harper is determined to learn all of the songs that our band is playing. amy and I both have a practice cd in our cars, so she will often request certain songs so she can learn them. I have to say that she is doing a pretty good job. it only takes her about a week to almost learn the words to the songs. right now she knows about 5 of our songs. granted, she is singing a lot of it phonetically, it is quite impressive. when we get together for band practice, she has her own microphone and stand. we tease kris that she is trying to squeeze her way into being the lead singer. it is so fun to see her enjoy music. she loves to dance and sing. lately, she will just bust into song at the top of her lungs. her new favorite is katy perry's song, firework. i have to say that she has great rhythm and she usually sings in tune too.

first dental visit

i took h to the dentist yesterday. she was awesome! the people there were so wonderful with her, taking the time to explain every instrument they used and what was coming up next. harper was so calm and polite, answering every question they asked her. of course they asked her who she liked better, elsa or anna. she told them, elsa. they told her they were going to make her teeth sparkle like elsa's. her sunglasses they gave her to protect her eyes from the light even matched her outfit. they cleaned, rinsed and even flossed her teeth. as a reward, she got to pick 2 prizes out of the bins and even get to put her name in the fishbowl for a chance to win movie passes. everyone was so nice there, it was a wonderful practice. i look forward to taking her there over the years. pretty sure she will want to go back...for now.

i'm behind!

yikes. last time I wrote was in april? shame on me. well, this blog is just to keep up with when things happened. not even sure anyone even reads this.


it is official. we have gotten rid of the naptime pull up. she was awesome during our road trip to west texas. when she napped in the car, we usually had to put one on her, but she did great and held it the entire time. after having 2 accidents while on vacation in Georgia (in a row), she seems to have it down and is able to hold it much better now. so much easier to have her tell us when she needs to go instead of fighting her. now if we can only get the overnight pull up out of here. just when you think you have everything under control, it is time to tackle a new adventure.


we have had 2 wonderful vacations since I've last written. in june we flew into Wilmington, NC to visit with Gran. the condo was in a perfect location with just a short walk to the beach, shops and places to eat. we all had a good time swimming, building sandcastles and finding shells. spend a few days there before driving to Madison, Georgia to visit with Meme and Grandpa Bill. It took us about 8 hours to get there, but H was a good passenger and the road trip was easy. Gran stayed with us for a home cooked meal before she headed off to visit with a friend. the rest of the week was spent by the pool. it was very hot and humid, but the pool cooled us right off. h was happy and I even think her swimming improved while we were there. had a nice visit with Robert and jan too. they were able to come up for the day to celebrate bill's 70th bday. we had a fun celebration with lots of greek food and music. andy, Jennifer and the twins arrived that day too so h was happy to see her cousins. it was a nice relaxing long vacation.


three weeks later, we headed out to west texas. I had never been previously, most likely due to the long long drive out there. had an entire week to fill up and we did. started on a sat, drove to fort davis. lee came out to hang out with us for a few days too. h was so happy to have her daddy there. stayed one night over an old drugstore in town. it was interesting to say the least, but kinda nice to walk downstairs to have breakfast. star party at the observatory was pretty cool. haven't seen that many stars in a long time. it was late for h but I think (maybe) she liked it for a little while. all of us had the chance to see Saturn in the big telescope too!  hiked and swam while staying a few nights  at the indian lodge. we were really proud of harper hiking with us and being a trooper. especially on the sunset hike up the mountain in which she was the line leader of. needless to say, she was done hiking for the rest of the trip. she kept asking, "are we going up a mountain again?" headed over to Marfa after fort davis, staying at el piasano. wonderful hotel with a nice pool and outdoor seating area. our room even had a little seating area with a fireplace. I have to say that I didn't quite get Marfa and how everyone goes crazy over it. modern art from Donald judd? yeah, I don't get that either. however I did enjoy the Mexican restaurant down the road and our hotel. we then drove to marathon. another quiet little town with not much going on. this is ok! we enjoyed it a lot. the gage was a lovely hotel and my favorite. rooms were nice, pool was wonderful and the food at the restaurant and bar was really good. h was pretty happy the entire trip due to being able to swim everyday. there was even live music one night. house margaritas were tasty. the weather the entre time was nice too. hot, but still good. drove into big bend. I was amazed by the change in the landscape. we avoided a roadrunner every second while driving into the park. amy was happy with all of the birds she was able to see over the week. lots of them she has never seen. h wasn't into getting out into the heat, so we drove around more than being able to hike. our last night was spent in the chisos mountain lodge. minus the gnats and flies that buzzed around us, it was 10 degrees cooler up there and beautiful. the long drive back home on sunday wasn't so bad. very, very thankful for h being such a good travel companion. she would play games, watch a movie, nap and was all around awesome in the car.


our next vacation isn't until October. Italy. is it October yet?

tall and skinny

harper is getting taller and skinnier by the minute. i wish i could say the same thing for myself. we measured her recently and she grew 3 inches since her bday. ok, ok, i know that her daddy is tall but she is has been average height...for now. she has certainly changed over the past few months. a lot of people have noticed, saying she looks so skinny. i think it is more noticeable when she wears leggings and a short sleeve shirt. don't get me wrong. i hope she is tall. you know, about 5'9. tall enough to spike the volleyball but not too tall to scare off the boys. although someone commented that it may not be a bad idea that she scares the boys off so we will not have to worry about her dating. very good point!

my snuggle bug

h: when i grow up i will be able to drive a car
me: oh yeah?
h: yeah, like george did in that movie
me: do you think you will be taller than me when you grow up?
h: maybe. but don't worry mama, i will still snuggle with you
me: you promise? no matter how big or old you get?
h: sure!

i said ice cream

harper asked if she could have a cookie. she said please and was very polite. i told her that she needed to finish up some of her dinner before dessert. she said ok and proceeded to eat more peas and blueberries. about 10 mins after she gobbled down the thin mint, she looked over at me and said, "oh i said ice cream, not cookie." i couldn't believe what was happening. my daughter was trying to trick me over dessert! more like a con if you ask me. she repeated it again and said that she said ice cream. i told her that she definitely did not ask for ice cream and asked for a cookie and ATE it! pretty much told her that what she was trying to do was not cool. she gave me a certain look and smile. she knew exactly what she asked for. she didn't cry or even argue and went about playing.

that girl! she is one sneaky 3 and 1/2 year old.

random thoughts

- H loved the beach again. this time we went with daddy and papa.
- she is still doing so well with using the big girl potty
- she makes me laugh so much
- i miss her when she is at school
- had 2 bday parties in one morning and had so much fun!
- had a good visit with meme (amy's mom)
- is addicted to the movie and music of frozen. we don't go a day without singing or seeing the movie
- enjoying working in the garden with mommy. picking strawberries and tomatoes.

our tiny human is 3

we really can't believe it. she is actually 3. she is so much fun right now. very loving, caring, fun and just down right funny. she makes us laugh everyday. h is such a great kid. we had another bday party for her and the adults outnumbered the kids again. we feel a little guilty but i think she still had fun. there were 3 kids there this year, so it was a little better. no surprise that frozen was the theme with balloons and a elsa chocolate cake. even though it was 100 degrees outside (literally), the kids had fun on the playground and the adults enjoyed the watermelon, tequila cocktails. i think she was really excited to meet elsa at the toystore. we were prepared this time and ended up being 6th in line. h had no idea about meeting her. her mouth was wide open when we walked up to take a picture with her. it was a sweet moment. so glad everyone could make it to her party and join us for our traditional breakfast at cherrywood cafe sunday morning.

one of her teachers volunteered to make cupcakes for the kids today at school. she will have them for snack this afternoon. we let her wear her elsa dress up clothes that jan bought her for her bday. gave her a bday surprise and we all got pedicures. she choose blue polish to match her elsa dress.

it was a fun week celebrating her 3rd bday.

2015 already?

the holidays went by so fast. it is 2015!

my mom and dad were here for christmas. h enjoyed having lolo and lola visit for 2 weeks. it was long, but everyone had a nice time. got lots of yummy filipino food. we were able to do lots of fun things in dec like go to see gingerbread houses and visit santa for the first time. went to the trail of lights twice. crazy lights only once. made christmas cookies at home and also with auntie and kris. we hosted christmas eve and christmas dinner, so amy and i were in the kitchen a lot. it was frozen palooza on christmas morning. she was getting so worn out with opening gifts, she started opening gifts with her feet. it is always nice to be at home for christmas.

we had a slight set back on the potty traning. she was golden for about 8 months but then started going backwards. at first her underwear was a little wet, saying she couldnt make it to the bathroom. then she had a few full on accidents. we freaked out and started back on the pullups, which was probably not the best idea because she started getting lazy. i mean, come on, i wouldn't get up to go if i had a diaper too! so we had to re access and get back on track. gummy bears, starburst and chocolate seemed to help out. she has been doing well again since mid dec, but needs to be reminded every hour. hopefully we will be back to having her let us know when she needs to go. the teachers have been great helping us get back on track.

i think we have officially seen and read every disney princess movie/book out there. h is definitely into her princess phase. i have to say that i had not seen a lot of the classics, oddly enough. we all can't wait to take her to disney, sooner than later. could you imagine the look on her face when we do go? i don't remember being excited about all of that princess stuff when i was little, but i do remember our adventures in disney. they were so much fun!

for my birthday, i wanted to lay on the beach and do nothing. that is what we did. went to cancun for 5 days and the weather was perfect. 80 degrees and sunny. all we did was eat, lay on the beach, eat, nap and eat again. unfortunately h started getting a little snotty the day we left. then amy started coughing while we were there. then the sickness began. amy and h were down for many days after getting back home,  h with a fever of 101. then i got it and currently have it. fever, sore throat, headache. it has been so fun. the weather has been so nice here too, it is hard trying to recover. getting thrown off routine is hard.

looking forward to what 2015 brings us.

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!