Easter Eggs

We dyed some Easter eggs tonight...not sure whether the eggs (collectively) or Henry ended up with more dye on themselves by the time we were finished, but it was fun anyway. We just did the traditional vinegar and food coloring method this time. We're going to do some more with a technique I read about in a magazine using hot hardboiled eggs and crayons too...we'll see how those turn out. Oh, and yes, that is the ubiquitous lacrosse stick in the photo of Henry with the finished eggs - I had to pry him away from a game to take that picture.

Weekly Update

Keeping with my new found tradition (is that an oxymoron?) of going to the same activity two days in a row, Henry and I went to the zoo twice in as many days this week. Both days when we woke up in was sunny and seemed like it was going to be warm...both days we got rained on at the zoo. But, regardless, we still had fun. We rode the train one day (mostly to escape the rain) and Henry loved it. The obsession with sports continues and he's found a new favorite - lacrosse. He's been interested in it for awhile (all it takes for him to become interested in a sport is seeing it once), but I happened across a pair of miniature lacrosse sticks at a consignment store last week and since then he's been playing it all the time. It's almost taken over hockey for his number one most practiced sport...almost, but not quite...hockey still reigns supreme. He enjoyed a trip to the sporting goods store to try on some lacrosse masks - outings are so much fun right now, just about anything is fun to him! His other big interest right now is being a police officer. He was inspired by my recent run in with the fuzz, and has since taken to riding around on his scooter (e.g. motorcycle) and pulling people over for not wearing their seat belt (my infraction) or speeding (we saw some motorcycle cops sitting at an intersection doing speed checks recently). After a bit of that he directs traffic for an intersection that's light has stopped working (inspired by an episode of his favorite show, Caillou), which is what he is doing in the picture. Purely by chance, last Halloween I bought him a police uniform costume when they went on clearance at Fred Meyer. It was too big for him then so it's been sitting in the back of his closet until this recent interest in police work cropped up. I dug it out and it fits him perfectly. He wants to wear it EVERYWHERE.

One more week of basketball class then we start soccer and swimming!

Henry's Three Year Photo Shoot

These are all scanned images, so the quality is not 100%, but who cares? They are still damn cute!

If anybody wants to have a JPG, let me know and I'll email you.

Weekly Update

This week we were fortunate to finally get a free pass to the Children's Museum from the library. We've been on the waiting list forever! Henry absolutely loved it the first day we went so we went again the next day as well before we had to turn it in so the next lucky kid could go. There were so many fun things for him to do there - a water play area, an animal hospital, a market, a cafe, a dig pit, and lots and lots of other stuff. The featured exhibit was Curious George who Henry loves. In fact, just a few days before we went he had picked out a Curious George anthology from the bookstore to buy, so the timing couldn't have been more perfect.

We've been spending more and more time outside playing and Henry's bike riding skills are really improving; I think he'll be jetting around on his bike by summer for sure. Henry got to play in another "pick up" basketball game (as he refers to them) at the playground with some preschool kids who happened to be there at the same time as us. :) I am hoping to add a couple sessions of swimming into the mix of classes before we go to Hawaii this summer. It's been awhile since Henry's been in a pool and I want to make sure he's feeling comfortable in the water before we get there!

Weekly Update

Pictures: Henry entranced at the Ladybug Theater;riding his bike; wearing his Ramona ears

We had quite a busy week last week...let's see if I can remember all we did...On Wednesday we went to the Ladybug Theater production of The Three Little Pigs puppet show. Henry LOVED it - he thought it was hilarious all the way through. The best part, however, was that each child got to take a part (Henry was part of a group of eggs) and at the end of his "scene" they all took a bow. Henry, who has practiced bowing at home, did such an amazing bow that the narrator had Henry take another bow all by himself so everyone could see him. :) On Thursday we moved to the 3 year old Storytime at the library. Another milestone. Friday was Gymboree. Saturday Henry and I went back to the library for a Ramona Quimby costume making event...Henry made "lion" ears...which turned out really cute, but hardly looked like lion ears! We took advantage of the few sun breaks through out the week to do lots of outdoor playing - park visits and bike riding. Today we started out the morning with Henry's 3 year check up. He weighs 27 1/2 pounds and is 36 1/2 inches tall. That puts him in the 12th percentile for weight and the 27th percentile for height. He got to stand on the big scale and be measured against the wall for the first time and also had his blood pressure taken - all the big kid stuff! Unfortunately he also had to get 4 vaccines...4 different shots. Yuck. I debated whether to split them up into separate visits, but all the information I have read says that once they are older than 2 it's not really as important to separate them all out as it was before. So we went for the whole shebang...including MMR which is apparently an especially painful one (both while getting it and the residual effects). He cried on and off for about an hour and a half afterwards that not even a visit to Bumpa's office could cure. Then he had his basketball class tonight, which I didn't attend but heard he had a wonderful time again. :)

Basketball

Today was Henry's first basketball class at the Southwest Community Center. He has been waiting for almost a year to be able to take these classes since you have to be three years old to enroll. From the time we started going to the Community Center, he would watch the other classes and want to join them. Last spring we took a gymnastics class that unfortunately took place on the other side of the gym from one of these sports classes (in that case, baseball). He spent the entire class - every one of the 6 weeks - just sitting at the edge of the divider and watching the other class. I could not tear him away to participate in his own class. Well, the wait finally ended today. I joked that unless there was a kid in there who's birthday was today, he would definitely be the youngest. This is the first ever class he has taken that is not parent/child...quite a milestone. Of course the parents stay in the gym, but they don't participate like all the other classes we've taken so far. He did so amazingly well considering he is probably about a full year younger than the other kids - at least. He did so well listening to his "coach" and following the instructions, I was so proud of him. Some skills, such as waiting for it to be his turn will still need some work! There are only 3 kids in the class which is super fortunate because I can't imagine him being able to wait much longer between his turns! We scheduled the class so Brett could take him on Monday evenings, but it is to darn cute to watch that I am going to have a tough time not attending.
(There's another, longer, video on Facebook which allows the posting of longer videos than Blogger does!)

Henry's 3rd Birthday!

I almost don't know where to start with this post because there is so much to talk about and so many pictures worth sharing...

So, let's see - on Friday, Henry had a party with three of his friends. Small, yes; but it ended up being just perfect in my opinion. We had a sports themed fete (what else, right?) during which the kiddos played a bean bag toss game (courtesy of Uncle Mike), found hidden sports-themed Easter eggs and played, played, played. Then on Sunday, we had the entire family over for another celebration. It worked out well to do it this way because I just kept all the decorations up from Friday's party and didn't have to do much in preparation for Sunday. Henry had a blast celebrating with everyone and (once again) received some amazingly generous gifts. He has so many people that love him so much - he is a very lucky little guy. I think it might be best to let the pictures tell the rest of the story...

From the top - the pictures are: the beanbag toss game and decorations, Henry with the cake from his friends' party, Henry and his friends hanging out, enjoying the cake with his friends, singing Happy Birthday at the family party with the baseball cake Gigi made, opening presents, and saying how old he is with the second cake from the family party (also from Gigi!)