Werth Family Online
This past week we celebrated Henry’s fifth birthday. Elise delivered on his request for a ninja turtle birthday cake and we enjoyed a grand outing to a Twins game with all of our family members. Prior to the game, the boys received some autographs which was followed by a post game running of the bases. It was pretty awesome to walk right onto the field and get a while new view of the stadium. Most importantly, Henry absolutely loved it!
On Saturday morning, we headed to the local bowling alley for two games of fun. Both sets of grandparents and aunts met us there, and we had lots of fun rolling balls down the lane. Afterward, we headed home to enjoy some delicious pizza and Henry’s choice birthday cake: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle!
One of Jacob’s favorite parks in town is the “rock park”, named for the rock formations that create some of the play areas. Here are some pictures of Henry from our latest outing.
The boys dressed up for Halloween and hit the street. Thanks to some wonderful sewing by Nonni, the two dressed up as Pooh Bear and Piglet. The Pooh bear originally had been worn by Elise when she was much smaller!
Enjoy these pictures from the night:
In the middle of September, Henry celebrated his first birthday. It was an exciting Saturday morning filled with family, gifts, and plenty of messy cake eating. Jacob enjoyed helping Henry open his gifts and Elise tested her culinary art by crafting a delicious lion cake.
The past few weeks have been an exciting time for the Werth family. We have closed on our house in Iowa City and have taken up residence with Mary and Larry in Eden Prairie, MN. Elise has started her new position at Rockford Middle School, while Jon is working for the University of Iowa remotely. While there have been a lot of life changes, the boys have also continued to grow.
Henry is developing quite the personality, discovering how to make his needs known without the use of words. He has begun to climb up stairs, but is not yet too successful at going down. Also, his balance has continued to increase to the point where he can now stand on his own and is ‘cruising’ (pushing items around while walking).
Meanwhile, Jacob has enjoyed making new friends at his daycare, coming home daily with one or two new sign language words. He potty training has also been going very well, culminating in the purchase of big boy undies today!
It’s been a great few weeks of change and growth in many facets of our family’s life. To top it off, we are in the process of purchasing a home in Delano after our offer was accepted a week ago! Stay tuned for additional updates as we celebrate Henry’s 1st birthday soon and start to create our new home in Minnesota.
As we continue to search for a house and prepare for the move to Minnesota, Jacob and Henry continue to grow and develop at a quick pace. Henry is now mobile, being fully able to crawl where he pleases. As a result, our house has become a bit of a disaster zone as Henry enjoys exploring everything: pulling things off of shelves and tipping over baskets of toys and laundry.
All of this has had an impact on Jacob who now has to defend his toys from the invading brother. It’s a hard lesson in sharing and one that is not coming easily, but we’re working on it.
Jacob’s vocabulary continues to grow, repeating nearly any word he hears. We’ve also reached the hilarious and embarrassing stage of child observation. For example, when Jacob saw a larger man in the grocery store he proceeded to say, “Whoa, he’s got a biiiig tummy!”
Meanwhile, Henry now has three teeth (one on the top and two on the bottom) and enjoys standing while holding on to something.
Enjoy these photos from our weekend!
After the last post we had one more bout of sickness. Jacob was running a very high fever and ended up having an ear infection. It has since been two weeks and he is off his antibiotics. Happily I can say that we’ve been sickness free for one week! 🙂
In the meantime, we continue to hang out, play, and watch the two boys grow. Henry is now eating solid foods (rice cereal) and quite the little smiler. The big moment this morning occurred when Henry rolled from his back to his stomach (previously he had only done the opposite). Pretty soon he’ll be rolling around! Jacob continues to build his vocabulary, loves finding the goldbug in his Richard Scarry book, and is starting to use the big porcelain bowl.
As I write, it’s a dull, rainy day outside which is helping all of the snowmen melt away. The whole family will be eager to get outside once the weather warms up! Until then, Elise has been busy indoctrinating the boys into our alma mater:
The past month has been a harder time at the Werth household. There’s been a variety of sickness going around and unfortunately we’ve experienced most of it – which is probably why I haven’t written anything lately!
As I write, Jacob is battling a stomach bug with a slightly elevated fever. About a week ago, and he was getting over an ear infection that came after a cold. Henry is on the tail end of a lung infection that had one scary trip to the emergency room (due to shortness of breath). Elise and I managed to dodge most of the sickness, except for one or two days each.
Despite the variety of illnesses, it’s been a decent month filled with family visits and birthdays. Jacob has continued to develop his vocabulary and speech at an astounding rate and Henry is becoming quite the little personality. He is now five months old and, upon a doctor visit last week, weighed in at 18 lbs and 26 inches.
Here are some of my favorite pictures from the last few days. Enjoy!
