2010 in Photos

As 2010 winds itself down I decided to do a little tribute Caruthers style! Because we won't be near my computer when the ball drops I thought I would go ahead and get these up.
Henry, you had a GREAT year! You were a potty training pro, lived through a massive blizzard, took a bunch of fun trips, and had a lot of great visitors! Your Daddy and I have had the best 'year 2' with you and are thrilled to see what 'year 3' brings! You are a constant wonder and an amazing little boy and we are crazy about you.


The Highlights:
January- 2nd birthday
February- snowed in for 9 solid days!
March- Lorelai's 1st birthday meant a trip to DFW, and Daddy bought you a cool train set from Ikea that is still your favorite
April- Dad was promoted to TSGT, Easter (with Grammy though she's not in any of the photos...)
May- You moved into your big boy bed!! Mom and Ms. Julie took a trip to Philly and you got to spend a little time there too! We also took several trips to the zoo including a few times with Ms. Becca and Quinn.
July- Your 3rd 4th! Grammy and Papaw came to visit for a whole week!
August- the beach BABY! We spent over a week in TX including a weekend trip to the beach with Aunt Emmy, Kunkle, the girls, and Papa. You LOVED it!! This was also the first time you met your BFF, Ryder :) We also got a super exciting and super quick visit from Mr. Josh, Ms. Patricia, and Annie!
September- Grandpa, Grandma Terry, Bill, and Judy all came to Maryland for a long weekend! You and I also packed up and went to visit Ms. Arlena and her kids for a week in Arizona!! Unfortunately, the camera I had with me died so there aren't many pics to commemorate your first meeting with the Strodes, but that just means we'll have to go back!
October- Grammy, Grandma Dane, Maelie, and Lorelai all came to Maryland to see you! We had a great time playing in the leaves and showing them around!
November- Thanksgiving in New York is now our favorite tradition. It was crazy, loud, and COLD but you did great and loved getting to see Ms. Julie again! We can't wait to do it again!!
We also had our first sleepover! You and Quinn had a great time watching Cars.
December- We've already had our first snow fall and you got to see Santa and ask for a Little People Airport that you have had your eye on for a while now!

There are so, so, so many more things I want to add in here. Your first time playing with play dough, the water mills, Ribsy, you in the dirt, your silly faces! They are all on here somewhere and they are all precious to me. We love you!

Winter Wonderland!

Sorry we've been MIA this month! Tis the season I guess! To make up for my extreme blogger negligence I've posted several new posts today. Get ready for Henry overload!!

For a little over a week we've been teased with almost daily flurries. Just sweet little flurries that fell gracefully from the sky and appeared to dissolve before ever meeting with the earth. Then yesterday came and brought with it a winter wonderland that we couldn't resist! I'm sure our neighbors, who have all lived here for 50+ years and hate snow, think we are crazy!! Henry woke up from his nap and talked me into going out because he 'just reeeally needed to just put his footprints out in the new snow.' I bundled him up and set out to make some prints and take some pictures, but we ended up hanging out there for half and hour while Henry spent most of his time gathering snow in his mittens and throwing it at me! He's such a crazy kid!! We stayed out as long as we could before his face turned red, and are getting to enjoy it again today! I'm watching the weather religiously to see if we're going to get anymore this weekend. Fingers crossed!!

This is mid snow ball! Luckily his hands aren't big enough to hold a ton of snow yet!!

It was really hard to get a good photo of him, because he didn't stop! He loves being a snow baby!

So worth it! Grab your coat and mittens and come join us for some snow ball fun anytime :)

Happy Birthday to Me!!

Rob took quite a bit of ribbing over his gift choices for me last year. Mostly because they weren't great (O Magazine was one of the highlights....). So I'm sure to redeem himself (and shut me up :) ) he went ALL OUT this year! I love our headboard very much. Every mover that has had to come in contact gets the same speech about how I'm not that picky about our other furniture, but if something happens to my headboard I'll hunt them down personally. I had to talk Rob into buying it for MONTHS while we were in San Antonio, and finally got it the day Maelie was born. The thing is we've only ever had cheap comforters and cheap throw pillows for it. No longer!! Rob bought a fabulous, fluffy new mattress pad, soft-as-butter sheets, fluffy new duvet & comforter, and freaking awesome pillows! It's like sleeping in a marshmallow. Or a cloud. Either way it was the best present ever and he will not be hearing about O Magazine again!

Before:

After:

Don't mind the mess. Our room is a magnet for mess! Everything makes its way in.

Santa! I know him!!

We took a trip to the local mall, which is almost literally a ghost town, to see the big man this year. Thankfully, because there are no people, there are no lines!! Henry did GREAT! This was the first year he willingly sat in Santa's lap and talked to him without Rob or myself prodding him. We got there right as Santa was getting off his dinner break and when he walked up I didn't know if Henry would freak out or not. Santa walked right up to Henry, asked if he'd seen the reindeer, took him by the hand, and went to sit down in his special chair! I'll have to post Santa through the ages photos sometime (including the good one they took this year) so you can see! I had to stand pretty far back to use my own camera so the quality isn't great, but it's better than nothing!

Cookie Party

We invited a few of our friends from church over to decorate cookies and play a few weeks ago. It was such a great time we had them back again last week! I love watching Henry play with kids in his age range. Unfortunately, he does play mother hen (a little rough at times) with the younger kids. Sorry Max and Quinn!

This is our BFF Quinn. He's about 18 months old, and he's one of the ones Henry likes to boss, but he's also the one on the top of Hen's list everytime. He loves his buddy!

Sick way to start...

We've been in hiding a bit for the past month. It started with one sick little boy! Henry had a cold for over a week and then the fever came. It stuck around for 3 days with round the clock meds and finally ended with a late night/early morning visit to the ER when his fever hit 103.9 and wouldn't go down. They gave him some heavier meds, called it a viral infection, and 4 hours later I was holding a soaking wet, sweaty, but cooled down little guy. Here is the face of sick at our house:

I (not so) secretly love that the whole time he was crashing on the couch he just wanted Ribs and Katy! It was so sweet.

Proud.

I can't really put into words my support for the men and women that serve our country. It's so much more than slogans and t-shirts and 4th of July. I am so grateful to those that put their lives on hold to go and do something that's greater than themselves. Think about that for a minute. They literally go off into the unknown so that you and I don't have to. They pack up their bags and leave everything for God knows how long to face God knows what so that our freedoms are always protected. The courage that takes is unimaginable to me.
I'm beyond honored to call one of these brave men my husband. I am so incredibly proud of him and the man that he is. He is crazy, and funny, and smart, and strong, and very much the love of my life. I am equally proud of the sacrifices he makes on behalf of our country. Rob leaves this Spring to go back into the sand box. To once again endure that atmosphere so that I will never have to know what it's like to not have the life I have. While Henry and I will miss him an almost unbearable amount, we are proud. We ask that you join us in supporting Rob. Be in prayer for his safety and quick return. Be in prayer for Henry and I here in Maryland while we wait for him to come home. Be in prayer for those like him and the families like ours.

We've been bitten...

by the bug. Calm down Mom, it's not the baby bug. It's the craft bug! I LOVE crafts and sharing it with Henro has been so much fun! He gets so excited about it. We went to the craft store and bought a bunch of beads, glue, googley eyes, construction paper, and leaves for a month of projects and now Henry's always asking what we're making next! This week it was the Mayflower out of a Silk carton. Unfortunately, I didn't grab my camera until we were done. Next week I'll do better :)

He was pretty excited to show it off to Dad that night!
Then he helped me make some yummy fall treats to take to Ms. Becca's house for our playdate with her, Quinn, Ms. Hillary, and Maddison. They look messy, but they were good!

My own little project.

Stay tuned for Pilgrims and Indians!

Water Mill Fun!

We bought Henry a set of water mills last week and it has been the best thing we've gotten him in a while! He is very interested in how things work lately so this has been so much fun to play with! They came in a set of three and this one is the smallest. It juuust fits in our bathroom sink, the next size up has to be used in the kitchen sink, and the largest one can only be used in the bath tub! Needless to say, I'm cleaning water off the floor in several areas of our home now :)

My little scientist.

On another fun note, it's COLD here now! I love it for so many reasons, but one of the biggest is the return of footie pj weather!! I think Henry's pretty jazzed about it too, because he stayed in these all day. Anytime I would say "Okay. Lets go get dressed." he would say "Umm. No thank you." Oh well! It's not like we're going anywhere :)

The kids

Last weekend we had four visitors!! I can't tell you how excited we were waiting for them to get here! Mae and Hen have been squealing a daily count down to each other for weeks. Those two are crazy about each other!!! It's kind of unbelievable giving how little they actually physically see each other. But they've been thick as thieves since Henry was born and we couldn't be happier! Then there's our sweet Lore. Henry was semi-excited she was going to be here, but he really doesn't 'get' her just yet! He was a mother duck to her all weekend! I'm sure she thought 'back off dude. I got this!' but she did great putting up with him all weekend :)

This time in Maryland, really the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic is incredible. I LOVE FALL! It is so picturesque around here, which made me even more excited about our visitors. We spent Sunday wondering around our neighborhood, playing in leaves, and finding acorns.

Henry is sooo over having his picture taken.

See what I mean?! He loves her, but it's a rough love.

We loved having you guys, and are ready for our next batch of visitors anytime now!

In fact, stay tuned for a impromptu visit from Ms. Julie starting TOMORROW!!

Henry and Ribsy

Henry has never really been attached to any one thing, with the exception of a paci, since the day he was born. He had a lot of great stuffed toys and little loveys that we hoped he would use to self soothe, but he never really cared for them. Thankfully, he was a pretty easy baby! But then one day during a Daddy-Henro shopping trip to Ikea Henry found a new friend. We've been reading Henry Huggins a few pages at a time to Henry for a little while now and all decided this dog should be called Ribsy like in the story. I thought for sure that the novelty of Ribs would have worn off by now, but apparently this particular thing is sticking around. Which is completely fine. We all know I love a good stuffed animal (hello Katy!). The only thing is, Ribsy is HUGE! He's as big as Henry is! We started using him as a bumper to make sure Henry didn't roll of the bed and the two of them are the same length. At first Ribs just stayed in Henry's bed and waited there for him, but now as Henry becomes more attached he goes most places with us. Henry even knows that the rule is he can't have toys on the stairs so he stands at the top of our staircase and throws Ribs over the railing onto a bench in the foyer! Rob says that should be proof we should hold off on having a brother or sister any time soon :) So anyway, family meet Ribsy.

This is what you see all the time now. Henry lays on him on the couch or sits him up to watch tv.

The good part about Ribs being so big is that we never lose him!

Below are just a couple of pictures we took at an orchard last week when I went to take our friend Mary's maternity pictures. (www.kaseycaruthers.wordpress.com)

This is the face I get now when Henry sees my camera. He says 'cheese.' but you can tell he's not really into it!

A+

Before our trip to Arizona last week Rob and I bought Henry a workbook just to see what would happen. Tonight felt like a good night to try it out so we all sat down at the table and worked on Henry's 'homework' pages! He is full of suprises! He sat and listened and picked out the colors and worked really hard. After he had finished all three pages (yellow is on the backside of blue) he got a sticker and then ran upstairs to tape them to his door.

Showing off his sticker.

Showing off his pages! So silly!

Now I know that a lot of that is scribble, but if you look close you can see where his tiny hand traced the letters (minus the 'e' on blue) all by himself! He's pretty proud of himself, and to be honest we are too!

The Many Faces of Henry

I realized today that it's been a little while since I posted any good pics of this handsome face so I thought I would play catch up! My personal favs are the middle and the one on the bottom right! That would be his 'mean face'. I know. You're scared. :)

And...

I forgot. For those of you that are still not following me on kasey caruthers photography facebook page (HINT. HINT.) I have another blog attached to my website that will have more of these pictures in the next week or two. Emily said to me 'You have another blog?' and I thought if my own sister didn't know this, you might now either. Lucky for her, she's now a follower :) (HINT. HINT.) Make sure to check it out!

Beach bums!

WHEW! It has been a whirlwind August! Before leaving for Ft. Worth we had a whole bunch on the calendar, then DFW for a week, and since then I have had three sessions. I can't believe we were in Texas last week and at the beach a little over a week ago! The kids had a BLAST. Em and I had so much fun taking Henry and Maelie last year and bringing Lorelai, Papa, Kunkle, and Uncle Rob made this trip even better! I have a ton of photos I wanted to post so I made it easier to look at (you may want to do something other than look at our kids at some point today!) and made each of them a page and then one of them all together. Lore was EASILY the one with the most to choose from. It's nice when you have a kid that prefers to hang out and eat some sand rather than see how far they can go out in the water! Henry and Mae definitely showed how brave they've gotten in the past year though. Both were little water babies!

Galveston 2011 anyone? We'll drug Rob :)

Front Yard Fun

This afternoon I thought my camera was very broken and was going to have to be sent away for repairs. I was SUPER bummed. I thought, 'How sad to be a photographer without a camera!" Luckily I think it was just bad batteries. With it back up and running I had to take it out and test it, and who better to help me out than this handsome boy?!

Today was a BEAUTIFUL 83 degree day after a week of incredible heat, incredible humidity, and incredible gross!

I'm participating in the Baltimore Bridal Show this Sunday and this is my table/booth! I went ahead and set it up in the foyer to see what I was going to tweak. This show has consumed me for the past 3+ weeks. It's a really big deal to the business and we are praying for a big sucess! (Or at least to break even :) ) Keep your fingers crossed for us this weekend while Rob and I are at the show, and Henry is getting to spend the whole day with Ms. Carly!

Wishes Do Come True!

Today Henry and I went on a walk with Mrs. Patty (a neighborhood friend we'll post more about later) and Daddy sat with Mr. Gil and swapped stories. After a good long walk, we took him to the Columbia mall and as we were leaving Macy's I showed him the fountain and told him about making a wish and tossing a coin in then asked if he would like to do it. I gave him a penny and said 'Now you have to make a wish like 'I wish we could have a yummy lunch' then you throw in your coin and maybe it will come true!' So he took his coin and THREW it into the fountain. I asked him what he wished for and he said 'I wished I could throw my coin into the fountain!' Wish GRANTED!

Toy Story 3

We took Henry to his first movie last week on one of Rob's days off! Henry got 'marching boots' (cowboy boots that he wasn't really interested in until we called them marching boots, because of a weird obsession with marching bands) with Buzz and Woody on them for Christmas this year and went through a wear-them-everyday phase. I'm sure you've seen them on the blog before. He loves them. But he didn't know who Buzz and Woody really were! He's never seen the other Toy Storys. Thanks to the magic of Disney's marketing though that doesn't seem to matter. He's been excited about Toy Story 3 just from commercials! When we got to the 'veater' he was even more excited! He did a great job sitting quietly and drinking his Sprite while the movie was on. It's amazing to see how big he is and to watch him do all of these big kid things!

If you haven't seen the movie, do it! It's now my favorite of the three.