Merry Christmas Everyone!

We are having a great time in the Isle of Man. Hope all of you have a great Christmas and we will see most of you state side in a week!

Isle of Man, here we come.

Wish us luck. Tomorrow night we have 3 flights, 2 layovers, and a 1 year old. Could be an ear splitting combination. It will all be worth it when we get to Great-Grandma Phyl and Auntie Ann's house to have a British Christmas on the Island!!

0 to 1

Dear Henry-
Today is your 1st birthday. I still am amazed that you are here: happy, healthy, and a really great little boy. You are truly a miracle. Your dad and I had a rocky road when we decided we wanted to be parents, we lost pregnancies, we were terrified that we could never have kids, and then after almost 2 years you came along. We don’t know why everything was healthy with you, but it was, and we are so grateful. December 4th you joined us, all 9lbs 3oz of you strong and healthy.

This past year has been a learning curve for us. Looking back at our first few weeks I can’t believe how much your dad and I have learned. A bath was a intimidating thought, keeping you clean, clothed, and fed involved a lot of planning and worrying. Now it is the least of our concerns. You are curious, walking, and getting into anything and everything that comes across your view. You have changed so much it is unbelievable. We are saying goodbye to our baby and trying to keep up with toddler Henry as you turn 1.

You are/were such a good baby. A lot of people that have spent time with you tell us that we are lucky to have a such good-natured baby. I agree. You are a pretty easy going guy, and most of the time you are happiest playing around with your dad and me. You started sleeping through the night at 3 months, sat up at six, crawled at 7 months, and the biggest life changer for us is you learned to walk at 11 months. Since then we have been following you around while you stumble and explore the house.

I should confess to you that I secretly think you are brilliant. Well maybe not so secret. The funniest thing I heard about parenting is that you can go through a span of an hour thinking your baby is a genius when he walks early, to worrying about his mental capacity when he tries to lick a dog. Yep, you do that. I think in your mind you are just returning the favor. What I notice is that you are amazingly quick at picking up concepts. Your grandma teaches you to shake your head “no” during the day and that night I am contemplating calling the Doctor for head shaking. You have mastered some words: ball, picture, Hazel, dada. Still no mama consistently. I’m trying not to take offense. You are just starting to test limits, the phrase “no touch” is more of a challenge to you at this point. You absolutely LOVE the dogs, and they are pretty good at putting up with you. You follow them around the house, you pinch, squeal, pull, and dive at them. They usually try to keep out of your reach or look at us with some pretty sad eyes if you are petting them.

This year was a pretty hard for me. Our family lost your grandma Kate in April. You saved me this spring. I know it is a lot of pressure to put on your little blonde head. The fact that every day you woke up and still needed to be fed, changed, still smiled, still were your happy little self; it wouldn’t let me lose myself completely. I am still struggling with the loss, and I’m still counting on your sheer glee when you see me come home at night to keep that balance. The toughest part is knowing how much she was looking forward to you, and it still is heartbreaking that you will never get to know her. I know she would have thought that you are amazing. She would have been one of your favorite people; she would have made sure of it :)

I love watching you and your dad. You spend most of your days with him while I’m at work and I’m really grateful he has a flexible job that lets you be at home with him. He is a great dad, and I am in awe every time I watch you two together. You definitely have your dad's spirit, you both love each other and love to goof around. You absolutely light up when your dad walks into the room. He is the first one you look to when you are unsure. If you want some comfort you toddle over to me, but if you are deciding if you are brave enough- it's dad you look to. He is always there with a cheer or a reassuring nod. I think you will think your dad is pretty great as you grow up; and I think he'll think the same about you.

Happy Birthday baby boy, I hope this year is as great as the last one, and I can't wait to find out what you have in store for us. I am so grateful that you are my little boy, love you kidlet.

Love,
Mom

Bath Time

Henry has been really getting into bath time. So much so that Eric and I are looking for rain gear to give Henry a bath. He loves non-stop splashing, take a look:

11 Months

Henry was 11 months on November 4th. The biggest news is that he has started walking in the last few weeks! He still only goes about 5 or 6 steps and then realizes what he is doing and promptly falls on his butt and crawls like a mad man. We have some video of Henry's favorite way to walk- from Mom to Dad and back again :)

Halloween 2010

This Halloween Henry was a lion. He looked pretty cute! The dogs were a little unnerved at the new 'animal'. They kept sniffing him to make sure it was Henry :) We went to the zoo for a Halloween event and then hung out at our house and greeted the trick or treaters. Henry loved all the people coming to the door. He spent most of the night at the front door waving








At the Zoo:


Watching the dolphins:

Getting ready for Trick or Treaters:

Looking for the next customers! We had a baby gate because our dogs get over excited at visitors:

What 10 month old has an electric toothbrush?

Mine does. While Eric and I went to the Gopher game this Saturday and had a fun night out with some friends Henry stayed with Grandma and Grandpa. He got really curious while Grandma was brushing her teeth; so she popped on a new brush and gave it to him. He loved it. Sat there and moved it around his mouth just like Grandma did. Grandpa snapped a photo for us:

A busy Fall & 10 months!

10 month picture:

It is amazing how big he is these days! He is saying a few words now. The 1st official word was Hazel. It sounds more like "Azzzeeel". It is amazing to watch him point at her, then squeal "Azzzeeeel!!!" The fact that he can associate names with things is such a big thing to us! He has a few other words under his belt. For whatever reason the 2nd word he really said consistenly was picture, again it sounded like "iiccctcturre". He definitely points to any sort of art work on a wall and deliberately says the word. In interest of full disclosure, he also says "dada". But I am still thinking that is a fluke. He really means "ma ma is my favorite"

Henry was baptized on September 19th in the church that I grew up in, and all the family came to help us celebrate! Adam (my little brother) and Erin (Eric's little sister) are Henry's god parents. I think he's in good hands :)

Henry in his christening outfit. It is not easy to find a christening outfit for a large 9 month old!!!!! We couldn't bring ourselves to force the bonnet on him.

Nana came into town for the baptism so we helped celebrate her 80th Birthday!!! Including Henry's first taste of chocolate cake. He is a fan.

During cake time, Uncle Adam taught him a game. Adam raised his hands and said "So Big!" and then Henry returned the gesture. Now in our house if Henry looks at you and raises his hands, you better return the favor or his mood may change for the worse! Demanding toddler in our future perhaps?!



We also had this weekend where we came up to the cabin on the beautiful 75 degree day and played in the leaves. He only tried to eat a couple:

Walker mania!

Big news in our house, Henry figured out his walker! Last night was the first time we've seen him take off on his own, and we caught it on video.
It was one of those experiences where I kept holding him up while he went forward, and then he just darted away from me one time and off he went! I guess I should have had more faith in his new found walking ability!!!

The British Invasion

It is not often when you are in the middle of Wisconsin and the Americans are out numbered by the Brits :) We had my cousin Dan, his wife Jayne, and their daughter Lauren (technically a Canuck) visited us for a week in September. Henry and Lauren are a bit too young to actually play together, but they played quite well beside each other.

We had a week of cabin, shopping, zoo, and ended the week with the Ovarian Cancer walk in memory of my mom. It was a fun week, and it was great to meet Lauren!

Here are the two stars:

Sliding (with help):

Summer 2010

It's amazing how fast summer left us this year. We had a good summer, full of family, the lake, and visitors. Some of the highlights:

Henry's adoring fans/cousins. These cousins will bend over backwards (literally) to get a giggle out of Henry. An August weekend we had an Olson family gathering because Eric's sister Jen was in town with her two girls Sami and Tori.


We also went to a wilderness park where we got to feed the animals. Henry is wondering what the fuss is all about.




Although Henry is pumped, we are going to leave this water toy to the cousins for a few years!


Lounging Lakeside with Grandma and Grandpa:

9 months

Henry was 9 months on September 4th. One thing we learned is that it is getting a lot tougher to take these pictures! We got about 5 seconds when the alligator is undisturbed. Then the throwing started- the blue book you see flying through the air is Henry's passport! He is all set to go for his English Christmas.


We went to the Doctor for his checkup and his stats are:
Weight: 22lbs 13oz
Height: 29"

He's in the 75% percentile across the board. The Doctor said he looked more like a 12 month old, and we are probably going to end up with a big guy :)

South Dakota

This past weekend we went to visit Great-Grandma Audrey and Great-Uncle Gary in Sioux Falls. It was fun to visit them, and Henry had a blast exploring Nana's house. He found out there is a reason mom & dad moved the coffee table out of the family room! He had a pretty big knob on his forehead for a day after he spent hours 'cruising' on Gary and Grandma's coffee tables :) The way down back to the floor is a lot harsher then the way up.
We really didn't do much since in was very hot out, which is not a favorite of Henry or Nana. So we stayed indoors and more family came to see us, and as usual Henry was the main attraction. He didn't mind :)

One thing he perfected on this trip is holding his bottle by himself! I never knew I could be so excited by such a seemingly small thing. Here is some video of him lounging during breakfast.

8 Months

Henry's 8 month picture is in his swimsuit because we had swimming lessons on 8/4. He loves his swimming lessons, and really moves (mom holding him of course)! On this video you can see us in action:

Hero knew this new addition to our family had an upside!

Henry figured out how to become Hero's best friend. While we eat dinner we give Henry a rice cake broken into little chunks. He figured out that if he lowers a rice cake that hilarious dog will come and get it!!!

This video catches these two in action:

Mobile Baby?

This morning I caught Henry's rocking on tape. He is so close to crawling as you can see in the video. You can also see when he gets sick of all the work of crawling, he now rolls and rolls and rolls. He can cross the living room in no time!

Henry's 1st Twins game

We took Henry to his first professional baseball game last night. It was one of those events that you had a vision of in your head. Us as a family going to the brand new outdoor ballpark to watch Eric's favorite team. It was going to be great, right? Not right. Henry HATED sitting in the stands. The heat, too many people, and the fact that we picked the inning that the Twins had 4 runs led to a lot of cheering/yelling. Henry had a meltdown. We probably sat in our seats for all of 5 minutes :) But we took him to the season ticket area (air conditioned and tables) and he was fine. It may be a couple of years before we try that again!!!


Safe with Dad:

Days of Summer

We are really lucky that the Olson's decided to buy a cabin on Lake Wapogasset, we have had some fun with Henry's cousins this month. Last weekend it was the Kastners that were up visiting. Jack and Avery tried out tubing and loved it, and are some of Henry's biggest fans! Here are some shots from the weekend:

Henry with Jack and Avery:



Grandma telling secrets:

Do you see that Grandma???

7 months

Henry turned 7 months on July 4th, here is his picture with the alligator:



Henry is sitting on his own no problem, drinking out of a sippy cup, eating rice cakes, and learning so much. For some reason turning 7 months old has hit Eric and I that he is changing so fast it is unbelievable. In the past few days he's starting to get up on all fours and rocking back and forth- we think our days with a baby who stays in 1 place are numbered!

July 4th 2010

We just got back from a long weekend at the cabin. On Friday we had fireworks on the lake (Henry slept through them all), followed by a picnic, and a boat parade! We had the whole family around this weekend- the DeWitts, Parsons, Olsons, Sullivans, Jackson boys, and Demars (not technically family but pretty close). It was a great weekend and great to be with family again.
Some shots from the weekend-

Henry & Nana:

Watching the boat parade:

Cousin Emma, Henry was fascinated with her!

Well if no one is looking I'm going to grab her face........

Cousins Logan & Connor at the boat parade with Grandma and Grandpa Olson:

Henry & Dad enjoying a lazy afternoon: