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.