Henry: Teeth Brushing

I realize that some of the posts I enjoy most on my friends' blogs are the ones where they write little snippets of funny things their kids have done. And since this blog is somewhat of a "baby book" for Henry, I will follow suit. When we were on vacation on Cape Cod we got to visit a large inflatable whale. Henry enjoyed petting the whale and even had a snack while sitting inside of the whale! The marine biologist host shared with us a lot of neat information about whales, most of which was above Henry's head. However, we've been talking about whales on and off since our visit and Henry's vocabulary now includes "baleen" and "plankton", when prompted with questions about whales and their eating habits. Bedtime toothbrushing had become a little bit of a challenge in the last few weeks. So the last couple of nights I have told him that he was a whale and I had to get all of the plankton out of his baleen. He is amused by this and we've gotten some good teethbrushing done! Funny kid.

Henry as Drum Major

This weekend we took a little field trip to West Milford HS to watch the Phantom Regiment Drum Corps rehearse in preparation for their competition at Giants Stadium.  For those of you not familiar with Drum Corps International (DCI), it is like major league marching band.  The music and movements are unbelieveably difficult and are unlike anything you probably think of when you imagine a marching band.  The corps involved are made up of students aged 16-21 and they travel, rehearse, live, perform, etc. together all summer.  It is an amazing organization and it is something that I love to watch. 

We took Henry with us to the rehearsal and he LOVED it.  We happened to have his baton in the car so he used it to "conduct" during rehearsal.  He was amazingly adorable (as usual) and I loved watching him get so excited.  I hope that this excitement doesn't fade as he gets older!

I posted a video on Facebook but not all of you have Facebook so I've managed (I think) to upload it to YouTube and can put it here on the blog (hopefully!):

Still here!

Apparently our blog has gone on summer vacation!  My apologies to all of you who follow our little family here.  We've been quite busy this summer!
Henry and I headed south shortly after the last blog post to spend a month in North Carolina/Virginia for a combination of work and play.  I had the pleasure of seeing three dear friends get married (not to each other!  Three separate weddings), worked my last CNU freshman orientation and spent a lot of quality time with friends and family.  Many thanks to Eddie for keeping the house in New Jersey in order and even driving down for a surprise visit partway through our time away!

We got home and spent just 13 days at home before heading to Cape Cod for a 6-day vacation.  We drove back to NJ, switched suitcases and kept driving to NC/VA where we spent a long weekend with family and friends...and went to another wedding!  We got back on Sunday and will be home for a couple of weeks before heading back south for the last of our summer weddings. 

We've had so many adventures over the summer including:
-Henry's first trip to the beach where he could play in the water!  He wasn't so sure about it at first but warmed up to it and didn't want to leave.
-Henry's first attempts at using a big boy potty (we're not pushing it since he's so young...just embracing his interest when he shows it).
-Portsmouth Children's Museum: I think my parents and I enjoyed it more than Henry did!
-A day trip to Pennsylvania to visit a good friend and her son...and while there we went to the Martin Guitar Factory.  Henry was pretty excited to play the little ukulele they had....so much so that he had NO interest in the factory tour and we had to exit early to avoid mayhem.
-While in Cape Cod we went inside an inflatable whale, took a harbor cruise and rode on a train.  Henry went absolutely bananas over the boat and train rides.  We visited the Cape Cod Potato Chip Factory, the Cape Cod Beer Brewery and saw four Chatham A's baseball games. 

Besides these adventures we've been having everyday fun like making pizza at home, taking trips to the library, swimming at MomMom and PopPop's house and just generally enjoying daily life.

Henry has grown up so much this summer.  His vocabulary has exploded and his memory continues to amaze us.  He has such a funny little personality, is naturally curious, loves learning, makes us laugh everyday.  Don't get me wrong, it's not all puppy dogs and rainbows....he has learned to throw fits, tries to scratch faces off when he's overtired, sometimes refuses to put on clothes....but generally, he's such a good kid.

This month we look forward to some time at home, another wedding in VA, celebrating Henry's 2nd birthday (holy cow!) and enjoying the end of summer.  (And getting back to regularly updating this blog!)