Sammy Jaybird

My friend, Katie, makes cute hair clips, onsies, and other accessories for babies. Her product blog is: http://sammyjaybird.blogspot.com/ (but she also has very fun-to-read blogs that you can find at her blog profile). The coolest part of this is that Henry was able to participate in a photo shoot to advertise! You can find a photo of him at the photographer's blog: http://www.jesseephotography.com/search/label/product%20photography. He's the one in the banana onesie.
Henry actually wasn't very into the whole modeling thing. We did the photo shoot at a duck pond, and he was more interested in chasing after the ducks, and pushing our stroller. Posing was the last thing he wanted to do, but the photographer was great and managed to get a few good ones of him.
Katie's great! Contact her if you're interested in buyin', but she is about to have a baby any day so don't expect immediate responses.

Parks!

We have found that Urbana-Champaign has great parks. This one is a huge wood playground. What you see below is probably a 10th of it.
We love to swing, and slide, and make up obstacle courses and time ourselves running through it. (I won at 1 minute 20 seconds.)

Next to the huge wood playground there's a statue garden. It has great paths for walking and bike riding, an organic garden and of course statues. This was Henry's favorite.This one was cool, too.

The best custard place is Jarling's. It's a huge place for only having custard--no burgers or fries. I guess that's why the custard's so good.We ate here to celebrate getting our IL driver's licenses. So exciting! Sort of. We like to have any reason to celebrate, especially if it involves ice cream or custard. Plus, I got 100% on the written exam. I was pretty proud of myself, but I can't be too proud because Todd and I actually read the booklet and quizzed each other . . . so there were no surprises.

Henry's 1st hair cut

This morning I decided that I've had enough of Henry's tiny mullet. Though his hair is thin and baby-like still, he had long hair in the back that would poof out a little and it just looked girly. It also looked a little mullety because his hair is pretty short on the sides. Anyway, even though I'm probably the only one who will notice the difference it feels better. Plus, Todd's away with the youth on a temple trip to St. Louis so he can't object.

Henry actually liked getting his hair cut! He was fascinated with the clippers and he didn't even jump or cower at the loud buzzing sounds. It was a little tricky though because I'd want to get the hair on his left side, but he'd hear the buzzing on his left side and turn his head, then I'd try to get the hair on the right side, he'd hear the buzzing on the right side and turn his head. So I had to hold his head still. Once the clipper edge was against his head he was as still as a rock. He's asleep now or else I'd post some post-hair cut pictures. I think the cut tired him out. What a day for a baby. These'll do.
Now he's got little Alfalfa hairs in the back but it's cute. What a strapping young lad.

The Children's Museum of Indianapolis

We had an AWESOME time this past week at the Children's Museum in Indianapolis. It's about 2 hours away from home and so planned Henry's naps so he could sleep as we drove. We packed a lunch and ate outside of the museum. We saw kid-friendly exhibits for dinosaurs, robots, trains, under the sea, outer space, glass blowing, Scienceworks, and it was amazing! They also had king Tut there and we could have paid 5 extra dollars to see him, but that would include an hour long audio tour, and I know Henry couldn't have handled that (nor I) so we bypassed that.

Henry was in awe the whole time, pointing, talking, and playing. We spent about 4 hours there and Henry was not fussy once! I bet he thought he had arrived and was in paradise. They have a baby land where babies can explore and play, and everything's just their size. I highly recommend it for anyone close by.

Our Place

This is a view from our parking lot last week after a rain storm. It was spectacular! The kind of thing people were pulling over in the rain to take pictures of.
This is our place! We've added a pot of flowers since I took this picture, which makes me much more homey, I think.

The cool thing about Winfield is that it's a cooperative, meaning it has a management, but it is owned by its tenants--everyone puts down an investment for their unit. There are financial committees and other groups made up of tenants and so everyone makes decisions about the complex--quiet hours, the village voice (the newsletter), what buildings need new roofing, pool rules, etc. Because of this our rent is significantly lower than other places in town, which I didn't know before we moved here, but am really grateful for. And, there are a lot of church members at Winfield. Which makes making friends a lot easier.

I have to compliment Todd, he did a lot of handy work when we moved in. He put together a couple sets of blinds and drapes, and our TV stand and his desk. Good job, honey.

Anyway, here's an in-depth view of our place. It's probably a little too in-depth, forgive me. Also, each picture has fuzzy edges and not on purpose. It's just a result of Henry handling it with sticky fingers--he loves to touch the lens.

The Living room at different angles:
Our AWESOME new couch:
The entry way:
Into the kitchen (see out the sliding door into our small patio/yard):
The two-pieced round table you see is a work in progress. I'm painting it black. So far I've cleaned it all up and I'm preparing to sand it, then paint it. I think we'll use the round table as our kitchen table and move the square table up to Henry's room for a craft table.
The washer/dryer closet:
Downstairs half bathroom (I'm working on decorating it):
Stairs (clearly):
Upstairs retro bathroom:
Our bedroom:
The India picture is now above Todd's desk (seen in the first bedroom picture on the left).
Henry's bedroom:
This is a deep window--like a bay window but without angles. It's fun to sit and read here.
Henry is pretty fascinated with clocks so we took a clock and hung it low on the wall in his own little play corner.
The playground near the office:The huge playroom at the Winfield office (can you find Henry?):
More walking:

Notice that he keeps his left hand up. He used his left hand to hang onto my finger, and I think he got used to balancing that way! He is so cute!