It's the Final Countdown!!

The peanuts are getting low, the tape ran out once already this morning, Henry has to navigate a sea of boxes to get anywhere. On the up side- he did get a chance to see the kitty during a rare daytime foray to the kitchen yesterday. He was mesmerized by her eating. Compared to Franklin Linus eats slowly as a tortoise. Speaking of Franklin, he is delighted at the re-emergence of his favorite pillow. Henry is currently on a walk with Bampa, enjoying the lovely weather which will reportedly be gone by tomorrow. Pete and I are using the time to do some last minute shoving of junk into boxes. There is much sneezing and laughing at the dust bunnies that stick to my head.

Crateball

Packing

Mom packed like a crazy woman the last few days. Here is just one of her stacks of boxes. She did all of our nice dishes. The Homer Laughlin, the depression glass, the Denby.... and random assorted other breakables. You will note, in the second photo, that she is also very thorough in her labelling. This box says "Very heavy breakables! Careful! Hold Bottom. Set down gently!" There is still much to be done. We should be able to handle it. Closing is on Friday. Our plan is to do our walk-through, go to the closing, move a few things over and clean. Hopefully we'll have enough energy to go to Dave's Italian Kitchen Friday night. The movers come around 9AM Saturday!
Admidst all the excitement, Henry has been learning to play a wicked game of Crateball...photos to come, when Blogger cooperates.

Rockstar

Henry wore his Rockstar t-shirt to see Justin Roberts at Borders yesterday. He was asleep at first when we got there, but he woke up after a couple of songs. Then he sat there, very attentive, with a slightly furrowed look to his brow. Before he awoke some woman next to me said "I'm just curious, why did you bring him if he's sleeping?" She was one of those people who ask you a question but don't really want to hear the answer, they just want to make a point by asking it. I wanted to smack her, but I just said "well, he wasn't asleep when we left and he really likes music". A better response would have been a silent stare until she realized how bitchy she sounded. Sorry for the mean language...I just get so annoyed with people like this. Otherwise we quite enjoyed the show. Justin had a cold, and he didn't sing Hey Hippopotamus, but it was still fun. Henry explored other rockstar pursuits yesterday as well. He played Daddy's drum for a while. He tried to put the wrong end of the earphones into his ear and he dragged the headphones over to the stereo and proceeded to try to plug them in to the correct spot after only seeing Pete do this one time. Any time any music is on the boy is bouncing, bopping and conducting. He also has an excellent shimmy move that I cannot imitate for the life of me. And did I mention that he says "Mom" now? My favorite. He says it loud and clear all day long. The other night he even said it in his sleep.

Cheerios

I have not posted for a while...actually, I was hoping to get more comments from readers, but alas....

Short story, just to have a new post: Henry is sitting in his high chair chomping on his Cheerios this morning. Just a moment ago I heard Mom say "Oh!" I looked over and Henry was putting a Cheerio in his ear. Now, he's generally not the type to stick things in his ears or nose, so I'm pretty sure what he was actually doing was thinking he would wear the Cheerio like an earring. The earrings I wear every day are small silver Cheerio-sized hoops. Henry sometimes picks them up and holds them to his own ears. He's very fancy.

Forbidden!

Yay! My blog is back. I was actually quite sad when I thought that it might be lost forever. I'm sorry if you were rudely told that you were forbidden from entering this site. There was some sort of problem with Blogger....that's all. But, while we're on the subject of my blog...I'm curious about who is out there regularly reading it. Would you mind posting a comment if you're a regular? Even Pete and Amber....I just want a head-count. Maybe it's the teacher in me.

To Snow, or Not to Snow...

They're forecasting up to 3 or 4 inches, but as of yet the snow just seems to be randomly swirling around the courtyard. Occasionally a couple flakes will streak past the window as if to say "Okay guys! Let's get this thing going!"
Meanwhile, Henry is (shhhhhhh!) napping. He has a renewed interest in naps lately. Maybe all that work walking is wearing him out? I'm going to knock on wood now, though, because the last time I blogged about how well he was sleeping everything with his schedule went haywire. Here's a shot of Henry showing that he's just too cool for napping.

We just had a nice overnight visit from Dad, who was pleased to get lots of smiles from Henry and to be included in the "Bampa" club. He let Henry take all of his spare change and put it into his piggy bank. Then Henry found a few more quarters (laundry money) on the table and started crawling away with them. Pete followed Henry all the way to his room where he went to deposit those quarters, with the others, into his bank. It only takes once with this kid. He's a quick study.

He's been quite enjoying his little house, brought to us by my mom. It was ours as kids, made by Aunt Paula. She'll be pleased to know that Henry loves it. He goes in, peeks out the window, comes out, goes back in. The height of hilarity for him is when Franklin makes his way into the house.



With all of the boxes in the house Henry has much to explore.
Babies in Boxes:

4 Things

Saw this on someone else's site, thought it would be fun, changed a bit for my own enjoyment
....if you read this you must respond either on your blog or on a comment....then pass it on...

Four Things
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Four Jobs I've Had:
1. camp counselor
2. bus driver
3. barista
4. teacher

Four Books I Love:
1. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
2. The House at Pooh Corner
3. The Time Traveller's Wife
4. Old Turtle

Four Places I've Lived:
1. Iowa City (parents)
2. Iowa City (dorm)
3. Chicago, IL
4. Evanston, IL

Four TV Shows I Love:
1. Gilmore Girls
2. Ed
3. The Office (British and American)
4. House Hunters

Four Places I'd Love to Revisit:
1. Half Moon Bay, CA
2. Prague
3. Paris, France
4. 1112 E. Court St.

Four Things I Love to Eat:
1. chocolate
2. chocolate chip cookies
3. garden-grown strawberries
4. chicken enchiladas

Four Websites I Love:
1. Julie Zickefoose
2. Balloon Hats
3. Baby Name Wizard
4. Zebra Hall

Bampa's Birthday

Happy Birthday "Bampa"! Here are some photos from our celebration a couple weeks ago. Henry is making his best "cheese!" face.

Happy Birthday Mom!

We're celebrating Mom's birthday this weekend! We haven't gotten much packing done, but we sure do have a lot of boxes around now! We had dinner last night at Symphony's. Then we had some birthday brownie with ice cream and strawberries. Yum! I'm fighting the urge to have more brownie for breakfast.
We love you mom/Grammie! Happy Birthday!

Socialist

Here's how I came out on the poll Amber took. I think Pete turned out more Democrat than socialist...

I have been a negligent blogger lately! Not sure what I'm so busy with. I have lots to do and not much of it is getting done. But I feel so busy!
Mom comes today. She's bringing some packing supplies and we'll celebrate her birthday, but most of all she just couldn't wait any longer to visit Henry. It's been since January that she's been here.
Speaking of Henry....I think we can finally officially say that he's walking. He can get from one room to another without falling, so I think that qualifies. He's not crazy all over the place yet. I made a movie, but don't know how to post it to the blog....I'll try to get some still shots that I can post.
In the meantime here's Henry enjoying some brocolli.

Back Up

I am getting seriously backed up on blog entries....there is just so much going on right now! All I really want to do is sleep. Grandpa Bill has been requesting photos of Henry using his new step-stool, so here are two goodies. The first shows the stool in use. The second shows Henry, quite pleased with himself, having just figured out what a great tool this step truly is. Thanks Grandpa! He loves it. Now he doesn't have to use his piano when he wants to go mountain climbing!


Next in line we have Henry figuring the keys out....they're not just for shaking anymore!


And here's a shot of him trying to choose colors for the new house. We're thinking cool tones for the bedrooms and orange (marmalade!) or yellow for the kitchen. We may also (eventually) paint the ceiling of the family room, in between the beams....Amber's suggestion to warm the room up a bit. Henry seemed kind of drawn toward Friendly Frog and Heffalump Purple (Disney designer colors) but that may have been my imagination.


Finally we have a shot of our sign, all happy with it's "under contract" addition. This is in yesterday's strange, but lovely, snowfall.

Beto

Happy Birthday, Big Brother!!

Sher-Main

We have decided that before we move out of Evanston we should hit a few of the places we've always talked about, but never been. Not that we can't come back, but it just won't be the same. Hard to believe that I've lived here for 6 years! So last weekend we went to the Sher-Main Grill. It is, of course, on the corner of Sherman and Main. Pete and I have a special kind of dislike for names of places that are created by mashing together two street names. But the Sher-Main always attracted me. It took a little talking to convince Pete to go there...though he'll deny that now. The place was small and dingy. We sat at a booth on the side, the booth that shared a back with Pete's bench was in the smoking section, we were in the non-smoking section. It was hard to tell the difference. I ordered the Sher-Main Omelet, which was actually quite tasty! The coffee was worthless. They did have grits as an option instead of potatoes, which was a treat. Most of the staff seemed to be Spanish-speaking. The clientele seemed a mix of low-income adults (possibly from the residence for the mentally-ill down the street) and college students. I'm not sure it's a place we'll need to go again, as we really prefer the Lucky Platter down the street, but we're glad to know it's there. Next stop: The Charcoal Oven in Skokie.

Sleepy Guy

Henry has had a bit of a cold. Yesterday he hadn't napped, so when he came home he fell asleep at 5:20 and slept the whole night until 6AM! This photo isn't actually last night, because last night he slept in his clothes, with his sweatshirt on. I did manage to take his shoes off and change his diaper without waking him.
After a very grumpy start to his day Henry had a nice nap while I went to the bank and Borders. He awoke in time to enjoy some kick-back time at Starbucks.
When we got home this afternoon he decided to investigate the bubble wrap. He enjoyed popping several of the bubbles, and then started exploring the idea of popping them in his mouth...so we had to finish that game. I didn't get any photos, but he also enjoyed playing with a string of Mardi Gras beads I wore home yesterday. He somehow figured out that they were something to wear, and was able to put them on. Mom, of course, made sure to remind me not to let him choke himself.