Harper's One Year Pictures

Here are a few of Harper's one year pictures.  They turned out great and I can't wait to get some printed!  It's fun to see how true they capture her every day expressions.  And they way she holds her hands just cracks me up.

Father's Day Weekend 2012

We had a busy Father's Day weekend filled with fun activities for just the four of us.  Saturday we played outside, worked in the garden, picked our first ripe tomatoes of the season, and headed to the Historical Museum before the rain rolled in.  Sunday ate Hy-Vee breakfast, checked out the natural playscape and bison and elk reserve at Jester Park, and got in some play time and water time outside.  It was a great weekend and we sure loved spending time with Daddy!

 Daddy in the garden

 Riley's favorite tomatoes from the garden!

 Harper Hugs!

 Riley Hugs!

 Historical Museum

 Mommy and her girls!

 Riley's second favorite (after the animals) exhibit - the outhouse.

 Daddy's girls!

 Daddy with the girls at Jester Park.

 Lastly, look at our little adventurer. Apparently she just couldn't get close enough to her toys!!

BIG News

We are excited to announce that we will be adding another little one to our family in December!  My actual due date is December 17th. I'm 13 weeks, 4 days to be exact.  Riley is super excited for a baby brother (she insists!) and Harper has no clue what's about to happen in her life.  Riley likes to check my tummy every day and say that it's getting bigger.  I sometimes feel like it really is growing by the day!  This time around there have been some ups and downs.  We started this journey in shock as Harper was just 10 months old when we found out.  We thought our two girls would be our only children, despite my urge awhile back that we should have just one more.  So our plans to sell all of our baby items at our garage sale next week is out the window, but we are super excited to see what our family of 5 will become.  Brett (and Riley) swear it is a boy, but my gut is telling me that this is another girl.  I think, only because our track record is 2/2 for girls. Things have been a bit different this time around so maybe their instincts will win out.  I have been completely exhausted.  Like falling asleep by 7:30 some nights.  More than I remember than with Riley or Harper.  Also, it seems that the morning sickness was worse and a bit longer than the last two.  My cravings are almost identical: OJ and Italian BMTs from Subway.  My appetite is way smaller this time around, which is a good thing as I'm trying really hard not to gain 50 pounds for a third time.  Even though we said we'd only have two, this just feels right.  It was definitely meant to be for our family and I'm glad we had some divine intervention to helps us see that. 

Harper's One Year Stats

We took Harper to Dr. Fred for her one year appointment.  All in all, she is very healthy and a perfect little girl.  Unfortunately she had to get poked for her iron and lead test, two immunizations, and a TB test. She sure is a little peanut weighing in at 18 lb, 3 oz and only 28 1/4 inches long.  She's in the 7th percentile for weight and the 15th percentile for height.  It's hard to believe that she's even smaller than Riley was at this age.  At one, Riley was 19 lb 10 oz and 29 1/2 inches long!  We just got all of her pictures from her one year photo shoot and I'll post those as soon as we can.  We sure got a lot of cute ones that reflect her personality to the tee!

Summer Fun!

We've been spending a lot of time outside playing in the water this summer and the girls are in heaven!

Happy 1st Birthday Harper Grace!

Sunday we celebrated Harper's 1st Birthday.  We chose to go low key this time around and only invite our immediate family.  It was perfect.  The weather was beautiful and the kids spent the entire afternoon playing in the pool in the backyard.  I bought a cute little dress for Harper to wear, but I think I only have one picture of her in it.  Here is a look at our Harper Grace at 1 year old!:

• She is walking!  About a week or so before her birthday she started walking more than crawling.  Now she is walking everywhere and even trying to run.  She is a fast little bugger!
• She has 4 teeth now and is working on 4 more.  Just in the last few weeks her top middle and top bottom teeth came through.
• She's wearing 9mth and 12th mth clothes.  She is rarely wearing shoes as she won't keep them on, but when she does they're size 3.
• She's wearing a size 4 diaper.
• Her hair is growing really fast and is starting to curl on the bottom in the back.  Her hair keeps getting lighter each week.
• She is a cuddler.  She loves to lay on whoever is on the floor (including the cat!).  She loves to give hugs and gives open-mouthed kisses on demand and over and over!
• She loves to play in water, but isn't a fan of the swimming pool.
• She is vocal and really loud!  She definitely gets her point across and lets you know what she wants.
• She is repeating words almost to the tee.  She will say mama and dada regularly.  She has also been heard saying Riley and baby.
• She will sign more and milk.
• She's using a sippy mostly during the day and still likes her bottle at night.  We are still trying to transition her over. 
• She loves to carry things and usually picks the biggest and heaviest item to carry.  She will carry every sippy cup in sight.  It's not unusual to see her carry two cups everywhere.  She will not let go of her sippy once you give it to her and you have to sneak it away from her.
• She loves baby dolls.  She will pick them up, hug them, and carry them around. 
• She knows where her belly button and nose is.  We're still working on the rest of her body parts.
• She loves to dance!  She's got rhythm and dances to any music.
• She loves to be sung to.
• She loves books.
• She is now sleeping with a little pillow and her glow worm.  We will find her laying on top of her pillow and hugging it. 
• She is sleeping from about 7:30 to 5:30 or 6.  She will usually go back to sleep for a little while after she has some milk, or she'll play with her glow worm for awhile until we get her up.
• She loves her big sis.
• She loves to eat anything you put in front of her.  She will always eat her fruit or green veggies first.  She does pretty well with eating from a plate. When she's done then everything makes it's way to the floor.
• She loves the bathroom and will head straight for it if she sees the door is left open.
• She loves to be outside and will cry if she sees anyone go out without her. 
• She loves to swing. Whenever we talk about the swing she'll look outside and point at it.
  
  
  
 Helping Mom get ready for the party.

 Swimming Time

 Opening presents with Daddy.

 More Presents!

 Sisters!

 Singing Happy Birthday!

 Cake Smash!!













 What.Is.This???

 Yummmm!

Close up of the cake

3 Year Old Preschool: End Of The Year!

Riley successfully completed her first year of preschool last week.  I'm so glad that we decided to send her to preschool this past year.  It's amazing to see how far she's come.  We had her conference a week before the end of the year and she really has come a long way.  Her teachers had all good things to say about her and it was neat to see her progression through her portfolio.  Some things her teachers said about her:

• She's able to write her name now. 
• She's picking up on all of the different strokes needed for writing.
• She is still very quiet.  They worry that she will get left behind if she doesn't come out of her shell some.
• She spend a good part of the beginning of the year following the teachers around.
• By the end of the year she would join her classmates in an activity, but was usually never the leader.
• Her favorite thing to do is read books.  She will stick to the same book for a couple weeks.
• She loves to play with the lion cub from the tub of animal toys.
• She didn't like touching the classroom pets, two guinea pigs. This was not surprising to us as she doesn't like stinky things!
• Funny story: One morning they were doing circle time and they asked her to get up to do her portion of the weather watcher activity.  She kept refusing to get up until finally she stood up and started waddling to the front.  Out of nowhere the little lion cub plopped out from her tush.  Apparently you aren't supposed to bring toys to the rug and Riley knew she shouldn't have it.  The teachers thought it was hilarious and were still laughing about it when they told us.
• She knows her letters and numbers.

On her last day (May 23, 2012) the kids had their final performance.  We all sat in the chapel and watched a slide show from the year and waited for the kids.  Then, they walked up on stage and performed all their latest songs for us.  Riley was positioned front and center, but moved to several different positions throughout the performance.  One thing she loves: Singing!!

So, next year she will move on to the 4 year old Universal Preschool at Westminster.  Her teachers agreed that she was ready to move on and felt that it was the right decision.  We still would like to hold off on kindergarten for another 2 years since she is so quiet.  We'll expore our next step after 4 year old preschool later in the year.