Helpy Helperson

Sometimes, Grandma Jo and Grandpa Brent let time slip away from them. Sometimes, before they know it, Christmas is gone and summer is upon them. Their house wouldn't know it though. Take a look at the sweet Christmas lights still atop their roof.


Sometimes these same Grandparents call you up and their all, "Henry and Reese, can your parents come up to help us take down our Christmas lights? We're just not feeling that festive anymore. That, and it is almost July, you know."

And Henry's all, "Uh huh."

So your son has signed you up to do some hard, manual labor over Father's Day weekend without any prior consultation. Here, Hennners thinks he's only been recruited to supervise.


Um, I don't think so. Little man, grab a handful of lights and get to steppin'.


Apparently, Henry isn't into the whole 'Christmas Spirit' thing. He's all, "That was so, like six months ago."

He'd rather bust some serious dance moves.


More constructive dancing.


Reesie is a fan. She eggs him on.


After all the dancing and singing Christmas songs, (he sort of got the gist of the exercise), Henners and Dad decided to cool off in Grandpa's creek.


This is waaaay better than forced manual labor.


And surprises. Look! An electronic keyboard. Sometimes fortune just smiles upon you, my friends. If we'd only known about this earlier, Grandma could have played back up for Henry's musical show.


The boys keep heading up the creek. Grandpa keeps a close watch on them.


Once they get out of the creek, Henners announces that he needs to take care of some other business. What could it be?


It's pee business! Look how proud The Manster is as he wizzes off Grandpa's bridge.


Yay! He may not excel in assisting in the long overdue taking down of holiday cheer, but Henry does master the peeing off a bridge category.

Fabulous Fakes And No Sausage For Me

The Gig is Up, You Two
Mom and Dad, you are officially busted. But first, thanks for entertaining Henry over the weekend so I could nurse my cold and Jeremy, Reese and I could do some serious cleaning for about 4 hours.

Okay, now back to me busting you. I'm not sure who you dropped off at our house Sunday morning, but it certainly wasn't Henry. Whoever it is, he looks an awful like him, but he smells like your house. (My Mom smells terrific, yo)

This *Henry* that you dropped off insisted, on his own, that he take a nap. This *Henry* also napped for a total of four hours. Four hours! That's huge. Also, when he woke up, he was all snuggley and polite. He asked if he could please go on a four wheeler ride. When told that he could indeed go, but had to wait until Reesie finished her bottle, he patiently waited for her to finish.

And when he finished his four wheeler ride *Henry* came in the house with no objections. What? *Henry* also ate all of his dinner, which was a delicious bean soup/stew by the way. He said "thank you" twice while eating. When offered a brownie for desert, this *Henry* only ate half and offered the rest to his Dad.

While we are getting used to the ease and politeness of this replacement *Henry*, we dearly miss our sometimes cross, always loud and finicky eater son. Please bring him back to us. But for now, it's the end of a long weekend and this *Henry* has been easier to get to go to sleep, so there's no hurry on our end for a swap.

**UPDATE: Turns out the Henry we have is not an imposter after all. Just as I was typing this he came up to me and asked me if I liked seafood. I answered that, yes, in fact, I did like seafood. Henry then opened his mouth and showed me the rest of the brownie he was in the middle of chewing. Sorry, my bad, Mom and Dad.

Bean Soup
Also something else of note. Jeremy made a delicious bean soup with 11 types of beans, ham and sausage tonight. I've been under the weather and soup just sounded good today. It was delightful as expected. I want to thank Jeremy for cooking and allowing me to rest the past few days so I can recooperate from a monster cold. I want to scold Jeremy for when he served me the bean soup and shorted me on the sausage. (That sounded dirtier than I thought it would.)

Zoorific!

Beasty Boy
Friday the 27th, Henry and I loaded up and went to the Hogle Zoo with my friend Sara and her daughter Madeleine (9 mos). When I told Henry we were going to meet Sara at her house, he immediately got excited. Then he began talking about dinosaurs and named every character from The Land Before Time (LBT) series. It then dawned on me that he thought we were going to visit CERA, the Tirceratops, from the LBT series. I had to quickly correct him, but he insisted that we were off to see a dinosaur. Imagine his disapointment when we arrived and Sara, not CERA, answered the door! Henry's disappointment quickly faded when he discovered Sara has two dogs (a huge Malamute who Henry called a "Woof" and a black lab mix who Henry dubbed "Max"- after our Max). As a matter of fact, for future reference, Henry insists that all black dogs are "Maxes". Next, off to the Zoo where Hank knows his way around quite well. We ran, not walked, to the elephant exhibit, the bears and the zebras. Henry's favorite was the very, very humid and stinky Reptile Room with all the snakes and crocodiles. He ran back and forth for about 20 minutes to each window that held any snake. After my hair had completely frizzed out and Henry was drenched in sweat, we called it quits and went to visit the African animals.

Artsy-Fartsy
Here is one of Hank's latest creations. We fingerpainted this week and practiced our colors. Busy, Busy, Busy
On Saturday, Henry and I made the trek up to visit Grandma JoAnn and Grandpa Brent. Grandma had just cleaned the house in time for Henry to wreck it completely! He played at the park, chased bubbles, watched movies, hung out in the dog run and threw decorative rocks in the creek. (sorry, Mom!)

Fun at the park

The dog run

Hot
Sunday was hot. There's no other way to describe it. It set a record for the month of April. True it was only 86 degrees, but still, when you're not used to that weather so early, you must take the necessary precautions...swim trunks, swimming pool and popcicles (in that order).

"Look at me!"

Water baby

"Do I have something on my face?

Un-lucky Charms