14 months old

our little girl is getting so big. i can't even remember what it was like when she used to crawl around.

we went to a concert last weekend while kerry and harris watched harper. very kind of them to volunteer and brave to want to put her to sleep. the last time someone put harper to sleep other than amy or myself, she had to cry it out. it was only for about 8 mins but auntie jean felt bad. that was four months ago and i just finished breastfeeding too. she wants to redeem herself since kerry had such success. after reading a few books, she said harper fell fast asleep. everyone was happy. we had a fabulous time at the concert and harper was happy with her babysitters.

she is soaking everything in. she understands what we are saying, responds to us and observes everything around her. it is amazing to watch.

and she is off!

we have an official walker on our hands. granted, she walks like a zombie with her arms down by her side, but it sure is cute. it is amazing to watch her develop. i'm glad she has padding on her bum because she still walks like she is drunk at times too. she is probably enjoying her outside time at school now that she is mobile. they go out twice a day for playtime. so far she still sits in her high chair when we go out to eat and stays in the shopping cart. i've heard that i should enjoy that now, since she soon will want to go go go!

i like it when harper...

makes the sign for water and holds one finger to her lips.

barks like a dog. you can ask her, "what does a dog say?" and she will make a cute high pitched noise twice.

gives hugs and kisses. especially when she blows kisses to random people. her kisses now have sound.

falls asleep in my arms at night after reading a book.

gets excited to see auntie jean.

gives high fives!

laughs at mommy so hard that she gets the hiccups.

our family in seattle

we had a wonderful trip to see the family in seattle last week. we took a 4 hour direct flight to seattle friday night. it was at 6:15pm, so we thought harper would be tired (considering she is usually asleep by 7:30pm) and sleep the entire time. nope. she was up for 3 hours and finally fell over during the last hour of the flight. it was challenging trying to entertain her for that long but we had snacks, books and the ipad. after arriving around 1030pm our time, uncle reeves (lee's brother) picked us up and took us back to their house. the boys were asleep and we stayed up for a bit talking and playing with harper. not sure how or why, but she was wide awake and sat with us til about 1am our time. it was probably a good thing she did that because she was on regular schedule from then on. pretty awesome considering it is a 2 hour time difference.
we had an awesome trip. we were able to hang out with the family, the weather was perfect (75 in the day, 60 at night) and the cousins were able to play together. reeves and ashley were perfect hosts. it was nice that the kids were pretty much on the same schedule as far as eating, sleeping and napping. that made things so much easier.
gran (lee's mom) was even able to spend some quality time with her grandaughter. she organized a perfect day at the park on sunday. we grilled out, ate lots and played. we saw lee's cousin carolyn again, met john's cousin and family, lee's friend and family and even met ashley's parents. it was a day of fun. the kids powered through by only napping for 20 mins in the car ride home. they had lots of fun being spoiled by everyone around them.
tuesday ashley's mom and gran watched the kids while the big kids went to play. we went wine tasking. started off with a yummy breakfast and bloody mary. ended with a headache. totally worth it though. we had a fun time going to 3 different wineries. the weather was perfect, sunny and 72. the kids behaved for the grandparents too. overall a good day for everyone. it was the first time i was able to really enjoy myself. not only did i know that harper was in good hands, i was able to drink without worrying about any breastfeeding issues since i stopped on 8/1.
this vacation certainly made up for my pnuemonia, fever, headache of a vacation to florida. did i mention that i felft awful the entire time?
we miss everyone in seattle already. wish we all lived closer together.

happy 1st birthday!

harper had a fun birthday extravaganza weekend. on saturday morning we went to the long center for bubblepalooza. there were lots of kids running around blowing bubbles and lots of music to entertain them. auntie jean came with us and we met our old neighbors there as well. harper was able to see her best friend kendall, who is 4 days older. it was close to nap time so we started walking to the car but she fell fast asleep. we made a last minute decision to walk across the bridge and eat at jo's. she slept on our walk over and even after we arrived at the restaurant. we all had a nice brunch together. that girl can eat her weight in pancakes. we went home to prepare for the bday gathering of the framily.
everyone was able to come to her first bday party, which made it even more special. we made fajitas and margaritas. there were balloons and a few decorations but lots of fun gifts! harper of course had her first piece of cake all to herself. we made a yummy banana cake with cream cheese icing. she was not shy about digging into it at all. actually, we had to take it away from her at one point. i think she was storing some in her cheeks for later. we thought she was either not going to be able to go to sleep from the sugar or throw up at some point in the middle of the night. neither came true! the gang had a chance to see her enjoy the gifts, food and company.
the next morning we gathered at cherrywood cafe on the eastside. the exact same place we met the morning i had her. i think it will become a tradition to meet for breakfast there the sunday before her bday. we enjoyed some breakfast tacos while harper went to town on a bagel. she is our little carb-o-holic. after a quick stop at costco while she slept in the car, we went home and headed back out for some pool time at deep eddy. she played in the water with daddy, papa, bryan, mommy and even some of her new toys. it was a nice relaxing afternoon.
our weekend came to an end after we went to our friends house for kendall's 1 year celebration. it was nice because we were the only people invited besides the grandparents, so harper and kendall were able to have a playdate. kendall wasn't as excited to dig into her cake like harper. she touched the icing and refused to eat or touch the cake. happer wanted to demonstrate how to do it, but we didn't let her.
her first birthday was exciting and i hope she enjoyed every minute of it. i on the other hand couldn't wait to go to work on monday to rest. : )

no more pears?

at dinner last night, we noticed that harper started turning red around her mouth. she has the random hives and red spots (she gets that from me) every once in awhile, so we didn't really get worried. she was only eating pears at the time. she has had cooked pears since she started eating solids, but only raw pears one time before this. i do have to add that we gave her a taste of peanut butter for the first time, but i am 99.9% sure that we gave it to her after her mouth started to turn red.

then her upper lip started to swell. then there was red and white splotchyness happening around her mouth. then her eye became swollen. it was scary. we made sure she could breath ok the entire time, but we just didn't know what to do. do we take her to the hospital? do we just give her benedryl? it didn't seem to be getting worse so we finally decided to give her benedryl and give her a bath, so we could wash whatever it was off of her face. she was crying, but it was a fussy cry, not a "i'm in pain cry." we changed her into her sleepy clothes and amy rocked her in the chair in her room. she was asleep in minutes. amy held her for a little bit, then i wanted to hold her just to make sure it wasn't getting worse or that she didn't have trouble breathing. i laid her down to sleep in her crib and watched her closely in the monitor. amy even went into her room a few hours later to made sure she was ok.

was it the pears? was she extra sensitive due to getting shots earlier that morning? was it the peanut butter? it was a stressful evening and very hard to see her cute little face so swollen. how in the world are we going to handle the blood and broken bones? ugh. we did ok as a team, on the same page as far as what to do. thank goodness amy is the calm one.

she slept for her usual 11 hours and woke up happy. her eye was still slightly swollen, so we gave her more benedryl before going to school. i told the girls to keep an eye on her and to let us know if she starts to swell again. i will probably call them around lunch time. i hope to see a cute non-swollen face when i get home from work.

look, no hands!

she did it! she stood up on her own. last sat we met her daddy and papa at barton springs for a nice relaxing afternoon. i was laying on the ground and she was climbing on me as usual. but this time she pushed off and was standing on her own. i was in such a shock i could barely get the words out for someone else to pay attention to what was happening. after i finally yelled out (not sure what i said) to the others, she was smiling, so proud of what she was doing. she fell forward, hands first onto me and then pushed up again to stand. everyone had a tear in their eye. she couldn't have picked a better moment to show us her new trick.