In cleaning out my phone* today, I stumbled across some old photos & videos I’d neglected to share. Here’s kind of a nice, quiet post-bath moment with Henry from a few months ago, wherein he explores a bubbly little truck and does his best impression of a parrot.
* What a weird concept, isn’t it? Who knew that telephones would eventually need to be cleaned out (of data) & not just off?
What’s even cooler than riding a cliff-hugging train at 10,000ft? Discovering a pack of vintage railroad motorcars and getting to climb on them!
On the train we happened to sit next to a nice older couple from Nebraska who mentioned that they were in town to drive their motorcar–a retired RR maintenance machine–up the track with a bunch of other enthusiasts. We followed them off the train & got to clamber around their little ride! They told us to come back for the big gathering the next day, so we brought back Patrick & Charlie. The drivers couldn’t have been nicer to all the kids, and we even got to scramble around on a full-sized locomotive. Check out the gallery and little video!
Greetings from the Nack family basement (aka kiddie rave-cave). 🙂
Want to get little dudes excited about enduring long trips in planes, planes, and automobiles? Tell them that making ice cream is on the other side!
Apparently Margot’s dad is rather famous for his homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream, and the lads were more than happy to help him whip up a batch–and to “eat the profits” beforehand! Here’s our little gallery.
Who knew that the Colorado ghost town of St. Elmo was a huge chipmunk mecca? Some handfuls of seeds helped us play Gulliver to the “chippies” (“I’m a chippymunk!” declares Hen). Check it out!
Margot bought the guys little marshall badges plus a couple of stuffed chipmunks. “Look at that bushy-tailed menace!!” exclaimed Finn upon seeing his. (Apparently he picked up that phrase from Fireman Sam.) Now the little “Menaces” accompany our guys around, with one sometimes making trips to my chin (where it becomes a “chennace”–chin menace).
We had a blast taking the boys on the Leadville, Colorado, & Southern Railroad as it climbed high above the Arkansas River valley. Check out our visits to the engine, caboose, & more!
A birthday wouldn’t be complete without singing and (cup)cake, so thanks to nephew Patrick for documenting the proceedings:
We neglected to mention that just before the festivities, Henry had been forcibly awakened from an epic nap (lest he be up all night). That left him pretty lethargic & unsure what to make of all this fuss. (In the previous gallery you can really see the effect of the cupcake sugar hitting his bloodstream!) It’s also funny to observe Finn’s oversight of the candle-blowing operation. He really had to work at not jumping in and doing the honors himself!
Nostalgic bonus roundup:
Henry Seamus Nack turned 2 years old today! Since we were flying back to SJ from our weeklong trip to Colorado, we celebrated Henry’s big day on Wednesday in Leadville. His cousins, aunt, and grandparents were there for the festivities–candles, singing, cupcakes, and presents! Here’s a link to the party gallery.
We can hardly believe our little Henry is already two. In many ways, it seems like he’s been with us far longer than a mere 2 years, but in other ways he is still our little bitty guy. It’s been terrific to see his personality bloom this past year, especially when it comes to his ability to use so many words to express himself instead of being thwarted by a lack of vocabulary and constantly seeming frustrated. Although he can be a bit slow to warm up to new acquaintances, once he does, he is a joy to be around–he’s slyly goofy, often breaking into a wry grin when he’s up to something. He’s kind to his big brother, loves all kinds of physical horseplay, and loooooooves his Dad-o. We love it when his blue eyes sparkle and he verbalizes his observations, often asking us questions to help figure things out. Hooray for Henry! We couldn’t love you more, little squirrel!
From the Rocky Mountain Dept. of Wildlife:
Bonus animal bit: Today on the train Finn informed me out of the blue, “Dad-O, if a we had a monkey who liked chips, he’d be a chip-monk!” Right on, little guy. 🙂
After a smooth journey to Colorado, we arrived in Leadville on Sunday evening. The modes of conveyance have been hits: Finn was so jazzed that “We’re going to fly on a Boeing Constrictor!,” and both guys keep talking about “the rental car” that we’ve dubbed “the eep” (see photo for explanation). I was pretty concerned that the altitude here would ruin their sleep, but happily* I was the only one tossing and turning all night. I keep encouraging the boys to drink plenty of liquids, leading to Finn’s rather sickening mountain hydration plan: “I’ll drink some water [saliva] out of Leo [the lion blankie]’s tail!”
Monday featured Leadville’s charming little Fourth of July parade, followed by a tour of the fire station, free barbecue in an aircraft hangar (“Welcome to North America’s highest airport!”), and backyard s’mores. The cousins are playing together beautifully (so cool to see!), and I’ve captured a gallery showing the proceedings.
*It’s all relative, right?
Hi, everyone–greetings from 10,000ft (Leadville, CO). I’m typing fast as we’re scrambling around with the guys, having a ball checking out the Independence Day parade, the fire station, free chow at the tiny airport, and more. Despite Henry’s claims on the plane that “I freakin’ out! I like crying, Dad-O!,” both guys were mobile superstars. Here’s just a quick shot of Finny at the airport.
Okay, Henry is climbing the ottoman, preparing to stage dive onto my computer. Bye! 🙂
“Nack… Hen Nack.” 🙂 (compare to the original)
To celebrate Finn & Henry’s first day of preschool, we grabbed burgers & headed to Lowe’s to check out play equipment. Little did we expect to see–and get to ride–the 13-foot-high, 19,000 pound Monster Kool Bus. It’s a 1956 school bus atop huge tires with 25-inch rims. Check out our wild ride!
You can see Finn start to beam, and amazingly the only upset was when Henry realized the ride was over. Now when he sees the video he says, “I crying, ‘Do it again!'”
Our in-bus video doesn’t give a complete sense of the crazy spinning sensation we got. Here’s another video (from a different location) taken by someone else:
We capped off the adventure by getting the each guy one little monster school bus toy. They’ve been popping wheelies ever since!
Oh, and parents, the bus will be at Lowe’s through July 6th, 2011 (weekdays 4-9pm, weekends 10am-9pm); 5 bucks per person.
Yesterday was the boys’ first day of preschool at Pasitos! Clearly our soft-pitch sales job this past week worked, because they were up earlier than usual this morning and raring to get to school. Bags and lunches were packed, paperwork was in hand, hats were donned, buddies were grabbed, and we were off by 8a.m.
I had planned on 2 things today: 1. Hanging around the classroom for quite awhile this morning to ease the guys’ transition from home to school and downplay the drama, and 2. receiving one or more phone calls that Henry or Finny were crying inconsolably and one of us needed to come get them (we were warned this is fairly common during the transition period). What a surprise that neither plan came to fruition!
As I finished up the paperwork and stashed the boys’ belongings in the appropriate cubbies, both boys were already very busy playing and chatting with the teacher. I stuck around for maybe 10 more minutes, then gave each boy a smooch and took off–it was clear they were doing just fine! The phone never rang with a call from Pasitos, so we figured the day must have gone well. I think John and I were actually more nervous/worried about school than the boys!
When we arrived to pick them up, they were playing outside, and Finny ran to the gate, so excited to see us. His voice wavered quite a bit when he said “I’m so happy to see you!” It was a thin line between crying and smiling, but I think he was just really overwhelmed with how relieved he was when he saw us. Henry was holding Ollie and playing ball, and was also very happy to see Dad-o strolling in.
The teacher assured us the boys had a good day. Both had napped and played well. She also remarked that Henry didn’t like having his diaper changed (no surprise to me, I guess I should’ve mentioned that!), and that he ate a lot (I guess he really took advantage of snacktime!). At some point Henry started crying pretty hard for Ollie (we tried to talk him into only having Ollie at nap time, but I guess he didn’t want to give him up upon waking). Finny stepped in and told the teachers what Henry wanted, and once they handed Ollie to him, he was fine. “Ollie saved the day,” she said.
So all in all, a very good first day of school, and I think the boys are looking forward to going back. Just now as I was putting Finny to bed, he said “I don’t understand Spanish yet. I think I will learn Spanish when I grow up to be a man. In about a week or so, I’ll be grown up and will learn it then.”
Update: Here’s our little video recap with the lads:
Yesterday the Finnfatha & I tried a little “Freaky Friday”-style role reversal: as I tried to get him to nap a bit (okay, to let me nap, too), we decided that he was the dad-o & I was the kid. As I laid on the couch he relished bringing me blankets: “I’m putting them onto your chest & stuffing them under your chin, like a bib!” When he eventually laid down at the other end of the couch, he noticed that his “Looen” Leo was MIA.
“Kid!” he said. “Your looen is missing! I think he’s in the basement!” (meaning I’d need to get up and open the safety gate)
“Oh Dad-O,” I said in falsetto, “It’s okay. I don’t need my looen right now.”
“Yes you do, kid!” he insisted. “If you don’t have him you’ll cry and cry!”
Oh boy. So up I got, opened the gate, laid back down & shut my eyes. Soon, through the floor, I could hear Finn cackling to himself. Up the stairs he came, laughing all the way. As he came to the doorway he said, “Ki-iiiid, I have a surprise for yo-oou!!”
With my eyes still shut, and with some nervousness, I asked, “Um… is it a looen?”
“It’s NOT a looen,” he declared triumphantly, “It’s a DIPE!!” And running over, he placed a (thankfully unused!) diaper on my chest (and thankfully not elsewhere!).
[PS: As I was finishing this post, Henry spied me Googling for pictures of diapers. Now he’s convinced that this crazy diaper-helmet kid is Finny. “It’s *not* Finny!” protests his bro, to no avail. –J.]
We have had quite the exciting day today. At 7:30am, our nanny Coco called and said she couldn’t make it in, since her daughter Tiffy was in labor and was due to give birth. Coco was headed to SF to look after Tyler (a.k.a. the T-Man), Tiffy’s 2 year-old, while Tiffy was in the hospital.
Since we found ourselves in the position of juggling childcare between Mom-o and Dad-o, after our morning meetings we thought we’d treat the guys to a viewing of Pixar’s “Cars 2” at the movie theater. The boys were so excited they couldn’t WAIT to get into the Ocho and head for the show. (We bought tickets online early, so we had about 2 hours of “when do we leave for the movie?” to deal with. And we’ve been hearing Henry say “I’m Mater, Dad-o” for weeks on end!)
This was our first visit to a movie theater with the guys, and we all love the Cars characters, so the four of us were pretty jazzed. Once we got out of the car and walked towards the box office, Finny kept saying “I’m so happy this is my first time seeing a movie at the movie theater! I’m so excited!” Not surprisingly, once we made our way towards the theater, Finny spied the popcorn, so of course we had to get a big bag to snack on. He was very concerned that I was giving too much of it to Henry and Dad-o, and that there wouldn’t be enough left for him (Impossible! It was an enormous bag!)
We settled in to watch the movie (Hen and Finno on booster seats–thanks AMC Mercado!), and both boys were absolutely rapt. Henry got a little freaked when there was fire in one scene, and had to take a couple short breaks, but Finny hung in there for the entire movie, only moving to come sit on my lap halfway through. They both really enjoyed it–and I get the feeling Finny’s going to be asking to go to a lot more movies! The movie, by the way, was a lot of fun–another great flick by the Pixar gang!
The boys and I treated Dad-o to what I consider a “Big Adventure Father’s Day” this year. The festivities started super-early with our PJ-clad dad (above) opening presents Finny and Henry picked out: tons of fun boxer shorts including the requisite “greatest dad” and “#1 dad”, and a couple of fun T-shirts.
Then after a quick breakfast we climbed into the Ocho and hit the road for Dennis The Menace Park in Monterey. It was a beautiful day, and since the boys woke up so early, we made it to the park by 9am…well before any other families. We had the entire park to ourselves, and in particular the giant (real) steam locomotive that the guys love climbing on. Our busy engineer and conductor spent what must have been almost 90 solid minutes playing on the engine*, with only a quick break for a snack and a very brief tour of the park’s other attractions. If you’re an SJ local and you haven’t gone to this park, make haste! It is well worth the drive. It may be the Best Park Ever.
Soon it was lunchtime, so we drove over to a little cafe for pizza in their beautiful courtyard. As Dad-o was finishing up his pie, Finny and I snuck away for one last secret treat–a quick walk down the street to a French bakery, where we picked up a sackful of delicious little chocolatey and nutty cookies. After a lovely driving tour of the seaside all along the Monterey Peninsula, we headed home.
Our last treat of the day was meeting up with our friends the Wiggins and their kids for a taco picnic at Rolly Slide Park. Everyone was absolutely spent by the end of the day, and after a quick bath, the guys hit the hay and Mom-o and Dad-o were not too far behind.
[ *Engineer Finn just wouldn’t be lured by other stuff: “We’re going to focus on the engine,” he informed me. –J.]
Not to be left out, G-Man’s contributed some fun bits lately:
We enjoy using Twitter to capture fun little bits involving the boys. We used to put tweets alongside the blog, but a few months ago we hit a technical glitch I haven’t been able to resolve. Therefore I thought I’d pull together some good recent bits from the Finnster (Henry to follow!).
“I’m a big weirdo, Dad-O,” announces our caped crusader. Yes, son, and we couldn’t be happier about that. 🙂
