dance recital

she rocked it out with this recital. did every move with the teacher and kept the beat. we were so proud of her and i think we had the biggest crowd cheering her on. it was so, so awesome. i have to say that the hip hop dance was the best. she raised the roof and did a move called, break the stick. don't get me wrong, the ballet dance was nice too, but she was a little bad ass up there dancing with her sunglasses.

videos and pictures to cherish forever!

 

 

 

what H has been up to...

• dressed up as princess elsa for halloween. had 2 blisters on her feet after walking around all evening. she said they didn't hurt. fashion over pain i guess. her and her new friend anderson had fun going from door to door.
• had fun at the fall festival at her school. so cute to see her say hi to her friends and kids i have never seen before. lots of teachers seem to know who she is too.
• in a car ride to school, she asked if she could have chocolate milk:
• me: yes, if you are good girl
• H: i have been good
• me: you are right, you have been good in the mornings getting your clothes on and cooperating
• H: yes, i have calmed down
• me: (laughing) what? where did you hear that?
• H: (laughing) from you mama
• our little late owl has been going to bed close to 10pm these days. but gets up at 6:30am with no problem. instead of fighting with her to go to bed, we all hang out and all of us go up to bed a the same time. saves us from arguing for an hour and a half each night
• had a wonderful visit with grammy and grandfather. h stayed home from school and went on lots of adventures with them. library, wildflower center, walks and children's museum.
• framily weekend out at juniper hills farm. so nice to spend the weekend with everyone.
• doing well in swim class. she can swim a few feet, turn on her back, float and turn back over to swim a few more feet. so proud of her.
• h is looking forward to a date with her daddy and papa. they want to take her to see the nutcracker.
• went to her first wurstfest. she loves riding rides now and dancing to polka music. much crazier than the days without kids.
• had our worst tantrum on record. had to leave thunderclouds after swim because she wanted to sit at a certain table. amy carried her home kicking and screaming. she was screaming so loud that she couldn't catch her breath. it was pretty bad.
• she is able to sit thru movies now. we have seen lots of disney classics like beauty and the beast, cinderella, snow white, etc. last night, we even watched home alone. kinda nice that she pays attention for so long. can't wait to take her to the movie theaters now.
• princess this, princess that. this child loves her princess shoes and everything related to princess's. 

she is growing up

over the past few weeks, we have seen a big change in harper. she has definitely become more brave. when we went to the state fair, she wanted to ride the rides! we rode the swan, a dumbo ride and she even pointed to the gigantic ferris wheel. that may have to happen another day. she is also more vocal and talking to people when they ask her questions too. the most common thing people ask is how hold old she is. h even says hi back to people when they talk to her at school or even the random strangers in the grocery store. it is super cute. we are really proud of her not being so shy these days.

H's first assessment from school

Good morning!

Since I finally having my wonderful assistant Ms. Heather, I am able to get to my assessments on all my children. Harper just completed hers.

When it came to her alphabet she was amazing, the only thing she missed were two lowercase letters (a,b). When it came to shapes she was great, nailing all of them. She knows all her numbers past 20, with no hesitation at all. When it came to counting objects, she can count a little fast, which makes her off by 1 or so. When we went over colors, she missed the normal 3 which most of my class has missed because they are very specific. Her tracing, connecting the dots, and coloring in the lines are great, and right where it should be, if not better. Recognizing same/different was great as well. The same with directional, and knowing above, under, left and right. The only thing that she trouble on was the pattern portion. Which is what we will be able to help with. All the children are going to learn number sequence and patterns in our class, so it is not a problem. This assessment was just to see where she is at.
Which I would like to say she is among the advanced kids we do have.

Just thought I would share with the assessment with you. If you'd like a copy let me know and I'll be glad to give you one!

Have a great Friday! :)

Ms. Christabell

who needs pull ups?

one week without using pull ups during nap time.

now if only we can master going all night with out them.

first ER visit

we had our fist ER visit over the weekend. luckily, it wasn't something that was critical, causing us to rush around and get stressed out about. on friday evening, h was being swung by her arms in total fun, but it didn't end up being completely all fun and games. she started to cry, saying her arm hurt. h wasn't moving it at all. now, this has happened before where she says her arm hurts, but it was usually better the next day. this time it was different. she wouldn't even walk and was scared to move it. she went to bed that night in tears and passed out pretty quickly. we gave her tylenol for the pain and 99 fever. it was an all around long day for her. her daddy hung out with her earlier that day, took her to the zoo and had lots of fun. unfortunately, she got a little sick at one point and threw up in the car. we think it was a combination of her not having much in her stomach, hot outside and a windy road. she was ok after her nap and 1 and 1/2 sunbutter and jelly sandwich. at dinner, she was acting a little fussy and even turned down pizza! right after dinner, she hurt her arm.

the next morning, she woke up to say her arm hurt and she wanted to go to the doctor. amy and i really didn't know what to do. she definitely wasn't using it, but would it get better in a day like before? what if it was a hairline fracture? i took an old sling that i had and let her wear it. it made it feel better to be able to isolate it close to her body. but when we moved it, it was painful. she was happy otherwise, watching curious george on the tv, sitting on the couch. jean and kris came over and noticed that there was something not right, especially since h was flinching when they looked at it. so we called our friend kate, who is a pediatrician. she was out of town but said that we needed to take her in to get it looked at. she thought it was something called nursemaids arm, which is fixed by manipulation of the arm. told us that she would have been right over to help out if she could. amy looked it up on the google box and pretty much diagnosed it before the call. it was very nice of her to give us advice. around 11:30 am we headed over to Dell's children hospital. kate also works in the ER there and highly recommended it if H ever needed care. they knew how to handle kids, especially those in pain. it was a good dry run for us to see where the hospital was located, how to check in, etc. everyone was calm and it wasn't a true emergency. the staff were friendly and super helpful. we waited in the waiting room for about 5 mins tops. they took us back and everyone seemed to agree it was nursemaids arm from what we were describing and how H was acting. the doctor looked at us and said that she wasn't going to like what she was about to do, but if it works, it will be instant relief. they asked one of us to have her in our lap. i, the wimpy one commented that i gave birth and my job is done. amy is usually the stronger one when it comes to h getting shots, giving blood or in this case, having to twist her arm. the doctor pulled and twisted her arm and immediately felt the pop. harper cried for maybe 10 seconds and then was ok. if she wasn't better within mins, we would have to do xrays and more work up on what was going on. the doctor then said that we needed to trick her into moving her arm just to make sure. she asked if harper would give her mommy a high five. sure enough, she lifted her arm and did it. it was a miracle! it was nursemaids arm for sure. she was quite happy. it could have been because the pain was gone...or maybe it was the rainbow popsicle they gave her afterwards.

we went home and she took a nice long nap. no problems with her arm at all. it was a good learning experience for us. not only will we or anyone else swing her by her arms, but now we are familiar with the Dell children's hospital.

sweet harper

i dropped off harper the other morning and her teacher told me a sweet story. the kids often play house and will tell someone to be the dad or mommy. one of her classmates, myla, lost her mom several months ago, will often say out loud, "i don't have a mommy anymore." now that statement is sad in itself, but the other day when they were all playing house, myla said it again. the teacher said harper told her, "i have 2 mommies. you can share with me."

on this day

harper said to me...
"mom, you look so beautiful today."

cue the tears

beach bum!

harper had her first official trip to the beach a few weeks ago. i'm not going to count when we went to destin, florida because she was only 10 months old and i had what turned out to be pneumonia the entire trip. at that time, she didn't even like the way the sand felt on her feet. the feet she was not walking on yet. so this is why we are counting this trip as the first.
went to stay with some friends (and former neighbors) in corpus for a fun long weekend. they just built their house on some family land and are right on the bay. it was perfect. their daughter kendal is 4 days older than h and her mom, whose name is amy, is also a pharmacist. we always have tons of fun with them and get along really well. we went to the aquarium, able to go to k's gymnastics class, ate at some good places, made some good dinners, drank and let the girls have fun. their parents have a condo in port a as well. we stayed there sat night. h loved the beach. playing in the sand and water. her favorite thing to do was to find shells with amy. they were super cute walking down the beach together searching for big and little shells. amy would tell harper, "good eye harper!" she said h would say it back to her, "good eye mommy!" after a few minutes, h asked, "mommy, what does that mean?" she also loved running into the water with us. we would take her hand and run into the tiny waves coming in and then run away from them. she was squealing like i have never heard before. thought she was going to have a problem with the seaweed everywhere, but i think that was just me.
we can't wait to take her back to the beach in a few weeks. some friends were kind enough to let us stay in their beach house in rockport. this time, daddy and papa get to go with us. she is super excited about going with them. it is going to be a little warmer then, but i'm sure we will still have a fun time. she is already so dark and it is just the beginning of summer! it's really great to know that we have some options for places to stay at when we decide to go to the beach now. we are super lucky!

camping

h went on her 1st camping trip a few weekends ago. we actually took the pop up out when she was still a baby, but we are going to call this trip official. stayed close to home and camped at pednerales. we had a huge tent which held 2 blow up mattresses and h's little tent. she was excited. she played in the dirt, picked up rocks and sticks, roasted marshmallows, played in the water and got down and dirty. it was a nice weekend. the weather was kind to us, as we missed a huge storm and only stayed for a bit. thunder, lightning and some rain didn't stop us from setting up camp. auntie jean, kris, bryan hung out with us all weekend, with visits from hilary, amo, mel (two of their friends) and papa. i even had the chance to teach harper how to cast her kids fishing rod down by the water. she picked it up fast. i was so proud of her. you have to have good coordination to be able to do that. after a few times, she decided that she wanted to throw more rocks in water. we wore her out each day and she slept well overnight, despite the strange sounds and creatures roaming about. it got down to about 50 degrees the first night. while i was freezing, she was warm in her little tent snoring away. if you ask what her favorite part of the trip was, she will say marshmallows. one of my favorite parts was getting her to say "red rum," (in a creepy voice) with a flashlight on her face, sitting by the fire. it was recorded. it was awesome.

we hope to go on many more camping adventures in the future.

still going potty strong!

well, i guess i shouldn't say potty anymore. she goes on the big girl toilet now. she lets us know when she needs to go, averaging around every hour. occasionally, she will ask for some chocolate as a reward. i am happy to give it to her since she thinks 2 m&m's is a lot! so proud of her. still doing pull ups at night and naptime, but that takes time i guess. when we are out, she will sometimes ask to go and she doesn't really need to. that isn't so much fun. don't get me wrong. i am NOT going to complain.

no more diapers!! no more diaper rash!! yay!

she is a champ

we did a 3 day boot camp potty training weekend, preparing as much as we could for this new stage in our lives. 3 days, staying home, focusing on her and the potty. lots of talk up to the big day. we told harper about the poster, prizes, stamps and chocolate. oh and the big girl underwear. auntie jean even helped me make some special iron on underwear with yo gabba, cookie and elmo on it. h was excited about all of it. but did she have any clue of what we were talking about?

friday morning we got her up and immediately sat her on the potty after taking her diaper off. she sat there, but said she didn't need to go. a little nerve racking for day one, but we went along with it. we sat in the bad as usual watching martha (not stewart, but the cartoon dog) and she drank her milk. i tried to talk to her about the day and what we had planned. she nodded and agreed and seemed to understand what was going on. the morning continued as we went downstairs for breakfast and start the day. amy left for work. the plan was to check with her every 45 mins initailly to see if she needed to go. turns out i ended up asking her about every 20 mins, probably because i was so nervous. we had the potty upstairs in her bathroom and downstairs in the living room to begin with. amy made a bright and colorful potty chart for her that she could put stamps and stickers on it to see how well she was doing. h was aware that she would get m&m's if she peed in the potty and a temporary tatoo if she pooped. the first time she went, she was scared. she started crying and i had to comfort her as she sat on the potty. i guess that feeling is strange and new without the diaper to soak it all up. for the first few times she made me hold her hand, but as soon as the sensor went off on the potty we both started laughing and singing the song. high fives all around.

she went easily on the potty on the first try (minus the scared crying), but then she had 2 accidents back to back. it scared her and i tried to comfort her as much as i could. we cleaned it all up and it just tried to explain to her that she needs to tell me when she felt like she needed to go. got a little worried that we would both have a busy day. after that, we were essentially accident free all weekend long. i set the alarm for every 25 mins and asked every 10. h even helped with setting the alarm and turning it off. she eventually started telling me when she needed to go very quickly, it was great! now the poop on the other hand is a different story. she pooped in her pants friday afternoon, which was to be expected. then on sat she held it the entire day and night. i was a little worried because this child goes 1-2 times a day. guess it was too scary for her. on sunday we put a diaper on her for naptime and 5 mins later i heard her crying, calling for me. i had a feeling she pooped and sure enough, she did. tried to tell her that it is ok to do it in the potty, but only time will tell. sunday was a success as well, with her asking and going on her own. she likes for us to sit near her, but i think that was just her being silly.

come monday we were ready to send h off to school in her big girl underwear. i was so nervous and excited at the same time. the entire morning routine is different now. as soon as we get her up, she sits on the potty. so far she doesn't really need to go since she has a diaper on during the night and it is pretty full when she wakes up. she was excited to tell everyone at school about the new change. it was her first car ride without a diaper too. we made sure she didn't need to go before we left and made it to school without any problems. i gave the teacher the scoop of the weekend and left her in the hands of daycare. oh and plus 5 pairs of underwear, 5 pairs of pants, socks and extra shoes. just in case. turns out she didn't need any of it! amy called on her way home after picking h up and told me she was still in her original outfit! i couldn't believe it and am still shocked by it. we were so proud of her. turns out she told her teacher eveytime she needed to go and didn't have any problems. the teacher said she told everyone about her underwear that had a pulse and walked by. monday evening went well again and she even kinda pooped in the potty. we put her to bed with her diaper and then she started crying and calling for us. we figured it was poop again. she had some poop in her diaper but didn't seem to be finished. everyone rushed to the potty and she finished! she was so scared, but we had to let her know it was ok. hopefully, this will be helpful for the upcoming days.

i really can't express how proud i am of her. she is so smart and funny and amazing. i am the nervous one...hope she doesnt get that from me! she is growing up so fast.

potty training boot camp weekend

tomorrow, we embark on a new journey. going where tons of people have gone before. saying hello to big girl underwear and goodbye to diapers. well, kinda. still going to use diapers at night and at naptime, but tomorrow will be day 1 of potty training. i think we have prepared as much as we possibly could with a potty poster board, stickers, m&m's, prizes, candy, tatoos and toys. auntie jean is helping out by making some iron on transfers to put on her new underwear. cookie monster, elmo and some yo gabba stuff. she is excited to help make them. she seems to understand what is getting ready to happen, but only time will tell. our plan is to stay home w/ her for 3 days in a row and not go anywhere! we will ask her if she needs to go about every 45 mins to 1 hour. reward her when necessary and fingers crossed she doesn't make a mess anywhere. i think i might use the doggie pee pee pads on the couch or wherever she sits. we have a feeling she may pick it up quickly because she hates the feeling of being wet. once, she was getting ready for a bath and she accidenta1ly peed on herself on the way to the bathtub. she had no idea what happened and it freaked her out. h didn't like it at all. maybe that will be the same concept for her this weekend. pretty sure that poop and pee in your underwear isn't very much fun. she will be back at daycare on monday and we have let the teacher know what we have been doing. she is on board and plans to stick to the game plan as much as she can. after all, she has lots of kids to watch over and i am sure it will be hard to keep up with everyone. mental note to bring lots of underwear and pants to school on monday.

what a different world it will be when she is trained. no more dirty diapers or hoping the bathroom has a changing station and no more diaper bag! but then it will change into asking her every min if she needs to go to the potty when we are at the grocery store, restaurant or just running errands. oh well. over the past 2 and 1/2 years there has always been so many different stages that you go thru...i guess this is just another one to look back on.

it's official

on april 12, 2014, we completed our family. we had a small ceremony on the rooftop of our hotel, with a beautiful church as our backdrop. jean, kris, john and lee joined us for the occasion. santa fe's weather was kind to us. 70's in the day, chilly at night. h was able to see her first snow the morning we left too. great food, good friends, lots of shopping and even our own little wedding cake (thanks sibby and shelley for the surprise!).

on our way to a complete family

proposed to amy over the weekend, march 22nd. don't think she saw it coming. i sent an email out to the framily to see when we would all be able to get together for the surprise. i even emailed bob and rhoda and jan and bill, to ask for permission for their daughters hand in marriage. thought at least i could be somewhat traditional considering everything else really isn't. the plan was to somehow get amy to zilker park. we met there 11 years ago at an austin city limits festival, so i thought it would be nice propose there. bob and rhoda were even in on the surprise but it almost became hard to get her out there considering there was a chance of rain that day. amy had other ideas of what to do that sat afternoon so we all had to be persuasive on getting her to the location. people made signs and there even ended up being someone playing music when we arrived. someone had asked them to stick around for the surprise and they were kind enough to do so. i had a big ring pop ready to give her. part of the gang came around the rocks, while some were on the rocks with signs saying things like, "can i get an amen?" "say yes" and "put a ring on it." i got down on one knee and asked her if we could complete our family. luckily she said yes. everyone cheered and we celebrated at shady grove down the road. most everyone came back to house to carry on the celebration. it was a lovely evening. hopefully one amy will never forget.

big girl bed...well kinda

we went to ikea yesterday and found the cutest duvet cover for h when she got into a big bed. i guess it made us talk again about changing her crib and using the conversion kit we bought some time ago. it basically changes one side for her to have an opening to get in and out of her bed and the sides are lower to make sure she doesn't fall out. we hesitated because we imagined a whole other world of her not wanting to sleep and trying to come into our bed, come downstairs or whatever 2 and 1/2 year olds try to do to not sleep. but on the other hand, it could be good on the weekend mornings when we are not ready to get up at 7am. she could get up and play in her room til we get up. still, the possibilities were endless. we knew we needed to start a small change soon since we were going to be starting potty training this year too. she was so excited she wanted to call everyone and tell them about her big girl bed.

she did awesome as usual. she got excited after reading books to be able to get into her own bed. good thing because it was getting hard for me to pick her up and put her in and out of the crib. i am too short! she got under her covers and stayed in her bed. granted she didn't go to sleep for a long time, but she did not get out at all. nightlight was on and door was open for her. at one point during the night, i checked the monitor to see how she was doing. her legs were hanging off of the bed, but seemed to stay on the bed. when i went in to get her up, her immediate reaction is usually to stand up, even if her eyes are not even open yet. had to tell her to slow down and remind her she was in a big girl bed. she scooted down so her feet touched the ground and got out of bed on her own for the first time. it was pretty neat. i could see a smile on her face too. this is only day one of course. fingers crossed it continues to go well and she doesn't figure out that she can run around if she wants.

curious george

me: are you going to share your snack with curious george?
h: oh, curious george doesn't have a mouth
me: yes he does, look again
h: he has a smile, not a mouth

our little swimmer

swim lessons started up again for harper. this time, mommy isn't in the water with her. she is in a class of 3 kids per one teacher. amy and i were a little worried at first, but she was so excited to go swimming again, she didn't even notice amy wasn't in the water with her. her teacher, ms. jen is amazing. bubbly, lots of high fives and singing lots of songs. h did everything she asked her to do. the m&m's helped as well. i think this is going to be so great for her to get more comfortable in the water. so far she really likes it. plus, she looks extra cute in her whale bathing suit.

h's first snow/ice

ok. not exactly a winter wonderland, but she was able to see the white dusting of snow/ice. she got excited to be able to touch the snow/ice on the deck. poor thing. i think we need to find her some real snow.

can you?

it makes me laugh when h asks for help lately. she will say, "can you help me please?" or "can you open this please?"

but! you have to hear her say "can you." it sounds almost french, like "can ju?"

super cute

jump into your pants!

a few weeks ago, we had a stretch of mornings that proved to be challenging. we took for granted that harper is pretty happy in the mornings, with us waking her up so early, getting her ready for school and rushing out of the door. she decided the other day that she didn't want to change, put on her clothes, socks or shoes. it came with her saying, "i don't like those pants. i don't like that shirt." 20 mins later of trying to reason with her, we had to pretty much hold her down and force her to change her clothes. not exactly a great way to start the morning. plus, you just feel bad that she is frustrated. she cried the entire time, on the way to the car and i had some difficulty putting her in her car seat too.
so amy and i had to come up with a plan. we thought of things like, let her pick out her outfits or see if she wanted to put them on herself, etc. the bribe if 2 M&M's didn't even work. then we realized that we were rushing her, so we got her up about 15 mins earlier to let her have her milk and sit in the bed a little while longer, remembering that we both need to stay calm no matter what. sure enough the morning went much smoother. amy even came up with a little game where she jumps into her pants and pops into her shirt. she finds it entertaining...for now. things seem to be back to normal so far. looking back it was the week she ended up having a temp of 102 on that friday. maybe she was not feeling well, trying to fight something off?
i know we have been lucky almost avoiding the terrible 2's, so i am trying not to complain. we are lucky to have so many good days of happy harper. does this mean we are going to experience the horrible 3's?

2014 ya'll

we had our first overnight with out baby or dogs over the weekend after christmas. i surprised amy with tickets to the cowboys and eagles football game for christmas. had it all planned out. stay overnight at the hotel on sat and watch the game sun at noon, then head home. unfortunately it was such a big game, they changed the time to 7:30pm sunday night. luckily, auntie jean and kris offered to not only watch h but for an extra night. they even took her to school on monday morning! she had so much fun with them. she slept in a tent in aunties room, went to see a christmas light show (she calls it crazy lights), played with new toys, walked milton and supposedly didn't fuss one single time. amy and i had a nice weekend to ourselves as well. went to eat at some nice places around SMU, visited the dallas museum and was able to sleep in and lay around for a bit. the game was insane. the stadium was massive and fans were ready to win. amy had an eagles shirt on and cheered on her team. don't worry, we made it out alive. the seats were pretty crappy and up super high, but it was neat to experience my first nfl game. it was very cold outside, glad it was a closed stadium. the game ended around 10:30pm, but didn't get home til around 12:30. got up at 5:30 and drove straight back to austin and headed into work. it made for a long, long day.

news year eve was super fun. jean had a blowout party, showing off her new kitchen and deck, with the wlb's getting back together for a reunion gig. goodnight cuties even did a few songs. we all seemed a little nervous, probably because of only practicing 2 times this year. the thought of a few drinks to calm us down may have made things worse. well, for me anyway. it is amazing how nervous one can get just playing for friends in my sisters house! people praised us and said it sounded great. i would just smile and say thanks. bottom line is we ALL had fun. wlb's rock, listen to this! it was a long night, getting home around 2:30am. gran was kind enough to watch h on the eve and had fun with her making biscuits. gran, amo and mel (and the dogs) slept over too. the biscuits and gravy made things a lot better in the morning. we headed to barton springs to watch amy, john and lee jump into the cool waters. after nap it was our traditional chili new years day at john and lee's. always nice to sit around, relax and eat some good food with friends to start off the new year.

i still feel tired from the holiday. is that possible? i have fallen asleep at 8:30 the past few nights. seems like i need to step things up and get back to exercising and eating right.

2014...here we come!

santa is coming!

it is amazing the difference 1 year makes. h is very aware of santa, rudolph, gifts and christmas chocolate. daddy and papa gave her an advent calendar and she looked forward to christmas chocolate every evening after dinner. have to admit that it was a useful tool to have on hand to make sure she was a good girl. sure enough, she ate her dinner and knew she had to be good to get it. didn't know if she understood christmas chocolate comes to an end eventually, but she did after a day or too.

christmas eve dinner was amazing. john and lee outdid themselves. appetizers, crab cakes, snapper, clam chowder, cookies and a variety of drinks to choose from. we even walked across the street and went to church. it was in interesting church, but church none the less. after singing some christmas carols with accompaniment from jean on the piano, we even opened a few gifts. h was attached to daddy's hip that evening and it was very cute. she was able to stay up til 10pm with all of us. i have to say that she must have had fun because she slept in til 9am christmas day. when she came downstairs, we immediately went over to see if santa ate the cookies and milk we left him. sure enough (mommy), i mean santa enjoyed the snack. luckily we didn't stay up til 2 am putting together he gift this year. her calico critter treehouse was put together within 30 mins. our one gift to h couldn't compare to all of the gifts she received from friends and family. books, easel, puzzles, leapfrog pad, clothes...you name it! everyone was so kind and generous. gran certainly made harper smile with the train set. she may think christmas goes on forever because we even opened more gifts when meme and grandpa bill arrived this past sat. i made christmas dinner and have to say that it turned out pretty good! my first roast beef, potato gratin and brussel sprouts. we had hilary, bryan and jean over. another nice evening.

it was fun being able to be at home with friends and family over christmas. while i realize the holiday is not all about gifts and food, it certainly makes for one fantastic season of love, joy and many blessings.