November 2015

Man, looking through these pictures I feel like the kids were unusually cute this month.  Anyone?  Well, let's see.  What happened this month?  Probably the best part of the month was Thanksgiving weekend.  Tom got off early on Wednesday (not THAT early), and took Friday off.  Actually, he ended up taking a sick day on Monday, since he was feeling yuck, so we had him all the way from Wednesday at 4pm until Tuesday morning!  That was great.  The other great thing about Thanksgiving weekend was that, you know how usually when you're enjoying yourself it feels like time goes by fast?  Well, somehow, we were having a great time AND time seemed to pass slowly.  Like, it actually felt like a long, full (in a good way) weekend.  On Wednesday night we went with some of Tom's siblings + applicable spouses to go see Hunger Games.  As Tom put it, "that was the worst time I've had seeing a good movie in a long time."  Basically, it was a great movie (lots of interesting themes), but it was grueling to watch.  

Then, Thanksgiving morning was spent cooking and watching the Lion's game.  For once they had a spectacular win!  Didn't see that coming.  In the afternoon we had dinner all-together with Tom's fam + a few extras.  It was a nice little get together.  Then, that night Tom surprised and confused me by driving all the way to Park City to do some Black Friday (Thursday, boo) shopping.  Every year he tells me how much he hates Black Friday shopping and refuses to go with me.  Then, he got even more hard come than I did!  Wish I could have gone.  

On Friday, I woke up early at got to Joann's when it opened at 6am.  Picked out a ton of cute fabrics but was dumb enough not to grab a ticket for the cut counter right when I walked in and ended up sitting there for, like, hours.  Somehow Emerson woke up late and was ok until I got home!  Only happens when Tom is watching him.  Came home and fed the boy, then we all headed to Target to find me some new Winter tops.  Do I have a very supportive little family?  Yes.  We succeeded and headed home for lunch/naps.  I headed back out for a couple more errands, then we cleaned the house and hung out with some Jensen (Tom's mom) relatives who had a get together upstairs.  When that was over Tom, Stacey (Tom's sis) and I watched Star Wars.  We're trying to watch them all, in chronological order, before the new one.  It was great and Stace and I ended up talking til 2am or some crazy hour like that.  We were meant to be sisters.  

Saturday, we got our Christmas tree and set it up!  Forgot the lights at the storage unit, though, so we ended up doing most of the decorating on Sunday.  Sunday Tom and E. were feeling yuck, so Harp and I went to church and then headed home early when E. woke up and needed to eat.  

Another big thing this month was that I actually opened my Etsy shop!  Here's the link.  It was a little scary, especially because it was before I was really ready to make each part of it perfect.  I did it because I felt like it needed to be up for the Christmas season though.  But, I think as I go I'll just slowly make it better and better.  I'll improve the logo, add detail to my profile, figure out the best way to ship things, etc.  Even more exciting than opening the shop is that I actually sold something!  Whew!  What a relief to have sold something!  It wasn't even a friend or anything.  It was just some random person who found it on Etsy.  That gives me lots of hope, and now I'm hoping it's not the only one!  Sending it out felt like sending off one of my babies.  The really cool thing is that we based the name of the shop on the street we lived on in Philly and the person who bought the first item lived in the outskirts of Philly!  So cool.

Here it is:

Updates on the kids:

Harper:

- Still obsessed with jammies

- Loves "cracking" on the snow.  We have no idea where that term came from, but it seems to mean stepping on it, with boots.  This is a huge improvement from last year and the year before when she'd scream if I made her step on it.

- Still loves her friends, Emerson (She is SO lovey toward him.), and mommy.

- Is in a stage where she LOVES to read books to herself.  She doesn't even usually want us to read to her.  We are definitely getting this kid a book light for Christmas, because it used to be she wanted us to read her books before bed, but now she just wants to read them to herself.  We don't want to just sit there and watch her, but we don't want to leave her without turning off the light, and she can't turn it off herself (she's short :).

- She desperately wants to potty-train and is always asking to go on the potty.  Me?  Not so interested.

Emerson:

- We are a little worried about his development for a few reasons.  If it were just one of these I wouldn't be worried, but it just seems like he's behind on a lot of things.  For instance, he's not gaining weight well, he doesn't put weight on legs (though we've gotten him to miiiildly do so a couple of times lately!), he doesn't roll either way, he doesn't care about toys and doesn't play with them.  These could all have reasonable explanations and some of them could be connected, so I could be MORE worried, but I'm still worried.  Basically, the explanation I see is that he's not interested in toys either because he's super social (Harp was kind of like that) and/or he's blind (like Harp).  Because he's not interested in toys and because he hates tummy time he doesn't roll (no motivation).  The weight gain thing could just be that he's a naturally small baby (not terribly unusual on my side) and the weight on legs thing does happens sometimes and is usually just a preference for the baby.  Anyway, I've been talking to his pediatrician about all these issues, so we'll see what happens.  Gah!  Kids are such worry-inducers!

- Aside from all that, can I just say (again) how sweet this boy is?  Like, Harp was always sweet, but you could also sense (from the very beginning) that she had plenty of spunk.  This kid is all sweet so far!  Like, it's thick and palpable.  I just love it.

- He's starting to grow a little tooth, which makes me just a little sad because I'm not ready for his toothy grin to change.

- He's also had a cold and bad cough for a few weeks which is just so so sad.

- If Tom is in charge of watching him on the monitor he sleeps though the night.  If I am, he doesn't.  Somehow he knows.

-  He's starting to grow more hair and it's getting lighter and it just looks like soft little fuzz on top of his head.  So sweet.  Harp and I can't help but constantly nuzzle his head.

Fuzzy hair!

- We decided that Thanksgiving Day would be the perfect day to give him solid food for the first time.  We gave him mashed bananas like we did with Harp and he wasn't a fan.  Gave me a nice stink face and has every time I've tried to give him solid food since.  Here's a couple of videos (the first one is blurry at the beginning but gets better):

Ok, pictures & videos:

Do you see the brown thing on the bottom right of the block?  It's the tip of a reed, but according to Harp it's a key.

We were walking out of the mall and Tom and I were talking about something else and Harp saw this and said, "They put a bandaid in front of the stairs so I wouldn't climb up!"  I thought that was pretty clever.

I have these moment when I look at her and all of a sudden realize how SHORT she is!  She's, like, not much taller than a baby who has just learned to walk.  Yet, she spouts off crazy advanced sentences!  People get very confused.

Cousins lovin' on Baba and Papa's Christmas room.

She made a tower of 13 blocks all by herself.  I didn't even touch them.

Crying for mommy.  All day.  Every day.  I'm exactly 50/50 split on hating the whininess and loving the being needed and cuddled.

We stopped swaddling him and he kept pulling his blankets up and over his face, no matter how tightly we tucked them.  Finally, we gave him this ducky lovey that Harper had since we figured it was too small to suffocate him and infinitely better than the blanket.  This is how he usually end up now.  So cute and funny.

Snow babies are the cutest!

My mom sent this awesome package and in it were some little jewels than she intended for me to use on sewing projects. I knew Harp would love them though, since she looooved anything tiny and shiny (complete opposite of Tom, poor guy).  Here she is sorting them into different colored water-bottles.

This sewing book was also in the package my mom sent.  She loved looking through it and kept saying, "This is an AMAZING sewing book!!!"

Tom's Aunt Janet makes these AWESOME stocking for each baby born in the family.  I was so excited to get Emerson's.  We decided to do a copy-cat picture of the one we took when Harp got hers.

Emerson's:

   

Harper's:

Sleepy E.

She was ecstatic that he was holding her hand.

I always notice he tinyness when she's standing up next to the TV.

I let her hold this binkie for a little while (but not put it in her mouth) and she was SO happy.

Exploring the tupperware cabinet.

She's nutso.  We love her.

One day she missed her nap, and she was just sitting next to me on the couch watching a show.  All of a sudden she just turned and snuggled into me and fell asleep almost instantly.  I loved it.

She was so out she didn't even wake up when I had to move off the couch.

My grandma came for a quick visit the day after Halloween and gave her this pink star (among other things).  Harp was obsessed with it and carried it with her everywhere.

I just thought this picture was funny!

Outing to the neighborhood park on one of the first miserable weather days of the season:

I love this face.  This is his, "I'm just excited about the wind on my face" face.

Got her new cupcake jammies, a necklace and new shoes and she was SO excited to wear them all:

Side note: she calls these shoes her "silver bells."  No idea how she came up with that!

I could die.

She LOVES this swing, which is supposed to be for him.

Tried to work on the blog at B&N and Tom decided to come with the kids.  So funny watching them from across the cafe.

"Oh no!  What do I do!?!"

This face.

I love this progression:

First snow day of the season:

She kept saying, "I'm snowing" and that everything that had snow on it was snowing.  At the end she said, "And I look pretty cute in the snow:"

As a side note, now, whenever she walks on the snow she calls it "cracking" on the snow.  Like, she'll say, "Mom, can I crack on the snow?"  No idea where she got that from but it's pretty funny.

Tom and I went on a DATE!  Here he is playing a Star Wars game at Boondocks.  Isn't he dreamy??  And no, Tom, I didn't ask you if I could post this.  I wanted to remember your dreaminess.

Harp "doing the dishes:"

Using the butter knife as a toothbrush:

First time in the jumper.  He was a fan.

Feet eating.  One of his favorite pastimes.

We were watching Cousin Ellie one day and she had a little accident and had to change her panties.  I ran them through the washer for her and laid them out on the couch to set aside for her.  Harp was on the couch watching her morning show and I went to get Emerson.  This is what I found when I came back.  She held them there for the duration of the show.  Soooooo covetous of all things related to potty-training!

Harp's friend Sophia arranged his binkie clip like this :) .

Beautiful crisp Winter day.

Pillow to keep him from falling back.

 Got all decked out for a Sunday hike:

Trail was closed.  Still had a great time at the park.

She was SO excited about the bandaid.

Had to have her hand on mommy's pillow.

Had to have her other hand on the little cupcake applique on her jammies.  She keeps it there the whole time whenever she wears these.  So funny.

She figured out how to put the duplos together to make things!

Made him a drool bib because this boy DROOLS.

Fun at Jungle Jim's

Blurry but great.

There was this one day when I was cursed.  In the morning I dropped Harp off at a friend's house in SLC.  On the way back home I got a ticket.  On the way back to pick her up I got stuck in traffic so bad that I turned the car off for a full half hour  and hung out with Emerson (pictured).  It was a huge accident that had happened not far ahead of us.  After the policeman who gave me the ticket and all the policemen for the accident, once I got off the freeway someone ran a red light and got pulled over by an undercover cop, then I had to pull over for a firetruck at the next light.  By the time I got to the friend's house I was a bit weirded out!  On the way home there was ANOTHER huge accident.  After that I was convinced I should just stay inside the rest of the day.

Made this tower together a few times.  It's taller than her!

More lego creations.  They're always, "lollipops."

Kept thinking this dress was too big only to find (when I finally tried it on her) that it's almost too small!  Sad!

Because he has a cute sad face.

 Tried to take some family pics for my mom to put on her Christmas card.  The lighting was terrible, so I edited the non-flash ones because otherwise they were so dark you could barely make us out!  None of them are perfect, but I still love them.

This picture just makes me happy.

"Cooking" with mom.

Harper and I being penguins:

We've been using this felt board that my mom gave me to tell scripture stories to Harp during FHE.  She loooves it and will use the pieces to retell the stories to herself afterward:

"Cooking:"

We had this huge box from diapers and I decided to make it into a cute little house for Harp and took this video of her finding it after naptime.  She was VERY excited about the gummies I left in it for her, but didn't care much about the house:

She likes to hang out upstairs in Baba and Papa's living room where all their Christmas decorations are.  One day she found this book up there and was obsessed with it.  She carried it around all day:

We breed loud children:

I just thought it was funny that he looked like he was drinking out of this cup:

She just picked up my scriptures one day and told us that they were about Jesus and that they make you feel better.  She must have learned that at church!  This is Tom having her tell him again: