2009 - The Year in Review

Wow, it's been a great and crazy year for us. Here is a rundown of our year in pictures. But to start us out - here is one of my favorite pics of Harper. She had woken up from her nap with her shirt like this and then gave me this lovely face when I snapped the pic. Gotta love it!



January marked our first trip to the park and Harper's first time on the swings. She turned 9 months old and continued working on solids in the form of finger veggies like peas. She also continued working on her hair growth, which turned out to be a very slow process allll yearrrr long.



February was Harper's first Valentine's Day and she posed with the big beautiful boquet of flowers Daddy sent me. How convenient that the vase matched her pajamas!


I repainted her room green in February and thus lightened the whole space and gave it a fresh, new look. We also celebrated Nana's birthday with her this month!

In March we celebrated her first St. Patrick's Day!

This month she really started waving "hi" and "bye" when asked, and started finally giving kisses. She also began weaning herself a bit earlier than I had planned this month so we started transitioning her over slowly to cow's milk. Mimi came to visit and we had her 1-year portraits taken. She woke up a bit sick that morning, so the pics didn't turn out as well as I had hoped, but we still managed to get some cute shots. We took her pics in the bluebonnets and we also started prepping for her first birthday. I put together all her invites by hand, so it took quite a bit of work ahead of time!

In March we had a terrible hail storm which caused lots of damage to the house. It was a bit scary since Jon was at work and I had never been through one before. But I managed to get the glass from the broken skylight cleaned up in the dark and got my nerves sorted out. Welcome to Texas weather!

April 4th we celebrated Harper's first birthday!! It was a wonderful day with lots of family and friends.

Harper's first Easter was also in April and she looked too cute in her adorable pink dress and sweater from Nana. We braved spaghetti for the first time and we made the first huge step in realizing our baby was growing up by storing away so many of Harper's things we no longer needed - at least for the time being. I had a fun (yet frustrating) time putting together Harper's 1-year video, but am so glad I did because I know it's something we'll treasure. Papa turned 69 this month and we all enjoyed celebrating with him.

May marked our first long road trip together as a family. We drove to Omaha to celebrate the wedding of cousin Max. It was wonderful to see so many distant family members. It was a short trip, but we were so glad we went. We tested out Harper's water playing skills and used a warm-ish day to play outside on a new water mat that Mimi bought her. She absolutely loved it and we looked forward to a long summer. At 13 months, she still wasn't walking, but was getting really good at walking with her walker. I began to get a little impatient, but didn't worry too much. She was developing fine in every other area and began using a spoon on her own. We took Harper to her first baseball game in May - Angels vs. Rangers. We had a great time, even though it rained! Mimi came to visit again and we had a great time with her as always.

We began our first of a few visits to the community pool. Harper had a blast each time we went!

June marked Daddy's second Father's Day! I also tried putting clips in Harper's still non-existent hair, but decided to wait a while longer on that.


In July we celebrated 3 years of marriage!!

We also discovered we were going to be parents again! Though we waited several weeks to tell most everyone.

Harper turned 15 months old in July. She still wasn't walking independently, but we knew it was coming any time now.

In August we worked a bit on the ever time-consuming yard since it had been sorely neglected most of the summer. Harper got to ride around in her little coupe out there.

And... on August 10th, she took her first official steps alone! At off she went... she was so excited, she just kept walking and walking, showing off and laughing. I was quite relieved! She also showed off her skills of vacuum-riding, which brought us quite a few laughs.

In September, our friends Stephanie and Dylan came to visit for the first time. It also marked Harper's first visit to the zoo. Jon played flag football every weekend this month and Harper got a chance to wear her Texas cheerleading outfit to cheer him on.

In October Harper turned 18 months old!

She also took her second trip to Las Vegas and California to visit all our friends and family. And I was very excited to take her to the beach for she and Daddy's very first visit to the Pacific Ocean!

While there she got to meet Uncle Chris for the first time and we had a great time celebrating Hanz's birthday with him and so many of my great friends in California.

In November we had a nice time visiting with Nana and Papa on Thanksgiving at our house for the first time.

Unfortunately Nana ended up falling and breaking her wrist on the following Monday, so the month didn't end on such a great note. My company also formally announced it was being sold, so we had to adjust to the idea that I would be sticking around for a while. Good news in this economy, but a weird realization after getting used to the idea that I'd be getting a severance at a really convenient time. On the same day as my company announcement, November 10th, we also found out we were having a boy!

On December 2nd, Harper officially started school 3 days a week at a nearby daycare center. We wound up with 3 separate snow storms, which is totally unheard of in our part of the state. we had a fabulous Christmas celebrating with wonderful friends and family. Nana and Papa were kind enough to get Harper a Dora chair, which she continously drags around the house to sit in.

It's been a year to finish out a good year of "firsts" for Harper, and on to another year of firsts as she continues to grow and develop -- right before our eyes, it seems. We have so much to look forward to in 2010, not only with her, but of course with our new addition! There is much to do to get the house ready for him, but we plan on enjoying every minute of the planning!

Here's to a wonderful 2010!

Christmas Day in the Snow

With the snow, Harper and I chose to stay home on Christmas Day. We really didn't have too many options on where we could go while Daddy slept, but the road conditions really hampered anything we could have done. In an attempt to do something fun, I got her all bundled up to go outside and play in the snow. Well, I was the only one who thought it might be fun. Harper didn't even want to step in the white stuff, and cried the entire time we were out there. So our fun outing didn't last too long, but I did manage to snap a few pictures of the miraculous snow we got. Apparently the last time our area had a White Christmas was about 30 years ago. And the last time we had this much of a widespread snow covering was in 1936!!



Thanks to the cold temps, a lot of the snow has stuck around until today even, though mostly in those yards that are north-facing and don't receive a lot of sun. Glad I got the pics when I did!

Heart to Heart and Hand in Hand

Harper and I watched one of my faves "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" together on Christmas Eve. She still squeezes (just barely) into her Max PJs that Mimi got her before she was even born. We had a fun night of eating Mac N Cheese on the couch together in our PJs and finishing up the movie. She loved seeing the dog Max and said "hi baby" when Cindy Lou Who came on.

She is quite tired in this video below, as you might be able to tell.

Christmas Eve 2009

Merry Christmas Eve!!!

What a fun and interesting day it's been.

Harper spent the morning at school while I worked for a while. I felt better once I saw a few of her friends in her class were also there. Guess lots of people had to work today! I picked her up just as the snow started sticking here. Yes - SNOW!! Lots of it!!! Yesterday the high was 71 degrees. Today there is snow everywhere. So crazy.

Daddy unfortunately had to work tonight so Harper and I decided to brave the roads by ourselves and go to Christmas Eve service. I was really looking forward to it, and since Daddy wanted to take the Accord to work, it meant I had the 4 wheel drive car, so I wasn't worried. Especially since the church/school is so close. The service had way more people than anyone thought there would be, especially due to the weather. And it was fun to get Harper dressed up in her Christmas dress since she hadn't worn it yet.

She was obsessed with the sparkly sequins on the dress, and finally got the hang of twirling to spin the dress around. Doesn't she look too cute???

Once we got home, I took a few pics of her in front of the tree. Here's just a couple, but they all turned out so great.

I snapped this one of us at church.

And here is the snow!!!

This is our light-up reindeer we have in front of the house. The plugs were all frozen, so I couldn't plug it in, though I was wishing I could because I knew how cool it would look.

Daddy's car.

I snapped a pic of the house before we drove off for church. When I got back, my tracks in the driveway were way more than just dusted over. They were gone!

Merry Christmas all!!!!!

Santa Claus is Comin' to Town

A couple weeks ago, Daddy was asked if he would like to be Santa Claus at church. He would be responsible for getting the costume beforehand, and then would be greeting all the attendees in the parking lot and giving out toys to all the kids during the service. Since he's already in the parking lot every week already, he decided it is definitely something he could handle.

I documented him getting ready, and waking Harper up to catch her reaction.

Now, I feel like I need to give my own personal opinion on Santa Claus, and why this whole thing was very ironic to me. I personally don't see the need for Santa Claus at church, and could definitely do without the whole thing. Especially since Harper's been born, I have really thought more about the kinds of traditions and beliefs we want to teach and pass on to her and I really believe there's a much more important reason for Christmas than presents and hoping the big man in the red suit thinks you've been good. I think it's fine if parents want to have some Christmas magic in their own traditions and have Santa be part of the spirit of their holidays. I just care not to. We'd much rather celebrate the birth of Jesus and family together time and not focus so much on the gifts and stress aspects that the holidays can bring.

But the pastors wanted to do something extra fun for the kids, and really make the church welcoming to the first-time visitors we were expected to have -- so Santa it was.

I documented him getting ready. He had gotten a pad to wear under the jacket, but ended up not wearing it since it really didn't look right once he put it on. Once he was all ready, he even let me make him cherry red cheeks and nose with some of my blush. :)

Jon did a great job and all the kids seemed to love him. He even freaked a few of the kids out by calling them by name - either because he actually knew their name or because it was on their back on their sticker. :) He had a lot of fun handing out all the toys too.

I videotaped Harper waking up from her nap that morning, but I'm having trouble getting it to load. We had one service at church, so it was later than usual and since Harper hadn't been feeling well all weekend, she went down for a very early nap. You'll hear her cough in the video - she is thankfully so much better now! - and I had also propped her up on a pillow in her crib for the first time in order to help her not get too stuffed up at night, which she really has seemed to love now. I just recently took out her bumper and mobile to kind of help get her eased into her big girl bed, which is not too far off now.

First School Christmas Party

Last Friday I was able to go to my first school Christmas party! I was really looking forward to it, going to spend some time in Harper's classroom and seeing her with all the other kids.
Some of the parents signed up to bring sweets, fruit and other goodies, and each child was to bring a book to exchange with another child.

Unfortunately Harper bumped her head a bit earlier in the week so she has a lovely bruise to show off for everyone. She also still doesn't sleep very well at school, so you can tell she looks a bit tired.

Harper loved the homemade cookies, but her absolute favorite was the fruit. I noticed that she was the only one who ate all her fruit and kept asking for more, even while still having a plate full of other sweet treats. I just love my sweet girl!

Here she is asking for more fruit.

I've never seen her drink out of a juice box before, but she did great and didn't squeeze it too much.

The book she chose to open ended up being Thomas the Train. She was thrilled and kept saying "choo choo" and her version of "Thomas". Unfortunately I don't think we ever made it out of the classroom with the book as I haven't been able to find it since!

December to Remember

It seems as though Harper is growing by leaps and bounds these days. There's been so many funny and silly things going on lately, that I wanted to recognize them. She's growing up so quickly, I can't believe it!

The other night we went to a Servant Appreciation dinner at church to thank us, all the volunteers. Here's us before we left.

At the dinner she saw one of her favorite volunteers she hangs out with during first service in the toddler class. Evin picked her up to give her a hug, which was a relief because I was juggling bags, purses and other items and was trying to get organized. As I sorted myself out, Harper gave a look like "it's not Sunday morning, why is she holding me?" I hadn't allowed more than 18 inches in between us, but she stuck that bottom lip out and did a slow motion full out cry. Mind you, this Sunday morning she will run to go to Evin. Apparently that affection is only allowed once a week in Harper's mind.

Daddy took these next few pictures. Here she is today. She got her jacket down herself and put it on, so Daddy was kind enough to zip it up for her. She gave him a big laugh when she put the hood up.

Here she is one morning. I think she had help putting her hands into her pockets, but she was kind enough to pose so Daddy could text this picture to me.

Daddy dressed her one Saturday morning before we left for church set-up.

It's been veerrrrry cold here in Texas, so here is Harper before school one morning all bundled up.

Harper now says "WOW!" when she comes upon a toy or something she thinks is incredible. It's so funny every time she says it.

This morning I asked Harper "would you like milk or water?" Her reply? "uummmm...". Such a crackup! She never actually told me which she preferred, by the way.

She's gotten very good at saying "excuse me" when she burps or toots, though coming from her it sounds more like "mew mee". She says it most times without reminding. This morning she was at Daddy's job for his Christmas party and went with him into a quick meeting. She behaved very well, and sat quietly on his lap sucking her thumb. Well, she was sitting quietly until she let out a very loud and long toot. She lifted her head up, looked at Daddy and said "mew mee", then put her head back down. Of course everyone in the meeting was cracking up, but she doesn't know how those types of noises make people laugh yet. Oh, our sweet girl.

She's trying to say more and more words now. "Water" is one of her faves, though I think it's a word only a mother would understand.

She is OBSESSED with talking about the dogs. About a month ago, we lost Sarge for a few hours in the neighborhood. Jon and I drove separate cars around the neighborhood calling out his name. Harper was silent the entire hour she and I were out, but as soon as we pulled into the garage so I could make some signs to post, she starts yelling "Saahhhj!" And yes, Daddy eventually found Sarge, thank goodness!! Ever since that night, she loves saying his name, talking about him, calling him, pointing to his bowl. She usually talks about "Sahj" first, then "Lawlee" (Wylee). It's so cute.

24 Weeks

I had my 24 week appointment on Tuesday and everything is great!! The doctor was pleased with the super strong heartbeat and the kicks he heard. Just as he did with Harper, he predicted this would be a big baby. I'm currently measuring 28 weeks - 4 weeks bigger than I am! I recalled easily though that Harper measured almost exactly the same way and she slowly evened out as time went on. If she would have gone full-term, I can estimate she would have weighed about 7.5 pounds, so I can only assume this one will be close to that.

My next appointment is my glucose test. Blech. I'm really not looking forward to drinking the orange nastyness but, as with all things with this pregnancy, I'm trying to just enjoy and appreciate all aspects of it, knowing it's my last one.

My next appointment also marks the beginning of my third trimester, which means I will officially be under closer watch. Only time will tell if I become labeled "high risk" as we monitor my fluid levels. I am scheduled to have an ultrasound at every single appointment from here on out in order to keep an eye on the baby and do everything we can to make sure I can go full term.

In Harper news, she had her first full-fledged knock down illness. Welcome to daycare! She was extremely lethargic at church on Sunday, so I took her home early and put her down for a looooong nap. She was really clingy and lethargic when she woke up, so I cuddled with her for a while and managed to get a little food in her stomach for lunch. We really knew she wasn't herself when she sat perfectly still for about 30 minutes watching football. Sure enough, she threw up. We had big plans that evening to have our LifeHouse over as usual, and go door to door posting door hangers inviting our neighbors to come to our Christmas services at church. We decided to cover up our bed with towels and blankets and park Harper there where we could keep an eye on her but still allow her to rest. I stayed home while everyone went out and about. The entire evening she laid in our bed and fell asleep on and off while laying very still. If you know our girl, she rarely sits still for 2 minutes, let alone 3 1/2 hours!

We gave her plenty of opportunities to catch up on her rest the next couple days. Thankfully she never threw up again and seems back to herself now.

With the exception of getting sick, school has been going really well for her. She is always happy when we drop her off and never complains. She seems to really like her teachers and always gets good reports. They are very happy with her level of signing and Jon and I have both noticed how verbal she's gotten with saying specific words more often now. Though it was a very hard and sudden realization, I'm comforted knowing she is happy and having fun there.

First Day of School

Wow, what a week!

Jon and Harper have been coming to visit me at lunch on Mondays for a few weeks now as my work schedule allows. They had just arrived and I was getting in the car when Jon listened to his voicemail. Harper's Nana had fallen in a parking lot and injured her wrist. She had driven herself to the E.R. and had figured her wrist was broken. She was right.

Obviously we were concerned for her and her well-being. She was in a lot of pain but was in good hands. After we hung up with her, I said, "well, I guess we're spending this lunch hour looking for daycare! And like that... our search began.

We visited 3 locations close to work, then we toured a place closer to home at the end of the day. We felt the best about the location closer to home for a few reasons. Jon is home during the day sleeping, so if anything were to happen, he'd be able to go get her quickly. Also, if we decide to keep her in daycare while I'm on maternity leave, it will be very easy to drop her off and pick her up. And finally, it just "felt right". No other way to describe it.

We had discussed putting her in a learning daycare center once the new baby arrived, knowing it would be a good age for her, and because we knew Nana wouldn't be able to have both kids all day long. Knowing that was about 5 months away was in our minds, so having it happen so suddenly was stressful and overwhelming. It meant a few of our initial plans had to be scrapped in order to accomodate the new major expense. We won't be getting a new, larger car as planned, which was an easy decision to make and we know God has our best interests in mind. We hope some day soon to be able to make it happen, but it's just not in the cards now. We'll be tightening our belts even more now with our spending, but we're so thankful to be able to have Jon home two days a week to lessen the expense and have her be a part-timer.

I had an extremely hard time coming to terms with putting her in daycare so suddenly. It's never been something I've wanted to do, and we feel so very fortunate to have had Nana available to us for such a long time. I ultimately wish I could be a stay-at-home mom and be her only caretaker, but it's not an option yet for us unfortunately. I had horrible feelings of guilt, thinking no one could possibly take care of her as well as me (or my family), but kept trying to reassure myself that this was going to be great for her socially and educationally, having new experiences and meeting all kinds of kids her own age.

Well, Harper did great! She had no problems being dropped off by Mommy and Daddy this morning. I think it helped that she had visited the site with us on Monday at our initial tour, and again on Tuesday with Daddy when they went to drop off the paperwork. At that time, she was allowed to go in and play with the kids in her class during their playtime, so nothing was totally new or foreign to her. We got her ready for the day and started our routine as we usually do, with a waffle and milk.


It snowed a very decent amount this morning, which I accept as a gift from God. Not only was it beautiful to look at, but it was a WONDERFUL distraction for me as I drove to work and had to concentrate on the road, instead of thinking about how awful I felt for dropping Harper off.



Every morning and evening we have to sign Harper in and out on the log. Here she is helping Daddy find her name.


Breakfast is served at 7:30, so Harper will probably be eating there most days, unless something is out of the ordinary. This morning it was cinnamon oatmeal, mandarin oranges and a cracker. She does pretty well with a fork already, so I didn't think she'd have any trouble with it. I sat her down at the table and helped her eat her first bite. We then each asked for a kiss from her, and she puckered up, then got right back to eating. We waved goodbye at the window and she never fussed or even flinched about it. It will be interesting the next few mornings to see if she reacts any differently to us leaving, knowing she'll be there all day.


When we were having dinner tonight, I gave her some milk from a regular cup to help her practice since the other kids her age don't use sippy cups in class. I put a very small amount in the bottom, but she still managed to spill it everywhere. Here is her reaction to the cold milk over her face and belly.

All-in-all, it was a great day for her. She was very obviously tired when I got her home which is to be expected, but she was in a very good mood. Each day we get a report from her teacher about what she ate and when, when she had dirty diapers, when she had wet ones, what they learned that day and any extras I should know about. It makes me feel like they really try to keep the parents informed and up-to-date about your child's activities. It's like they know you'd really rather be there than work, so they do what they can to keep track of everything. I really appreciate that!

As for Nana, she gets her hard cast tomorrow and will also be requesting further x-rays on her rib and right forearm as she's been experiencing a lot of pain in both those areas. Praying for a quick and speedy recovery for her!! She's got about 5 months to get healthy enough to take care of baby boy! :) We love you Nana!