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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.

A Very Happy 4th!!

Happy 4th everyone!!

It's hard to believe that last year Rob was in Iraq! We are so thankful to the Lord for bringing him home, and also to him and the many like him that continue to stand for our freedoms!!

A Week in Pictures

The Friday before last we went to the airport late at night to pick up Grammy and Papaw! This was very exciting for a number of reasons. One being that Mom and Wayne were going to be staying here for an entire week, two we were going to do a bit of traveling to show them the sights, and three this:

Henry is a HUGE fan of the walking side walks and escalators at the airport (or hotels, malls, really anywhere) so when we got to the airport he was REALLY looking forward to the 4 walking side walks and 2 escalators that stood between him and Grammy.

One good thing about Henry is that it's like he hasn't missed a beat when he gets back around our family. It's like he sees them everyday!

This was in Philadelphia on Saturday at the Reading Terminal Market, and more specifically at the Hope's Cookies stand. Henry was super excited about the treat he picked out!!

We spent Saturday evenings (and a couple after that) looking at 'liking bugs!' in the front yard. We don't have much light on our street which isn't great for driving, but is perfect for lightening bug watching!

On Thursday Henry, Wayne, Mom and I got in the car and drove down to Ocean City. This was our first time in the Atlantic! Henry's begging Rob to take him back.

On Friday we paid a visit to the zoo in Baltimore. There's a neat little area here where you can feed the giraffes. I didn't know how Hen would do with them eating something out of his hand, but there was no screaming!

While she was here (and since Henry left Texas in April) Grammy insisted that he needed a swing set to make him happy... After a great deal of searching for the past few weeks I found this at Sam's on sale!! It was $100 off what they were originally selling them at. I'm glad we waited :)

But Henry does seem to love it!

We had a great time with Grammy and Papaw and can't wait for them and the rest of you to get yourselves to Baltimore!!

Bag Boy

Who knew that Panera was so yummy AND entertaining?! Tonight Hen and I ate Panera at home and after he got out of his chair he decided to try to play sack race with the bag. This kid is so funny and so unpredictable!

This picture makes him look so old for some reason! I can't believe how big he's getting.

Then he decided to be a 'smooky (spooky) robot'.

Henry, we love you a little more everyday. It's hard to imagine that's possible, but it's true!

Dirty Work

Once we cut the giant tree down, which took all day, and then started pulling branches apart to fit the requirements for yard trash day, then spent the whole next day pulling and breaking branches again (which ended with bloody head injury on my part) we decided that manual labor was for the birds! So I got on my good friend Craigslist and picked up this little gem:

I may be in love. So is Rob. We've drug half the tree from the front yard back behind the garage and introduced it to our little friend! You can't really tell, but that pile of wood shavings is about two feet wide and as long as our two car garage! I told you that tree was big! Obviously this isn't an ideal area for Hen to play while all this is going on, but we didn't want him to just be running loose between the yards with neither of us really watching him. So I did the disgusting and grabbed the water hose and flooded a little dirt patch in the back yard, handed him castle molds, and told him to go to town! He was FILTHY, but had a great time.

The other funny...

After I wrote the last post I was going over and over in my head what the last thing Henry said that made us laugh the other day and finally remembered. We make him sing weird songs and do funny impressions all the time and one of his classics is 'Prison Mike' from The Office. So we told him to say the line and he said, "I'm prison Mike! You gotta good life!...... And Meeta too!" We laughed so hard! At least he has that Mike and Meeta go together in his mind!

Henry's Funny for the Day!

Yesterday Henry was just on. The three of us were outside cutting down the big green monster in the front yard and anytime we would stop Hen was saying something hilarious. Here are a few quotes:

me (in the car on the way home from Sams)- "We can start cutting now, or we could feed Henry and lay him down for a nap and then start."
Hen- "But I just woke up!" (which is not true. He had been awake for roughly 5 hours at this point)

While Rob and I were working Henry knocked my glass of ice water over, looked at me and froze, and then said, 'It's okay Mama. Accidents happen!'

Then when he was sitting in his high chair for lunch I asked him how things were going and without looking at me or missing a beat he said very dryly, "things are going great."

These may not be that funny if you weren't here, but we had a good laugh! I'll have before and after pictures of the yard work we've been doing over the past two days, but it will be a few more days before everything is cut and bundled and ready for yard trash day. This tree must have been in this yard since the house was built, because it was so freaking big! Really, truly a big, green monster. Now all of our neighbors have come over to comment on how different the block looks with it down! It was THAT big!!

Benadryl

Friday Henry and I spent most of the day playing outside having a great time and getting filthy. I took him in for a bath and when I was standing in the kitchen afterwards making dinner I saw his ear and thought "Crap! He's bleeding!" Nope. His ear was deep red and swelling like a little balloon! Poor guy had a reaction to something (still unclear what) and has spent the weekend sipping Benadryl. Thankfully, it's looking almost normal today!

Gifts from Papa

Yesterday was also a fun mail day for Henry! Papa sent him a Texas Rangers hat and a Galveston t-shirt. Henry promptly put the hat on (backwards) and wore it until bed time. Then at bed time said "Can my Papa shirt be my bajamas?" He's still wearing it now.

Panera Mac and Cheese is GOOD!

This morning in his bajamas.

Zoo Trip with Quinn

Yesterday we were able to go to the zoo with Ms. Becca and 'baby' Quinn. Becca and I have been in a Bible study since last fall and when it ended last week we decided we should set up some play dates starting with a trip to the zoo. It was a cloudy cool day, which is the best zoo weather! Emily says it means the animals are roary instead of just laying around dying in the heat.

Quinn and his mommy

So this giant chimp was sitting at the glass tapping it with his hand and then he jumped down, grabbed one of those plastic toddler chairs and started hammering the glass! I think his monkey brain broke...

My little monkey checking out his brethren.