Beaux Arts

Henry called this masterpiece, "Kitty Cat." Obviously.

Putting on the finishing touches.

Like most artists, Henry likes to sing the alphabet while practicing his craft.

Henry 2.0

Unbelievably, Henry turned two years old last Saturday. And after a brief period of time a couple weeks ago when he thought it was actually Thomas the Tank Engine's birthday (because of all the Thomas plates and napkins we'd bought), he did finally get it: he knew it was his birthday coming up and sang many renditions of "Happy Birthday" to himself to prove it.

Here he is striking a two-year-old pose on a gift from us, his own chair.

His birthday party was at My Gym and lots of his friends and family came to celebrate...

It's good to be king--the view from the head of the table.

As requested, a Thomas birthday cake. This one was baked with love by his mother and iced by his Uncle Ryan. He blew out the candles three times during "Happy Birthday"...I'm not sure if that increases his number of wishes or not. I guess we'll know for sure if our cars turn into trains, his crib turns into a firetruck, and all the food in our refrigerator turns into fruit snacks.

January 17, 2009!

Artist-in-the-Box

Henry's Grandma and Grandpa bought him an easel for Hanukkah so he could draw and paint and store all of his art supplies. And he really does love it--he plays with it every day. In fact, right now there's probably only one other thing that he enjoys more: the box the easel came in.

Activities in the box include primarily lying on his back and drawing on the ceiling, Michelangelo-Sistine-Chapel-style. And looking out of this peep hole.

Mommy and Henry in the box. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but the inside is pretty impressive. No picture would do justice to the quantity and quality of hieroglyphics and cave drawings inside this thing.

Closing the Book on 2008

Grandma, Uncle Ryan and Luigi came to visit just before New Year's, which provided plenty of opportunities for little boys to find trouble.

But first, a game of dreidel...

Roarrrrrr! / Cheeeese!

"And what do you call the act?"
"The Aristocrats!"

A quick break for raisins.

A popular request around our house lately has been, "Grinch, please." And what goes better with Grinch than sleeping cocker spaniel?

Christmas Day Part II: Family Time

After getting our fill of ducks, we drove to our cousins' house and spent the day with Natalie, Heath, Hunter, Sydney and Shelby...and lots of other family members we don't get to see very often.

Aunt Kitty poses with Sydney and Shelby. And lots of recently-opened toys.

This was the part of the day when Henry decided to entertain us all by playing Rachmaninoff's 3rd Concerto.

Holding hands with Gran Gran and Pop while watching--you guessed it--Thomas and Friends.

What Christmas day would be complete without this classic running in the background?

Back in Mississippi at Taylor Grocery. Trust me: no one in the place had more fun listening to this band than Henry. Here he is sitting at someone else's table so he could get a closer look. When he wasn't sitting in this chair, he was either dancing or trying reach into the tip bucket.

Christmas Day Part I: Just Ducky

We spent a long weekend with family in Oxford and Memphis for Christmas. And no trip to Memphis is complete without spending some time in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel. This is especially true for duck fans because the Peabody is famous for more than just delicious mint juleps. The fountain in the center of lobby is home to what have to be the five luckiest ducks in the world. Every day at 11:00am they are brought down from their home on the roof of the hotel, marched out of the elevators, down a red carpet, and into their fountain where they swim around all day being admired by people like us.
I should also mention that Alexis and I got engaged in the lobby of the Peabody...but that happened well after the ducks' bedtime.

Henry was impressed and was excited to show his "Ducky" to some "real duckies."

Obviously, this window display was also a hit...

Please Stand By...

Our computer became infected with a virus over the weekend, so blog updates will have to wait until after its visit to the the CPU hospital...