Henry is FOOD

(Jenn) In case you didn't think "Bommy, Baddy, Bellis, Benry, Bessica, Biss and Bevan" was funny, here's a little video to prove that mixing up letters really IS the most hilarious thing on the planet! It has become the ongoing entertainment in our house. My favorite thing about this clip is just watching how Henry cracks up with every new phrase.

Funny Spelling from Ben and Jenn on Vimeo.

Speaking of Resemblances . . .

(Jenn)

No, I'm not talking about the resemblance between Ellis and Frankie (the monkey)! Zoom in and check out that unruly eyebrow! This kid is the spittin' image of his Daddy-o. At least where eyebrows, back hair, and pudgy fingers are concerned. We're loving this handsome guy!

I Love . . .

(Jenn)

1. Days when we don't have to go anywhere! It's nice to be able to stay in our pajamas until 11:00 and go outside to splash in rain puddles if we want. To me, this is what being a mom should always be like.

2. When babies start getting reliable nap schedules. The morning nap is just starting for Ellis, and it allows me a little bit of much-needed one-on-one time with Henry.

3. Umbrella pictures! I'm adding a picture of little Jenn with an umbrella too, just for fun. Everyone says Henry looks just like me. What do you think?

A little Christmas cheer, a little early

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Bevan, Bessica, and Biss!

(Jenn)

We had a special treat last weekend: a visit from our best New Jersey friends Evan, Jessica, and Chris! Evan and Henry have been missing each other terribly since we moved, and we were dying to get them together. It was so fun to be together again and for them to meet Ellis! While they were here, I realized that Evan and Henry really are meant to be best friends. They got along so well and just played happily together the whole time! I've never met another kid who was so willing to play cars, make silly faces, and make up crazy words with Henry for hours on end. The adults had a great time visiting because the boys were so occupied with each other -- we really hardly had to watch them at all!

I think the boys would have been happy just staying home playing with cars the whole time, but we did a few fun things to keep ourselves busy. On Friday we hit the children's museum, where we spent most of our time playing with the (you guessed it) trucks and trains. The boys both bought a toy train from the gift shop, which provided hours of entertainment for the rest of the weekend! On Saturday we went to the Watertown Family Network's "Touch the Trucks." It was a dream-event for Henry and Evan both: an open parking lot filled with all sorts of trucks, from fire trucks to dump trucks to school busses. The kids were allowed to touch them, climb in them, and learn all about them. Can you think of a better idea?

So Henry's favorite quirky habit right now (aside from burping, which is still going strong) is changing the first letter of a word to another letter and then laughing at the result (he'll sit at the dinner table for hours talking about his landwich, luice, and logurt!). It's pretty funny stuff. Trust me. Last weekend was no exception, and this fun game continued until I'm afraid it drove everyone nuts. We spent the entire car ride home from the restaurant on Friday listening to Henry go through all of our names with EVERY letter of the alphabet numerous times: Bommy, Baddy, Bellis, Benry, Bessica, Biss, and Bevan! Wommy, Waddy, Wellis, Wenry, Wessica, Wiss, and Wevan! Tommy, Taddy, Tellis, Tenry, Tessica, Tiss, and Tevan! Occasionally it got really exciting: Sommy, Saddy, Sellis, Senry, Sessica, Siss, and Sevan! Seven? That's a number! The best part of this game is when you end up with names that are real words. The highlight was when we got "Hellis" and "Hevan" both in one round.

The game continued pretty much nonstop for the rest of the weekend. Bessica, Biss, and Bevan endured it pretty well, and they still stayed until Sunday like they planned, to my relief! If only they could be here now . . . they could hear how much Henry misses them. On he goes, including Ressica, Riss, and Revan in all of our topics of conversation.

Ah, this too shall pass.

Piano

(Jenn)

Happy 5th Anniversary to us! We've been dreaming of this piano for a long time, and finally, here it is! Isn't it beautiful? It plays beautifully too (although it needs a tuning). I think we got quite the steal: $250 for the piano from craigslist. And yes, we used the piano movers mentioned previously (no prize for professionalism or congeniality, but they did a great job and were very careful). Hooray and hoorah! Bring on the Christmas music!

Ben learned a lot of useful skills on his mission,

including how to kill a Thanksgiving turkey and what to do when you get fleas. Today he showed off yet another skill: mouse-catching. Apparently he "only" did this 5 or 6 times as a missionary, but 5 or 6 times was enough to make him an expert!

So Ben and I were sitting at the computer together when we both saw a small, black shadow scurry across the corner of the room and into the closet. I think if we hadn't both seen it, either one of us would have brushed it off as an illusion. I was sure it was just a big spider. Ben (remember? He's the expert) was certain it was a mouse. Eek! We moved things around in the closet long enough to coax the little guy out to the doorway to peek at us. Sure enough, a tiny mouse! He was so cute I was determined to catch him and keep him as a pet! That determination quickly dissipated as we followed through with the details of Ben's mouse-catching plan. He was not nearly as cute while scurrying under my feet! Ben started with the broom and swept the mouse out of the closet while I chased him with a garbage can. Once we realized my reflexes were not going to cut it, we switched jobs and Ben took the garbage can. I poked the mouse with a broom; he ran out from under the computer desk; and Ben caught him on the first try! Unfortunately, the mouse was either a tiny bit too slow or too fast. He got caught right under the rim. So much for our new pet (and your appetite, if you're reading this before a meal -- sorry)!

Would you dare?

(Jenn)

Would you ever dare use these guys to move your piano? Here's the ad direct from craigslist:

do you need a piano moved. well we charge $190.for 2 guys and $240 for 3 guys.call mike at 781 373 1028. ask for mike .thank you for reading this add.

What if you were just buying a used craigslist piano anyway? What if they are by far the cheapest guys out there? Hmmm . . .
More information to follow!

Halloween

(Jenn)

I don't think I'll ever be one of you people who makes posts declaring "I LOVE HALLOWEEN!!!!!" But I did love lots of things about Halloween this year (see, I'm coming around). Here are some of them:

1. Not having to make Henry a costume because we "recycled" his garbage man costume from last year. Hey, it was a hit last year, and no one here had seen it yet. And Henry doesn't know any better to object!
2. Not spending ANY money on costumes. I scrounged together Ellis' garbage can costume with stuff from around the house and touched up a few things on Henry's garbage truck. Together, they still looked pretty awesome, and they made quite the appearance at the church Halloween party.

3. At the grocery store yesterday when Henry saw a slightly scary-looking white-haired bearded man. He said, VERY loudly, "Is that man Santa?" And of course the man heard, and I tried to laugh and make a joke out of it, and then the man looked at Henry and said, "Hey, I like your scary mask. Is that your mask or your face?" And he tried to pull off Henry's mask. VERY spooky!

4. Making doughnuts with our new friend Eliza. It took about 2 hours longer than I was expecting, and we learned a few lessons (don't put your favorite plastic spoon in hot oil!), but it was fun and festive, and the doughnuts tasted fabulous.

5. Trick-or-treating with Henry. He was much more excited about driving his garbage truck really fast through the street than getting the candy. He skipped about half of the houses because he got going so fast and didn't want to stop.



6. Seeing how Halloween CAN bring out the best in people. We got to meet all of the neighbors we haven't met yet while trick-or-treating. Since our neighborhood doesn't get many trick-or-treaters (I think we got 12), most people took a minute to talk to us and get to know us before we left. LOTS of nice people live in our neighborhood. They were sweet with Henry and kept saying, "Oh, take a few more." Kathy even gave him 2 extra gummy eyeballs for Mom and Dad (score!). And our next-door neighbor Peggy came to our house before we even left for trick-or-treating and gave Henry a gallon-size bag full of candy bars. Okay, so maybe they were just trying to get rid of their candy, but I'm not complaining.

7. Now it's over and everyone will take their morbid decorations down and we can just enjoy Autumn as it was meant to be. Happy November everyone!

If any of you are still undecided...

(Ben) Warning: This post is about 3 times longer than I anticipated. This may be my first and last post ever on the subject of politics because in general I'm not interested in it. But when the Harvard Econ department held a panel discussion about McCain's and Obama's economic policies last Wednesday, I made the oh-so-tough decision to quit studying statistics and attend, and I thought I'd throw a few thoughts up here for anyone who's interested. I'm not trying to advocate a particular candidate here, but rather pass on what a couple of smart economists think about their policies.

There were two discussants, both professors at Harvard: Gregory Mankiw, who specializes in Macroeconomics, and David Cutler, who studies health care. Mankiw was Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under George W. Bush and after that was an economic advisor to Mitt Romney during his campaign. Cutler served in the Clinton administration, was an advisor to John Kerry, and is currently an advisor to Obama. Despite the fact that they obviously don't agree on much politically, they didn't argue at all about the policies. In fact, they probably agreed more than they disagreed. Here's what they talked about:

Tax Policy
McCain's Policy: Keep the Bush tax cuts, and reduce corporate taxes.
Obama's Policy: Increase the tax rate for people making over $250K/year, and let Bush's tax cuts expire in 2010.
Mankiw's Take: Nearly all economists agree that cutting corporate taxes stimulates the economy, so cutting these taxes makes a lot of sense right now. In fact, some argue that the optimal corporate tax is 0%; we should tax only people, not businesses. Politically, this is a hard sell, because the public generally hates "big corporations" and therefore loves to tax them. But remember that, in the end, firms don't pay taxes, people do. The more we tax firms, they more they will (a) raise prices, (b) lower wages, (c) lower dividends and/or (d) reduce production. All of these things result in effective taxes on people in the end.
Cutler's Take: Over the past 30 years, the rich have been getting richer and the poor have been getting poorer in the US. So, it makes sense to tax the richest and then use that money to help out the poor (specifically, provide health care). Essentially, this policy is a redistribution of wealth from the haves to the have-nots.
My Take: It isn't clear to me that the government would do a better job of distributing wealth than the market does, so I'm not sold on Obama's plan. While I do think the income disparity is a problem, I don't really think that taxes are the right way to fix it (more on that below!). So for me, McCain wins here. However, I'm undecided about what should happen to the Bush tax cuts.

Energy Policy
There really is very little difference between the candidates on this issue. Both of them are in favor of pursuing alternative energy sources and both recognize that our current situation is untenable. From and economic standpoint, energy policy will be one of the biggest drivers of economic growth over the next 30 years, so this is a big one that we need to get right.

Health Care
McCain's Policy: Give a $5,000 tax rebate to everyone, in place of the tax break that employers get for providing health care for their employees. People could use this money to buy whichever policy they choose.
Obama's Policy: Offer an alternative federal health plan to everyone. This policy wouldn't be mandatory (you could keep your current policy if you like it better), but would provide universal health care even to those who are unemployed.

Mankiw's Take: Mankiw didn't say much on this topic; he mostly deferred to Cutler, who is the expert. He did mention, however, that McCain's $5,000 rebate would actually be more of a tax break than folks currently get for health care via their employer. The other point he made was that health insurance is completely different from all other insurance in that it covers everything, instead of just catastrophic events. For example, auto insurance doesn't cover an oil change, but health insurance covers a physical. In his opinion, health insurance should just be for catastrophic events, and we should pay out-of-pocket for small stuff.

Cutler's Take: The most important point he made was that, although we need large reforms in the system, we can't blow it up and then try to put it back together. The system would collapse if we tried to change it too fast. He likes Obama's plan because it involves gradual changes, whereas McCain's would cause huge shifts in insurance plans very quickly. He also argued that a good health care plan will encourage preventative care, since that is much cheaper than fixing problems after they occur. Pure catastrophic health insurance might be a bad idea since it would make people less willing to get a check-up.

My Take: Obama has the better plan, but a mixture of the two would be ideal. It really makes no sense for health care to come through employers, so I'm all for shifting it straight to consumers. But, effecting that shift all at once would be a terrible idea, and it would leave many, many uninsured people who never bothered (or were unable) to find their own plan. If Obama could put together a federal health care option that is efficient (it works well and it's cheap), his plan would be better. That's a big if, but it's better than a sure miss. Also, I think pure catastrophic health insurance is a terrible idea.

Free Trade

McCain: He's for it.

Obama: He's against it.

Mankiw: This is the biggest difference between the candidates. Neither of them talk about it much, but according to the voting record, what I wrote above is basically true. Nearly all economists believe that free trade is a good idea for every nation.

Cutler: In theory free trade is good. It definitely makes society as whole better off. But there are winners and losers. The winners in the US are educated, skilled workers, and the losers have been low-skilled blue collar workers. Hence the growing wedge between the rich and the poor that I mentioned earlier.

My Take: I'm completely pro free trade. I freely admit that there are winners and losers, but there a lot more winners than losers overall. McCain wins on this one.

Education

I've been disappointed that we've heard so little about public education all campaign. Cutler mentioned that education is one of Obama's top priorities, but not much else was said about it during the discussion. If it really is something that Obama would tackle, that alone would give him my vote. An efficient education system is absolutely critical to continued economic growth and stability. Education is the way to help those who lose their jobs to gain the skills to find new ones. Education is what will assure us that productivity continues to grow. Education will ease the income gap. I really feel like fixing the education system would be the single greatest thing the next president could do for the nation.

So there you have it. Share a comment if you made it to the end!

And a Few Conversations

GRANDMA: "Do you like your new house, Henry?"
HENRY: "I like the people about my old house."

HENRY: "Are Jews mean?"
DAD: "No."
HENRY: "YES!"
(A little too much New Testament story book?)

MOM: "Henry, do you need to go potty?"
HENRY: "No, I was just marching so I can stop going potty in my pants."

Henry Says . . .

• "Here is a cheery disposition for you. Is it yummy?" (after listening to a little too much Mary Poppins soundtrack)
• "I have 10 pennies. Give me 10 cheery dispositions." (after reading a little too much Morris Goes to School)
• "Does 'duke' mean 'do as I'm doing' in Spanish?"
• "Here's the rule: You drop the cake off of the fridge and eat it on the floor."
• "Here's the rule: if you drop a binkie-colored musk ox convertible uncle colored crayon," (Yep, that's the end of the rule. It ends with a comma.)
• "Mommy, does the scissors poke his tongue?" (meaning Ellis' tongue. Yikes!)
• "Jesus wants the mean people to have commandments."
• "The themonitor is crying!" (like "thermometer," meaning the baby monitor)

A cold jrink, anyone?

(Jenn)

Yesterday Henry and I were having an argument about the correct spelling of "drink." If you think about it, most of us probably don't really pronounce it exactly right, so it totally makes sense why he would insist that it's supposed to start with a J. I remember as a kid puzzling over the similarly confusing train/chrain. Anyway, so we spelled it out together with magnet letters on the fridge -- D-R-I-N-K, and I thought I had convinced him. I left the room and came back later that day to this:

That little rascal!

World Record?

(Jenn)

Does anyone know the world record for longest eyebrow hair? We found this one today (click on the image if you can't see the 1 1/2 inch-long beauty). We all know how hard Ben works on growing those eyebrows! Yet another talent among the Iverson boys.

Our Talented Son

(Jenn)

This week Henry learned a new skill: fake-burping. I was pretty impressed because I remember trying to do it in elementary school, and I could never figure it out! And here, my two-year-old has it mastered. I think yesterday he probably burped a hundred times, no exaggeration. He just kept going and going and going. Some of them got kind of loud and gross-sounding, which is when I started thinking maybe something would have to be done. We went to a friend's house for a playdate and he kept doing it there. Last night Ben and I talked to Henry about how it is not really very polite to burp. He thought about that for a good 45 minutes (while doing other things) and then asked, "Daddy, what do I do about that?" "About what?" Ben asked. "About how to stop burping," he replied in earnest. Now I'm starting to wonder if this new talent is perhaps involuntary. Is there some sort of belching disorder I don't know about?

The latest trick

(Ben)

Henry: Why is Ellis crying?

Ben: Because he really wants you to pick up some of your toys.

Henry: Okay!

We'll see how long this lasts...so far it's worked for convincing him to eat his food and take naps. Here are some other related Henry quotes:

"I'm riding on the baby!" (yep, he was)

"I'm pulling the baby's head off!" (yep, again. Luckily, he wasn't successful with this one.)

"Are we Nephites? And is Ellis a Lamanite?" (Ellis was crying, which is wicked)

"Ellis is calling Brady and Tanner!"

"I'm making the baby happy!" (he says this frequently, and it usually means that we'll find Ellis covered in random blankets, toys, and books.)

Ah, brothers!

Five Week Photo Shoot

(Jenn)

Some people read that title and think, "What? Another post with nothing but pictures of that baby?" Others read it and can hardly contain themselves because they just can't get enough of Ellis' wrinkly skin, fuzzy hair, wide-open eyes, and ever-changing facial expressions. I happen to belong to the second camp. And he's not going to be little much longer, so we're capturing as much as possible.

The amazing photography is credited to Staci Hopkin, our new friend from church. How could I resist her offer to "experiment" with my baby? As you can see, she did an incredible job! And we had a lot of fun hanging out at their house for 4 hours yesterday as Henry played with Jane and we waited for the CD to burn. Okay, enough rambling. Here come the priceless photos!

Wanna see all 72? There's more:

Recommendations

(Jenn)


1. First of all, http://www.blurb.com/. I had heard of Blurb from several other bloggers but have not yet seen anyone's finished product. It is basically a program that lets you convert your blog into a printed book! I thought this was the perfect idea because it makes me feel justified with the time I spend blogging. I'm not only keeping in touch with others and making my voice heard, but now I'm also keeping a family journal and scrapbook as well! So we got our printed book a couple of weeks ago, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. We printed just the posts from our 2 years in New Jersey, and it came out to be 112 pages. The quality is great, and I'm just so happy to have a hard copy for our kids to look at for years to come! That said, I wouldn't say it was really easy to do. The program is pretty good, but it still has some kinks, and the process took a bit longer than I had hoped! Still, it automatically "slurped" all of my pictures and posts directly from Blogger, so that saved me a lot of time. We're definitely planning on keeping up with our Blurb books as long as we're blogging.



2. Secondly, if you didn't take my recommendation last year, you MUST try Brach's Milk Maid Caramel Candy Corn. Yes, I'm getting enough happiness from them this year that I just felt compelled to recommend them yet again. They have the most incredible flavor and are much more delicious than regular candy corn, in my opinion. I think we're on bag #10 for this season (I'm sure it's mostly Ben that's eating them!). We have recently become addicted to eating them with popcorn. So get them quick before they disappear from the store shelves (perhaps they already have). Yum!

3. Two movies we enjoyed recently: Be Kind, Rewind, and The Visitor. These are two very different flicks, but I liked both of them a lot. So maybe I was just in a silly mood, or maybe it was the Passaic, NJ setting that hit home for me, but I really got a kick out of Be Kind, Rewind. I never thought I'd recommend a Jack Black movie because he sometimes bugs me, but this one really had me laughing! The Visitor was also a fun one for us because it was about a boring old economics professor (what we sometimes imagine Ben becoming) that livens up when he discovers two immigrants living in his seldom-used New York apartment. This show was funny, but sad at the same time, and full of lots of heart.



Take 'em or leave 'em, but there they are, folks!

Autumn Bliss

(Jenn)

I was afraid we weren't going to get to go apple picking this year due to our fear of taking two kids on such an adventurous outing. But yesterday was just too perfect. Autumn spoke to us and we simply had to answer! And apple picking seemed the perfect outing, since it required a 45-minute drive through paradise to get there. Nothing is better for my heart than the rich colors of fall! I couldn't be happier about living in New England, where the trees are plenty and the colors oh-so vibrant.

Ellis was a saint and slept the entire time in the baby carrier. Henry enjoyed every detail of the outing: farm animals, the hay maze and hay mountain, riding the John Deere tractors, picking apples and pumpkins, drinking cider, and eating cider donuts (a new discovery for all of us!). Can you think of a better activity for an October Saturday?

To top it all off, Ben and I found yet another perfect town in which we could someday live (I think we're destined for a farm town), and lots of perfect houses. And I finally got to buy my hanging pot of MUMS! Aren't they lovely? This will be the test to see if I can make them stay alive. My first potted plant. :)

Smiles, etc.

(Jenn) Here are some Ellis expressions to brighten up your day. I can't believe he has almost been alive for four weeks already! I think he is starting to develop his own look, and we're starting to be able to see what this kid is going to look like. Pretty cute! Too bad he only lets me type one sentence at a time before having to dance around the room with him (he's in the baby sling pretending to be asleep). Otherwise you'd get more of an update. Just rest assured that I have been Tylenol-free for two whole days and I'm feeling a lot more optimistic about life since my last post. Enjoy the pics!