Five years and then some

Last Friday Henry and I celebrated our fifth anniversary.

I remember when I was a newlywed and five years seemed like a long time.
Mostly because everyone I knew that had been married that long had at least a baby or two in tow,
and babies were such a grown up thing....it seemed very far removed from where i was standing.

but five years has come and gone!
and i never imagined that five years would bring so many changes and such a sweet peanut.
and another peanut in the making.
it's really amazing what can happen in half a decade. i can't even begin to imagine what the next five years will bring.

and just because it was our anniversary, i have to include the part where i'm married to the sweetest most adorable man in the world and he makes me happier than i've ever been. which is totally awesome.

Bence came along on our  anniversary "date" which was basically a grocery trip, but we had a great time.
Since little B fell asleep on the way out,
we stopped at "neato burrito" for dinner (something we could eat in the car) while hoping for a similar experience to Cafe Rio (the BEST restaurant in Utah.)

we were sadly disappointed.

but for the "pennsyl-tuckie" version of Mexican, it wasn't bad.
We made an extra trip to Wegmans after stopping at target.
because we always forget something.
And for those of you who have (or have had) kids you know that stopping at more than one place can be a dangerous thing with a toddler.
this was me and henry's way of living dangerously.
the likelihood of meltdowns and temper tantrums increases by fifty percent with each additional stop you make. (in this family anyway.)

But bence was so sweet.
and charming.
every time he made eye contact with someone he would wiggle his arm in the air and yell "AAAYY!"
(that's his version of hey, or hello--we can't tell.)

In fact, i felt kind of guilty as a mom because he was so excited to go out.
even just to go to the grocery store.
this poor kid has been kept indoors all winter. you know you have cabin fever when target and wegmans are an exhilarating experience.
i think we've got to get him out more.

he was so cute sitting in the cart all wrapped up, we tried to get a good picture of him.
but he was too busy trying to wave to a group of kids he saw over by the cart stall.

Yesterday the weather was so nice we just had to get out of the house.
almost all the snow has melted, and while everything is brown and drab looking,
the sun still warms your bones and makes it seem like spring is just around the corner.

so we put on real clothes, packed up the diaper bag, and headed out.
we've taken bence to the park before, but he never really caught on.
but this time, when we pulled him out of his carseat he started to squeal.
i think he knew we were going to be outside.
and anytime we're outside, we're bound to have fun. (at least in bence's mind.)
he took off faster than his little legs could carry him and wound up on his butt more than once.

by the time we left, his bottom was soaked as were the legs of his pants up to his knees. he doesn't have the greatest depth perception and still falls over frequently when walking over unever surfaces.

he is so independent.
Henry or i would offer bence a hand or try to help him where the ground wasn't level or where a step was too big to climb over, and he would reach out for a split second....
but as soon as he was over whatever obstacle it was, he'd rip his hand away. i guess he's too big to have help from mommy or daddy.

There was a kiddie park a little ways away from the bigger jungle gym where older kids were playing.
we tried to start bence off with the smaller slides, but he wasn't having it.

he saw all the big kids playing and he wanted to be over where they were.
and once he figured out the slides, he only wanted the big ones.
henry would go up to the top of the jungle gym with him, but once he got to the slide, he literally threw himself face foreword to go down.

a couple times henry held onto the back of his shirt while another kid went down ahead of bence,
and he would get so frustrated and mad at that two second delay that he would scream some more.

the funniest part of taking bence to the park was seeing how social he is.
we already knew that he was friendly. he has been since he was an infant.
but the entire time we were there, he insisted on running where all the big kids were.

I kept thinking of that song from the little mermaid....
"I wanna be where the people are...i wanna see, wanna see 'em dancing!"

that was bence.
we took him over to the kiddie swings at one point.
and he didn't like it at all.
we were the only ones on that part of the playground.
he kept looking over to where a gaggle of kids were playing across the park.
then he would look at them and scream.
and then look at us.
and then look at the other kids and scream some more.
and the minute we got him down he took off in their direction.

don't worry, there was still snow on the ground, but it was really warm out. no babies were cold in the making of this blog. 

Notice the wet bum.
he would fall on the snow that hadn't melted yet, and sit there with his hands in the air because he didn't want to touch the cold ground to push himself up. that's the only time he was okay with us helping him.

the worst part about going to the park: getting little B in the car afterward.
he cried as soon as I opened the door.
and then kicked his muddy little feet in indignation.
and arched his back so it was nearly impossible to buckle him in.
but once he was settled with some juice he calmed down.

and when we got home we ate dinner and watched frozen.
it's kind of his favorite movie.
he loves the music. and i'm pretty sure his eyes never left the screen for the entire hour and a half the movie lasted.

all in all, it was a pretty great day.
here's one last picture of our sweet little trouble maker.
climbing, as usual.