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.