Bike Riding with the Big Kids!

Henry continues to work on his bike riding (gliding?) skills on his balance bike (a regular bike with no pedals). The other day he was out riding around with the neighbor kids and I couldn't resist taking a couple pictures. I really got the sense that he is truly becoming a big boy watching him out there riding his bike and interacting with the older kids.

Last Beaver's Game

On Labor Day we attended the very last Portland Beaver's baseball game at PGE Park. We went with Bumpa (who got us the tickets) and Gigi and Henry had a blast!! Brett has been telling him about how you are supposed to take your baseball mitt with you to the games so you can try and catch a ball - Henry took this very seriously and held his mitt up EVERY play. It was so cute!

Weekly (Monthly?) Update

Finally, I'm back! I realize it's been awhile since my last update...a couple people have mentioned it to me! Good to know people are reading and I'm not just posting for my own enjoyment. :)
I got really, really sick a week ago and then I just got kind of lazy. Or busy, I suppose...busy in all things other than posting, lazy in all things posting. Anyhow, on to the update!
We're still doing our new nighttime routine for sleeping and had a MAJOR breakthrough a couple nights ago. For the very first time EVER, Henry slept through the night. From the time I put him down (around 8pm) until the next morning (around 7am), he stayed in his bed and did not call out for me to come get him once. Woo-hoo! Of course, since then, we've not had a repeat performance, but his overall nighttime wakings are W-A-Y down - so I'll take that! :) He's also been choosing to get into bed by himself and lay there until he falls asleep (rather than me rocking him). He just climbs down out of the rocking chair and into bed without me asking him to. It's pretty awesome. The method we're using is based on the book called "Good Night, Sleep Tight." We haven't followed it exactly, but definitely have used it as a basis for the new method to great success. I highly recommend it.

Henry is definitely developing into an independent, ego-centric little guy. Everything is "my turn!" or "mine!" or "I do it!" (which means he wants to do it himself). This makes a lot of things go very slowly (and messily). But it's obviously just a part of him learning to do stuff on his own and asserting his own preferences while discovering that he is his own person, separate and apart from me and Brett. I just try to keep that all in mind when he wants to do things on his own!

We got a year-long membership to OMSI a couple weeks ago and have already been a couple times. I am looking forward to having that as a place to go once the weather turns bad. The picture of Henry standing in front of the Portland skyline was taken in OMSI. The other picture is of Henry's new favorite toy - Charles the Bear's skateboard. Henry has steadily been earning prizes by filling up sticker charts for going potty on the potty chair and brushing his teeth. One of those prizes was a skateboard (complete with helmet and kneepads) for Charles. But Henry himself uses the skateboard more than Charles - trying to push himself around on it and "drop in" and do flips and olleys.

Happy Birthday, Geoff!

Happy Birthday to Uncle Geoff! Here he is at his white coat ceremony at OHSU.

Weekly Update

Trip to Alpenrose to see the Little League Softball World Series...as you can tell, Henry was totally into the game.

It's been so long since I've updated that I'm not sure where to start! First of all, Gigi and Geoff have returned from South America and Henry could not be happier! They had a wonderful time and are already saying we need to take a family trip to Panama sometime soon! (Although Gigi did come home with some nasty looking arms that have been bitten to pieces by some sort of bug - she looks like she has small pox or something.)

We've been keeping the summer streak of business alive...trips to the zoo, Chuck-E-Cheese, OMSI (which we just bought a membership to - yay!), lots of time outside, etc., etc. One of Henry's favorite things we've done recently was attending the Dew Tour where we saw a BMX event. I've attached a video since I wouldn't be able to do it justice by describing it.

We also took a trip to the beach; to Lincoln City. While it was close to 100 degrees in Portland while we were at the beach, it was actually cool and slightly rainy at the coast. We still had a blast, nonetheless. Henry's favorite activity was flying a kite with Daddy (which, conversely, was Wilbur's least favorite activity. For whatever reason, the dog hates kites).

Currently we are working on a new sleeping routine. So far it has been awful...but we'll see...gotta give it some more time. That's about all I have the energy to say on that subject.

Oh, one final shout out to Geoff, who's White Coat Ceremony we just attended today at OHSU. Big ups, little bro!

Quick Bragging Story

Sorry if this is annoying...but I totally have to brag for a minute...

I asked Henry to get a ball for Wilbur and when he did I jokingly said "Now, Wilbur, tell Henry 'thank you'!" I laughed and said "that's silly, huh? Wilbur can't say thank you." Henry signed 'thank you' and said "Wilbur, hands." I said, "Oh, Wilbur could say thank you with his hands? Could he say thank you with his hands?" Henry thought for a minute, held up his hand with his thumb folded down and said "no thumbs!"

:)

Washington County Fair

Henry riding the kiddie rides at the fair...

Finally I am getting around to posting the pictures and video from the fair that Henry and I went to last week. This video is of us in the sheep exhibit. Henry was pretty worried or even scared at first because there were so many sheep on all sides of us and they are so loud. I think he's used to seeing the goats at the zoo which are so docile and quiet in comparison. We saw so many animals - the only ones he seemed to be really comfortable around were the ones that were kept in cages... he didn't want to get close to the horses, calves or any others that weren't inside a pen of some sort.

He did so well on the rides. Technically he wasn't tall enough to ride them, but all the operators let him go anyway. I wasn't sure if he'd freak out being on them by himself, but he didn't at all - he seemed to really enjoy them.