The faces of Henry

For your viewing pleasure...

Some people have looked at Henry and been thoroughly convinced he looks like Scott. I would like to offer some photographic evidence of my opinion.

p.s. That is not Scott.

Today

I've overheard several conversations in my past about how supremely satisfying it is when your children play well together. I had a glimpse of that this morning.

Henry is sitting up pretty well these days and he loves the new vantage point. He loves watching Grace. Grace notices the attention and hams it up.

She danced, laughed and jumped for him and he beamed back at her. I watched them for awhile without needing to save Henry or entertain Grace. They were there for each other! It was really sweet.

Today was a pretty typical day. We usually spend a good hour at least playing on my bed at some point. In the afternoon we made popcorn for our afternoon snack. We all love watching it pop.

Notice Grace has a tassel in her hand above? Scott got his graduation robes last week and the tassel has been a daily toy since then. Today she held one of the strings taut and plucked it while singing in a low tone "doo be do be doo wa, doo be do be doo wa." Then she told me she was making music with the string. Her creativity and music inclinations make me happy.

For our outing today we went to a Map store off State street that we drive by every day. It was a fun place with lots of toys, teaching aids and maps. We came home with a large laminated U.S. map and a huge floor puzzle.

It's been a fun day!

Interview with Grace

I'm not very good at taking videos, though I wish I was. This was a video Scott took of Grace with his ipod a few weeks ago and I love it. I wanted to share.

Mailboxes and farewells

We're getting all ready for Valentine's day.

Everyone has a mailbox and the notes of love have already begun!

One of the most exciting notes is a goodbye to diapers from Grace!

She has danced into underpants with ease and grace. By day three she had no accidents! She's already gone potty during daycare at the gym (by herself) and while babysitters were watching her at home (again, by herself).

We're pretty excited about this new phase of life at our house.

Fresh Oranges!

Our travelogue about Phoenix wouldn't be complete without a short note mentioning the citrus trees! They were everywhere - lemons, varieties of oranges, tangelos, grapefruit . . . it really made us want to have some fresh-off-the-tree oranges to take home with us.

We were perhaps the closest to picking our own when we were at the restaurant (see post below) eating under the canopy of an orange tree. We asked if we could take a couple and received permission from our hostess, but the fruit was too high to get without making a big commotion. In the parking lot were a few trees, but they had already been picked over and didn't leave us much good fruit.

We determined to find a grove the next day. Apparently, the large old groves in the greater Phoenix area are mostly gone, victims of development and urban sprawl, but we were able to find one only a little out of our way called "The Orange Patch" in Mesa, AZ.

The Orange Patch has an old country-story feel with acres of orange and citrus groves behind. Walking into the clap-board store front we were hit with the smell of fresh off-the-tree citrus. We tried a few sample slices they had prepared by the door (Britta like the Arizona Sweets best, while I liked the Navels) and ventured through the rows and rows of fruit ready for the picking.

Perhaps what most excited me was the size of the fruit (especially the navels); they were the size of small melons! Really! I took some pictures.

Here's one with a watermelon to give you an idea -



So, what?! I didn't have a REAL watermelon - we didn't pick any of those! I thought you'd all know what a standard JellyBelly bean size was, and could compare . . .

Okay, lemme put Grace in this one:



Britta suggested a tennis ball and a ruler would help:



I thought a collegiate football was a better idea:



Anywho~

Here's the bunch that we got - Britta's smaller, sweeter (and seeded :) Arizona Sweets, and my HUMONGOUS Navels, side-by-side.



They are SOOOOO good!

A trip to Arizona

I have a couple of weeks off during the doldrums of winter - a perfect time to take a "snowbird" vacation. We were thinking of exotic places like Florida, San Diego, the Keys . . . and we decided to take a less expensive, lower effort trip to Arizona with the added bonus of being able to have Henry meet Scott's Grandma and Grandpa Pete! (We were sorry that we weren't able to hang with Alisha, Jeff, and their family - hope you're enjoying TX.)

Our trip was short - just from Sunday evening to Thursday, with only one full day to spend in Phoenix. It felt like one REALLY long road trip. By the end, I think we were all glad to get out of the car. Grace really liked staying in the same hotel room as mom and dad and Henry, maybe too much, as she didn't fall asleep until two hours beyond her bedtime (much to our chagrin), and she really liked having a hotel pool to swim in.

Here we are at Grandma and Grandpa's. We talked about a lot of things like family history, counting grand- and great-grand children, how Grandpa and Grandma met . . . It was really great to be able to visit with them and to introduce them to one of their newest great-grandchildren.



After our visit we ate lunch at a GREAT place called "Aunt Chiladas" which was part of a resort. We were surrounded by business-types on the power lunches brokering deals or whatever they do (eat, maybe) during their lunch breaks. We sat outside on a bright, sunny day beneath an orange tree overburdened with large, fresh, ripe fruit and chittering finches. The salsa was the best restaurant salsa I've had and their Chimichanga was good, too. (I judge all Mexican places by their salsa and chimis.)

We also stopped by a HUGE park in Tempe sponsored by the Kiwanis Club. Grace was most interested in the playgrounds.







Britta and Henry enjoyed the view from the duck pond.



Grace tried to feed the ducks her Smarties, but they weren't taking it.

All in all, we loved our trip. We tried to time the driving so that the bulk of it was during Grace and Henry's nap times, and it worked out fairly well. Grace loved to see the huge cactuses (cacti? cactren?), Daddy loved the warm weather and started to complain about Utah winter weather before we left, Mommy loved getting out of the car, and Henry, well, honestly, he won't remember this, but loved every minute . . . almost!

We love you Gma and Gpa Pete!