Dance Party

Yesterday we celebrated Meredith's fourth birthday at a dance themed birthday party!

There's the birthday girl in orange:



Sadly, Henry (very) recently became aware of certain gender norms, and spent the last week saying that he didn't want to go because "girls dance, not boys". He spent the first half sitting by himself and not participating:



But gradually he let himself be sucked into the fun:





Cupcakes followed the dancing:




Happy birthday Meredith! I can't believe Henry and his friends are turning FOUR!

Toy Story on Ice

Last week Henry's little cold turned into a big cold. Monday afternoon he was starting to look pretty rundown, and from Tuesday morning on it was evident that he was really sick. Terrible cough, runny nose, sneezing, exhausted...then the fever kicked in and on Wednesday night he was up several times complaining of ear pain. A trip to the pediatrician on Thursday confirmed the ear infection, so Henry has been on antibiotics since then. Luckily, he is starting to improve and as of Saturday has a lot of his energy back.

It was a hard week, though - he hasn't been at preschool since last Monday, so he and I are both a little stir crazy. This was pretty much what Henry did for a few days:




Then, when he started to perk up we added a few more projects:



Today, we went to see "Toy Story on Ice" with his friends Kate and Jake. Although Henry has yet to make it through a "Toy Story" movie (he still gets scared at most movies), he knows Woody and Buzz and was excited to see them.

Henry got popcorn, which was very exciting:


And was pretty engrossed by the whole show:




There were some sassy special effects:


At intermission, Henry got a spinning/light up Buzz Lightyear toy, which he was VERY excited by:






It was a fun trip, and we are so glad that Henry is feeling better!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Here is our little lovebug in his "lovebug hat" from preschool:


They had a Valentine's Day party with excessive sweets (I believe they had cupcakes AND fudgesicles at various points of the day) as well as a plethora of valentines:



Once home, he continued making his way through some treats (they will last him for months):


And opened his Valentine's Day gift from us:




Unfortunately, the small cold that started this weekend has now developed into full-fledged misery for Henry, so we are home from preschool today, laying on the couch and using copious amounts of Kleenex. Let's hope our little guy has a fast recovery!

Also, a big CONGRATULATIONS to our dear friends the Gustafsons on the arrival of Anna's baby brother Andrew this weekend!!!

Science Museum

We tried the beat the winter blahs today with breakfast out (IHOP - everyone's favorite!) and a trip to the Museum of Science. This is one of the museums in Boston that we haven't been to as often as others, but I think we need to change that. Henry is definitely at an age that makes this museum a perfect visit for him.

We learned about electricity:




Henry sat in a space shuttle:


We watched a 3D movie on dinosaurs (A touch scary for him, but he made it through!):




WE did a lot of physics experiments:



And marveled at the dinosaur exhibit:






(I'm not sure how scientifically accurate the scarf on the T Rex is...)

We also took a trip to the indoor butterfluy exhibit, which Henry really enjoyed (and he had a butterfly land on his head!)









Warm and humid for the butterfly inside - frozen Charles River outside:


We only saw a tiny part of the museum today, so we will definitely need to go back soon!

Reading

I picked a set of books up today called the "BOB Books" - basically simple, 3 word stories to help kids learn to read. Henry has known all of his letters and letter sounds for a long time now, but hasn't really been able to put it together into reading. But today, he read! He did such a great job with these books - I was so proud of him. Here is a video of him reading one of the books (this is only the second time he had seen it):

Bowling!

Henry and Jake had their first bowling experience this evening! Since we live in Massachusetts, we went candlepin bowling (smaller balls, smaller pins, and 3 balls a frame). Don't ask why everyone here does candlepin bowling, but they do. The good news is that the smaller balls were a lot easier for the kids. The bad news is that the adults were very confused by the rules (it took us a while to figure out the 3 balls a frame and the lack of clearing the pins between balls) so our scoring was all off. In the end, we just kind of made it a free for all of Henry and Jake rolling their balls down the lane.


They were very excited about the concept of bowling:





And they got to wear cute little kid bowling shoes:





Neither had a firm grasp of the momentum needed to actually get the ball all the way down the lane. Many times balls stopped dead in the middle and then the adults would attempt to knock those balls out of the way with our next shot in a bizarre "billiards meets bowling" hybrid:









Playing with the scoring computer was also a highlight:




All in all they did a great job! We won't be having birthday bowling parties any time soon, but it was definitely a fun activity to help beat the winter blahs.

S.N.O.W.

How many words do Eskimos (Sorry...Inuits) have for snow? We need them all here.

We have SO MUCH SNOW. We have had over 70 inches fall since our first storm, right after Christmas. Henry has had 4 school snow days. We have had virtually no days above freezing, so when the snow falls it is staying put. The pile next to our driveway is over 7 feet tall (try shoveling wet, heavy snow onto a pile well above your head, seeing it roll right back down to your feet, and try not to weep).

To give you an idea, here is some of the snow on our street yesterday, at the start of the storm that brought about 11 more inches:




This one shows the side of our driveway....it is much, much taller today. Our little tree can no longer be seen at all. Can a dogwood survive being completely buried in snow? I hope so....



Here is our backyard (taken through the screen, so not a great shot). The low parts of the wall (the snow is to the top) are about 5 feet tall to give you an estimation of depth:




You can somewhat make out our grill on the left.

This tree didn't make it. I don't think it is meant to be in a horizontal position:



The roof and gutters are completely covered in ice. We have some impressive icicles surrounding us:





Henry and I are going a little nuts cooped up in the house:



This is what has become of his room:


We blatantly stole this idea from our friend Kiera's blog (hi Kiera!) and played in a sink of colored bubbles for a while this afternoon:



But I am also ashamed to admit that he said to me today "This is so fun, you are letting me watch a lot of TV!!!" (hanging my head in shame....)

The extended forecast looks somewhat grim. More snow on Saturday (but "only" a few inches) and the first somewhat warmish day to melt some of this....Valentine's Day. Sigh.

In good news, Henry had his dentist appointment yesterday and was pronounced to have perfect teeth including "ideal tooth spacing and jaw alignment". I was shocked seeing as I had many, many years of extensive orthodontics. He lucked out on those genetics!