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!