. He likes pretending to vacuum. He likes actually vacuuming. Unfortunately he doesn't have the muscle to maneuver it too much, so the same spot gets vacuumed over and over. And I'm guessing by the time he gets the muscles, this activity will have lost his interest. Figures, right?  But for now we have one really clean row of carpet in the house and a lot of fun. :)

A horse? A purse?

I use this blog so much for my own good of keeping track of memories to pass on to Henry so that when I'm old and senile and he asks me what his first food was I can look back and tell him. I make a book every 2 years of the enteries and all the pictures on Snapfish. A scrapbook of sorts.

So I'll share this story quick before I forget it:

I went to get Henry from a nap a couple of weeks ago.

Henry: I wanna see Daddy.
Me: Daddy's at work. Do you know what Daddy does when he goes to work?
Henry: Fixes cars.
Me: No, that's what Papa Tom does when he goes to work, but Daddy's a nurse.
Henry: A horse?
Me: No, a nurse.
Henry: A purse?
Me: No, a nurse.
Henry: Oh a nurse.
Me: Yeah, he works at a hospital with sick babies.

Now everytime we put our scrubs on he says "Go to work at the hospital. Take care of sick babies." I love these conversations we get to have now. :) So precious I need to write them down. That way the preciousness is always there to remember. :)

Green tomatoes and "baba"

It's been a while since I've posted pictures and I feel like there's so much to catch up on! But I'll just do a bit tonight and maybe bits more in the days to come.

Henry's been busy picking tomatoes out in the garden. He took his stroller back there yesterday and picked a whole bunch putting them in the basket in the bottom of his stroller. This would be wonderful except that 80% of them were as green as green could be. I'm hoping his ability to garden will improve with age. :)

Oh and big news -- no more "baba"! Henry and I went to St. Louis 2 weeks ago (I'll write more on this in an upcoming entry) and when we got home we thought it might be a good time to try him without it. We had been letting it get old and flattened for quite a few months so it was well pass its prime. At bedtime Daniel said "Henry, how about daddy keep your baba tonight? You're a big boy." And he surprisingly answered "Yeah." And that was it. I thought there'd be tears. I thought maybe I'd have to go for a walk  and get out of the house because the crying would make me want to cave to giving it back to him. I thought he'd be distraught. But no, just "yeah" and that was it. It's been 2 weeks now and he doesn't even mention it. His blue satin blanket and his bunny are his only comfort items now and we'd see a war if we ever had to take those away, but luckily we won't ever have to do that. Go to college with your blankee and bunny for all I care. Babas at college, though, would be... not so good. :)

Promise, more soon! Stay warm!

Play dough

Had to get a quick post in before September is upon us since I've never had a whole month go by without posting! The summer is just flying by and we're soaking every bit of it up by spending more than a couple hours outside every day. Henry loves playing in his sandbox, riding his motorized bike, playing in the hose and just about anything else out in the yard. Oh, and picking green tomatoes from the garden. Who says tomatoes should be red when you pick them? :) So, yes, a very fun summer indeed.

This was taken on a rainy day when we stayed inside and made play dough instead. He was completely amused by the texture and colors, which are now weeks later one big purplish blob, but still very fun. Making it I had a flashback to childhood. We (and by we I mean my mom) used to make this a lot growing up. I remember the smell of it cooking and the taste of the salt in it (1cup of salt! I LOVED eating it as a kid, maybe that's why I was a hypertensive 6-year old, just kidding). Anyways, good times had by all.

More posts soon, maybe even a couple more August posts!

Long overdue introduction!

I can't believe it's taken me this long to write about our newest addition, Percy! We got him weeks ago, but I kept wanting to get a picture of him and Henry together to put on the post. This took weeks and while I was trying to get the picture tonight I realized why it took so long -- animals and toddlers make horrible models. I'd get Henry in frame and then Percy would take off or vice versa. So although this is not the greatest picture it will have to do because I'm afraid if I wait for the perfect picture, I'd never get to introduce him. :)

So Percy... he's 7 years old and a miniature pinscher, though everyone thinks he has some Italian greyhound in him, which is what our last dog Teddy was. He has lived with Daniel's good friend Brigit for last last several years. Daniel had mentioned how we were thinking of getting a dog and she said she's been feeling like she doesn't have enough time for her dog. So the exchange happened! He flew on a plane from Las Vegas (where Brigit lives) and after a layover in Texas, he arrived! Brigit gave Daniel Teddy too so we knew we were going to been getting a great dog. And he is so good! Hardly barks, loves to just lay in the sun, and can't get enough of our walks to the park with Henry, though he seems like he could do without all the kids screaming and wanting to pet him once we're at the park. :) He's great with Henry and Henry seems to love him too. Trying to read to him, petting him lots and asking about him as soon as he wakes up and last thing before he goes to bed. 

Today Henry was playing in the house and said "Percy poo poo, mama." Not what you want to hear. Especially because we had just gone on a walk and he had pooped 5 times with the last poop being very watery. So I hesitantly followed Henry and he preceded to show me how he was pretending to pick up Percy's pretend poop with a thing over his hand just like I do when we're walking and I use the bag to pick it up. I'm so glad it was the pretend kind rather than the real stuff. :)

I'll write more later, here's a nice goggle picture to leave you with. You know cause the air can really burn your eyes if you don't protect yourself. :)

Virginia Beach

Where do I even begin?! My mom has talked about taking a big family vacation for years, maybe even a decade now. We all decided 2012 would be the year and it seemed like it would take eons for the time to come. My parents rented a house right on the beach which was so great cause the kids were playing nonstop in the sand and the brave ones in the water. The first day we were there the waves were so calm, but we didn't know this because we didn't have anything to compare it to. By the end of the week, we had seen waves that made the coastguard put the "danger" flags up.  But it was so beautiful just to watch even if we couldn't get in. :) 

The first day we saw dolphins swimming right by the shoreline. Close enough that I tried to swim out to them, but realized on the way out that I would eventually reach them and that made me a little nervous. What would I do once I was right by them? I had visions of "Flipper" and grabbing onto a fin and them taking me for a swim. Then in the next thought, I had visions of them biting me because they were in the middle of eating some fish that were jumping all around. So I swam back. :) But it was fun to see them swimming so close.

The second day, Jason and Kory, my brother-in-laws were brave enough to try out the kayak that my dad had rented. Daniel helped them get out past the waves, but then on their way in the kayak capsized and Daniel had to swim out to help them in. I wasn't out on the beach at that moment because I had ran back to the house to get my swimsuit on. Glad I wasn't too cause it sounded like it was slightly panicky for a bit. Needless to say after that none of us were brave enough to try out sea kayaking! :)

Henry seemed very cautious about the ocean and even the swimming pool at the house. I don't think he got in either one the whole week. He just wanted to play in the sand. And he was content out there for hours, too. Audrey and Emma played a lot in the sand too and I think he had a good time having two big "sisters" for the week.

We had such a great time just playing cards, doing a puzzle (a 1500 piece monster that was all seashells), walking on the beach, eating lots of yummy stuff and just being all together.

A big thank you to my mom and dad for making the week happen and financing the whole thing.

 It was a week that will be forever remembered!

All of these great pictures we had taken by a very talented photographer, Callie Hardman, who did a spectacular job organizing 15 people and all the different shots we wanted. If you want to see more you can go to: http://calliehardmanphotography.smugmug.com/Portraits/Breuer-Family/  password: breuer123

Thank you so much Callie -- we'll cherish these pictures for a long time!

Holy mosquito bites, Batman!

WARNING: this picture may cause you to wince in pain. It did for me. 

So this is how our sweet boy woke up 3 days ago after playing outside. I'm guessing mosquito bites, because this happened once before too. Doesn't it look awful?! Daniel moved his sandbox out from under the trees -- bye, bye shade, but also bye, bye swollen eyes and risk of encephalitis via mosquito bites. :) Here he is today all better playing in his sandbox in its new location.

Oh and he's making "I-cream" just like his cousins, Emma and Audrey, were doing while we were in Virginia. He even asks me "Cha-chip?" which is his way of asking me if I want chocolate chips in it. Then he brings it over just as they did and smiles as I pretend eat it. How quickly and accurately he imitates. :) I love it!

Hope you're tolerating the heat wave! And apparently the mosquitoes! :)

Two years old!

Henry has officially turned 2 years old!  We celebrated his actual birthday (6/15) while in Virginia Beach with my family. Made chocolate chip cookies (a double batch with no mixer -- thank you Daniel's arm muscles), sang happy birthday and opened lots of gifts. All the while, he was feeling a little bit beside himself cause I woke him from a nap because it was 6pm and he still wasn't up. You know what they say about not waking sleeping babies? It stands true for toddlers too. :)

A little bit about being 2. You are talking more and more. After coming home from vacation you really exploded with language development. I think we can thank your 5 nieces and nephews for that. You say things like "turn the TV off" and "humidifier." The other day Daddy said to you "you got your mom's beautiful butt" and you quickly repeated back "mom's beautiful butt." I guess it's in full swing now where we have to really watch what we're saying. :)

Your favorite books are: Goodnight Moon, Snuggle Puppy, Trucks and Trains. You also love hearing Aunt Anna's and both grandma's voices in the books that they have recorded for you.

Your favorite foods are: cheese (you've been known to have 5 sticks in one day), blueberries, bread (you'll say "cold bread" because you don't want it toasted)

Your favorite toys are: Bunny (he's in the picture below) who you do everything with. We've had to explain multiple times that bunny can't get in the bath tub. Poor bunny's mouth is so dirty from being fed, bottled, given medicine to, kisses, etc. You are also loving cars and trucks right now and play with a toy parking garage structure a lot. Papa O'Hara also made you a barn and you play with your animals a lot in there. Horses, lions, giraffes -- they all live harmoniously in the barn. :)

Your first babysitter: Devina Johnson, a coworkers daughter who is 16yo, just babysat you for the first time this past week. You did wonderful especially because you'd never had a babysitter before (well, Grandma and Papa Breuer watched you for a weekend when you were 7 months old). Devina said you cried for a little bit when you woke from your nap and we weren't there, but otherwise she said you didn't cry at all. That sure will make it easier for us to do more date nights. Especially because we spent our first wild and crazy date at Lenscrafters getting bifocals for Daniel. :) Hot, right? Well then we went to dinner. :)

We got these pictures taken by a friend, Denise, that Daniel and I work with. I'll be posting vacation pictures, too, in the next couple of days. We had such a great time, but I'll tell you all about it in the next post. Stay tuned!

The virtue of patience

Today we made chocolate chip cookies, which we do about once a week -- our indulgence. :) And Henry has quickly acquired a taste for them too. How could he not, right? But patience is always the hard part. He knows when we get the mixer out that cookies are being made and then it's oh so difficult to wait the 10 minutes to mix it all up and then 10 more minutes for them to cook and cool. 

It is a good lesson. We talk about how "we need to be patient." And I'm sure he thinks that means "crap, this is going to take a while." :) We're learning how to be virtuous. And in the meantime, enduring 20 minutes of impatience eventually brings a warm delicious cookie (or cookies, who am I kidding?) in our bellies. YUM!

Garden time!

Not a ton of time to talk cause we're planting the garden! Daniel's making Henry a green bean teepee which is the highlight! And we got 13 tomato plants from a friend at work! And Daniel's making me an arbor and benches! Can you tell I'm excited?! :)

Big changes

May is bringing big changes in lifestyle to our house. Daniel went to working evenings (3pm to 11pm) at work now and went down on his hours at work and I went up on my hours. This set-up has been our dream schedule for some time, but we couldn't just switch hours amongst ourselves because of rules at work. So finally they were able to grant my desire to go up on hours and then Daniel was able to cut back and simultaneously get an evening position. We just started it last week, but so far so good. I think it's really going to be great for both of us. Daniel will sleep so much better working evenings and is excited about being a mostly stay at home dad with Henry. I'm excited to get out of the house a bit more and really enjoy work. I'll miss Henry and Daniel on my long weekend stretch (five 12 hour shifts in a row), but then I'll have 9 days where I only work one of those days. Long story short, we're super excited about finally getting our dream schedules!

In Daniel's free time he built Henry a work bench that Henry's been loving and likes to pretend using a straw like a drill making "EEEEEEE" noises to imitate the drill. I see woodworking in his future. :)

Henry's been changing a lot lately with a vocabulary that just keeps expanding and doing lots of play talk where he babbles on and on about something very intently, but completely gibberish which is quite adorable! He continues to test his independence and is getting more picky with food. Most days he drinks lots of milk, eats cheese, apples, blueberries, peanut butter sandwiches, prunes, bananas, brown rice and crackers. Not big on meat lately, but will on occasion down a whole chicken breast.  We try hard to trust that his body knows what it needs and just make lots of things available to him. I do hope his dietary desires open up a bit with age though or he might just turn in to a piece of fruit!

We're one month away from going to the beach with my family and the countdown has truly set in! And hopefully with our new schedules well underway we'll be a happier more rested family, too! More later!

Peek-a-boo!

It probably seemed like we fell off the face of the earth -- a whole month has gone by! Henry turned 22 months yesterday and we're now just two months away from him being TWO!!! Yikes. Thought I'd just do a list of all the new and cute things I'm loving about him lately. I feel like if I don't write them down, I'll forget them for sure. I think I've already forgotten a few.

--- Loving "Papa"s. He's crazy about my dad and Daniel's dad, which is so stinky cute. He wants to sit on their lap, hold their hand, and talks constantly about "Papa." In the grocery store, anyone that has a mustache (my dad) or has white hair (Daniel's dad) is "Papa!!!" And sometimes the person that is being called Papa loves it and smiles and talks to Henry and some are like "Who you calling 'papa'?" and not so smiley. :) But it's cute everytime watching he gets so excited because he thinks he saw his Papa. Oh, and every surburban we see is "papa" too cause of my parent's cars. So adorable.

--- New words all the time. "Novel. Call. Playdough." And he strings words together like "Door. Keys. Bye-bye. Go. Car." in attempts to tell me that he wants to go the door, get the keys, go bye-bye in the car. Pretty advanced stuff, Henry. :)

--- Creating laughs is getting easier and easier. Daniel played a game with him the other day, saying "Pie in the sky up high, oh my!" because Henry's been noticing words that rhyme saying "Bye. Eye." out of the blue. This exclamation that Daniel does gets him going -- laughs and laughs and more laughs.

--- Lately he constantly wants to go bye-bye, but Daniel noticed today that he gets frustrated each time we get to where we're going, mostly the store. Daniel thinks when he says "bye-bye" he wants to go to the park because he's all about playgrounds right now. Slides especially. And he's so independent climbing up and sliding down (currently going down on his belly a lot).

--- Still really girl crazy with Elleny. Talks about her and loves when we get together to play with her. And they play so well together. No fighting... yet. :)

--- Big on singing "Happy Birthday." He usually  says "Happy. Papa." then I say "You want to sing Happy Birthday to Papa?" and he says "Yay-ya" (his cute way of saying yes) and then I sing Happy Birthday to papa. It may just be the first song he sings. We'll see.

--- Whining, which isn't so lovely, but we're working on it and we love you no matter what, Henry! :)

That's all for now. Here's a picture from last weekend with Daniel's parents. Kade and Kyra, Henry's cousins, turned 4 so we went to visit and sing "Happy Birthday!" :) Take care!

First haircut!

Before:

And after:

Video of the deed:

Henry got his first haircut this morning! It was definitely more difficult for Daddy and I than it was for him. He did great the whole time and was so quiet with his pacifier. He was a little suspicious about the lady with the scissors, but our smiling faces reassured him that she was okay. He looks like he had a complete makeover from baby to boy and looks so grown up. Where did our baby go?! But as much as I miss his baby-ness, I'm head over heels for his boy stage that's beginning.

"When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but so often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us." -- Helen Keller

Bye-bye baby! Hello little boy! :)

Play me a tune

Another video. I told you I was going to upload a lot of videos. :) 

Henry's taken to harmonica playing lately and it's pretty darn cute. He even dances as he plays. Today we sat on the front porch (it was B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L here today) and he played the harmonica for me. I felt like I was down south. We were just missing B.B. King. :) 

Have a great one! Henry and I go to St. Louis on Friday for the weekend and I can't wait to see my family. How come 2 months can feel like 2 years sometimes! I'll post pictures when I get back. 

P.S. The curling iron in the video was not hot -- just watched the video and thought that it might look a little dangerous. Don't call DFS. :)

Taking measurements

Henry loves when he gets to play with most adult things and daddy's tape measure is right up as one of the most coveted adult things. He then precedes to take measurements just like daddy does. Pretty precious. More soon.

Henry's first kiss

We try to discourage kissing on the lips with Henry (germs), but I couldn't stop this one. We have been getting together with Elleny, the daughter of a friend from work, about once a week for about 6 months now. They play fabulously together and talk about one another throughout the week too. They both decided they wanted to wear hats and Elleny's mom was taking some pictures. Then the feeling must have struck Henry because he planted one on her before I could even react. We'll have to start practicing kissing on the cheek because it looks like love is in the air. :)

Without further ado

I figured the video thing out on YouTube. So I'll have lots of videos in the next couple of days that I will upload. We taped this the other day at breakfast as Henry learned how to blow bubbles. I love his laugh!

Click here to view it on YouTube

It's set as private so you won't be able to search on YouTube for it, but if you click on the link it will take you there. Okay let the video sharing begin! :)

Corn starch goop and cream cheese frosting

I read in a magazine about a fun activity to do with your toddler that involved mixing corn starch with a little bit of water to make this goop. Then you stir it up and talk about the texture and have them play with it. Sounded messy (which is was), but fun to try. So before dinner (first mistake) I thought we'd give it a go and plan a bath for later on because I knew it would get messy. Henry stirs it with me and then quickly starts eating it. I thought that he'd realize that it doesn't taste like anything and stop eating it... nope! A couple of spoonfuls later I took the activity away because I was not sure what all that corn starch would feel like in your tummy.

I then got dinner ready, he was obviously hungry! He ate a big dinner and for dessert had the mixers to lick from some cream cheese frosting I was making. Now that stuff was good -- butter, cream cheese and powder sugar = YUM!!! He liked it too, as evidenced by the pictures.

I thought we could try the corn starch goop again, this time with a full belly. Two big heaping spoonfuls later, I decided I might have to wait a couple of years to reintroduce this toddler activity. Henry will eat ANYTHING, which works in my favor often, but activity time often ends in me having to remove the sand, the soapy water, the playdough, and I guess the corn starch, too. :)

Daniel's dad gets surgery on his hand tomorrow. He's getting his thumb joint replaced and we're all hoping all goes well. We're thinking of you, Kenny!

On a really random note, does anyone know a good website to download a video to share? I tried here on blogger and on YouTube and both take about 12 hours to download a 2 minute clip and then say it couldn't upload. hmmm. Just wondering if anyone out there has a better idea. I've got some pretty cute videos I'd like to share, but I'll just have to send you all a DVD if I can't figure it out. :)

Take care and try that corn starch goop thing out. It is really cool how it's really hard if you forcefully stick your finger in it, but if you go slow it sinks in, kinda like quicksand. Try it, just don't eat it. ;)

A good day!

My friend Donelle and her two girls, Ellie (7) and Ruby (soon to be 5), came to visit today and we had such a great time. It took about 5 minutes for Henry to warm up when they first came in the door and then a game of chase started between Ellie and Ruby and Henry was right in there chasing and giggling. I love watching him have so much fun with other kids. I worry because he doesn't get a lot of time playing with other kids, but he's just as social as any kid and it makes me feel less worried cause friendships make you happy. I felt it today playing with Donelle and her girls during Henry's nap time too cause we had some "girl time" and made hand warmers and neck warmers in the sewing room. It made me think "I'd LOVE to have a little girl someday." Until then, do mind just keep visiting Donelle? ;) I had such a great time and, yes, friendships make you happy.

Henry got up from his nap just as the girls were leaving and we ate some dinner and played. As I was cleaning up he came over to me like this. Goggles, a diaper, and some socks. A real HOT look, huh? He looks like a nudist pilot. :) Whatever he looks like, it's cute.

Dada and Henry

Two entries in two days! I know I'm on a roll!

I'll preface this one by saying 1. Henry's been big on pulling an arm out of his shirts lately. Most naps we will find him like this when we go in to get him. It doesn't seem to bother him and he's done it a few times while just playing. So this is why his arm is out. 2. Do you see the amusement on Daniel's face? He loves this! 3. You can also see the tolerance of Henry throughout these pictures. Completely unfazed by Daniel's shinanagins. I think that's love. :)

I love these two. :) Oh and don't get your hopes up, I probably won't post something tomorrow, but maybe I'll surprise you! :)