The Sleepy Idealist: 12 Months

Alright, so I did great on keeping up with the blog for a while there. But, then life go CRAZY and now I'm behind. So, here's how it's going to be. This post will cover Harper from 11mo to 1 year, except for her actual birthday. The next post will be her birthday and the video I made of her first year. Then, now that she's over a year I'm moving on to doing posts for each month. What I mean by that is that instead of the next post being "Harper - 13 months" it will be "October" and I will try to talk about what the month was like for the whole family. So, after her birthday post will be the October post. Then, I will finish off with a post that include the photo shoot we did way back in January. And by the time I get around to all of that, well, maybe it will be time for the November post! Ahhhh!

Anyway, onto the 12 month post. All of these pictures seem soooo long ago. During that month, Harper got really good at standing on her own and cruising along everything. She could get into standing position without holding onto anything and could stand there unaided for pretty much as long as she wanted.

She also started to say, "yeah" when we'd ask questions which is super cute. There's a chance that started after her birthday, but I think it was before. Part of the problem with writing these late is that I mix up what happened when and I forget a lot of what happened!

Here she is just snuggling with the floor. She does this with a lot of surfaces and I love it.

A video of the above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC2ThpAd7Ww

Taking all the books out and getting on in.

One day the three of us went to the zoo as a family. It was really fun! Well, except for when Harp was grumpy. But mostly fun.

Waving to the lions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZULwEPNpa4A&index=21&list=UU8AOfQJanIyQHU9OsdpOsHw

Video of above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdw6-aosxCE&list=UU8AOfQJanIyQHU9OsdpOsHw

Harp looooves the water ball at the zoo. Always.

Video of above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYEXTHF5IKs&list=UU8AOfQJanIyQHU9OsdpOsHw

Went to the gift shop and Tom said, "let's scare her with this orangutan!": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4ySwCai0q0&list=UU8AOfQJanIyQHU9OsdpOsHw

One day, I took her with me to the garden (I was gardening in a friend's yard) and she was such a little garden monster! She Quasimodo crawled all around in the water and the dirt and picked this tomato which she got all over herself. By the time we left her pants were soaked and caked with mud and she had tomato all over her. It was really cute, but made me really dread watering the garden!!! Once upon a time I'd sit her on the sidewalk with some toys and she'd just play nicely while I watered...

I got really bored and desperate one day and decided we were going on a hike. This was a daunting task because Harp does NOT like carriers. It was still a struggle, but she did better than I thought she would and I ended up being glad we did it. There were some definite screaming on the side of the mountain moments though.

Around the time we got to the destination, she fell asleep.

The hike we did is called, "The Living Room." It's right behind the University of Utah and is called that because people made furniture out of the rocks.

Chairs

Made a happy birthday video for Tom's brother who is in Scotland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX5jYE5RpAI&list=UU8AOfQJanIyQHU9OsdpOsHw

Harper now climbs on the shelves when we go to stores:

Here she is at the park, playing with the big kids. It always makes her look extra little.

She went through this stage where she started going down the slide ALL BY HERSELF (except for me catching at the bottom) and LOVED it. She would do it over and over and laugh so hard. And everyone else at the park would constantly ask me how old she was and say how cute she was. I can't blame them. Here's proof of the cuteness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54LUvj-bx3A&list=UU8AOfQJanIyQHU9OsdpOsHw

She still loves slides, but it's not the same as it was at the very beginning. I miss those days where it was new to her and she would get SO happy!

At Liberty Park they have this awesome area, during the summer, where they have these manmade streams that are supposed to represent the various canyons in the area. It's REALLY cool and I would have loooved playing there as a kid. Harp enjoyed it all summer. Here she is playing with another kid:

Having a blast splashing in the stream water: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i17jh3L72UY&list=UU8AOfQJanIyQHU9OsdpOsHw

Also, sometimes she greets me via head-but: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOqtvpVRolQ&list=UU8AOfQJanIyQHU9OsdpOsHw

Some more blissful slide shots. Sorry, this post is not in thematic order!

Here she is putzing around in the kitchen and getting into bags: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDvmMzzWiU8&list=UU8AOfQJanIyQHU9OsdpOsHw

One day, TOm got off work early and we decided to go to the park next to the Capitol for a picnic. Harp and I got there first, so we wandered around by the Capitol for a while.

Getting into my clothes box now that she's more exploratory.

On a mission to leave no DVD on the shelf: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj52EUkiYqc&list=UU8AOfQJanIyQHU9OsdpOsHw

First pair of high heels, given to her by a friend of mine.

We went on the same hike again, the three of us, and Harp was so upset about the carrier situation that she pretty much screamed the whole time. We didn't make it to the end.

Helping me sort papers.

Video of the above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkvEUi8wQ4c&list=UU8AOfQJanIyQHU9OsdpOsHw

Liberty Park also includes Tracy Aviary, which we get into for $1 on Tuesdays with our Pass of All Passes. Most Tuesdays we are somehow prevented from going. But, we've gone a few times. Here are some pics from our last trip:

Here is Harp, with her little buddy, Victor. Victor is about 2 months younger (but is bigger, of course). He and his mom live just a few houses down from us, which is soooo nice! At first she didn't seem to be that interested in him. But, they've started interacting more lately and it's SO cute to watch them play together.

Got her a sock monkey hat and booties, at the consignment store, to match her monkey binkie.

Also got this AWESOME doctor kit there, which she will not get for a while.

And this adorable Pooh Bear costume as well. We get soooo many things at this consignment store.

On weekend we went to the Clark Planetarium. There wasn't THAT much for Harp to do there, but she enjoyed playing on Mars.

For a while, if Tom or I were on the floor one of her favorite things to do was to climb over one side of us and fall down the other: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggBs4m5V8tE&list=UU8AOfQJanIyQHU9OsdpOsHw . She's such a little roly-poly.

Watching a big rain storm.

She LOVES playing with her cousin Ellie. I was so sad this video didn't come out with sound (stupid phone!) because Harp was totally cracking up at Ellie, like she always does: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPs4HmkMuS8&list=UU8AOfQJanIyQHU9OsdpOsHw

And another adorable one of Harper and Ellie that is tragically without sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v69AjgNWMbo&list=UU8AOfQJanIyQHU9OsdpOsHw

Confirming for me that I DO need to buckle her in her carseat even when it's not moving :) .

Going down the big slide at the zoo. It really is a tall slide and she LOVES it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D57-2vHVXhs&list=UU8AOfQJanIyQHU9OsdpOsHw

This picture demonstrates what inevitably happens when she wears 12 month pjs. They are still WAY too big for her.

Victor's mom, Ana, and I baby-sit for each other sometimes. So the next few are from when we babysat Victor at their house:

Their dog, Gigi.

Mirror!

She tends to be really content and full of energy when it's bedtime. On this night Tom and I were exhausted, and we just laid on the floor while she just roamed the living room, talking to herself and exploring everything for like an hour. It so hard to put her down when she's like that. Seems like such a waste! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNWiJjm7qkE&list=UU8AOfQJanIyQHU9OsdpOsHw

One day there was this awesome dog...festival?...at Liberty Park, called Strut Your Mutt. We went and it was pretty cool. Loooots of great dogs to gawk at.