Day 365 - New Year's Eve and the Art of Self Taking a Family Portrait

We learned today that even with a remote for the camera it is hard to take a picture of yourselves sometimes! A few times the camera wanted to focus on the background rather than us, and a few times Henry just wasn't in the mood! We also learnt that sparklers only cause smoke in the daytime, which tends to make you look like you are on fire. But this is the final picture for my project, us on the final day of 2011!

So on this final day of 2011 I have had a flick back through the year of my blog and noticed the following...

Number of posts - 365
Pageviews up until now - 10,193
Most Read Post (according to stats) was the Day of Chaos (Day 251) with 42 page views, closely followed by The Story of Dale and the Policeman (Day 196) with 35 page views
Most Commented on Post via Face Book would have to be Day 98 (Dale's Hidden Treasure) closely followed by Day 196 (Story of Dale and the Policeman) Funny that both posts are about Dale!
Big Events of the Year included, Henry crawling and later walking and David and Dani's wedding, Henry turned one and Kinzie was born.
Number of photos of Henry - 113
Posts mentioning shoes - 14
Posts mentioning chocolate - 21

So that's it... Happy New Year's Eve!

Day 360 - Just Like the Real Thing!

You can't quite tell in this pic, but Henry just sniffed his book... Fascinated by the smell of the mint leaves in the backyard, Henry spotted a picture of a green leaf in this book and obviously thought he should check if they smell like the ones in the garden!

Day 359 - Christmas is Here!

Merry Christmas! Check out the little look of concentration as Henry opens his Christmas present from Santa! We had a great Christmas Day today and I realised how far Henry has come in the last year. Today he played Santa's Helper, delivering Christmas presents from himself to the rest of the family and watched intently as people ripped open the paper! He 'helped' Dale in the kitchen preparing fruit for the pancakes (well, eating it), packed and unpacked a box of mangos, enjoyed his Christmas lunch and played with his presents! I think the red table and chairs made by Opa and the cars from Dani and David were quite a hit!

Day 358 - Christmas Eve

Now in this photo of Henry playing with the dogs' water (not sure if you can see the kibble he has stirred into it), his t-shirt says "Dear Santa... Is it too late to be good?" Too cute, and he really does look like he has been up to no good! I used snap seed to do this photo which is a great iPad app, which I am having fun experimenting with!

Day 356 - Loving Spag!

I normally only cook Henry short pasta, but it really was pretty amusing watching him eat spaghetti tonight. After a while when we realised it was going to take a while, Dale began the very intricate task of piling spaghetti onto a spoon, which Henry found much easier!

Day 355 - Happiness Returns to Bath Time!

Well the photo says it all! For the last few weeks, bath time has become painful with lots of tears and little explanation. Tonight was thankfully a different story and my little boy who loves playing with water has returned! I was really beginning to think that buying Henry a pool for Christmas was a mistake!

Day 352 - Now All Smile!

I took so many photos of these four today and it was very difficult to get a photo when each child was looking happy at the same time! Anyway, Jenna has Henry and their little baby cousin Kinzie on her lap and in front is Holly who we don't get to see very often, so it was great to get a pic of all four together! We spent the day with Dale's family having an early Christmas lunch. My favourite thing was hearing Henry say, "Ooooh!"each time he was given a present to open!

Day 351 - Putting Up the Christmas Tree Proves Hazardous!

Henry was quite fascinated by the putting up of the Christmas tree today, however it has already fallen down twice, once on top of him, due to his attraction to all things shiny, such as baubles! We went low key this year, only putting up our smaller tree and not going ahead with lights or tinsel. At least I don't really have an excuse for not wanting to take it down, with our 2010 tree being packed away sometime in mid to late January 2011!

Day 342 - The Big Sleep Catch Up

I know that it is two days in a row of pictures of Henry sleeping, but I couldn't resist this one. Another sick day at home and after 2 hours of him sleeping on my lap with just my laptop and Foxtel for company, I finally managed to wriggle free for Henry's 3rd hour of sleep while I tried to catch up on a few things.

Day 341 - Under the Weather

Henry came home with a bit of a temperature yesterday afternoon, but overnight it proved to be a difficult night, with him burning up, hogging our bed and even sleeping in. After a doctor's visit first thing, tonsillitis was diagnosed and we spent the day together in recovery mode, lots of sleep, TLC and trying different ways to bring down his temperature. It is so hard not being able to do much to get him better.

Day 338 - Our Stylish Children

They certainly are a very stylish pair aren't they? I just had to use this funny snap of Jenna and Henry wearing these glasses from the lolly bags from Kaleb's party. With the sunglass lenses taken out so that they could see, they do look like they should be down at the library or fixing a computer!

Day 336 - Why Do We Get Up So Early?

8.25am

Well it's certainly not my choice, but Henry likes to wake between 6am and 6.30am. I really don't need him out of bed until 7! However it must have been too early a start for him this morning, even though he seemed to sleep very well overnight. we noticed he'd gone very quiet as we crossed the state border this morning; the tell tale sign of being all tuckered out! I really don't know how his hat ended up like this though!

Day 333 - My Little Elf

Just because, he has a cute santa hat that he likes wearing around! Oh, check out the gorgeous lashes! Oh and the little daycare injury from some other tough baby!?

Day 331 - An Afternoon by the Pool

As the weather had dried out a bit by this afternoon and it was also pretty warm, I decided to get out Jenna's old clamshell pool for Henry to try out. He seemed to enjoy splashing about in the water, putting pebbles into the water, climbing in and out over and over and having a little stomp in the water! I can't wait to take him back to the local pool this year to see how he takes it all in - he was pretty stunned by it all last summer! In this photo, you can see his brand new hat, that Mum made last week for him. Pretty cute and glad that he is so happy to wear hats!

Day 324 - Indoor Picnic

Our mothers' group, which is now a playgroup, had a Christmas picnic planned for today but with the sudden rain overnight, it had to be relocated indoors. Although Henry doesn't get to see this bunch of little friends so often now, he seemed to have a ball, running around with all the others today. He attempted a tiny slippery dip, threw plastic balls around and had a go on this little bike as well, which he really seemed to enjoy. He even managed to get off the bike at the end all by himself. It was great to see everyone again, even though we didn't quite have our planned picnic!

Day 323 - Putting in an Order with Santa!

I can't believe it is already a year since the first time Henry met Santa! This year he needed Jenna to be in the photo with him, and I am pretty happy with the result! Although I didn't take this photo, I think it is as good as one of my own, considering I had to brighten the image up, fix the red eyes and straighten it (don't have vertical stripes if you can't keep the camera straight huh?) The 'photographer' really only pressed the button! Thanks to Dale for getting the big smiles from Henry!

Day 318 - Shopping and Coffee!

Spotlight had a 30% off Sale yesterday and today and so I took myself along to pick up a few things. Amongst them, a set of red bedsheets, two more patterns, a couple of pieces of fabric and a set of Christmas coffee cups... Henry felt that he deserved one of these for his patience, once we arrived home :)

Day 316 - Jenna's Little Soiree

Jenna was allowed to have two friends over for dinner tonight for her birthday. I have to say that it was a big improvement from the time where Dale and I offered to host her 7th birthday with 11 children invited (the less said about that one, the better!) Jenna's friends were polite, adored Henry, watched Twilight, helped cook dinner and were no problem! This is a pic of them with Henry about to sing Happy Birthday to Jenna. I made her chocolate cupcakes with a white chocolate ganache. Fun to decorate, but I do recommend waiting til the ganache is set (I got a bit over excited about decorating and they turned a bit drippy). I again, loved Henry's "birthday cake face"... Mummy the cake is on fire!!!

Great cupcake recipe here: http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/22173/chocolate+cupcakes

Day 314 - Long Lost Hat Returned!

Henry was very excited to receive an envelope in the post today containing his long lost hat, left at Nanna and Opa's on the weekend. In fact he had a huge grin on his face when he peered into the envelope; he threw his old hat off and put on his very missed hat straightaway :-)

Day 308 - Gifts from Nanna and Opa

We arrived in Sydney tonight and Henry quickly found a spinning top that his Opa made for him that he immediately loved. In this photo, Henry is holding the top while wearing his beloved hat, made by his Nanna!