Seven Months!

Claire celebrated seventh months of age by going on a paper rampage. She actually tries to eat paper all the time. She may be part goat.

** Thanks to the Wolffs for taking these pictures!

Mint Julep Solomon, 2003 - 2011

I'm so sad to report that our beloved golden retriever, Julep, died late last week. It was a complete shock to us -- she was totally fine when we went to sleep and she had died by 6:45 the next morning. Julep was a present Alexis and I gave each other for our wedding and so was named after the mint julep, a common Deep South wedding gift. Below is a short tribute to Julep, a dog whose sweet disposition radiated as vividly as her fear of balloons...

She didn't always weigh 84 pounds. She used to be so skinny that her "grandparents" were concerned about her health.

Another puppy pic

She loved to be loved, even by less-than-gentle babies.

She was also an occasional TV-watcher -- if a show caught her interest.

Always the prankster.

Julep's memory will be with us always, not just because we'll be cleaning up her dog hair for the entirety of the time we live in our house, but because she was a loving pet who never wanted anything more than a comfortable chair and a scratch behind the ears.

Henry's Birthday Part II: The Party

Henry's super hero-themed birthday party was last weekend and was a raging success. There were several Spidermen, Supermen, Batmen, Supergirls, a Wonder Woman (see Alexis, below) and a Green Lantern (yours truly). Claire made an appearance in the role of trusty sidekick.

This look says, "let's get right to the candle-licking."

Thanks to the giant foam pit, all of the super heroes took turns practicing their flying techniques. Above, Henry/Batman-with-Superman-undershirt leaps to save the day!

Luigi/Superman gets some serious lift-off.

A trio of Supergirls!

Another trio of Supergirls!

Pop watches Henry think of a wish

Henry's Fourth Birthday Part I: The Actual El Guapo Birthday

Henry turned four on January 17 (!) and thanks to the MLK holiday, we got to spend the whole day together as a family indulging him.

Henry's teacher, Ms. Ayer, was kind enough to spend part of her day off with us, giving us a tour of her husband's body shop. We spent the morning looking at car engines, riding hydraulic lifts and sitting in real race cars! This picture was taken just before Henry and Ms. Ayer's son Carl (Henry's pronunciation: "Car...uhl") got temporarily locked inside this particular race car.

Posing with Ms. Ayer at our delicious birthday lunch at Nuevo Laredo. One day, having lunch with his teacher on a holiday from school will turn from a special treat into a horrible nightmare...but not yet.

One of three super hero costumes given to him by Mindy. Thanks to this one, we only rarely see his face now.

Birthday dinner with his Atlanta cousins and wearing the crown Natalie made for him!

Four! More! Years!

Snowpocalypse Now!

You'll be happy to know that we all survived Snowmageddon 2011 thanks to, among other things, heavy coats, ski gloves, a borrowed sled, snow ice cream, hot chocolate, Kahlua, Saran wrap (see below), and a grocery store within walking distance.

Henry did not want to take off his "Superman cape" (wizard cape) even for a neighborhood walk.

After a failed attempt to buy snow pants, we took drastic measures to keep Henry dry during sledding and snow angel-making: layer of pants, layer of Saran wrap, another layer of pants. Don't laugh, it worked. But that may be in large part because he wanted to come inside after about 45 minutes.

His favorite activity of all was probably ice-throwing.

If this were a video, it would probably look more like kids playing and less like a Civil War battlefield.

Even Claire got into the act -- check out these fancy snow boots Aunt Suzi gave her!

They remain as clean as they appear in this picture.

Zero and a Half

"Cause That's What Brian Boitano'd Do..."

We took Henry ice skating last week with his cousin Natalie (an expert ice skater, btw...don't ever challenge her to a best two-out-0f-three races across the ice...just sayin'). You may recall that Henry's been pretending to ice skate since the Winter Olympics, so this was a pretty big thrill for him. It was also the perfect opportunity to wear his new scarf!

There was a lot of slipping and sliding...

...and a couple of falls (that were as much fun as remaining upright)...

...but by the end, he was doing pretty well as long as we held on to him.

In the video below, Henry shows his off his double axle / triple lutz / double loop / double toe loop / triple Salchow. It all happens so fast, you really can't even see it.