More Swimming and a Little Boxing!

We have certainly been enjoying our summer! Grandpa gave the Castor boys and old blow up pool he had since they were not able to open their big pool due to some work that needed to be done on it. He offered another to us, but Kevin wouldn't dare allow us to ruin his precious grass with a pool, so for now we swim at Grandma and Grandpa's or Auntie's. About a week ago my doctor told me I needed to stop work and "rest" for three hours twice a day due to being so swollen. Yeah right! So, my family has been wonderful with trying to help with Henry in the morning so I can rest during his nap. We spent one day at Auntie's and the kids had a blast in the freezing cold water. We have also found some rather large pillow boxing gloves to be a big hit with Henry and Kevin. We have had the gloves for a while (not sure why) and I recently took them out of the attic. This makes for hours of fun in the evening when Kevin comes home from work.

All the boys

Reed with his big boy haircut!

Round 1 Fight!!! (yes this is what he yells as soon as the gloves are on!)

Henry's new "smile." This is what you get if you ask him to smile, not bad!

While swimming with Grandpa Henry discovered the buttons that make bubbles in the hot tub, you know how he loves his buttons!

Henry was able to convince Grandpa to take him swimming while Kevin worked on his car and I sat in the shade...it really didn't take much convincing!

Swimming at Grandma and Grandpa's

First off I have to apologize for not having finished blogging about our fun long weekend we had July 4th. Unfortunately I lost my camera and therefore the pics that went with the weekend. We have a new camera now so I'll try to recapture some of those moments. Henry has been doing extremely well swimming this year. We started the season off with a "puddle jumper" float (the green float Cole is wearing) and have graduated to only swimmies and have learned that he can also handle Luke's swim belt. Henry shows no fear in the water and wants very much to be independent. He's not quite as brave as his cousins, running and jumping in the water, but he does very well. Henry has spent much time swimming with Aunt Kerri who is a former lifeguard and swimming teacher, and he has definitely shown some improvements! (check out his "straight" kicking legs in some of the pics). We are so grateful to Grandma and Grandpa who not only open their pool to us but to Henry's cousins as well, we have all enjoyed it very much, and I think they enjoy having all the kids around as well!

Reed is completely fearless, and would swim on his own if only he had the coordination to do so! How cute is he!

Henry and Cole (Cole's wearing the some float that Henry started with, he can now do the swimmies as well, we love to trade floating devices!)

Henry showing off his skills!

Henry in Luke's swim belt getting Cole!

Long Weekend Day One...Lupazoo!

I am lucky enough to have a four day weekend for the holiday and so I planned a lot of fun things to do with Henry. I want to do as many fun summer things with him now that I can before I have the baby, so we started Friday. Friday, Henry and I went to the Lupazoo which is in Ludlow, MA, about 2 minutes from Kevin's job. So, it was the perfect opportunity to also have lunch with Kevin and for Henry to check out all of the machines at Kev's work. (I really wish I brought my camera into Kevin's work because he was definitely rocking some ear plugs and safety goggles and "working" the machines...oh well, use your imagination, he was cute!) Anyway, the zoo was great and Henry was a trooper despite being a little under the weather, he walked the whole zoo, except the end when I had to carry him (really thought that would put me into labor, no such luck!) He really enjoyed the animals and was mighty upset when he would talk to the animals and they would not respond.


Checking out the monkeys.

My little "girl."

This was by far the favorite of the trip, a baby deer. The deer was following Henry up and down the fence and trying to smell him. When I told Henry the deer was smelling him, he in turn "smelled" the deer.

There was also a little playground, that we of course had to test out.

There were also many statues of animals that he wanted to "ride."

Of course we couldn't leave without riding the "trolley" that went around in a circle. He waved to all his fans the whole time. I think this was a nice break for his tired legs.

My Pumpkin Head...I love this kid! We had a great time, stay tuned for our fun activities from the rest of the weekend!

Trolley Museum

This weekend Kevin, Henry and I took a trip to the Trolley Museum in East Windsor. I figured we should take advantage of the next few weeks of having only one child. Although we have been to the museum a few times before it is always a fun activity. Henry seemed to enjoy the "train" ride more this time than last.

Henry checking out one of the old trains.

Henry made several funny faces throughout the day, here is one of them.

Here is another...he would make this face every time the whistle blew.

Waiting for the train with Daddy!

Boys and Their Toys!

We had our yard redone recently by one of Kevin's friends and he dropped the "digger" off a day early and left the keys so Kevin and Henry could have some fun. Kevin couldn't even wait for Henry to get up from his nap before he was taking rides around the yard. Once Henry was up though, they both could not get enough! For once I'm thankful our yard is as small as it is otherwise I am sure they would both be wanting to buy their very own "digger."

Here they are moving the large rock so the yard could be ripped up.

So serious!

It looks like Henry is really concentrating!

Memorial Day

We had a great Memorial Day with friends and family. We started the day with the Castor crew at the Windsor Locks parade. This was Henry's third year attending, and he definitely seemed to enjoy it. He clapped and cheered for all the marchers and has been marching around the house ever since. Later in the afternoon we had a small cook out at the house and all the boys had a great time together and had minimal arguments.

The crew!

Best buds!

Jack, Luke and Cole got silly bandz (the latest fad I guess) as a treat from Kate for behaving for pictures. They were all told to share at least one with Henry, he was very excited!

Family of three. I realized I don't have many pictures of just the three of us and since it will only be just the three of us for a few more weeks I figured we should get a shot, I really should have thought of this earlier in my pregnancy!

Waiting for the parade to come by!

My love Reed! Reed has a slight obsession with me lately and cries whenever I don't hold him or leave his house. I really love the affection, but he is very heavy and I am very pregnant, but how cute is he! Here he was yelling "cheese" because I was taking the other kids' pictures.

All of the kids had a great time playing in a bucket of water, who needs a pool anyway!

Somehow Henry always ends up messy at parties, and he always wants Auntie to clean him, what a good boy!

Luke's helping Owen with Henry's fire truck.

All the boys! I think they were actually looking at Kate's camera, not that her pictures are probably that much better, it's quite challenging with all of these kids to get a decent picture!

Henry's New Room

In preparation for the new baby we have had to move some bedrooms around. Kevin and I moved to the guest room since it is directly at the top of the stairs and was already painted a lovely shade of green, Henry moved to our old room after we recreated it to look like a little boy's room, and the baby will have Henry's old room so we don't have to do anything to it! After much discussion and debate we decided to decorate Henry's room with a "tool theme" complete with Craftsman tool boxes for his dressers. This is definitely Kevin's dream room, but Henry seems pretty happy as well. We also painted our old guest bed, which belonged to my grandmother, my mother, myself and now Henry. Of course we had to alter it slightly so it looks like it belongs in a little boys room. Henry has been in his "big boy bed" for about a week now and so far, so good. The first few nights he did not even get out of bed in the morning, but would call for me to come get him. That was short lived, on about morning three or four I hear our bedroom door open and there's Henry saying "good morning mom!" For the most part he stays in the bed when he is put in there, aside from one difficult nap session, but after some persistency on my part there have not been any further challenges. I actually think he is sleeping better than he had been in his crib. Here are some pictures of our "big boy!"

Kevin bought a bunch of cool metal signs to hang on the wall, these are Henry's favorites.

My sleeping "big boy"