What Part of "Choppaloppaler" Do You Not Understand?

We celebrated the first night of Hanukkah Sunday night with our family, but unfortunately we forgot our camera. Tonight, Mindy came over to light the candles for the second night at our house.

Henry opens a Thomas book from Mindy. It was a hit...

Henry has always used the word "achoo" for helicopter. We have no idea where it comes from, but whenever he sees a helicopter (and they're more common than you might think if you're not constantly on the lookout), he gets really excited and shouts "achoo!" So for Hanukkah, Aunt Suzi, Uncle Barry, Ryan and Jonathan got him a giant deluxe toy emergency helicopter. But apparently, he's recently learned that "achoo" is not the right word for such a vehicle...and we learned the probable reason for his convenient nickname: turns out, "helicopter" is just an incredibly hard word for an almost-two-year-old to say...

Non Sequiturs

Here are some random pictures, including two with Henry's school friend, Hannah.

In this one, taken off of his school's website, it looks like a battle royal during story time.

But here, the two seem to have made up.

In this one, Henry demonstrates his new practice of drinking every last drop of milk from his cereal bowl...

...which often leads to Grape Nut Face.

Family portrait!*

* Thanks to Theresa for taking this picture and many, many more just like it.

Turkey Day

This Thanksgiving, we piled in the Family Truckster and headed back to North Carolina where we spent the long weekend with family...

"Please eat at least this many bites of turkey."

He actually ate lots of his grandmother's delicious cooking but once he saw the black olives, it was all over. How can other foods compete with something you can wear on your fingertips and eat? Answer: they can't.

The Thomas Twins pause for .17 seconds before resuming jumping on this air mattress.

We rode a real(ish) train at the Durham science museum with Uncle Scott and Luigi. It was cold, but so worth it.

You'd be shocked at how expensive it is to mail yourself in a cardboard box these days. Completely cost-prohibitive.

I don't know for sure what Aliza was showing Henry on her laptop, but I have a hunch it was something along the lines of this.

Happy Thanksgiving...

...from the Golden Girls!

Grandpa's Da Da

Henry's Great Grandpa Marty and Great Grandma Sydelle came to visit last weekend. After Alexis tried to explain their relationship to him, Henry started calling Grandpa Marty "Grandpa's Da Da." They really hit it off too...Henry brought book after book for Grandpa Marty to read and the three of them watched lots of Thomas and Friends.

On Sunday, we had a picnic at Henry's school playground with his classmates and their parents...

This is Henry's best friend at school, Charlie. If you ask Henry how he likes school, the first word out of his mouth is usually "Charlie!"

Who says the American automotive industry is dead?

Gameday

We don't know where this comes from, but Henry loves football. He asks to watch it on TV, he points out any football or football player he sees, and he recently ended a prayer by saying "Ole Miss" instead of "amen."

So it was no surprise that he had the time of his life on Saturday when he went to his first football game of the year. He went to two games last year, but that was before he knew the difference between a post pattern and an out route...this was the first game where he knew he was watching football. And he acted like it, dancing to the band, eating lots of junk food and generally loving the idea of screaming without being told to stop.

What made Saturday even better was sitting in his grandparents' seats in the South Endzone Club level. That meant (1) getting to sit with Pop, (2) all-you-can-eat hot dogs, fruit, ice cream and cookies and (3) access to the indoors on a freezing afternoon. The only thing missing was Gran Gran, who couldn't make it to this game.

Looking out at Pop from inside the club box.

Yes, it was cold. But the outcome of the game kept us warm.

In this video, Henry is temporarily excited to hear the PA announcer say "Ole Miss"...before getting distracted by his empty seat. In the next one, he shows off his patented "go, go, go, go!" cheer which he usually breaks out when he watches football.

Goodnight Bowl Full of Mush...

Every night before going to bed, Henry asks one of us to read him Goodnight Moon. And if we're not quick enough? He climbs into his chair and takes matters into his own hands by "reading" it himself. This involves his turing the pages, looking at the pictures and saying a bunch of random words out loud only some of which are in the story.

Henry would also like for you to take note of his new favorite Thomas the Tank Engine pajamas.

Vampire Weekend

What a difference a year makes. Henry had a much better understanding of what Halloween is all about this year compared to last: pumpkins and candy. And he loved them both.

Eileen came over to carve pumpkins. Here are our dueling jack-o-lanterns. We went for the classic look.

Tickle this: Henry as Elmo.

I would have thought Elmo's parents were redder and furrier than this.

With Ryan the Lion and Cara as Minnie Mouse. Obviously these kids weren't big fans of costume headgear.

Now wait a second...there's only room enough in this town for one of us.

Whew! Headless Elmo relaxes after a long night of trick-or-treating.

Sweet Carolin(a)

Here are some pics from our recent trip to Chapel Hill to visit Henry's grandparents. Henry was sad that Uncle Ryan and Luigi were out of town, but he thanks his cousin for letting him play with all his cool toys while he was away.

Working Curious George puzzles with Grandma and Linda.

What's cooler than posing with a fire truck? Posing with one of Chapel Hill's Carolina blue fire trucks...and with Grandpa of course.

Mmmm. Gelato so good, it'll make you stand up in your chair.

Kitchen Catch

Our (okay, my) hopes of Henry becoming an ace lefty in the big leagues took a turn when it became apparent that he is probably going to be right-handed. But there's still a chance he could make it to the majors, right? Well, as this video shows he has a little ways to go. One way to improve his game for example is not to react to missing the ball by dancing in circles, clapping and falling on the floor. Then again, maybe he could play for the Pirates.

(BTW, you'll have to take my word for it, but he did actually catch the ball a couple of times.)

Slide Show

We had a picnic lunch at the playground Saturday with our friend Theresa who just moved back to Atlanta after a stint in Princeton, N.J. As you can see, she was wearing non-slide-appropriate clothes so she had to observe Henry's sliding prowess from the sidelines. She did take these pictures though (except for the first one)...

Pajama Time

Sunday was the perfect day to lounge around the house and stay in our pajamas a ridiculously long time...long enough for Henry to get in some good cuddle time with his mommy.

Daphne doesn't literally wear pajamas, but figuratively speaking, she's in them 24/7.

No Doubting Thomas

Henry has been obsessed with trains for a long time now, especially Thomas the Tank Engine. He knows most of the characters by name (including Henry, which he calls "Hemmy Train"). His cousins Ryan and Jonathan recently gave him their used Thomas toys, and last weekend Alexis hit the jackpot when she found a train table at a garage sale that included a whole other set of Thomas trains and track.
So how excited was he about this development? We actually had to move the train table so that it is no longer visible from the kitchen table. Before doing that, Henry's meals were lasting only as long as it took for him to glance over his right shoulder. Then he'd see the train table and it was all, "Train! Get down, please! Train!" Turns out, as much as he loves Kix ("ball cereal"), it's no match for the pull of Thomas and friends.

"Yeah, It's Got a Hemi"

Henry's vocabulary has expanded like a virus and he now says everything from "where'd it go?" to "big yellow truck" to "meatballs." But until this week, he had never once said his own name. And it surely wasn't from a lack of hearing it said. On Monday though, we were drawing on our driveway with sidewalk chalk. I got him to lay down on his back and I traced around his body. When I was finished, he stood up, pointed at the outline and said, "Hemmy!" He's been saying it ever since.

This is the drawing that inspired the breakthrough, doctored up with a face and clothes so as not to resemble a murder scene.

Separated at Birth (Part IV)?

This is not a dress rehearsal for Halloween, it's just the result of Henry eating a pumpkin iced cookie. But still.

Slumber Party

Henry's cousin Natalie spent the night at our house this past weekend. There were no pillow fights or games of Truth or Dare...

...but there was a delicious breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes.

And a couple of art projects.

And some story-telling.

And finally, the Amazing Race, which featured Natalie on a car and Henry on Thomas the Tank Engine. As this picture shows, the race ended in a draw when the two vehicles inevitably engaged in a head-on collision.