Nine months

Henry is now nine months old! He is as precious as ever and he has a smile that can melt your heart. He loves to laugh and squeal when he is happy and he is quick to show you his pouty lip if he is unhappy.  He specifically dislikes the word "No".  As soon as you give him a stern "NO" he turns to you quickly, gives you THE lip, which then turns to a cry, making the second NO a little harder to say and definitely not as stern:)

He loves to eat...not much change there.  He has about three food meals a day and bottles in between.  He now spits his pacifier out as soon as he sees food or a bottle coming...it always makes me laugh.  "Move out of the way paci...Henry's gotta eat;)"  Lance and I went on a baby food making craze and filled our deep freezer with gallon size bags full of pureed fruits and veggies.  He really loves his fresh food compared to the jars..but we still keep those handy.  Henry has also started to love yogurt as well...even straight unsweetened greek yogurt. I was kinda surprised..but then again this boy can eat!  We are working on him feeding himself.  He can eat and he can put everything else in the world in his mouth...but he won't put food in his mouth...we are working it;)

Henry is also a man on the go.  If he isn't sleeping he is moving.  Lance has to remind me that all the action is good..specially when all I want is to snuggle for like five minutes on the couch:) He is great at crawling and can crawl up the stairs (thank you Uncle Forrest and Aunt Catherine).  He can pull himself up to standing alone and with the help of the sofa can maneuver himself for a few steps.  He always has the biggest smile when he stands up!


Another new thing is his love for windows.  He can see out of all the windows in our house when he stands up...so that is his new favorite activity.  He just stares outside and fogs up the window.  He also loves pulling off people's glasses and putting them up to his face.  I know it is very bad to laugh at and reinforce but I can't help it.  He always laughs so hard when he does it!!

He can now dance on command..a trick we like to show friends.  It started with my little song "Clap your hands" which resulted in a little bouncing on cue.  Now any tune can get our little man to do a jig.

Am I not supposed to climb on everything?

 We finally had to take away the firetruck from Christmas.  It was becoming a bit of an obsession..hopefully he will be just as happy with it when we bring it out next December.  Henry now loves his bear from Costco.  Every evening when we go to his room to head to bed he squeals as if he has never seen it before...he crawls up to it and dives into it and starts eating its nose.  It is soooo funny!

Henry still loves his bath..but bath time also means soak time for mommy.  Henry loves to splash and usually holds one rubber ducky in his mouth and one in each hand as he splish splashes all over everywhere.  He still HATES getting into his PJs after his bath.  It has become a lowlight of our day because it usually results in crying and screaming until he gets his bottle.  He is still sleeping from 7pm til 6:30..which is great! He is still taking two naps a day although they are getting shorter and shorter. 

His favorite toys right now are: his ABC train, his music panda, and his carseat...no joke...climbing  in and out of his carseat can keep him pretty occupied. He also loves the TV remote...Lance and I do a great job of keeping it away..my parents..not so much! He also looooves opening and closing doors...funny at first.  Now we just try to keep all the doors closed.  Because of his need for speed..we have now put most of his toys in a playroom upstairs.  It has greatly reduced the bumps on the head and tumbles because it is carpeted and has limited distractions. 

The Smith house is always on the move with little Henry around and we couldn't be happier!

New Years with the Smiths

To celebrate the New Years, Lance and I went to Atlanta with his parents for the Chick-fil-a Bowl.  I had never been to a bowl game so I was really excited.  I'm not a huge fan of massive crowds...so I was a little nervous too.  We had made our plans a little late so we had trouble finding a hotel room close to the Georgia Dome.  We did manage to find one room at Comfort Suites.  It was a perfect little walk to the dome and because it is right near Underground Atlanta, it had a perfect view of the Peach Drop at New Years. 

We had a delicious dinner at Ruth's Chris before the game.  We then strolled to the dome and I was so impressed that Lance's mom managed the walk with us.  She is awaiting her surgery to fix her knee...and spent the whole evening in a leg brace.  What a trooper!

 When we got to the the entrance of the dome, we ran straight into our friends, Kate and Jonathan...what a small world!!! I had just texted Kate to tell her we had just arrived at the game but didn't think we would get to see them. 

 The game was so much fun and a great way to celebrate the New Year's.  We left a couple of minutes early so we could beat the crowds out of the dome.  Our plan was a good one...until we ran into this crowd....

Not exactly part of our plan...we then had to make our way through the 100,000 people gathered around the peach drop.  Wonderful! Please picture this, the four of us (Darlene in her leg brace) moving inch by inch through all the crazies that had hunkered down in their chosen spot to ring in the New Year.  We finally made it so the Comfort Suites was in sight, only to see the police barracade that surrounded our hotel haven.  If only we had something to bartar with the thousands that remain between us and our "comfort suite":)  Judging all the 'smells' that we could smell as we made it through the crowd, I'm sure we could have found something to trade for a couple of feet closer (if you know what I mean...)

 FINALLY, we ran into a hotel employee who was wheeling an elderly man in a wheelchair through the crowds.  For a second, I pitied him a little more than us but then I saw it as an opportunity.  We quickly linked up with them and made it safely through the doors of our hotel.  With a huge sigh of relief and a couple of laughs, we stated the obvious...."we need a drink!" We made it to the elevator and were joined by a fun couple that had obviously been celebrating the end of 2011.  The woman so graciously sprinkled each of us with 'good luck glitter' for 2012 and wrapped mardi gras beads around Darlene's neck!  On any other day, I would have quietly hid behind Lance to avoid eye contact with this couple, but that night...I bowed my head right over so I could get a huge helping of the glitter. I needed all the good luck I could get;)

The fun didn't end when we got up to our suite...we had a perfect viewing of the peach drop and also two big fights that erupted in the massive crowd below.  It was both exciting and a little scary that we were just venturing through that exact spot.  We toasted the New Year's quietly in our room...thanking God for another year and for our survival of the exciting evening! What an INTERESTING way to ring in 2012!



On a deeper note...I feel so blessed by all that 2011 had to offer us.. a healthy and beautiful baby boy, a new home, a new path for our future in Gadsden, wonderful friends and family, and most of all we are blessed and excited for what 2012 holds for our little family! Happy New Year's to you and yours:)