When Henry Turned Three

This year we had a Toy Story birthday for Henry. He got a brand new shiny Buzz Lightyear and I decided to buy him a store bought cake instead of trying to create my own character cake disaster.

Steve took Henry and the others big kids to see Toy Story 3. It was Henry’s first trip to a movie theater and he was good to sit through the whole movie. He even did better than Libby who always finds some reason to get out of her seat and bother the others.

Henry is constantly pushing the boundaries. He is a pretty determined kid. He loves to play outside and heads out whenever he pleases. He got a Bubble mower for his birthday, because he loves to follow us around as we mow the lawn. The best thing we ever did was put the gate up this spring so that he could not escape out of the backyard.

He is not that great at adapting to new things. We are taking part in a neighborhood Joy School. So every Tuesday and Thursday he has a howling fit as we head off to other people’s houses to play for a couple of hours. He always has a great time and is fine when I pick him up, so I don’t know why he has problems in the first place.

He is now officially potty trained – woo hoo! Except at night – of course. I wonder how long that will take?

He loves to play with cars and always has to have one to carry around with him. He also loves the movie Cars too, but we have not watched it for a while. That’s ok, because we watched it every day for like 6 months, so we needed a break.

I think he’s growing up too fast, but I know I can’t do anything about it.

Evil Trampolines

This summer brought us our first experience with stitches. It think we did pretty good making it all the way to kid #4 before we had to deal with this issue.

Of course it was Libby who needed them. She has the ability to get hurt while playing with cotton balls and bubble wrap. It’s amazing that she can navigate through the obstacle course in her room during the middle of the night to get to the bathroom, but she trips over the air walking down the sidewalk in the middle of the day. She is also the first and only kid to get a broken bone.

Early in June, after being told more than once to stay away from the trampolines, Libby found herself knocked against the bar and got a nasty gash above her eyebrow.

She only had to have 3 stitches, but it was traumatic all the same. Especially for poor Libby who can make all things seem 10 times worse.

It a good thing we have such great neighbors to help us out when we need it. The whole experience was not nearly as bad as it could have been.

P.S. As I was looking through pictures from this summer, I came across this one. Guess how this happened? On a trampoline. This was a knee to the eye socket injury. So she has officially been banned from all trampolines everywhere.

Way back in the Month of May

Poor Thomas! His birthday gets mixed up in the hustle and bustle of the end of the school year and then summer, and I never get around to writing about it until now.

Thomas chose to go to the Kamas Pool for his birthday, so we rounded up a couple of friends and headed up there. The pool is great because there is something for everyone to enjoy.

He saved up all of his birthday money and purchased an iPod Nano. He was sick of always having to listen to Jonathon’s music. It didn’t last very long though, because he left it in his pocket and Jonathon washed it. The good news is that Apple took it back and sent us another one. So that was nice. But right now, he can’t find it, and it’s been lost for a very long time. I’m sure it’s down in the pig sty that they call a bedroom and one day he might find it again.

On a side note, you might think that Jonathon would have learned his lesson, but later in the summer he washed his own iPod, and since it wasn’t under warranty, he didn’t get a new one. So now he is working to save up money for a new one.

By May, Thomas was so ready to be out of school. His 5th grade experience was not the best. He was struggling with his assignments, and his teacher wasn’t the greatest.

He thoroughly enjoyed summer though, and was not looking forward to going back to school. I was not very happy about starting school either, because we did not get the teacher that we requested for the 6th grade. But, things eventually worked out for us and Thomas has a great teacher this year.

Thomas is such a laid back kid. He loves to read adventure/fantasy books. He has finished quite a few books this year, because he was grounded from video games for most of the 5th grade.

He is a great to help out with the little boys, but we don’t leave him home to babysit very often, because he has still not earned back our trust since the broken window incident.

Let’s hope that his new enthusiasm for school lasts until the end of the year, and that he will not feel unloved when he reads this blog in the future and finds out that I never wrote about his birthday until September. He’s not alone, I also have to catch up on Libby’s, Henry’s, Hannah’s and my own birthday. So there!