On to First Grade!

Today was Henry's last day of Kindergarten!

Here he is back in September on the first day of school:

And today:

(June weather has not been kind to us)

It was a half day, so we spent some time on the playground after school (Luckily the rain stopped just in time!)

Now Henry gets to enjoy two weeks off before his first experience with summer camp. Congratulations to our first grader!!!

Award Winner

Tonight was the award ceremony for the Children's Bookstore Poetry Contest!

Henry's poem in the window of the store!

Reading his poem to the crowd (he did a great job!)

Our poet:

First Haircut!

I took Henry to get his haircut today, and while there thought to myself, "Hey...why not get Elliot's first haircut* now, too?"

*NOTE: It wasn't REALLY his first haircut. Mike has attacked his mullet with clippers a few times, with mixed results. This was the first professional, and hopefully even, haircut.

The stylist at first implied that Elliot would sit by himself in the chair and be OK. After I had stopped laughing, we had him settle on my lap:

He soon became very unhappy (and sweaty!). Here is a blurry picture of how we kept him semi-ok:

(note the lollipop and Dr. Seuss book. Not only was it his first hairct, but first lollipop. He had no idea what to do with it, but knew he liked it. It sat motionless in his mouth while he drooled all around it)

Success!

He looks prety much the same, but WE can tell the difference!

(and in typing up this entry I just realized that I didn't have them save a lock of his hair like I did from Henry's first haircut. I guess it is a good thing I don't even yet have a baby book for him to put in anyway. Poor second kid...)

Father's Day Weekend

It was a jam packed weekend!

Friday afternoon stared off with fun at the park (it was "fancy dress" day at school - hence Henry in his trompe l'oeil tie shirt. That's as fancy as he gets)

This picture pretty much sums up our days at the park - it cracks me up:

Saturday we headed to Hingham at World's End for some hiking:

Saturday night we had a date night at a charity function at the MFA. If I'm at the museum, I need to take my picture with the giant, creepy baby heads:

Sunday was all about Mike! He decided to take advantage of the weather and we all headed to Crane Beach. Elliot and Henry are both total beach bums, loving all things sand and sea:

On the way home, we stopped at our favorite Plum Island eatery - Bob Lobster - for fried fish sandwiches, and then at a much loved local farmstand, where Henry was in 7th heaven when he got to hold a chick!

It was a great weekend, a fun way to celebrate Mike and what a wonderful father he is!

Catch Up

I've been slacking! Things have been a little crazy here with end of school activities (only two weeks left!) and Elliot has entered the "I'm getting a bunch of teeth plus REALLY want to communicate with you, but can't so I'm going to have a tantrum over something you don't understand at all and then throw this truck" stage. It's a little tiring.

Speaking of communication, here is the update on Elliot. Like his brother, E is a mover, not a talker. His first word was "Car". His full list of words is now:

- Car (said pretty clearly)

- Night Night (said "Nigh Nigh"

- Da Da (no explanation needed)

- Henry (said "NA!" - great enthusiasm behind this one. Most often said while running after him.)

- Truck (said "Da!" don't ask)

- Down (sounds kind of the same as the way he says truck, but context helps us on this one)

- Dog (said "Do")

He also has invented a sign where he uses one index finger to point to his opposite palm. It means "I want". What he wants when he makes the sign is sometimes a mystery.

He is also becoming better with body parts - he can point to his head, belly, and toes when asked. It's pretty cute!

In other news...Henry just finished his last soccer class of the season (no classes over the summer due to camps). I never managed to get any good pictures, but here are a few of him here in action:

During soccer class Elliot enjoyed doing things like showing me his belly:

And pretending to be a runway model with my sweater:

We have spent a lot of quality playground time in between torrential rainstorms:

And Henry went to his first Red Sox game!

When I asked him how the game was he said "I don't know, I was too busy eating". Like mother, like son.

Bikes and Poetry

After too many busy weekends, we were finally able to go out on Saturday to pick up Henry's new birthday bike (thanks Nana and Papa!). Henry picked out a gloriously bright green one. At least you can see him coming from a distance. The big news is that we are now sans training wheels! Yes, a process that we really should have done last summer (but I will blame baby fog) started today - we are teaching Henry to ride his two wheeler!

Here he is - well outfitted in safety gear and ready to start!



We started slow, having him kind of walk his bike while sitting on it, and practicing putting his foot down when he tipped.



He soon got bored and wanted to stop, so I decided to go whole hog and go for the "run while holding on, let go, and pray" method. He did great!! (no photos since I somehow was the one doing the running and pushing). As long as Henry was going in a straight line he could balance and ride. It was so fun to see! Slowing down and any sort of turning....not so great yet (by the way, this is where one of the few drawbacks to city living is evident. There are no quiet cul de sacs to practice on. Instead you go to a park filled with young children and oblivious parents and hope to God you don't run over any unsuspecting citizens. As I ran next to him I had to scream "pedal, pedal, pedal!!!" at the top of my lungs not only to remind him, but also to serve as a warning beacon for all in our path. A few times I had to fling my body into the bike to cause him to stop before swerving into 2 year olds on scooters. It was intense).

In other big Henry news, the other month he submitted a poem for a poetry contest sponsored by our local children's book store, and we found out that Henry won honorable mention for the kindergarten category! He gets to go to an awards ceremony in a few weeks where he can read his poem aloud, receive his award certificate, and the store will post his poem, along with all the other winners, in the store window. We are so proud of him! This is the poem he submitted:

Seashell

Bumpy cave
A secret entrance

Seawater
Leaks through


Nice job, Henry!!!