Advent Calendar. Every night after dinner, Henry go to see what treat the elf brought him. He really loved this. It is amazing how excited a little one gets over one M&M. I wonder what else he would do for one M&M.....
Gingerbread. We went to Grove Park Inn to see the Gingerbread houses. These are fun to look at, but Henry can't fully appreciate all that goes into one of these...so we made one too. It was a process. We did a little bit here and there. I think Henry enjoyed it. He kept wanting to come back to it and "decorate" it more. He would walk by it and say "decorate it?" However, it eventually dried up, and we just simply could not decorate it any longer. So, he dumped what candy we had left over into the gingerbread house yard and called it "the jungle." I think he decided to call it this because we have an area in the yard that is slightly wooded where we bury things for him to find in the leaves. He calls this part of our yard "the jungle."
We also went over the Gammy and Pappaw's and made gingerbread cookies.
Santa: Henry sat on Santa's lap at Jinglefest without crying. He also saw Santa from a distance a couple of times in the mall. He would say hey to him, but was not again interested in sitting in his lap. He would pretend to talk to Santa on the phone. He would say "Hello, Santa." He also played with some wooden Santas and make the talk to one another. He would say "Whatcha want for Christmas?" and have the other ones respond wioth "toys." We read some books about Santa and watched a couple of video clips and Christmas songs as well. He still talks about presents and what he got for Christmas. He has a boat for bathtime. Every night when he uses it, he says "Santa brought me that." Needless to say, I think he has a pretty good idea of who Santa is now.
Christmas Lights and Nativity: We went to see the Christmas lights at Shadrack's. Henry thought these were pretty cool. He got to ride in the front seat with Pappaw.
We also went to a live nativity scene at a barn where Joseph came and got Henry and brought him up to the front to pet the donkey. Henry tolerated this pretty well, but he is still stranger shy and doesn't like to be out of sight of Mommy or Daddy. He petted the donkey, but then frantically began to look for a familiar face in the crowd and say "Mommy?"
Presents: Henry really got into the idea of presents this year. He has a lot of opportunity to develop his understanding and hone his skills, though, seeing as how he had 4 Christmas present opening events. The first occurred on Christmas Eve when we went to Charlotte to celebrate with my family at my eldest brother's house. We had a Christmas dinner and opened gifts and played "dirty Santa."
After we recovered from Christmas morning, Henry napped, and we showered, we went over the Sam's parents for more Christmas festivities. We opened more presents and had a Christmas lunch/dinner.
A few days later, my older brother Tim and his girls came down for a visit, so there was yet more Christmas fun to be had. Henry joined in some gift opening at my parent's house.
I have to say that Christmas is not way more exciting than it has ever been. While it has always been exciting, I get more enjoyment from watching Henry experience it all than I ever have.
After all of that, we took the dead bush in our living room AKA our Christmas tree down the day after to Christmas. In order to 1. get the dead bush out of our living room 2. restore order and 3. make room for all the new stuff that we didn't have room for to begin with. We made a few more changes to get our lives a little more organized, especially concerning Henry's toys which had begun to take over our living room. We employed some organizational systems, stored some unused items away, and now have a rule that to pull out new toys, you have to clean up what you aren't playing with anymore. And, after dinner, before we can watch something on the iPad, we clean up all of our toys. Our house is much tidier this way. 
Over the break, Sam and I went to Chapel Hill to see the Tarheels play. This was a birthday present for Sam who turned 35(?!) on January 3rd. We had pretty killer seats, and it was a good year to see the Tarheels play. They have a pretty solid team this year and are currently 7-0 with conference games. We toured the campus a little bit and spent some time with Mark, Sarah, and my parents who also went down for the game.
We left Henry with Gammy and Pappaw for this overnight trip. This was also goodbye to "nunu." Upon returning, the transition to no "nunu" was pretty easy. He didn't ask for it for a few days, and after that I think he just understood the expectation was no more "nunu." He asked for it after his bath some over the 3 weeks following, but he understood when I say "no more nunu." He would respond "rock and cuddle," I'd say "yeah" and he'd move on. At this point, 2 months later, it is a non-issue.
We also transitioned him to a big boy bed. We were having trouble with his waking in the middle of the night and then not wanting to go back to sleep in his crib. One night, we tried from 2-5 at which point I brought him to bed with me and Sam slept on the couch. We decided it was time for a change. We put a full-size mattress on the floor. It took him about a week and a half to make the transition. He still says "want your crib" at times. I don't know if was the bed, or saying bye bye to nunu, but we are a little over a month of him pretty much sleeping through the night. He wakes at night maybe once a week for some unknown reason. That has NEVER happened... it is magical. I am still learning how to sleep through the night, though...
Henry has become VERY affectionate towards me (and the cat). He is so sweet. He gives me lots of hugs and kisses and snuggles. He pats my face a lot. He went through a phase a couple of weeks ago where he was really into puzzles. It might have had something to do with us working a puzzle on some snowy days. He has had some puzzles for probably 8 months, but he is just getting to the point where is his interested and can work them. He is also really into stickers right now.
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| Here he is in "the jungle" |
He is starting to branch out and eat more of a variety. He will eat carrots, peas, and sweet potatoes without them being mixed into anything. He loves different flavors of couscous and rice, cheese, and he will eat chicken nuggets and turkey. He will SOMETIMES eat some beef and salmon, but prefers his white meat. And, he loves any type of fruit of course.He can sing and do movements to I'm a Little Tea Pot. Today, he was singing the song "Peaches" by The Presidents of the United States. He likes to watch Peppa Pig, Chuck and Friends, Daniel Tiger, and Heroes of the City. He gets to watch an episode of something before bed. He continues to like to read, but he also likes to hear made up stories. He gets caught up on certain story lines, like for a while he would say "Story bout daddy drops his axe in mud puddle and lucky luke." He is speaking pretty consistently in sentences. He is also acting out short conversations between two characters. He will say with one "Hey, what's happening?" and with the other "go to the park." All of this to say, I think he is a little advanced for his age in his language development and play skills :)
He has gotten better at participating and interacting with others in classes that we take him to. At his "Little Gym" class he follows all of the directions given in the warm-ups which usually consist of running, bear crawling, walking sideways, backwards, flying, etc. He also went up to a mother who also had a younger baby with her, who was strapped in a front carrier, and said, "What's that baby's name?" We try to take him to a class like this weekly. He has also begun attending a Play and Learn class which is in a pre-school room. He goes for 45 minutes, does some literacy activity and circle time and free play. I got to take him a few weeks ago, and I tried to hang back to encourage him to play some on his own, and he did. Every once in a while, he would scan the room to find me, and then continue playing. He is not quiet at the phase where he is really playing with another kid, but he will ask them for toys he wants or offer them toys. He also likes to go to the bakery and get a muffin. We have done this several times on the weekends. There are toys there and often times another child. 
We had a really nice snow a couple of weeks ago. We got nearly 10 inches. It was like living in a snow globe for a couple of days. Henry was not too keen on the snow. I think it was a little much for him. It was too deep for him to walk in, and this freaked him about a little bit. Snow day fun was had, hot chocolate, making magic sand, etc. He would say "snow melt." It is always nice to have some extra time to spend with him. 
We checked out Mountain Playlodge for the first time. Big fans, here. Henry really enjoyed it. We went early one morning right when they opened, so it wasn't too crowded. I can imagine it becomes somewhat of a madhouse later in the day on the weekend.
And, who's that guy? Just AB Tech's newest celebrity. Check out the billboard. He also had an advertisement in the newspaper. This guy had a birthday in January...35 is it? He doesn't look a day over 18. We will FINALLY closed on our construction loan. The footers have already been poured This has been a long time coming. The bank has not been very pleasant to work with and has made a lot of mistakes/given misinformation. Right now, we are estimating October for construction to be complete.
