Duck Duck Goose

MVI_0064, originally uploaded by holly hanes.

On Labor Day, we had a great day together as a family. We didn't have too much of an agenda, we just really wanted to hang together and have fun. I had been wanting to take Harper to go feed the ducks at the local park all summer, but it's pretty miserable to hang outside for too long during the summer in Texas, so since the weather was finally a little cooler, we grabbed some of the older bread in the fridge and off we went! We first went to where the huge geese hang out.

Now, I am not a fan of birds anyway, and geese just plain freak me out. They are so big and can be so aggressive when it comes to food, I was worried about them taking a bite out of my little girl.
Here is a video of the huge geese. You'll notice how far back I am standing while I shoot the video. I really don't like them. You'll also notice me scream when it looked like a goose was about to get her and the panic in my voice about the whole situation.

Soon after, Daddy and Harper moved over to where there were more ducks and no geese. Unfortunately it was way past Jasper's time to eat so I missed the feeding of the ducks while I sat in the car and fed him, though I got to enjoy watching Daddy and daughter have fun together!

Catching Up

I am so far behind!! There are so many things to update on. I am going to pack in a bunch of stuff in the next few posts.

At the start of the summer I purchased two passes for the price of one (plus free soft drinks) to the local water park. I had been looking forward to taking Harper all summer long and we finally went a few weekends before Labor Day, when the park shuts down for the fall. Nana and Papa graciously watched Jasper for a couple hours so we could focus all our attention on having fun with our little girl. And oh my goodness, did she have fun!! It's a great place because it is friendly towards smaller kids with TONS of things to do. She went down countless slides, played with tons of splashing puddles, went in the wave pool, floated down the lazy river, and even went down a couple big slides with Daddy. We only stayed a couple hours because Daddy had to go to work, but it turned out to be plenty of time and completely wore her out.

One casualty from the day was our camera. It drowned, but ironically the drowning had nothing to do with the water park. It was in our bag with the big mug of water we brought in, and as I picked up the bag to leave, the mug tipped over and spilled all over the bag and its contents, including the camera. I didn't realize it had tipped over until water was leaking out of the bag and everything had already been soaked. *sigh* I went without a camera for a week and it was a week too long so we bit the bullet and picked up the newer model of our old camera. I still haven't played with all the bells and whistles but I'm just relieved to have it! These are the last pictures taken on the camera -- thankfully I was able to rescue the battery and photo card!

A Different View of Things

Yesterday was Labor Day and Jasper decided to celebrate the holiday by accomplishing a big milestone: sitting up! We have hardwood floors, so I decided to see if he could do it and surrounded him with pillows to help break his fall. Much to my surprise, he did great and only took a couple tries to find his balance. He's not a pro at it yet, but it was such a great start, we are so proud of him!

And an aerial shot just to prove he wasn't propped up by a pillow from behind. :)

Harper had fun cheering him on, but was much happier to use my leg as her personal foot stool while I practiced with Jasper.

No More Monkeys!

September 2010 009, originally uploaded by holly hanes.

Harper's favorite song of the week. She is very adamant about the whole monkey thing.

Which is Which?

I recently came across a picture of my sister's oldest son Camden. I did a triple take as I marveled at how much the picture looked like Jasper. I showed it to Jon and he was amazed at the similarity. He took it to his mom and she said "what a cute picture of Jasper".

Even now, when I look at it I am amazed at their similarities. I think most of it has to do with their pose and the goofy look on their faces. But still... crazy!

So... which is which?

Green Means Go

When we first moved Harper into her big girl bed, she was very content to behave much like she did when she was in her crib. She would call for us to come get her, and never got out of her bed until we got to her room. She did this for a few months and we were very happy with how easily she transitioned to a bed without bars. ;)

Cue little brother.

Literally the first day we had him home, her sleep habits started changing. She started waking at sometimes 4, 4:30am. As you can imagine, having a new little baby at home, sleep for parents is hard to come by, so it became a real problem. She sleeps with a sound machine, so I don't think she was ever bothered by hearing him cry or by me shuffling around in the middle of the night to feed him. I think she was just thrown off by the change in family dynamic.

We tried giving her instructions to stay in bed until the she saw the sunshine in her window. This worked a little bit, but as Jasper started sleeping better, we needed her to stay in bed later than 6am. :) Plus, she was up multiple times before it was light outside, coming to our room to make sure we weren't wrong and wanted her up sooner. Oy.

I decided it was time to take serious action. I looked online, and saw this alarm clock. I read all the reviews on the product and felt like it would be great. You can set the clock to be a nightlight at night glowing yellow, and you set the time you'd like for your child to get up in the morning, at which time it glows green. It does have a face with a digital clock and one with hands too, meaning the clock can grow with your child as they learn to tell time. You can also set it to have an actual alarm for those hard-to-wake older kids. However for now, it's been fantastic to give Harper the visual cue of a glowing green clock friend to know when to get out of bed. She absolutely loves it and though she's not a perfect sleeper-inner yet, things have improved 1,000%. She stays in bed until it turns green maybe 3 out of 4 mornings, and the other mornings we usually only have to give her 1 reminder to go back to her room and wait.

Oh, and when it does turn green, she absolutely can't wait to run in and tell us "green! green!". It's pretty cute.

One funny story. We still have the video monitor in her room, so I can spy on her. A few days after she got the clock and had gotten the hang of waiting in her bed for it to change, I was watching her on the monitor. I had already sent her back to bed once and she was sitting up in her bed waiting. Once it turned, she got SO excited and started pointing to her clock saying "green green!" then jumped up, hung on to the bed rail and started stomping her feet like she was making wine out of grapes!! It was so fun to see her be so happy and do her little celebration dance without knowing I could see her. She makes me smile. :)

Laughing

July 2010 160, originally uploaded by holly hanes.