Henry turns 2!

The birthday boy!

High-speed Japanese trains, COOL!

"Oooohma!" (aka Oma)

Why are all of these people singing?

We celebrated Henry's 2nd birthday with friends and family this past weekend. Oma traveled from Michigan  to help prepare food and our house for 9 children, their parents and our friends. Henry was amazingly tolerant of the other kids playing with all of his toys. He especially loved jumping on his bed with daycare buddies Mateo and Tyler. The whirlwind of playing kids left our train table set completely pulled apart, and hundreds of tiny toys strewn all over our house, but the fun chaos was completely worth it. We feel blessed to have such a great network of friends.

Big bed

Henry recently discovered that he is capable of climbing out of his crib. After 3 consecutive nights of him "escaping," it was necessary for us to convert his crib to a big kid bed.

The new set-up

Henry thought it was pretty sweet!

It's a jungle gym

Happy New Year

We had a fun visit with Grandma, Grandpa and cousin Jon over the New Years holiday! Per usual, our activities centered around everything related to trains, ducks and food.

Can you shrug your shoulders like a buffalo?

A highlight of the weekend was the "countdown to 12:00 noon" ball drop at Como Zoo where we caught lion and giraffe (initially mistaken as a cow) beach balls.

Home for the holidays

We spent a very relaxing Christmas holiday weekend at home this year which mostly consisted of eating and playing with new toys (trains and airplanes and new toy kitchen supplies) as well as daily trips out of the house to the duck pond. We greatly missed being with all of our family in Michigan and Tennessee, but were lucky to be able to share a fabulous evening with some of our Minnesota "family." Henry had a great time trying out all of Colin and Nora's new toys and chasing around (aka terrorizing) Sadie the dog. We were even able to fit in a trip to the Como Zoo and Conservatory today thanks to the unseasonably warm weather (50 degrees F!)

Train crazy

Christmas came early for Henry this year. Oma and Opa came to visit this past weekend and Henry received his very own train table as a Christmas present! He has been quite excited about his new gift. Every morning this week he has been waking up saying "choo choo" and wanting to immediately go play with his trains. While Oma and Opa were here we spent a lot of time playing with trains, reading books and we even went to the train museum!

Thanksgiving 2011 in Michigan

We spent a wonderful Thanksgiving in Michigan. We were able to meet our newest family member, Henry's cousin, Elliot. Henry was very interested in Elliot, but not very pleased when either of his parents were holding him. Henry was thrilled to spend time running around with his cousins Oliver and Mae, see his aunts and uncles, Oma, Opa, Grandma and Grandpa. Henry especially enjoyed playing with his father's vintage Fischer Price toys and Oliver's trains.

Click here for additional photos.