And...we're off!

I apologize in advance for what will likely be a lack of posts over the next few days. Tomorrow (Tues), Evan and I head off to Scotland for 5 days! I was invited to speak at the Parental Brain conference in Edinburgh. The conference runs Thurs-Sat, with registration on Wednesday. Evan and I head out tomorrow, and arrive Wednesday morning at 10:30 local time. The first day of the conference will be the busiest for me, as I present a poster with data from my current lab in the morning, and give a 20 minute talk on my dissertation research in the afternoon. I'm excited about the opportunity to speak in front of this very specialized group, but I'm also a bit nervous - I'll be speaking in front of ~175 people, many of which are BIG names in this field! I practiced my talk at work today, and have been over it a number of times. I got constructive feedback from my coworkers, which was very helpful in refining the details.

Friday there are some interesting talks planned, but I think I should be able to get a little sightseeing in with Evan. That night there's a fancy banquet for us to go to, and then on Saturday much of the agenda doesn't look too interesting to me, so I'm going to try to get most of my sightseeing in then.

This trip should be tons of fun - the weather is supposed to be great (~65 and partly sunny), and it's a country I've never been to before. Plus, the idea of having 5 days of just Evan and I is amazing. It'll be nice to have that time together. However, I'm going to miss the kids SOOO much, especially Henry. Both kids will do just fine (Evan's parents are coming to stay with them while we're gone), but little Henry is just so...little! Being away from him for 5 days will be really hard. I know he won't ever remember that I was gone, which makes it a little bit easier, but it's still hard. Natalie will have tons of fun with her grandparents, so I'm not worried about her. I'll just miss my little guy! I have a bunch of pictures of the two of them on my iPod Touch to be able to stare at all week.

Flying Henry!

Just this week, Henry has started "flying" when he rolls onto his belly. He picks his arms and legs up, and puts all of his weight on his belly. It's cute!

You can kind of see it in this picture. When he started doing this "flying" position, I had to turn his bib around to make it into a cape.

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Natalie had to try and imitate as well.

And here's Henry sitting on his big sister!

More Henry photos

We're all biased when it comes to our own kids, but doesn't Henry just get cuter every day?

This is probably my favorite picture of him that has been taken yet. Amazingly, it was taken by Natalie!!

New shoes

My friend Beta sent Natalie a HUGE box of her daughter's old shoes. This is actually the second time she's done this; Natalie has just about grown out of the first round of them. We probably won't be able to use any of Zabby's old shoes again (after Natalie outgrows all of these) as at this point kids start to wear them for longer so they are obviously more worn. But, for now, we'll enjoy a few "new" pairs of shoes, plus some actual new ones that I bought for Natalie for the fall.

Not surprisingly, Natalie's favorites are the fanciest!

These shoes really are super cute. They're Stride Rite, have lots of support, and Zabby barely got to wear them before she grew out of them, which is awesome for Natalie. Thanks again, Beta, for lending them to us!

Playtime on the floor

If you listen very closely, you can hear Henry laughing!

This kid wants to crawl SOOO badly!

And...more laughing!

I agree completely

I love Penn & Teller: Bullsh*t (their show on Showtime). They take certain "controversial" topics (ranging from 9/11 to pornography to lawn care to psychics) and discuss why these things are, well, bullsh*t. While some of it is tongue-in-cheek, and they obviously have a bias, they do research on both sides of the issue.

Here's a preview of one of their episodes from their upcoming season. I could not agree more.
Caution: it contains dirty language!

Reconnecting with family

Last weekend Carrie came up to visit. On Saturday, she and I drove the kids up to Delaware to my cousin Jackie's house. She throws a bbq every August and invited us to come this year. Jackie's younger sister Francine was also there; I had only seen her once in the past 6 years, and Carrie hadn't seen either of them in about 8 years. So, it was really great to reconnect with them for a day. Our dads are 9 years apart in age, so they're a bit older than we are (about 10 years), so we didn't have much in common when we were younger. It's nice now that we're all a bit settled, and Jackie and I both have kids, because I think we have more to talk about now. Although they did a great job of entertaining Carrie and I when we were younger and visited with them all in NJ (where they used to live)!

Jackie has an awesome yard, and the weather was nice enough to be outside all day. They have a big trampoline, a pool, a swing set, and there were tons of other kids to play with too, so Natalie had a great time. Henry was held by SO many people, and was such a good baby! The only bad thing he did was spit up on Aunt Carrie because I forgot to tell her to only give him a 4oz bottle. :)

Natalie on the trampoline!

Natalie on the swingset (with some assistance from Carrie and Mommy)

Henry being held by lots of people! First up: Francine

And Aunt Carrie

And sleeping on Mommy

Natalie at the end of the night (the hair was a mess!)

The cousins! Me, Carrie, Jackie, and Francine

We're hoping to do a mini family reunion at some point soon, and head up to Delaware with my parents and Carrie to see Jackie and her family again, and my aunt and uncle as well (who also live there, but weren't at the bbq). It'd be lots of fun!

Good behavior

In the post I wrote a couple of days ago about Henry's 4 month doctor visit, I wrote about what a great sleeper he is, but I failed to mention what a good EATER he is. Man, this kid can eat! He downs about 3 bottles/day at Essie's, each about 5oz. I also feed him once in the morning before I go to work, sometimes around dinner time, and then before bed. So, he's definitely at about 28-30oz/day. And he eats very efficiently, which is also great.

What's not so great (for me) is that he doesn't want to "work" for his food. In other words, he'd rather eat from a bottle than from me. Now, that would be ok...if I had a sufficient supply to be able to pump enough for all of his bottles. But, I can only pump about 3-5oz/day, and I just don't get any milk let-down more than about 3 times/day. So, I make enough milk to pump once and feed Henry twice: once first thing in the morning, and once just before bed. While this isn't what I had hoped for at 4 months (I had really hoped to have him solely on breastmilk still), I'm glad I'm able to still get some in him. I don't know what will happen in the next couple of weeks, with going to Scotland (more on that later), so we'll see how we're doing when he's 5 months old.

But tonight was really great: Henry was sleepy and hungry before bed, and he always nurses better when he's sleepy. Amazingly, I also had a pretty good supply tonight, so I was able to feed him a full meal, which was really nice. Snuggling with a sleepy boy in my arms afterwards was pretty great too.

Also on good behavior lately is Natalie! We've been having some major tantrum issues with her (which apparently I failed to blog about, even though I thought I had; let's just say that we have a VERY strong-willed child, and she has no problem shouting at us to try and get her way!), but this week has been really great. We've only had 1 minor one in the past two days, and she's been listening really well.

Above and beyond that, potty training is going REALLY well! I think the tide turned when we bought Natalie some new princess underwear! Yes, a 7-pack with Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Belle, and Snow White. She wore Cinderella today, and has picked out Belle for tomorrow. She went the entire day today with NO accidents! From 7am when she woke up until about 7:30pm tonight when she got ready for bed. She didn't even really want to put a diaper on, but we still need to do overnight diapers for a while until she can hold it longer. She's really into the potty now (at least peeing on it!), and I'm hoping that by end of September we'll be DONE with diapers, including overnight!

It's nights like these that I know just how lucky I am to have the kids I do.

Too much cuteness

Kids being cute on the floor!

Smiling cuteness!

Natalie finally learned how to "cheese!" for a photo!

Mom and Henry cuteness!

Natalie actually took this photo.

Henry and Rizzo cuteness!

Henry is four months!

Last Thursday Henry turned 4 months old!  He's getting to be such a big boy.

On Wednesday I took the day off of work, as Henry's 4 month checkup was at 11am, making it difficult for me to make the commute. Also, my parents were visiting from Monday-Thursday, so it was nice to be able to spend the day with them. They spent Tuesday with Natalie, and had a great time with her! She was a very good girl for them, which I am always happy to hear. The highlight of their visit for Natalie: in addition to getting to play with Rizzo and hang out with her grandparents, they bought her a Caillou DVD! So, now we can watch Caillou wherever she wants. Not sure if that's a good thing or not... :)

But back to Henry. We kept Henry home with us on Wednesday, and Mom and Dad came with me to the doctor's appointment. Henry did very well! He smiled and blew raspberries with Dr. Rethy, which she loved. He's gotten very smiley lately, and loves blowing raspberries with just about anyone.
Height: 25.5" (82%)
Weight: 14 lbs, 3oz (39%)
Note: it's funny to me that at this point Natalie was only 13 lbs, and in the 50%! Obvious differences in the standards between boys and girls...

Henry got his 4 month shots; he did cry, but settled down fairly quickly. I went back to my post about Natalie at 4 months, and she apparently needed Tylenol to settle down; Henry had no problems. Also, I didn't realize how much more Natalie was waking up during the night! Apparently we'd been having a rough time of it at this point, with her waking up every 1.5-2 hours. I do remember that at this point, I was only getting about 4 hours of sleep/night, which was really hard. That explains it! I wrote that at one point around 4 months she'd given us about 6 hours straight, which was good for her. Henry is SUCH a better sleeper! He goes pretty much every night from about 8pm to 5-5:30am, and has been for about the past 6 weeks. Amazing!

I'm trying not to make too many comparisons between the two of them, as every kid is different. But it really is amazing to be how much more laid back Henry is than Natalie was, and she was definitely a good baby! We're going to hope that he continues to be nice and laid back and doesn't throw himself into everything the way most of the little boys I know do. :) :)

Fun with friends at the pool

I was supposed to take Natalie over to a playdate with some friends here in Leesburg last Sunday, but those plans fell through. So, we called Peter & Alison and worked out getting together with them. They decided to come to us as Alison really wanted to go to our pool. First, however, we had some playtime at the house

Henry and Anne-Marie on the floor

Then, lunch time, and two Miraculous Events. First: all kids (and Calla) on the couch at once for a photo op!

Second: a four-way nap! Yes, for about 45 minutes, all 4 kids were asleep at the exact same time. The hold out? Henry. He only took a 45 min catnap, and then was awake again (that's pretty normal for him). But it was amazing while it lasted!

After naptime, it was pool time!

Anne-Marie and Henry at the pool

Liam and Natalie in the pool

Alison and I with our babies

Natalie has conquered mommy!

Kids being cute!

Natalie "reading" her Highlights magazine to us! I think one of my favorite parts of the video is how intently Henry is focusing on her. I actually have two of these, and I prefer the other one as Natalie is "reading" a bit better, but the other wouldn't load, so this is the one you get!

Henry and I playing. He had actually been laughing at me doing this wish his hand just prior to the video, but the camera distracted him, and he stopped laughing. He's really found his laugh lately; I'll have to get a video of that up here soon!

It's time for bed...

Mommy and Daddy's bed, that is.

Natalie's a big fan right now of laying anywhere that isn't her own bed. She loves to come into our bed whenever she can (not that she will actually sleep there!), but we only let her do so when we're prepared to be awake.

In terms of her bed, the last two nights she's slept on the floor of her room! I guess it's something new, and maybe she thinks she's getting her way. Frankly, I don't care; as long as she gets a good night's sleep, she can get that sleep wherever. Last night it was kind of spur-of-the-moment; she was trying to get her way, and said "I want to lay on the floor!" and laid down. I think she was expecting me to order her to her bed; instead, I said "sure!" and set her up wrapped in her purple Tinkerbell blanket. and pillow on the floor. However, she ended up putting it just on top of her and sleeping on bare carpet. Not optimal.

So tonight I put a nice thick, soft blanket under her, and wrapped her in the same blanket, and she was thrilled! No fussing like we've had so many nights at bedtime recently. Although Grandma & Grandpa Hoffman visiting probably had something to do with that...I'm sure we'll have pictures from the next couple of days while they're here!

Bumbo boy!

Fun with a new friend!

A new friend for Natalie, that is. I mentioned in my previous post that on Sunday we hung out with some friends from college and their girls. Well, on Saturday, we hung out with my friend Becky from graduate school, her husband Sean, and their son Colin. Colin just turned 2 last month, so he's just a little younger than Natalie. I had only seen Becky once since we moved here 4 years ago, and had only met Colin when he was about 3 months old. So, it was great to get to see him as a little boy, and to hang out with Becky and Sean again! We had a really great time; I'm so glad we got to spend the night/day together.

Becky did a really great post about our adventures on her blog. I'm going to be a little bit lazy and let you go over there to read all about it. In fact, most of the pictures that I have from that day are from Becky, as she has a MUCH nicer camera than I do, so I just downloaded her pictures to my computer! I do have some of my own too, and have added a few of them at the end here. In summary, we had a great time taking the kids to the dinosaur park, then heading to the pool in the afternoon, and a bbq with a few other friends in the evening. Here are just a few of my favorite pictures from the day.

First up, a mini Natalie collage. Didn't I say Becky took great pictures?

Next: Colin and Natalie playing. Seriously, Colin is one of the cutest little boys I have ever seen. And they had so much fun together!

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Sean and Evan with their big kids.

Some fun in the creek! I had tried to get Natalie to walk in this creek the last time we were at this park, but she wanted no part of it. Turns out it was because I tried to get her to go in barefoot. This time, with shoes on (even though they really weren't water appropriate), she went right in! Colin also went right in, but he had crocs, so it was easier for him. Sean and I helped the kids walk in the creek, although both of them ended up falling in and getting all wet. :)

And what fun is going to the park without swings? Natalie and Colin loved this game.

Some Henry love

Here are some pictures of our little guy from the past week.

First up: Henry at the pool! When we didn't have AC last week, we went every evening.

He's chillin' in his Fisher Price playdome, which lets him hang out pool side without us having to hold him the whole time, and keeps him out of the sun. I got him this little swimming outfit on clearance at Carter's - I love it! He did let me dangle his feet in the water a little on the first visit, and seemed to like it, but not on the next visit! He's a little young for the pool anyway.

Sleepy-time in the pack n play, with Mickey watching over him.

Henry is able to hold his own bottle now! Not for too long, and definitely still needs supervision, but it's helpful at times, that's for sure!

On Sunday, we went and hung out with some old friends from college. Between us, we had 4 little girls, one little guy, and another little guy on the way! I did get a couple of pictures of the girls playing on the swing set, but first up are Daddy and Mommy with Henry.

And finally, Henry enjoying the swing last night after we arrived back home.

Last day in NJ

On our last day in NJ (last Monday), we took the kids to a local playground. They had one of the coolest swings ever!

There was also a sandbox:

A spinner:

A rope climbing apparatus (she was trying to "cheese" for me, but was a little freaked out)

Henry had his fun too: some "airing out" time

And then some family pictures:

That night the weather was beautiful, so we had some fun playing and relaxing on the deck

And Natalie ended the evening with a great big bubble bath in Grandma's big jacuzzi tub!

All in all, a great time in NJ. Next up: an insane amount of pictures from this weekend!