Boy, Oh Boy!

We are super excited to announce that we are adding a baby BOY to our family.  I can hardly believe it.  We've always wanted a little boy in our family.  But with having two girls already I thought for sure we just made little girls.  We are super excited.  I'm excited for Riley and Harper to have a brother to look out for when he's younger and to look out for them when they're older.  I'm excited that Brett will have a little boy to teach to play hockey, baseball, and golf.  I think that a little boy will be perfect for Harper to wrestle with.  I'm fairly certain that Riley will be the older sister trying to get them to stop wrestling...it's just her personality.  Everyone that we've talked to who have raised boys and girls both have told us "boys are much easier than girls."  I guess we'll have the opportunity to find out on our own.  So now we get to go through all our little baby girl stuff and make room for baby boy things.  Thankfully, Brett was very anti-pink when Riley was born. All of our baby items are gender neutral so we are in good shape.  We've even lucked out with some of the nursery walls being painted brown already.  I'm excited to feel the emotion that comes with finding baby boy things.  It reminds me of when we were preparing for Riley.  Everything is new.  With Harper we reused everything and hardly bought anything.  Let the shopping begin! 

We feel so blessed!

Harper Grace: 14 Months

Time keeps flying by and it is already two months past Harper's first birthday.  She's grown so much over the past month and a her personality continues to come out.  She is our little fire cracker.  She's into everything, persistent, rough and tough, and very vocal!  Here's what she's up to.

• Her hair continues to grow and has a bit of curl to it in the back.  It continues to get lighter as the summer goes on.
• Her eyes are a deep blue color.  So pretty. 
• New words: ilk (milk, or any cup), hat, hot, get-it, read-it, book, bup (?).
• She nods yes when she says words. 
• She will say get it or read it anytime she sees a book.  She loves books.
• She is so clumsy.  She is now walking, running, and walking backward.
• She loves to spin.  This is her latest go-to dance move....much like her big sister.  She gets so dizzy, really fast!
• She is wearing a size 2 and 3 shoe.  Slowly she's learning to keep her shoes on.
• She's wearing all 12 month clothes.
• She loves milk and is almost drinking as much as Riley now.
• She's in between taking 2 naps and 1 nap a day.  Some days she'll sleep for one long 3 hour nap, other days it's a 30 minute morning nap with a two hour afternoon nap.  I'd love to get over this hump because she sleeps much better at night on the days that she only takes one nap!
• She's sleeping from 7:15/7:45 pm to 6/6:30 am.  I think she will always be an early riser.
• She loves to eat and has hit the stage of throwing food on the floor to see what happens.  We had a very short phase of her spitting milk down her chin, but that seems to have passed already.
• She loves to be outside.  She loves to play with the water table and balls.  She likes to pick tomatoes, but only seems to find the green ones.
• She will get into anything that opens. Doesn't matter if it's the cat door, bathroom door, toilet, cupboard, drawer.  She'll find a way to open it and get something.
• Lately she loves to get into our wine cabinet.  All that's kept in there are glasses, stoppers, and charms.  Last night, I heard her getting into it.  I went around the corner and she had a champagne flute in her mouth with her head tipped completely back.  I asked her what she was doing and she looked at me, took the glass out of her math and went "aaaahhhh."  She must know that whatever goes in there is delicious!
• She loves to be chased and will play with her sister all day long.
• She's a good independent player.  She'll usually find something to entertain her, which usually means every single toy out on the floor.
• She is a climber, jumper, tackler, hugger, hands-on girl.  She is constantly hugging Riley or the cat to the floor.
• She will always cuddle.  She loves to hug you back and will rest her little head on your shoulder just about anytime you pick her up.  So sweet.
• She's learned where her tongue, mouth, nose, eyes and belly button are.
• She cries when she's frustrated, can't have something, or gets something taken away.  She cries hard!  She sometimes sits down, then lays down on the floor with her head straight down and arms at her side to pout.  It's really quite funny.

This second-born of ours is definitely going to be the one to keep us on our toes.  She's as adventurous as they come!  

Baby #3 Update

I thought I'd give a little update on how things are going with Baby #3.  It's crazy to think that we're already 17 weeks into this pregnancy.  Our ultrasound is scheduled in just a couple week on July 27th. We're super excited to see the baby and finally find out what we'll be adding to our family.  Here's how things have been going:

• I've been feeling movement for several weeks now. It's crazy how fast it all comes back to you.  Just in the last few days I've started feeling a lot more movement.
• I still have the gut feeling that this baby is a girl. 
• I am sooooooo tired.  I had to have my thyroid medication adjusted and I feel much better.  But, I'm still really tired every day.
• I've started peeing 12 times a night.
• I just realized that we'll have had a baby born in 2011 and 2012.  Wow.
• I've done fairly well staying away from the two donut diet.  Brett likes to joke with me about this.  With Harper it wasn't uncommon for me to pick up a couple donuts on my way to work a couple few times a week.
• We have absolutely no names figured out.  We've discussed it a few time, but haven't really narrowed it down. It's funny how fast your mind can change on what to name your baby.  Many of the names we considered just a year ago I'm not as fond of.
• Riley, and someday Harper's, bunk beds arrived last night.  Riley was super excited to sleep in her new bed last night.  I can already tell that I'm going to dread climbing up to the top to change the sheets!  We've decided to keep her room green and cream.  We found some cute, simple purple quilted coverlets from target for the beds and added some polka dot and aqua sheets.  Riley is in heaven.  We're practicing sleeping on the bottom bunk for now since she's used to a much bigger full sized bed to move around in.  The top bunk is pretty high and there isn't much of a rail.  I'm excited for the girls to share a room.
• We decided to have Riley come with us to the ultrasound.  She's so excited to see the baby, but doesn't quite understand what we're doing.  Several times she's said to me "I bet the baby is at the doctor's already!"
• Riley's started kissing my belly - which has officially made an entrance - and telling the baby that she loves HER.  She's changed her mind about wanting a brother.
• We've decided that we are going to opt out of taking the progesterone shots this time around.  After talking to the doctor's we think that maybe it was an unnecessary precaution last time around.

Spirit Lake 2012

We went to Spirit Lake for a little family vacation during the week of July 4th.  We went up on Friday, June 29th and came home on Thursday, July 5th.  Here's what we will remember from the trip.

• We chose the hottest week of the year to vacation at a lake house with no air conditioning!!  The temperatures were in the high 90s-low 100s for the whole week we were there.  The first couple of days were bearable, the last half were not.
• We stayed at the House That Jack Built.  It's the same house that we've stayed at the past few years.  Grandma Kathy and her sister, Marilyn, rented the house for a month this year.
• At one point of the week there were 6 adults and 7 children in the house.
• On Sunday, we sat in the parking lot at Wal Mart with all of our transmission fluid on the parking lot.  We are lucky to be able to drive Brett's company car for vacations and personal use.  Thankfully, Brett's employer uses a company to help with all car issues.  After spending some time on the phone and calling an SOS call out to Grandma Kathy we cleaned out Brett's car and made it back to The House That Jack Built.
• Monday and Tuesday morning we spent our time trying to figure out where to get a rental car and what was going to happen to Brett's car since it has 167,000 miles on it.  Still, an entire week later we still don't know if Brett will have to drive back to Spirit Lake to pick up his car or will wait to get a new car.  For the time being, we're enjoying a little upgrade in a rented Malibu.
• Riley loving following "the girls" around the house and wanting to be in the middle of everything.  She found a new favorite game, Mario, on the DS.
• Riley loved being in the water and "riding the waves in" with Daddy.

• Harper enjoyed her first day in the water as she floated in her little turtle floaty. She was kicked back with her head back and her toes up out of the water.  Too cute!  The rest of the time in the water she didn't care much for it.  She hated her life jacket.
• Harper loved playing in the sand.  Mostly she loved picking it up, throwing it in a bucket, and then eating it. Yum!
• Harper ate two dinners almost every night.  Since we ate most meals later than she was used to she wanted to eat early, but we couldn't eat in front of her without her eating half our plates!
• Riley loved fishing with her Barbie pole off the dock.  She caught two fish with it.  One of them was the biggest of the trip.  Daddy caught two fish.
• One one of the really hot days we left the house to explore some of the attractions and get out of the heat.  We went to The Fish Hatchery where the DNR "grow" fish to stock the lakes with.  Riley loved seeing all of the fish, turtles, and stuffed animals that were on display.    We went to Arnold's Park where we went to the maritime museum.  Not much of hit, but we did finally find a hat that fit Riley's head!  We then headed over to Arnold's Park.  It wasn't very busy because it was 97 degrees and we learned the hard way that we should have only purchased a ticket for Riley.  Harper loved riding the merry-go-round, and Riley went on her first "roller coaster" by herself.  Riley loved it, of course.  But after an hour and a ride on most of the kiddy rides we were all ready to get back into some air conditioning.

• Some friends of Kathy and Marilyn's graciously offered us their guest house a few houses down so that we could get out of the heat.  We were so thankful because we had just decided that we would probably pack up and head home.  I don't do heat well, both girls were beat red, and neither were sleeping well. 
• The House that Jack Built was dubbed "the hot house" and the other house was dubbed "the cool house."
• We had Riley stay up late on the 3rd to watch fireworks.  When they finally started around 10pm we had to force her to watch about 5 as she cried to go inside.
• The 4th of July we swam, eat burgers and brats and then headed in to Arnold's Park to ride bumper cars and possibly watch fireworks.  Bumper cars were closed, but we were able to mini golf at Pirate's Cove.  This was Riley's first time mini golfing and she had a blast.  It was much more fun than fighting the crowds to find a spot to watch the fireworks and concert.  Because it was so late  and we didn't have good luck with Riley and fireworks the night before we decided to call it a day and head back to the cool house.  As we drove home we were able to see some of the fireworks.

• Riley now says that she wants to "hockey golf" or "puff puff golf" every day.
• Somewhere Riley picked up on "oh, nuts!" and we heard it all week long!
• On Thursday, we waited around until 1 to see what was going to happen with Brett's car.  Because we hadn't heard anything and we were ready to get back home we decided to head home.
• When we came home we found much of our garden wilted, despite getting watered throughout the week by Grandpa Kevin. Most of our ripe tomatoes were burned on the bottom. We had two zucchini that were at least a foot long and 5 inches thick! After a break in the heat and some more water the plants are doing much better, and we have 6 tomatoes on our counter just about ready to eat.
•  Pictures:
  
  
   Harper and her pretty smile!



 Cheese!

 On the Merry-Go-Round


 Riley's Favorite Ride at Arnold's Park

 Riley's First Roller Coaster




 Spirit Lake at night.

 Puff Puff Golf!

Our Little Climber!

Eating Breakfast

Just waking up!

LOVE!

Harper Grace: 13 Months

Miss Harper is 13 months old.  Her personality continues to come to the surface with each day.  Here's what she's up to now.

• She wants everything. And she wants it now!
• She's completely off of the bottle.
• She continues to suck two of her fingers on her right hand.
• She is a climber.  She's strong and determined.
• She yells, screams, and cries when she doesn't get what she wants.
• She's starting to be more vocal when she wants something.  She is using less sign for more and her milk.  She will usually point and make some sort of noise to get her point across.
• We've heard her say mama, dad, hi, bye, uh-oh, ta-da, and thank you.
• She is still a cuddler. 
• She's transitioning to one afternoon nap, but still takes morning naps a few times a week.
• She's wearing 9 mth and 12 mth clothes.
• She hates wearing shoes and will take them off the minute she's alone in her car seat.
• We've transitioned her to a convertible car seat in Daddy's car, and will do the same soon in Mommy's car.
• She is up to about 5 different dance moves now.
• She is just now getting more teeth.
• She's sleeping from 7:30-8pm to 6-6:30am.
• She loves to hug Riley and Riley walks around the room.
• She hates being blocked in any room/area.
• She loves to be outside running around or swinging.
• She will always eat green vegetables and fruits first.  She continues to love to eat just about everything.
• She hates laying down for diaper changes and this is such a struggle!!
• She loves animals, especially Sam.
• She wants to eat all day long!