My Very Own Kris Kringle!!!

It is no secret that I love the Christmas season, but this year my Christmas excitement has been taken to a whole new level.  This is all due to my little Henry Patrick.  Henry has become completely infatuated with Christmas.  He loves everything Christmas and Santa Claus, or as Henry calls him, Ho Ho.  :)  Henry will only wear Christmas pajamas to bed.  Needless to say, we have gone from 2 pairs of Christmas pajamas to almost 10 over the course of about a week.  This is mostly in thanks to PawPaw.  :)  This momma couldn’t keep up with the laundry with only 2 pairs of wearable pajamas.  ;)  Henry also only wants to wear his Christmas socks.  He has one pair of green striped socks and one pair of red striped socks.  Again, this makes it very hard to keep them clean with only 2 pairs.  He never wants to take these socks off so I have to wait until he goes to bed to take them off of his little feet so that I can put them in the washer.  Even though this laundry situation can be quite a hassle at times, I don’t mind because I love how much my little Henry loves Christmas.  Our house is decorated more than ever with Christmas decorations, and a lot of them are hung crooked or in weird places around the house because Henry loves to do the decorating.  He loves picking out the perfect place for the decorations and then moving them around about a hundred times.  J  I have come to terms with the fact that my house is not going to look perfectly decorated, and I am ok with that because I love watching my little boy get so excited to move the decorations around himself.  Henry even set up our Nativity in the living room all by himself, and of course his favorite piece of the nativity is baby Jesus who Henry calls “baby.”  Every night, Henry and Nick put up a piece on the Advent calendar that Grandma Deve made.  Henry waves to the inflatable Santa Claus that is out in the front of the subdivision every time we pass them, and then he says “more” so we drive around the neighborhood looking for more that he can wave to.  Henry and I are both working on convincing daddy that we need our own Santa Claus in the front yard.  We are hoping that one will magically appear one day before Christmas.  ;)  Henry only wants to watch Christmas movies when we are at home so you can only imagine how quickly our Christmas movie collection is growing.  Daddy hates watching the same movies over and over.  J  Henry has a giant stuffed Santa Claus that Daddy bought him and a Santa night light that he sleeps with in his room.  He loves playing with the Santa Claus apps on my phone.  He talks to Santa on one of the apps on my phone and tells him that he wants "toys" for Christmas and that he has been "nice" this year.  We also have our elf on a shelf who Henry named Buddy.  Like I said, I have my very own little Kris Kringle, and I am absolutely loving every minute of it.  I cannot wait to see my little boy’s face on Christmas morning!

My Little Boy is Growing Up WAY Too Fast

It seems that my little Henry has turned into a little grown-up overnight.  :(  Henry is now sleeping in his big boy bed.  Monday night (Dec. 2) was the first night that he slept in his big boy bed throughout the entire night.  Needless to say, this momma did not get much sleep.  I kept waking up and checking the monitor to make sure that my babe was ok.  I think the transition to the big boy bed has been much harder on me than it has been on Henry.  He LOVES his race car bed!!!  Every night, he jumps in it and cuddles up with his Cardinals teddy bear, his Santa night light, and the race car that he made with Paw Paw.  It is so cute!  He even makes sure that his teddy bear is covered up with the blanket.  He has a cute Cardinals blanket for his bed, but he insists on using my puppy dog Snuggie as his blanket.  He now knows that his old room will now be Charlie's room.  He keeps going in Charlie's room and taking things across the hall to his new room.  I guess he is not ready to share all of his belongings with his little brother just yet.  ;)

A Little Boy's Best Friend Is His Puppy Dog

Henry did the cutest thing this morning before we left the house to meet Dad.  I always put Oscar in his cage in the dining room, then pick Henry up, and we leave.  Henry will wave to Oscar Mayer as we are walking out the door.  Well this morning, I picked Henry up, and he immediately started squirming out of my arms.  I put him down, and he ran over to Oscar's cage and stuck his little fat fingers between the bars of the cage so Oscar could lick them.  He wanted a kiss from his puppy dog before he left.  :)  He then ran back to me, let me pick him up, and then waved to Oscar as we were walking out the door.  It was so sweet!  That little boy just loves Oscar Mayer to pieces!

A few of Henry's Faves Right Now:

Henry loves going to the park!  He likes running around on the playground, throwing mulch, and people watching. :)

Henry loves sitting in dad's office chair and pretending he is typing on dad's computer.  Even though he is not supposed to do this, he looks pretty darn cute sitting at the computer.  :)

Henry has figured out how to climb on our sectional in the living room to look out the window.  He loves keeping an eye on the neighbors and is always on the lookout for puppy dogs.

Spring is in the Air, and Henry is Loving Every Minute of It!!!

We had the best Easter weekend!  On Friday night, we took Henry and Elle to see the Easter bunny at Bass Pro Shop.  We were a little worried about how they would be on the Easter bunny's lap, but both kiddos did awesome!  We got the cutest pictures.

We took Henry to an Easter egg hunt on Saturday.  The place was packed!  Henry played on the playground before he started the egg hunt.  He loved running around with the other kids.  Henry did a great job collecting Easter eggs and putting them in his bucket.  I had to curb my competitive spirit and not take over. :)  We had such a fun day!

  On Easter Sunday, Henry woke up and opened the presents in his Easter basket.  He then collected eggs that were spread out all over our living room.  We went to church, then to the Voss family Easter at Aunt Darcy's house, and then to the Mulligan family Easter at mom and dad's.  Henry was such a good boy in church and looked adorable in his Easter suit.  He had so much fun playing with his cousins, Mika and Samara, at the Voss family Easter.  When we got to mom and dad's, there were Easter eggs all throughout the house and on the deck.  Henry immediately ran to a bouncy Jake and the Neverland Pirates ball that Katie, Eric, and Elle had brought him.  Henry loved all of his Easter presents, especially his new chairs and fishing pole.  He was so funny going through his Easter basket because he would grab the fake grass and throw it.  It was like he didn't want it cluttering up his Easter basket.  :)  He ate a ton of m&ms and reese's pieces and started acting really goofy.  Everyone was laughing at the show our little boy was putting on.  He did not sleep the greatest that night when we got back home.  I am thinking he might have had a tummy ache.  :(  I stayed home with him on Monday to make sure that he was ok and to feed him lots of fruits and veggies to make up for the all the candy he had the day before.  :)  We had a fun day at home together.

After a wonderful Easter, we went back to unpacking and settling into our new house.  We LOVE it!!!  Henry loves looking out the window for geese and ducks on the pond.  We took him out to feed the geese one day, and he had a blast!  Henry is loving this nice weather and will cry to go outside.  I told Nick that we need a fence and a swing set ASAP.  Luckily, it is a short walk through the neighborhood to the park at the elementary school.  We have already taken Henry up there several times.  He loves running around on the playground.  It is so cute to watch!  I, of course, am running around on the playground with Henry and holding on to the back of his shirt half of  the time to make sure that he doesn't fall or jump off.  Nick always jokes that I am a tad bit overprotective. :)  I think he may be right!

This past week, we have been working on transitioning Henry back into his crib.  After staying in the same room as his mommy for 2 months while we lived at mom and dad's house, Henry has gotten used to sleeping in the same bed as his mommy and daddy.  I was so nervous about putting him back in his crib and having him cry it out.  I put a teddy bear in his crib with him because he loves touching my hair when he is trying to go to sleep.  It broke my heart to watch him petting his teddy bear on the first night in his own bed.  He has done wonderfully this past week and is now sleeping through the night in his crib.  I have to admit, this hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be.  Nick said it best when he said that he thinks this was harder on me than on Henry.

Henry is doing so many funny and cute things!  He loves wearing his sunglasses and still loves being read to.  He will even sit and look at books by himself sometimes, although not for very long.  ;)  He has gotten into the habit of trying to hide his diapers from grandma by stuffing them into the chair cushion at her house.  For some reason, he does not like for you to change his diaper and will usually kick and scream.  He loves getting into Oscar's water bowl and will dump it out whenever he gets a chance.  This is why you will often see Oscar's food and water bowls sitting on top of our kitchen counters.  Henry also likes to get into Oscar's food and dump handfuls onto the floor for Oscar whenever we accidentally leave the pantry door open.  He just loves his puppy dog!  Henry's other best buddy is his cousin, Elle Belle!  He loves that little girl to pieces (don't we all!)  He will go up to Elle and talk to her in the cutest baby voice, and he gives her more kisses than anyone else.  They are so cute together!