Henry walks!!!!

The big day finally arrived! I had been expecting this day since April really. That was about the time that Henry starting pulling himself up and cruising the furniture. I think it took him so long to take these first steps on his own because he was afraid of falling. He also just needed a really big audience! James and I had gone down to Sierra Vista to spend the day with my family. My brother Chris and his family were getting ready to move to Las Cruses and we wanted to say goodbye. My whole family was there, including Henry's two baby cousins who are about the same age as he is. They were both walking. I figured they would be a good influence on Henry, and they were! The whole family was gathered in the living room for a quick prayer and when my dad had finished, I set Henry down. James and I were sitting across from each other, but not by very far. When I set him down, I said, go see dada. Now usually, no matter how far away he is, Henry would get down and crawl over. NOT THIS TIME!!! He started taking teeny little steps over to James, all on his own! It wasn't very far, maybe only five or seven steps, but he did it! Not holding on to the furniture or me, but all by himself! We were getting ready to go at this point so all the cameras were put away so I don't have the actual first steps on camera. I tried right afterwards that same day too but he wasn't in to performing for the camera. The next day, I had to resort to big time bribery (Capri Sun!) to get even a few steps on film. It's not the best quality but please enjoy my baby boy's teeny steps!

Getting caught up

Now that I've finally finished posting the vacation pictures, I can post some more random pictures from the last few weeks. We've been so busy! James and I BOTH got new cars, we turned Henry's car seat around and we took him swimming :)

Henry is ready to roll in daddy's new car :)

I was so excited when we went to Henry's last Dr visit and he weighed in at exactly 20 lbs! Which in my mind, I'm thinking, yes! We can finally turn his car seat around! But then the Dr told us that the AAP now recommends kids stay rear facing until two years! I was sad, especially when I would go to take Henry out of his car seat and he'd be drenched with sweat because the air just can't get to him. Well, after talking with some friends and seeing just how uncomfortable Henry was with his feet squished up against the seat, we decided to go ahead and flip him around. He is so much happier :)

Henry LOVED the ocean, loved it! We hadn't taken him swimming in our pool in a while and decided now would be a great time. He didn't disappoint, he loved that too!

See that face? :)

Henry's favorite thing about swimming is getting out of the pool and crawling around it!

Me and my baby boy.

I'm trying to keep him in the pool here and not let him out.

And that is the face I get when I don't let him have his way. Are we starting the terrible twos already?

Weeeeee!

Now any time I even open the blinds so Henry can see the pool, he starts pointing and grunting and won't stop until we either go outside or I have to close the blinds again! Out of sight, out of mind :) He is quite the demanding little boy. No idea where he gets that from! ;)

Last day at the beach

Three days in a row of going to the beach and James and I were ready to actually go out and see some of the sights. Now I had been coming to La Jolla with my family pretty much every summer of my entire life. We knew the place and had many traditions. One of the things we always did when I was a kid and came with my family, was to go out on the seawall and look at the seals. James really enjoyed doing this so we decided to take Henry.

The seals, very different from sea lions. Yes, I know the difference, do you?

James and Henry on the sea wall.

I like Henry's coy smile here.

Jeez, my mom and dad are crazy!

Another one of the places we love to go is Seaport Village. I was excited for Henry to get to ride on this really cool super old carousel they have there. I was a bit sad thought because there was no way I would be able to climb up on a horse and ride with him so James got to do it.

Henry chose a dragon to ride on :)

Ooh shiny!

Henry was not as impressed as I thought he'd be. This was his face pretty much throughout the whole ride.

I had to ride on the bench on the carousel. As you can see, I was not please.

Family pic in front of the fountain.

And of course, we couldn't leave without visiting the Ben and Jerry's scoop shop! Henry enjoyed some strawberry cheesecake ice cream. Yum!

The next day, we needed to leave pretty early because we were going to drive the entire way back without stopping in Yuma as we did on the way over. But we couldn't leave without saying goodbye to the ocean!

Henry had fun walking along the wall on the boardwalk.

My toes had to wiggle in the sand one last time.

And that about wraps it up. We had a blast! :)

And yet more beach pics!

Day three at the beach was again cloudy. But after learning my lesson about dressing Henry, I dutifully put on his swim wear yet again. This time, we were at the beach for about a minute when I look up and my dad has absconded with my baby! I look up and there they are, headed toward the water! Well, I grab my camera and hurry (as fast as my broken leg will allow me) down to the water's edge.

They are having a deep conversation right here, get it? Deep? Ha!

Grandpa and grandson :)

I love that my dad played with Henry in the water. It brought back memories of when my dad played with me at the beach when I was a kid.

It looks like I am mad here because my arms are crossed but really I am just trying to keep warm! It was so cold!

Fighting the waves :)

That was fun grandpa!

Mama's turn to play! You'll notice, I had to put on a sweater!

I love this pic of his little toes in the surf :)

Daddy's turn to play!

After the beach, my dad took us out to dinner at this nice Italian restaurant. And I don't mean like Olive Garden Italian. These guys actually SPOKE in Italian! And the food? YUM! So of course, I had to get Henry all fancied up!

Henry and grandma :) Look how handsome he is!

I brought him tons of toys to keep him occupied but he wanted to play with the silverware instead.

He is in the middle of one of his classic Henry squeals right here! It is so cute, but soooo loud! Luckily, the other people in the place thought it was cute too :)

We offered him bites of all of our food but he wanted to chew on his table mat instead!

After dinner, we dressed down again to go for a walk. I just thought this outfit was too cute! Big thank you to Nicole for most of his outfits for this trip :)

That does it for part three! I think there is only one part left, thank goodness right? :)