Sunday, October 05, 2008

499

Friday night I was putting Clara in the car and Henry was at the end of the driveway waiting for Pete, whom we knew was arriving home any minute. I grabbed my camera because I thought he looked so sweet standing down there, clutching his hippo, waiting for his dad.

And then he noticed I was taking pictures of him, so he burst into a wild frenzy of dance...



We were waiting for Pete so we could get to member's night at the children's museum. They do this periodically, where they have special later hours for members only. This night it was to highlight their new temporary Brio Train exhibit. Henry gave me the obligatory thumbs-up.
The exhibit was pretty cool. It was a "life size" Brio train with buttons to push and other interactive things to do, which didn't all necessarily have to do with trains, as far as I could tell...
There were some life-size replicas of some of the Brio farm animals, which were pretty cute. Henry practiced his milking to show Grandpa Bill.
Clara is now big enough to take advantage of the baby play areas in the museum, which are set up so that you can still see and interact with your bigger kid, while playing with your baby.
Pete caught Clara and I looking in the baby-height mirror. She's starting to try to crawl....though mostly right now she just pushes herself backwards.

Saturday was lovely weather, which was great because I started the morning by participating (walking) in a 5K fundraiser for my school district. Later, during naps, Pete was doing some yardwork and discovered this guy:
Luckily, he was still there when Henry awoke from his nap. I'm hoping that he's proof that our praying mantis egg-sac from the spring actually produced some babies! This guy (or gal?) was about four inches long! Very cool.
I was feeling very Fall, so I recruited Henry to help me make an apple pie to have after our taco dinner. I know, kind of a strange combination, but Pete was making dinner and Pete makes tacos.
I also have been meaning to take the following picture. It's of the hydrangea plant that mom brought to the hospital when Clara was born. It was in lovely full bloom then, and I planted it with a small amount of hope. Much to my surprise, it's done well and just recently put out these gorgeous blooms! If anyone has tips on caring for it through the winter, I'd appreciate them.
And to wrap up our weekend, here are some pictures of Henry's afternoon art project. I put out our selection of small gourds (I can't help myself with the small gourds!) and encouraged him to draw them before painting.
Check out his cool, detailed drawing! His first one was the best. The gourd in the top left of his picture is the one on his far left in the upper picture. See how he made the bumps and the long neck? I love it! And the one on the far right of his picture is the small, round, green gourd in the middle. See how he made the lines coming out from the center? Brilliant.
When he went to paint them, he decided to stray from the realistic color scheme. He generally chose one main color, and then made a different colored dot in the middle for the stem.
I think I do have a picture of him with his tongue out, but I didn't include it here, there were just too many other good ones to choose from.
Here he is waiting on his dinner, playing a gourd-sorting guess-the-rule game. You can also see his horrible new habit of twirling his hair. I especially dislike it when he does this during dinner and gets rice or butter in his hair.
Pete loves to take photos of Clara while he's feeding her. Here she is enjoying some peas.

4 comments:

amber c. said...

that waiting for dad pic is priceless. also, i too like little gourds. they're very fall happy.

W.F. Decker said...

Excellent cow milking technique! Did he get a bucket full of wooden milk? Tell Henry his grandfather and his great grandfather are very proud of him.

Mama Tchou-Tchou said...

Love this post - especially the dad-waiting and the mirror-gazing pics. And the artwork, too, of course! When I saw the spot in the middle (before reading your words), I thought Henry muqt be going through a Pokémon phase, as well. (We are heavily into Pokémon-y everything over here, and many pictures sport Pokéballs flying around, among other many and various details.)

Beehave said...

Hi Henry. I like your museum picture because it has a train and a cow to milk.
bye.
sofia