Christmas Party Fail

For the last couple of years we have been getting together with Jake's family a few days before Christmas to celebrate. It is always a ton of fun.  A whole day filled with yummy food and drink, cribbage games and the best company. It is one of my favorite days. This year however things went a little awry.
See all these happy people? Yeah, most of them (along with a few others)  would end up with the stomach flu later that night or in the coming days.

And see this adorable happy man? Yeah, he would later touch the gas fireplace and spend Christmas Eve in the ER with second degree burns (more on that later).

Boy do we know how to party.

The 12 month shoe.

It might be a little on the late side, but here is the little man and his shoe.

At 12 months:

Measures in at 30": 50-75th percentile

Weighs in at 21.5 lbs: 50th percentile

And the melon...18.75": 98th percentile

It appears we are raising a child who is 150% boy. This guy loves to tackle, destroy and climb. He also loves to reo-organize all of my kitchen cabinets (please let me know if you find my 1/2 cup measuring cup) and push anything that he possibly can.

Thankfully his picky eating days seem to be over for the moment and his favorite dinner is currently quiona, black beans and sweet potatoes. He seems to love the green smoothies I make for him and would nurse 24/7 if I let him.

From the moment he wakes up to the moment he goes to bed he is on the move and full of chatter. All  boy and all delight.

And yes, he continues to save us money by not requiring any shampoo. One day kid. One day.

Christmas Card Flashbacks

Our family has never been one to send out a classic Christmas card photo. This year our cards are sure to be late as we just ordered them, but they'll be just as "special" as previous years.

Not familiar with our idea of a Christmas card photo?

Well it all started back in '08. I bought a Jane Fonda workout tape from Goodwill for 39 cents. It was all the inspiration we needed.

Jake came up with his outfit all on his own.

In 2009 we had a cat and it only seemed logical to dress up in our Sunday best and toss good old Housh straight up in the air.

I don't quite remember our living room looking like this...

Then in 2010 we went on a three and half week backpacking and hiking trip in Canada and came up with this beaut...

I was actually quite nervous about falling off the edge.

In 2011, we had this little fella and took the year off.

My tiny Boo Boo.

Now it's 2012 and we live in good old Wyoming. We had our neighbor take our picture and I'm pretty sure he'll never look at us the same again. Whatever did we do?

Henry met Santa.

And he doesn't like him. Maybe it's because he heard a rumor that Santa was going to re-wrap some of the presents H man got for his birthday and pass them off as Christmas gifts? Or maybe we should just be thankful that he isn't easily lured in by candy.

That's right. It's 19 degrees outside and the kid has no shoes on. Hopefully Henry shows us where he hid the one pair of shoes that fit him before it gets too much colder.

And we call him, Super Baby.

Jake had been envisioning this shot for months. And if we would have taken it months ago before Henry could move, or even weeks ago before he was a confident walker, it would have been much easier. Yes, it took about 200 shots to get this one. I know it's amazing that our one year old did not want to stand in one spot for more than .5 seconds. So how did we get this shot?? Easy. I taped two little snack puffs to the wall. If only we had thought of that in the beginning!

All superheros are bald. Right?

Yes, those are my very tense hands waiting to catch Henry. I don't know how dads so easily toss their kiddos in the air.

The Real Deal Birthday!

Baby boy turned one today. And in true boy fashion he fell on his noggin twice. There's nothing that says "I'm a one year old boy" more than a few bruises and bloody scratches, right? Or maybe I'm just trying to make myself feel better? I suppose it's a good thing that we didn't try and do his actual one year old portraits today, then again who knows what he'll look like next weekend!

So today was the big day. The day of chocolate. The day of sugar. The day of goodness. One would think that this woud be a good day in the life of Henry James Denbrook.

He, however, did not buy into the whole "chocolate is the best thing ever" mentality.

Do you see my hurt head?

To me, this face says, "I'd rather have your no sugar added banana cake, Mom!"

And while I did get teary eyed looking at pictures of my sweet babe from this past year, today was a good day. Today we celebrated. Today we felt loved.

Ghost Town

OOOOOOOoooooo. Ghost noises? I don't know, maybe?

After being back in town a mere 20 hours, we were ready for another adventure and decided to check out the nearby Ghost Town, Piedmont (why, yes, I did just give you a wikipedia link).

While Jake worked his photography magic, Henry and I fought the bitterly cold wind. Totally worth it.

And the black and white from a different angle...

I guess I should have waited until Jake was done with all his photos to do this post but then there might not be cleaning and laundry to ignore, so I guess you don't get to see the other buildings.

Those are charcoal kilns behind us. They were a good shelter from the wind until I got creeped out by all bird nests in there. Birds. Eck.

Come on, Mom. Look at my hat!

And here you have the cutest almost one year old in all of Wyoming. Or at least in my very humble opinion.

The Fake Birthday

Sir Henry turns ONE one week from today. Vomit. Say it isn't true. That little turd of mine cannot possibly be escaping babyhood, can he?

He was so quiet and so still back then!

Now that we are living in the wild west far from our families, we had no other choice but to give Henry two parties. One in Oregon with our family and one on his actual birthday in Wyoming with our friends.

I wasn't quite ready to give him sugar so the lucky kid got a no sugar added banana cake. Yeah, yeah, I know. Mama=no fun.

I think he liked it?

Check out those chompers, we're currently working on #7 and #8.

What are we going to do about that melon, kid?

Okay, so maybe he did get a few bites of a cupcake, but no chocolate til you're one, mister!

11 months!

It's so hard not to be cliche and write, "eleven months, where has the time gone, baby boy?"But man, oh man is it true. I truly cannot believe that my darling boy is eleven months old. That means he will turn one next month and that just makes my chest tighten.

Eleven months and still no hair? Come on, it's gonna be a cold winter!

Sir Henry is up to many a things these days. Around nine and half months he finally decided to crawl, and thank the good Lord that he figured that out because  things were starting to get ugly. He wasn't crawling for more than three weeks when he decided to start WALKING! And now the big boy is starting to climb. And more than anything else in the world, Henry is whole heartedly trying to electrocute himself. Oh the outlets, the bloody outlets!

This wee Denbrok is also big into big people food these days. "Bring on the whole pear and apple, please and I'd really love your coffee too, Mom." Of course this is spoken as loud ear piercing screams. Good thing, you're cute buddy.

And now for the shoe pictures....

Electric toothbrush...best toy ever.

I'm outta here, kids.

And since I never posted his nine or ten month shoe photos...

I hate to tell you this, but this will be the last time I lay nice and still for your silly photos.

And from ten months on, we shall also be documenting mama's toothbrush.

Mysterious Indeed.

After a whopping thirty minutes of trick or treaters, our porch light mysteriously and very curiously failed to illuminate. One would think that this might slow down the grove of candy getters, but it's amazing how many people will walk up to a darkened house in pursuit of high fructose corn syrup. Here I was hoping to chow down on the good candy when the doorbell started ringing and ringing, so I did what any other good American would do- I took out my favorite candy and let them have as many Smarties as their hearts desired.

And now here is the boy, who turns out isn't really a fan of Halloween- or at least not yet. I'm sure if I had been a nice mama and let him try his first candy we might have gotten a few smiles out of him.

My super talented sis-in-law, Heather made this costume. Both my nephew and niece have both worn, so we were excited to continue the tradition.

In other news, it's been a big week for Henry. He not only discovered how to lift the toilet seat, but also that unrolling toilet paper is just about the most fun one can have- second only to splashing in the toilet water when your responsible adult is distracted.

Henry meets the snow.

Why is Dad over there in the house all nice and warm and I'm out here in the cold?!

It appears that I am not the only one who isn't a huge fan of the snow. Poor kid had so many layers on that once he fell over he couldn't get back up. It's going to be one long winter, baby boy!

Isn't anyone going to pick me up????

I suppose this isn't actually Henry's first encounter with the snow. There was that freak snowstorm in Eugene last March, but he was only three months old and we thought it would have been too cruel to actually put him in it. Seven months later and somehow I didn't find it so mean...

They call this a pumpkin patch.

I have always loved the pumpkin patch. I remember the first time Jake and I went to a pumpkin patch together and I discovered that growing up he picked his pumpkins from a bin at Safeway. Say what! Apparently I had never considered that people didn't go to the pumpkin patch every year to get their pumpkins. They didn't slog through the mud in search for the perfect orange pumpkin that they would later destroy with their sub-par carving skills. And did they not drink apple cider and go on hay rides with their class every October?! 

Eugene had great pumpkin patches and last year when we went while I was pregnant with Henry, I couldn't help but imagine what this year would be like. Henry would love it! Or at least I would pretend that Henry's stoic face was him, in fact, loving every last bit of the pumpkin patch.

Then we moved to Wyoming and I thought my pumpkin patch dreams were about to be destroyed. But fear not, for while this was a very different pumpkin patch experience and I guess you can't technically call someone buying a bunch of pumpkins and putting them out in their yard for you to purchase, a pumpkin patch, we'll take it!

Patch probably should have been in quotation marks.

And here it is, folks.

I spy with my little eye, a pumpkin or two.                        

Here's the boy at his first ever pumpkin "patch"? Yard? I'm not sure what to call it.

If we had taken a picture a few moments later, it would show Henry eating poo of some sort. Awesome.

I'll take this one, Mom!

And the obligatory, shove your sweet child's face in a wooden cutout photo.

You want me to do what?

And now that prized pumpkin is sitting on our side steps covered in snow.

Homemade Yogurt

One of the many, many things I miss about living in Eugene is the availability of good yogurt. I know, it's a weird thing to miss, but we are a yogurt eating family and when my only options suddenly became nasty fat free or full of sugar choices, I started to get a little twitchy. Especially when Henry started eyeballing the good old yogurt. So, I decided to make my own and it was so completely and ridiculously easy. If you have a crockpot it can be so completely and ridiculously easy for you too. After a lot of googling I ended up following this recipe found on moneysavingmom.com
Homemade Yogurt in the Crock Pot Recipe

• 1/2 gallon milk (Whole milk will make the yogurt thicker, but any milk will work.)
• 1/2 cup plain unflavored yogurt (Any kind with live active cultures will work. Be sure to save a half cup of this batch of homemade yogurt to use as a starter next time!)
  

Pour the half gallon of milk into your crock pot and turn it on low. Cook it for 2 hours and 45 minutes (set the timer to remember to turn it off!

After 2 hours and 45 minutes, turn the crock pot off and let it sit down 3 hours.

Spoon a small amount of the milk into a small bowl and add the half cup of yogurt to it. Mix together thoroughly.

Dump this mixture back into the milk in the crock pot and mix it around well.

Put the lid back on your crock pot and wrap the crock pot with a large beach towel or blanket (make sure the crock pot is unplugged and turned off!). Yes, I know, it sounds a little ridiculous to wrap a crock pot with a beach towel, but I did some research online and it seems that the experts recommend this step as it helps keep the heat in the crock pot and allows it to cool more slowly.

Let the beach-towel-wrapped crock pot sit for 8-12 hours (or overnight). After 8-12 hours, it should be thickened.

Spoon yogurt into jars or plastic containers and refrigerate a few hours before eating.

This will keep for one to two weeks in the refrigerator. Be sure to save a half cup to use as a starter for your next batch of homemade yogurt.

Jake was super excited about taking this photo.

After testing it out ourselves with blueberries and a wee bit of granola we deemed it acceptable for the little man. I may have told Jake after he had eaten some that I wanted to make sure we didn't throw up before giving it to the baby. He was pleased.

And now you too can make your own yogurt. And your own laundry soap. Next up, I'm going for mozzarella cheese.

Pass me a spoon...

I could eat up these two sweethearts in no time.

Any guesses on who was the tormentor and who was the tormented during cousin Koen's weeklong visit?

Decrepit Downtown.

A couple of weekends ago, we took Henry to the rundown old downtown of our tiny little town. It was the perfect spot for a photo-shoot of our little man. And while it may have only been in the low 40's and I had to kick many a broken beer bottles from my chubby man's reach, it was quite a success. Here are a few of our favorites.

 Mr. Henry James looking quite dashing at ten months old.

Knock knock?

Lookin' good my man, lookin' real good.

Rugrats Look-a-like?

This afternoon while Henry was busily winning hearts at our local library, someone very excitedly exclaimed, "Your baby is so cute! He looks just like Tommy." I did what any other mother would do who doesn't have a clue what this lady was talking about...I  gave her one of those half smiles where you don't show any teeth and was about to be on my merry way when she followed up with, "You know, Tommy from Rugrats?! He looks just like him!" This time I did not give her a closed mouth smile but tried my best not to furrow my brow as we walked away. Now I may not have seen Rugrats in two decades but I was pretty sure that I didn't want my baby to look like this Tommy Pickles character.

So you tell me....does Henry look like Tommy?

Sir Henry James

Sir Tommy Pickles

Yikes, I do suppose they both have giant heads, no hair and a bit of a manic smile. Oh dear, my baby does look like Tommy!

Salt Lake City

Growing up I never had a real desire to go to Salt Lake City. In fact, I don't think I ever thought of the good old Salt Lake. Then I moved to Wyoming. Land of no Target and no Starbucks and all of a sudden my dreams were filled with images of SLC. This past weekend in honor of Henry's upcoming ten month birthday (which was today, hooray!) we packed our bags and set off for the land of civilization. And while to my horror I did not even step foot in my beloved Target it was a weekend full of caffeine, traffic lights and treats galore.

When you are used to watching sports on your 15" laptop, this is like Heaven.

Why hello lovely maple vanilla deliciousness.

That whole "everything in moderation" mantra totally went out the window on this trip.

Henry makes sure Diane knows to keep her distance....

Yahoo, college bestie Diane is working in Salt Lake for the week and knows how to lead one into a diabetic coma quite nicely.

A box of maybe the most delightful cookies on the planet.

That's my boy...reaching for the cookies while the adults are busy taking a picture. Takes after his mama.

Do you see the H-man's cute little fingers by my straw?

Looking at this picture makes my mouth water.

Twenty more years big guy.

Upon getting back home, one little boy was a little upset that not everything we purchased was for him.