Nifty November Winds Down

November has been a crazy month...Eddie started a new job, I started my back-and-forth schedule between NJ and VA, Henry visited Wisconsin, we celebrated Henry's first Thanksgiving and put in an offer on a house. It's hard to believe that tomorrow is December already. Time is truly flying!

Here are some highlights from the last week:

Henry's First Thanksgiving



QT with KT (I love this picture!)


Adventures in Kitty Hawk/Outer Banks with Ding Dong and Grandad



I LOVE this photo...

The Cheese State

Henry and I had a great trip up to "Great Bea's" house in Wisconsin. I hadn't been there since the summer of 2002!

He was a great traveler on our way up. Thankfully there were some kind people on our flight that helped me get on and off the plane since it involved going down a flight of stairs, walking on the tarmac, climbing up the stairs to the plane, etc...all with a backpack, a diaper bag, a fold up stroller and a cute baby boy.

We spent most of our time just relaxing at Grama's house and catching up. We did take one outing to Worzalla Publishing, which is where my aunt works. It was SO COOL to see how books are made, which is just something I had kind of just taken for granted. They publish the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books and that was one of the things we saw flying through th epresses. We got to explore the "reject room" where they have the books that have minor imperfections that are still perfectly good but not good enough to sell. Henry ended up getting some great new books, including President Obama's new book and "The Pout Pout Fish in the Big, Big Dark." The fish book has become a favorite for my dad to read with Henry.

We had a great time visiting with everyone and even had a special visitor:



While we were there Grama celebrated her 80th birthday. We took this photo of the four generations that day:


My grama's house is really awesome and even has a clawfoot tub. One night we did a photoshoot with Henry in the tub. The result was ADORABLE:


Here's how we got the shot:


Mom, Dad, Henry and I flew back to Norfolk yesterday and I went in to work today. Eddie is currently on the road here for Thanksgiving. I am really excited to share my favorite holiday with Henry.

For those of you following our house hunting...we are awaiting attorney review and inspection of a house that we really like...hopefully we'll have some good news to post. (I'm not going to post anything more just yet...)

Happy 3 Months!

Today Henry turns 3 months old...time sure is flying!

We had a fantastic time last week at the Thomas Edison park and Henry earned his first Junior Ranger badge! I really enjoyed taking him out even though he won't remember it. It felt good to get my camera going again for photographs of things other than Henry. Don't get me wrong, I love taking photos of him, but it was good to exercise my eye a little bit. This was my favorite from the day, a shot from the first floor looking up in the Edison warehouse.



On Friday, Eddie, Henry and I headed south to JMU for Alumni Band weekend. Some of our friends were in town for the event as well so we had a good time just relaxing and catching up. Funny how different things were this year compared to years past...two babies and a baby on the way in our group. Craziness! But we had a great time AND the Dukes pulled out a win over William & Mary!

On Sunday, we headed north and met up with friends at Antietam Battlefield, where Henry earned his second Junior Ranger badge! It was a beautiful day to walk around and to see the battlefield sights. It is a pretty thought-provoking place. To see the beauty that is there today with the rolling fields and autumn-painted hills in the distance...and then think about the horrors that took place there during the Civil War.

(There was a few hours between the above paragraphs and this part of the post. I have packed up the laptop with the photos saved on it so I can't post anymore pictures currently...I'll make up for it when I'm back on the other computer.)

We got back to Ridgewood around 8:10 in time to watch this week's Amazing Race and put Henry to bed.

This week we have looked at some more houses and put in an offer on one this evening! We won't know anything just yet as our realtor has to talk to the seller's listing agent and consider our offer. This will happen tomorrow morning and then we wait...

Tomorrow Henry and I head to Wisconsin to visit family. I'm slightly anxious about flying with him by myself but he's a good boy so I'm optimistic. (I say this now...just wait until Mister Poop Up The Back returns!)

I will have limited internet access but will post if I can.

Chatting with Daddy

Henry was more talkative today than he has ever been, which was really neat. I caught Eddie and him having a chat tonight right before we were going to get Henry ready for bed. (The park Eddie is refering to is the Thomas Edison National Historical Site. Entrance fees are free to all National Parks tomorrow in honor of Veterans Day so I figured Henry and I could check out one close to here.)

Good morning from Henry!

Henry seems to be happiest first thing in the morning. He was talking up a storm but of course got a little camera shy when I got the camera out. But I was able to capture this and thought you might enjoy it.

What did Dela wear, boy?

Our friend Tim sings this every time he drives over the bridge from Delaware to New Jersey. In his honor, I sang it on Friday night when I crossed over into Jersey.

I managed to survive the three days without my boys in Virginia. I took advantage of the time and spent time with some friends and got the rest of the house packed up. Don't get me wrong, I missed the two of them a great deal, but it was a nice "break" to be able to be so productive...and to sleep through the night.

I got up to New Jersey late on Friday and Henry was asleep. I didn't wake him up even though I wanted to pick him up and cuddle him. We did that in the middle of the night when he woke up to eat.

On Sunday, Ellen and I took Henry across the street to take some pictures of him in an autumn outfit. I love the results. Here are a few favorites from the "shoot":




Eddie is still enjoying work, which is great. I am still working my current job until January 3rd. I am burning the rest of my leave but am still doing work via email while I'm away. It's amazing how much technology can allow you to still be productive, even from a few states away.

I went with our realtor and Eddie's parents to look at 8 houses yesterday. Still nothing. I am so thankful that we have a place to stay while we are looking. I would have been a big ball of stress if we had to look for a place to rent while we were looking for a place to buy. We are very lucky!

Henry and I went on our first New Jersey field trip today...to Target! Nothing exciting but it's fun to learn how to get to places. I think if it's nice out we'll take a walk over to the high school to visit Aunt Karen one day this week.

In Henry news...he continues to be an awesome baby. He's been sleeping and napping really well. His new thing is munching on everything and drooling a lot. Apparently this is normal and right "on target" according to the Week 12 entry in the book we read.

Thanks for reading!

November Already?!

I can't believe that we are in November already. Where has time gone?

Since the last entry...

Our POD was delivered to the house and we got everything packed up. It's amazing how much stuff we have accumulated between us, especially considering we don't have a large amount of furniture. Thankfully my parents had done A LOT of our packing for us while we were at work over the last few weeks. (I don't know what we would have done without them!) Eddie could be a gold medal Olympic packer so every square inch of the POD was used.

My parents and I went to see the Fab Faux in concert at the Ferguson Center on Saturday night. They are a Beatles cover/tribute band and are a phenomenal group of musicians. I had seen them last year and loved it...this year did not disappoint either. They played a set of just random Beatles music and then after intermission played all of Abbey Road. Pretty awesome.

On Sunday my parents left to head back home in the morning. We then took Henry to our friends' house to hang out and to watch some football. While we were there, Tim fed Henry his lunch. And while feeding Henry decided to hold the bottle on his own!

(He hasn't done it since then and I'm okay with that because if he holds it himself that means he's a big boy!)

Post-football we came back up to Newport News to take Henry trick-or-treating with some friends. It was so much fun even though Henry didn't really do anything other than hang out in his banana costume. My favorite costume that I saw was a boy dressed as Albert Einstein! I enjoy Halloween a great deal I think because it brings back memories of going out with my dad. We always seemed to have such fun.

Here is Henry in his costume the night of Trick or Treating:



Monday morning brought the POD folks back to our house to pick it up. We ended up with a lot still after the POD was packed so Eddie ended up getting a small moving truck for our miscellaneous extras. His dad flew in on Monday night and drove the truck up while Eddie drove the car with Henry.

It was pretty hard to say goodbye to Henry and Eddie yesterday morning before heading to work. I know it'll only be until Friday night that we'll be apart but it's the first time we've been apart for that long. I stopped in at lunchtime to see them (since their departure was delayed) for a quick visit. Henry was looking adorable in his new striped shirt. I couldn't resist snapping a few pictures of him before they left.




They made it safely to New Jersey last evening and I was able to Skype with them. Henry seemed a little confused by the whole thing...seeing me and hearing me but through a computer screen. We Skyped again tonight and he was adorable, as usual. I'm pretty thankful for technology like that so I can interact a little bit with the little guy.

Since this is a family blog and not just a Henry blog I should also mention that today was Eddie's first day at his new job. We chatted online here and there and spoke briefly tonight and from what I've deduced he had a good day. Bagels, out to lunch, etc. He also went to see two houses and both were No Go's...two more tomorrow.

Well, I think that about does it for this entry...