Henry's Adventures of Late

The past few weeks have been crazy busy, but they've been filled with lots of fun, smiles, and laughter.  A few weeks ago, Henry was on the cusp of being old enough to use his Baby Jogger.  I needed about 30 minutes to clean the house, so I begged Paul to try and take him and see how he liked it.   The prospect was obviously very exciting for Henry.

 The boys came back 30 minutes later, and it was a total success.  Henry loved it!

Henry also got to meet his Great-Auntie Elaine and cousin Madeleine.  They were only in town for a few short days, but we were glad we could swing by and snag lunch with them!

 Poor Madeleine - Henry took up the majority of her lap!

Here are a few pictures of Henry at Gigi and Papa's after church a few weeks ago.

 Henry LOVES being up in the air. He is 100% boy.  I don't think he has good enough head control to be tossed yet, but I can guarantee that he'll love it!

He's also become quite the little kitchen helper.  His two bottom teeth won't help him eat a cupcake, but you sure don't need teeth for icing! :)

 Here's the final product.  I may be on Weight Watchers to lose the baby weight, but I might as well feed the Bible Study ladies well.  And making it pretty never hurts!

And we've tried the whole rice cereal/oatmeal stuff, but didn't have a whole lot of success.  We've been sneaking him little tidbits from the table for weeks, and sweet potatoes a few weeks ago actually got some grunting and leg kicking.  Therefore, after sitting in traffic for over an hour tonight, I figured I'd bust out one of my Christmas presents I hadn't gotten to use yet and see if feeding Henry would cheer me up a little bit.

 

Henry was perched and ready to go. 

 We said open wide and this did not seem to be a problem.....

 TOTAL SUCCESS!  I did have to fish a little out of his nose, but he didn't seem to mind a bit. :)

First Belly Laugh

I've been horrible about posting lately.  My workload at the office has definetly picked up, and I'm back to working like I did pre-baby.  I've found that work, husbands, children, church, Bible study, and attempting to keep up with the lives of friends and family [listed in no particular order] get placed far above blogging. 

But in my attempt to balance my work and home life, I got to work super early yesterday so I could pick Henry up from daycare early to spend some time with him.  Of course I had wholly forgotten to plan our dinner menu, so I decided to pull some frozen hamburger patties from the freezer while he entertained himself on the island in the kitchen. Of course, the hamburgers were frozen together.  As I was gently trying beat them apart on the countertop, I heard a strange noise coming from my child.....

I hope this brought a smile to some other faces like it did mine.  :)

4 Months!!

Henry's 4 months old today!

 

I think my Mama is sooooo funny.

Hmmm..... I wonder how this sticker tastes.....?

Wasn't tasty enough to keep chewing on it.

I was super proud of Henry this week - he wasn't asleep for a single one of my daily pictures from Paul!

Monday - wide-eyed and ready for his bottle after naptime!

 

Tuesday - post-feeding.

Wednesday - getting his grub on with his crew.

 

Thursday - Enjoying himself outside while the weather was in the mid-70s.

Friday - Loving life as a 4-month-old.  Can we say Paul Jr.?

One Year Ago

One year ago today, I was supposed to report to my new office near downtown Dallas.  My law firm had announced 10 days earlier that 6 of the partners were leaving to open the Dallas office of a national law firm, and I received the invitation to go with them.  The days that followed the announcement were horrendous. I was told by some that the decision to leave and go with the new guys would "ruin my career," while being told by the other side that doors to new opportunities would be opening on all fronts. Why do these things happen when you're content where you are?  After more than a week of flip-flopping (I must be a politician at heart), I made the executive decision to start fresh, leave my old firm, and start the new Dallas office with 6 partners and 3 other associates.  The office was set to open on February 1, 2011, but then Snowmageddon 2011 hit Dallas.  What a disaster.  I think Dallas has 1 snowplow for the entire Metroplex, so when my backyard looked like this, I made the executive decision to not even bother showing up to the office.

 

 [Please note that we still had Milton, the goldendoodle, at this time.  He hadn't been fired from the Meredith family yet.]

Paul's school was also closed, so we lit a fire, snuggled up on the couch, and turned on TV.  We soon figured out that there's only so much TV and Wii you can take as an adult, and we were bored by 2:00 p.m.  We had eaten half the fridge/pantry as well, and decided to go make a food/beer run at the nearest Kroger.  Before we walked out the door, however, I told Paul I'd been feeling kind of funny and that maybe I should take a pregnancy test.  He kind of shrugged so I dug one out of the back of a bathroom closet.  I was confident that most of my symptoms were caused by the anxiety of the major life changes that had occurred over the past 10 days, but figured I better double check before I start boozing it up mid-afternoon.  Sure enough, that magical blue line turned pretty quickly into a cross.  AMAZING!  I was giddy as can be and so excited, but Paul was semi-hyperventilating and convinced that the test wasn't good enough.  I think he may have actually referred to the test as "ghetto."  He demanded a test that read either "pregnant" or "not pregnant."  So we climbed in the car, slid our way through the Kroger parking lot, and purchased a six pack of Sam Adams and 3 digital pregnancy tests.  The look on the checkout guy's face was classic.  And, of course, all the digitial tests read pregnant!!!  Little did we know what a blessing our little baby would be!

Can we say Paul Meredith clone?  Minus the overalls, he looks JUST like his daddy.

We've had such a blast with this almost 4-month-old, and can't wait to enjoy this next year [and many after that] with him!

And just because I think he's such a stinking cutie, here's a picture of the little guy this past weekend, all bundled up for our Saturday afternoon walk!

I could just pinch his cheeks right now.