A chilly Valentine's afternoon

Well, it looked a lot nicer outside than it felt. With the wind blowing, it turned out to be a pretty chilly day. Henry, however, barely seemed bothered a bit. In fact, he attempted to refuse putting on his coat. Good thing we're still stronger than him!

It's amazing what a big boy he is suddenly!

Doesn't he look so grown up?

He had to prove how big he was by climbing up the "ladder" over and over unassisted. Well, you can imagine that I didn't stand too far away.

Just in case anyone has never experienced an ice storm, I thought I'd throw out a picture of the aftermath. It was certainly a new experience for us, and hopefully a once-in-a-lifetime ordeal.

Fun time with Gipp

What's that? You have a secret?

Just whisper it into my ear.

The boys have some naptime together.

Play time!

Gotta get my push-ups in!

Beefcake!

That was exhausting!

We love the bath!

Bath time!

Chillin' in my tub.

All done!

I'm a grownup!

Yup, I started my real-live job last week! Here's some photos to prove it.

The new sign

I got flowers from Mom and Dad on my first day at the office!

My new office.

Henry loves to cut the grass!

What a mess!

Henry fought the banana, and the banana won.

We're still not sure who was the victor in Henry vs. the Avocado.

He's very 'saucy!

I think he likes the Exersaucer...for the moment at least.

Look what Henry's up to!

Rollin' like crazy!
(Yes, I started on the play mat.)

What's that now?

This is me today.

Can you believe I was ever this small?

Bedtime

Henry loves to sleep on his belly in the crack (just like Daddy).

June pictures

Yesterday we weighed the King: 18 pounds, 6.5 ounces! Beefcake.

Pretty freakin' adorable!

Dontcha think?

No comment

"Doesn't anyone love us, mama?"

Henry pointed out earlier that I hardly ever have comments on my blog. Except sometimes from Will (thanks, man). So maybe leave a comment occasionally so I'm not just talking to myself. Love you.

We found a house!

It's not our dream house, but probably our in-between house. I would link you to the listing, but it's not on the market yet. Well, it was technically listed at 7 pm on Friday, and we signed the contract at 3 o'clock Saturday. And of course we didn't take any pictures. But you'll get to see it soon enough. We're closing by June 23rd hopefully.

I did have very (okay, too) high hopes about an older home downtown that's being redone. Once we got there, though, we realized it was not at all what we want. Yes, it's old, but it's not in good shape, and the new kitchen and baths don't really fit with the feel of the house. Plus the wood siding is in awful shape. So the old house dreams go on the back burner for a while.

We hung out with Jacob and Kelly this weekend. Henry had a good time. I think there may be a resemblance:

Here's Henry in his brand new Bumbo seat.
Doesn't he look so grown up? *tear*

And the fancy play tray:

Who needs two anyway?

Kidneys, that is. We finally know that Henry only has one.

In case you don't know the backstory, here's the catch-up: We've known that Henry's right kidney was atrophic (aka, tiny and underdeveloped) for a while. (I did have about 40 ultrasounds, you know.) At about 3 weeks of age we did a renal ultrasound, which confirmed a small right kidney that didn't look functional.

Today was the Mag-3 renal scan, which is a nuclear medicine study that can be used to evaluate kidney function. It showed what I was expecting, absolutely no function on the right side. Another renal ultrasound was also done, which showed that the right nubbin was smaller, but the left kidney is growing bigger than average to compensate. That's actually a good thing. His total renal function (measured by BUN and Creatinine blood tests) is also totally normal.

So what does this mean for Henry? Not a whole lot, except he needs to avoid NSAIDs (like Motrin or Aleve), he'll have yearly checkups on his blood pressure and probably repeat renal ultrasounds to check on the left kidney. And if he wants to play contact sports, he'll need a special super-expensive custom molded kidney protector. If only we didn't have that ultrasound in our office, we could have gone on blissfully ignorant of this. Lots of people walk around with one kidney their whole lives and never know it until they get radiologic studies for some other reason and happen to find it.

It certainly isn't keeping him from growing.

Sorry no pictures today, just talk.

My diaper model

weighs 17 pounds!
He's wearing the big boy diapers now!

We have hair!

and general adorable-ness