August 2015

The Part with the Update:

Sometimes during the week, when I've had a particularly brain-numbing mommy day, Tom will take the kids and tell me to just go somewhere.  Usually, I end up at Barnes and Noble, either working on this blog (like I'm doing right now) or just looking at books.  One day this month, when I went to Barnes, I wandered into the Philosophy section (or whatever it's called) and picked up a book called, "Existentialism for Dummies" and one called, "A Cartoon Introduction to Philosophy."  They were great and just what I needed right then.  It sent me on a philosophy/deep thinking kick for the whole month.  One of my favorites has been listening to/watching the "School of Life" videos on youtube.  Check them out!  Super well done, engaging and thought provoking.  It REALLY feels good, after (or in the middle of) a long mom day, to escape from all the little mom thoughts and focus on what the purpose of art is or how an ideal government would be run or how to live a fulfilling life.

Most of the other, "things that happened this month" kinds of updates will be explained along with the pictures and videos, but here's some thoughts on Harper, Emerson and Tom that aren't represented in the pics and vids.

Harp:

- We watch a 30 min show every morning, when I'm still waking up, and we watched a bunch when we potty trained (will talk about later).  Some we own and some we get from the library.  Her current favorites are "The Iggy Show" (it's actually called, "Baby's First Word Stories", but this is what we call it) and "The Wonderpets."  She incorporates the characters and plotlines into our everyday lives.  Songs about other people or things become songs about the show's characters, she pretends to feed the characters, dramatic moments from the show get played out with our household objects, etc.  She has a great imagination!

- One of the first words she ever learned to say was, "yeah."  Then, she learned, "no" and dropped "yeah" and any other affirmative statement.  Instead, when she wants to affirm something, she just repeats what I've said.  For example, if I say, "Do you want an apple?" and she does, she'll say, "want an apple."  I've been trying to teach her to just say, "yes" and it's finally baaarely starting to catch on!

- The fact that she doesn't say, "yes" is all the more strange because her language skills are crazy good!  She will frequently say 8+ word sentences with perfect grammar (for example, "I can eat the banana after the cottage cheese.").  Her command of vocab and grammar REALLY make me wish we could have tried to teach her an additional language from the beginning.  You can pretty much just have a conversation with her now.  You can ask her questions and have her respond with unique (often clever) answers.  Very cool.

-  She says a lot of funny things.  For instance, when one of us has gas, she'll say, "Harper gas" or "Daddy gas" or whatever.  The other day our Xbox remote vibrated and she said, "remote gas!"

- Sometimes when we're driving home and she's getting impatient and we're almost home I'll say, "let's count to 10" and time it so we arrive home right at 10.  The other day I told her we could have some fruit snacks (a very special treat for her) when we got home if she didn't whine and was patient til we got there.  She immediately said, "I want to count to 10!"

- She's in a stage where she's scared of EVERYTHING.  I can't figure out if it's always legit, or if sometimes she's just being dramatic on purpose, but every tiny noise, every person, even a piece of fuzz will send her bolting toward me (usually not far, since she always stays RIGHT by me) with a cry of, "mommy! Mommy hold you!!!"  She is particularly scared of trucks and bugs.  Trucks because I got her this book called, "I am SO Brave!" that's about a little boy overcoming his fears and it backfired.  Bugs because one day there was a wasp walking on the step outside and I told her to watch out for it.  It doesn't matter that I've thoroughly explained to her that most bugs are nice. 

- She calls "Blue" in "Blue's Clue's" "Blue Elmo" even though she's never watched "Elmo," because there's a stuffed Elmo at the library.

- She has really started caring about what she wears.  She prefers to pick out her clothes and has a strong preference on which clothes she likes and which she doesn't.  I miss the old days where I could just pick out whatever I wanted her to wear!

Emerson:

- He is SO smiley!  Frequently, I'll go to nurse him and I'll notice he came off and I'll look down and see that he's smiling up at me and was doing so before I even looked at him!

- He giggles at the most unexpected times and I think it's connected to him being slap happy.  He often giggles when I read him books.

- A typical night for him (sleepwise) is to go to bed around 8:30, wake up around 4:30, nurse, go back to sleep, nurse at 6, nurse at 7, wake up for the day and nurse at 8:30.  Today though, he went to bed at 8:30, nurse at 4:30, nursed at 6:30, then woke up for the day at 10!

- He is a total snorer/snorter.  He snorts so much when he's awake (especially when he's consternated/hungry, etc.) that Harp calls him "Baby Pig."

- He falls asleep immediately if I give him "tummy time" with his binkie.

- He takes 3 naps/day usually, with the mid-day one usually being the longest.  As a result he often overlaps with Harper's nap, which is great!

- He had his 2 month check up on August 4th.  I was really hoping he would have grown a lot, but he really hadn't.  The doctor said he's not really worried at this point, but it would be nice to have him grow enough so that I'M not worried.  His stats were height: 23.5" (63%), weight: 10 lb. 6 oz. (21%) and head circumference: 39.6 cm (43%).  I'm going to try to take him in for a weight check in the next few days to see how much he's grown.  So weird that Harper started off tiny and grew super fast but Emerson started of huge and has barely grown.  Harper was significantly bigger than him at this point even though she was 2 lbs. smaller when she was born.

Tom:

- He's great.  He's pretty much the most supportive, hardest working husband I know.  Did you know he always does the dishes?  I haven't done them since October.  I'd give more of an update on Tom, but I don't think he wants me to.

The part with the Pictures:

Harp is in this awesome stage where she LOVES books and doesn't particularly want me to read them to her.  Instead, she just wants to look through them herself and often "reads" them to herself.  She's still the kind of kid who has a hard time entertaining herself, so when she's quietly (or not quietly) reading books to herself, I am in heaven.

Video from when Jill and Dave babysat so we could go to the Deer Valley Music Festival (talked about it last month):

This one Sunday, I was in the Mother's Lounge (room with chairs for nursing and a changing table) when Tom knocked on the door.  I opened it to find a naked Harp and barfed-on Tom.  Apparently she'd been sitting on his lap, facing him and he'd seen it coming, so he'd pulled her into him.  Poor guy didn't know where the Mother's Lounge was and had to walk all the way around the building like this.  I had to go in and clean up the pile of barf on the pew and grab all our stuff so we could head home.  Tom was sad to miss hearing from the visiting member of the 70 (church leader), Elder Sitati.  She ended up barfing 7 times that day (at least half of them ON Tom), but was totally fine the next day.

Went to the splash pad.  She still in a stage where she doesn't love going places and just kind of stays by my side and asks to go home.  She went over to the water and played a couple times though:

One day she was really engaged in playing with our candles.  Take off the lid, smell, put the lid back on, repeat.  I get really excited when she's engaged in playing with things because it doesn't happen that often:

Snoring:

Was trying to get a video of Harper being super desperate to eat dinner this one day (it was funny), but ended up mostly getting a funny video of Emerson sticking his tongue out (only time I've ever seen him do this):



Just a funny moment:

We went to DI and in the toy isle, of all the toys, she picked this one and pretended his hair was ice cream and tried to lick it (ew!).

Went to the grocery store and let her have her own cart (I was a little scared to) and she was in HEAVEN.  It was a little hard to keep her from running into things/people (see video), but totally worth it.  Everyone in the store was, of course, obsessed with her cuteness:

 

Potty training:

Oh my.  Let's just start this off by saying that when I was a nanny, I attempted to potty train 5 different kids and none of them succeeded before I left.  Basically, I know a lot about potty training but totally suck at it for some reason.  This time around, I followed a method called, "Potty Training in 3 days" or something like that.  The gist is that for 4 days she didn't wear a diaper AT ALL.  She wore panties and a shirt.  I told her to keep the panties clean and dry and to go pee pee and poo poo on the potty instead of in the panties.  She totally understood and had the bladder control.  The problem was that for some reason she was terrified of going without her diaper on.  Like, she'd realize she needed to go and would get this panicked expression on her face and say, "I have to go on the potty!!!!"  Then, she'd sit on the potty for a couple seconds and say she was done.  She'd try to hold it as long as she possibly could, resulting in going pee only like twice a day.  When she had to go it reminded me of childbirth.  Like, she was obviously trying SO hard not to let it come out and she was screaming and in total agony.  Poor kid.  We decided to can it, wait a few months for her to stop being traumatized, and try again.  Problem is, now she feels like pee and poop in her diaper is gross, so if she goes (even while sleeping) she'll cry (if she's sleeping, or just act uncomfortable if she's not) and want to be changed immediately.  Worst of both worlds!

A cute and catchy little song we found on youtube and a panda learning to go on the potty.  We watched it about 30 times in a row.

Poor kid fell asleep on Harp's changing mat while I was putting her down for her nap.  Luckily, it was portable!

Our peppers turned red, but are still tiny!  We didn't know what color they'd be.  It was a surprise.

I gave her this adorable little hippie bus for going pee on the potty one time.  Also, she's super cute in panties.  Just sayin.

As if this wouldn't be super cute anyway, he's got matching air Jordan basketball socks and onesie.  Socks are courtesy of my Aunt Gail.  Tom LOVES them.

Pigtails on the trampoline

Happy jumping Harp:

We went on a failed bikeride the other day.  The handlebar was loose, which made riding hard, Harp didn't love our destination and to top it off, she went #2 and I didn't bring a diaper, and she couldn't handle the grossness of it all.  Aye.

She really loves stacking things right now and she's gotten pretty good at it:

Stacking spices while "helping" me in the kitchen.

We went to the 7 Canyons Fountains at Liberty Park the other day and it was so nice to watch her happy little splashing:



I've been trying to work-out lately but I didn't have weights to use.  Instead, I was using books.  She wanted my books, so I told her to go get her own.  She grabbed a couple and came back in and did this:



She requested that I put Emerson in the "Winnie the Pooh swing" then wanted to push him.  I eventually had to ban her from pushing him because she just didn't have it in her to push gently enough, but she enjoyed it while it lasted!  His little smile at the beginning is the best:

She requested to try on Daddy's shirt.

We've gone to 7 Peaks with Tom, after work, a couple times this summer and it's been great.  Here's Harp and Tom in the wave pool:

We went on a walk around the lake in Daybreak and she kept wanting me to give her "flowers."  I gave her this reed and she decided it was a "popsicle flower."

 Just having fun in the backyard:

We got a monitor for Emerson, so now I can put him in another room sometimes and have peace!  Without a monitor I would NEVER hear him because he barely ever cries and when he does it's a really quiet cry.

So, the biggest thing that happened this month, for me, was that my Grandpa passed away.  It was my dad's dad.  He had cancer and we knew he was on his way out, but it's still weird to think that he won't be there anymore when we get together with family.  It's weird to think of my grandma by herself (they were such an inseparable unit!) and it's sad to think that (in this life) my kids will not remember him and that Tom never experienced the Christmas Ever dinners they used to have at their house every year.  On the other hand, I feel like he's got to be pretty happy seeing all his family again (we believe that families are together after death) and finally knowing exactly what it's like on the "other side."

I flew out to California for the funeral, took Emerson with me and left Harp with Tom (who took a day off).  I missed Harp and Tom, but it was kind of nice having some dedicated time with just Emerson.  Poor kid gets a little neglected most of the time.  He was a champ and slept the whole way there.

The best thing about the funeral trip was seeing family, especially family that I haven't seen in a long time.  My sister, Sarah, moved to Houston and I wasn't sure when I'd see her next.  I'd never met her second child (the other baby in the pic below).  There were a lot of cousins there that I hadn't seen in a long time, as well.

Emerson LOVED all the attention he got.  My nephew Cash (in the blue shirt) really really liked him and was SO sweet with him.  He kept calling him Harper though, lol.

The other great thing about the funeral was learning things about Grandpa that I didn't know before.  Like that he was one of the top 10 genealogists in the church (more than 50,000 names!) and more about his childhood and how he was as a dad.

It was good to get back home though.

Here's Harp just being happy, enjoying her "Iggy show":

More swing time. 

She's really into trying on our shoes these days.  Even I have trouble walking in these!

Two things about this photo.  One - she randomly requested to wear this pink jacket even though it was quite hot and wore it for hours.  She spent like an hour playing with these bouillon cubes.  Bouillon cubes...who knew?

We went to the mall and rode the train.  She LOVED it.  She was in heaven.  Finally, something she likes doing that's outside the house!

Dress up at its finest.

I went to put on my shirt for the day and Harp requested to wear it instead.  She looked super cute running around in it and really loved wearing it:

This is just a little video illustration of Harp's current stage.  It seems like she's throwing tantrums almost constantly:

These blocks that she got from our friend Jill last Christmas have been used for so many things.  This week they were a train (that she's riding):

And a house for her "guys":

We babysat for one of our friends from our old ward one day and it was the best.  I'm of the opinion that if I'm already watching Harp (and Emerson), I might as well be watching another toddler too, because they entertain each other and make my life easier.  Harp LOVED playing with her friend and was laughing at her all the time.  Plus, her friend was super sweet and was really great at sharing.  It was pretty cute all around:

In the afternoon, after babysitting, we were trying to pass the time before Tom got home and we decided to try out a new mall that we hadn't been to.  It was a total fail.  We had tons of traffic getting there, because of an accident.  Then, when we got there we discovered they didn't have any play area or anything.  Harp kept requesting to go down the slide and ride the train, because there's one at the other mall.  Instead, we ended up playing with legos at the lego store, wandering around the Container Store, wandering around period...

Harp's new preferred way to ride the stroller.

and playing with some (3) quarter rides we found:

She was scared of several of them once they started moving, but really liked this one.

There's just something delicious about a little baby all wrapped and ready for bed.  Plus, Emerson is always very smiley and talkative right before bed.  Such a cute :) .

Harp has been in a TERRIBLE mood most of the time lately.  She's had nearly non-stop tantrum and everything you can (and can't) imagine.  My favorite one today was when she threw a fit because she couldn't eat the lollipop the pig was eating in one of her books.  Yup.  However, the other night she was in a rare good mood.  Tom wasn't feeling well and she was being super sweet and cuddly with him (and me).  Then, she helped me with the food I was making.  It was the perfect recipe for her to help me with and she was so happy and obliging the whole time.  It went a little past her bedtime but I was just enjoying it too much to send her to bed.  She really loved them "yemons" and was carrying one around and sucking on it.  I tell ya, there is nothing better than a happy Harp.  You know that saying, "When Mom's happy everyone's happy?"  Well, in our house I'd substitute "Harp" for "Mom."  Anyway, here's the token pic:

Projects

I got back into project mode this month and it felt so good.  I made Sunday pants, Sunday shorts, suspenders and a bow tie for Emerson out of an old pair of Tom's Sunday pants.  

This is what he wore to the funeral.

They don't fit yet, but should fit nicely this fall/winter.

Finally, I made a cushion that you put on the handle of Emerson's carseat to make it more comfortable to carry it in the crook of your arm:

And that's the month!

June, July and Some Random Older Stuff

Well, this could be my longest post ever.  I mean to do a blog post for June, at the beginning of July, but was too busy.  So, I decided to just do June (a big month for us!) and July in 1 post.  Plus, in case that wouldn't be a long enough post, I realized there were some pictures and videos from my nice camera, from Tom's camera and from our video camera that never made it on the blog.  I decided that since I was already making a massive post, I might as well include those too and just get it all done at once.  So, here we are!  I'll try to make nice, big headings to separate the 3 main sections.  Here we go!

Random Old Stuff

This video is from when we went to Disneyland right after Harper had her 1st birthday.  Ooooh the Quasimodo crawl :) :

Family Liberty Park trip.  No idea how old she was.  Somewhere between 14 and 18 months?

Playing basketball in our old apartment:

Fell asleep playing with toys in our old apartment.

Showing us how good she is at kicking in the water (in our old apartment):

This is from when Tom's sister, Jen, and her family came to visit back in April.  Harper had soooo much fun with the cousins:

These next few pictures are from when I went to Miami and went with my friend, Alyse, and her son to the Deering Estate.  I posted the pictures my friend took in the April post, but not any that I took:

Flag day :) .  Harp is quite as obsessed with the US flag as she used to be but she still loved it.

June

Well, June was pretty much centered around Emerson's being born.  He was born June 4th, so the first couple days of the month I was just trying to pass the time before the baby came.  

This video is from just a few days before I went into labor with Emerson.  I took Harper to a little kiddie pool (called a "splash pool") in Daybreak.  She LOVED it, I did have to worry as much about her because of the shallow depth, and I even made a couple friends.  It was a pretty great outing:

A day or two later I met up with the new friends at a splash park in Daybreak.  Here's Harper at the end of the outing, when we were getting ready to go home:

I took this post to commemorate what I thought would be Harper and I's last "bed" nap.  She'd been napping in her crib for the first half of her nap, then finishing on the bed with me.  I secretly loved it and was sad to think it would end when Emerson came.  I took this on the day my water broke, just a couple hours before heading to the hospital.  Happily, Emerson is such a good sleeper that we've been able to continue this tradition up to now.  But, this picture does represent to me the end of the era of it just being Harper and I.

Then, I was in labor and in the hospital, which I've already detailed.  

The next few are from the hospital.  I may have included some in previous posts, but am too lazy (and busy!) to check:

The next few videos are from when we took Harper to the NICU to meet Emerson for the first time:

Doesn't he look immediately much better with all the tubing, etc. removed?

My little Exam Room that I stayed in after being discharged:

He had to do a carseat test before leaving the hospital to make sure he still breathed well while in the carseat.

About the time when Emerson came home from the hospital is when I started to feel worse.  The pain down where my stitches were got really bad, to the point where walking was agony and I would hold onto Tom as I walked, whenever possible.  But even when I was just laying down, on my side and being perfectly still it would sometimes hurt really bad.  I was taking at least 3 sitz baths a day and would usually pump at the same time because Emerson still hadn't gotten the hang of breastfeeding and the only time I was comfortable enough while laying back on my bum (as opposed to my side) was in the bath.  That made both breastfeeding and pumping hard.  Because I couldn't really get up and do anything, Tom had to pretty much take care of all 4 of us by himself.  I was so glad I'd prepared lots of freezer meals!  

First picture at home, with the blanket I made for him and his Tiger.

Blanket made by my grandma.

Harper giving Emerson kisses:

Hat was made by some random nice person who donated them to the hospital for new babies.

The blanket I made for him.

Where he has spent the summer.

Harper holding him:

She always wants to lay  next to him when he's on a blanket on the floor.

She fell asleep on the floor with Dad and then he snuck out.

By the time my mom came, a week after his birth, Tom was exhausted and going a little nuts.  I think he was kind of glad to go back to work.  So, my mom swooped in and took over.  One of the best things about having my mom around was that she took Harper on a lot of fun outings.  One of the things that stressed me out the most about this period was not being able to really be a mom to Harper.  I felt like all the things that I normally do with her were being done with someone else, by necessity - feeding her, dressing her, playing with her, comforting her, taking her on outings, putting her down for naps, getting her out of her crib in the morning, etc.  I felt like it was really confusing her too.  I felt like she was thinking, "why won't mommy just get up and do this with me?"  In fact, a few times she came over to me and said, "mommy, get up!"  I missed our bond soooo much.  But, I was really glad to see her having fun with my mom.  That definitely helped.  

Possibly a glimpse of his future, since Harper's eye issues are genetic.  Pretty cute if you ask me.

Blanket was a gift from Tom's coworkers.

I love newborn hands and their tendency to end up at the face.

My mom took Harper to the mall:

They rode the train!  She was so excited and kept telling me about it when she got home.

 And played in the mall play area:

My mom also took her to the Museum of Natural Curiosity (Children's museum) at Thanksgiving Point:

She looooved playing with these scarves:

The sandbox at the Museum.

Snuggles with Daddy.

Harper loves Baba and Papa's (Tom's parents) train set.

Playing with cousin Ellie (aka, Harper's favorite activity):

Olives make fun toys. Grandma's idea.

Yo, you wanna fight?  Huh?  Huh?

On the 12th, a Friday, I decided I needed to go back in to the doctor and get checked out since I was feeling much worse than is normal.  Well, much worse than is normal for most people since I had an even worse recovery (by a lot!) with Harper.  Because of Harper's recovery, it was hard for me to know if the pain I was in was just normal or not.  But, when I'd call and talk to the on-call midwives they'd tell me it wasn't normal and my mom did too.  So, we called around and got me in to see a midwife that Friday, so I wouldn't have to wait til Monday.  After examining me, she decided that my stitches were probably infected.  She had me start on a course of antibiotics preemptively instead of waiting for test results.  I'm so glad we went in and that I started taking the antibiotics because it turned out that I did have an infection and I started feeling MUCH better within 48 hours.

With Harper, instead of feeling really really horrible for a week and a half, I felt that back for about 5 weeks.  We never did figure out why, and even wondered if I might be allergic to the material they use for the stitches.  But, after what happened with my recovery this time, I'm wondering if by some crazy chance I got an infection both times and just never knew last time?  I don't know though, because the chance of getting an infection is pretty small and to have it twice seems very unlikely.  I'll probably never know.  I just really hope that if I ever have another kid, the recovery ends up being normal!

So, after the antibiotics kicked in, I still felt crappy and had a hard time walking around, but it was WAY better.  It was like that for another week or so, and then got better again.  Then, another week or so after that I felt almost totally better.  I was just so grateful that it didn't last for 5 weeks because I was so so worried that it would!  If I'd just known that I'd only be in that pain for a week and a half, then I think I would have been able to bear it much better.

Basically, as soon as I started feeling kind of better, I started going on small outings.  Nothing too strenuous:

First outing as a family of 4.  It went great!

We all went to the Leonardo with my mom.  It's a pretty cool museum!  Harper loved this exhibit:

Anyway, a little over a week into my mom's visit, my Dad came to join her.  The day after he came was Father's day and, since it was the only Sunday he'd be there, we did his blessing (at church) that day as well.

Emerson's blessing day:

I just realized that my dad isn't in any of the blessing day photos!  Sad!  

Harper likes to say "hi" to EVERYTHING and it's super cute.  I tried to get it on video:

We went back to the Museum of NC with my dad and she still loved the scarves:

Blanket from my Aunt Gail.  I tell you, this kid lucked out on the blanket front.

 One day we went to the grocery store and there was a firetruck parked outside.  My dad took Harper over to see it (she loves them) and there was a fireman in it, who gave her a hat!  She loooved it.  She also got a little mini icecream cone from the deli.  Who knew the grocery store could be so exciting?

One day, Harper had a lollipop.  She was walking around sucking on it while she played and then at some point couldn't find it.  We all tried looking for it with no luck.  Finally, at least an hour later I found it:

On my parents' last day in Utah we met up with my dad's old college roommate, Matt Love, at Temple Square:

Harper has been demoted to the lower stroller seat, but doesn't seem to mind.

Towel head:

After my parents left, and I was left to take care of two kids on my own, we went on our first outing, just the 3 of us, to the 7 canyons fountains at Liberty Park.  Harper wasn't THAT big of a fan (she liked it better last year), but it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, so I'd definitely call it a success:

One of the things that drove me nuts while I was incapacitated was not being able to put things away where they went and just run the household the way I like it.  So, once I was feeling well enough to do those things I actually enjoyed all those tasks that I used to be so tired of doing!

The day after my parents left, Tom's brother Bob's family came to visit for just a few days.  His 3 year old daughter, Anna, especially loved Harper and got such a kick out of the fact that she could get her to say any word.  Over and over she'd say, "Harper, say (insert word)."  Then, Harper would repeat it and she'd laugh.  It was like Harper was her toy.  In this video I tried to re-create it:

My mom gave Harper this awesome train toy.  She loved it and still plays with it every single day (a rarity for this kid, for sure!).  She especially loved riding on it with her cousin, Ellie:

cheeks :)

Went to the splash pad.  Harper, of course, didn't like it:

One day (for the first time), I let her pick out her own shirt.  Of all the (many) shirts in her closet, she chose this one.  She called it "Baba's shirt" for some reason and was so excited about it:

My mom bought us this bouncer and I especially like the zip up feature, for built in Harper protection!

Harper LOVES swinging these days and can do it for quite a while.

When all the visitors (my parents and then her cousins) were here, Harper got a little overwhelmed and was VERY tantrum-y.  It was terrible.  Some days she looked like this virtually the whole day:

Since having two kids I've taken it a little easy on the outings front.  Mostly because Harper has become a bit more of a homebody and less because it's harder to go out or something.  As a result I've had to come up with more things for her to do at home.  Before he was born, I kind of anticipated more home-time, so I go supplies and wrote up instructions for a bunch of activities for Harper to do at home.  One of them was painting.  This was her first time:

She didn't so much want to put paint on the paper as much as she just wanted to squish it in her hand and tell me what color it was.

She definitely tried to eat it at one point and was sorely disappointed.  She didn't try that again.

July

Sometimes when Harper is particularly difficult I will dress her especially cute the next day, in hopes that she'll be so cute that it will increase my patience.  Here's Harper and Emerson after a particularly difficult day:

At the Thanksgiving Point sandbox again.  This time with just me:

She LOVED the laundry activity at the Children's Museum.

Harper just being cute (including counting):

Tom's sister lives in Japan and sent this funny little Japanese book to Harper.  We have no idea what is says but has a bunch of pictures of (sometimes unidentifiable) food.  Here's Harper telling us what all the pictures are:

Painting in the bath is the best.  Lots of fun and easy easy cleanup!

Usually I give Harper one food at a time.  One day, though, I gave her BOTH animal crackers AND raisins at the same time.  She was SO excited!!!

She even took the snacks for a ride in her baby stroller:

Over 4th of July weekend we went to our sister-in-law, Rachel's, family cabin with Tom's family.  The cabin was awesome and built by a couple of her family members.  It made me want one someday!  We had a lot of fun being together.  Below is a pic from when we went on a family walk:

We just stayed at the cabin for one night and on the second day, Harp had a total meltdown that lasted most of the day, with a few small breaks here and there.  It started at the cabin.  Then, we went to a lake that was close-by for just a short time (it wasn't a great lake for little kids and we weren't really dressed for it and it was cold).  On the way home she screamed pretty much the whole way.  It was lovely.

Harper and Emerson at the same age.  Do you think they look alike?

Harper likes to dress up all her "friends" and do pretend play with them. It's pretty cute.

One day she decided to try on some of Tom's clothes:

Harper really likes touching Emerson, especially his hands:

The patch.

Tom got really good seats (4th row!) to a pre-season Jazz game, so I took the kids up and rode the trax to the game...by myself, with no stroller and no carrier.  I even took the wrong train (I was a BIT distracted) and had to backtrack.  It was HARD, but people were SO nice.  Each time I got on a train or went to sit on the bench at the station people would offer me seats.  It was really touching.  Harper loved it and Emerson slept through it:

All decked out for the game. Socks and blanket courtesy of my Aunt Gail.

It has gotten really difficult to do family selfies.

Went to the mall with my mother-in-law (in a wheelchair) and my sister-in-law (with her double stroller) and my double stroller.  We were a regular armada.

Emerson started smiling at about 5 weeks old:

Harper has started expressing her opinion on what she wears.  Here she is with two different shoes.

Tried bath painting again.  It was all fun and games until...

Harper loves dress-up clothes these days:

She loves to lay down next to Emerson :) .  She's patting his head here.

Tom and I had our 5 year anniversary on July 9th.  We would have loved to spend the night in a hotel or something, but with two littles it was a bit hard to arrange.  Instead we took Emerson with us for a lovely fancy dinner at a French restaurant called Franck's.  Emerson was the perfect 3rd wheel.  He slept through it and didn't make a peep.  The food was AMAZING.

My favorite part was these brussel sprouts!  Seriously, even if you don't like brussel sprouts, I bet you'd like this.  It was amazing.

Steak

Duck with risotto

All the food was fabulous, and we even got dessert.  I got a mango creme brulee, which was just perfect.

She likes to stand on things and tell us she's tall.  The other day she stood on this really this book and said it.  It made her like half an inch taller.

So, as I mentioned earlier, Tom's brother's family came just after my parents left, but only for a weekend.  Then, a week and a half later, or so, they came back for a longer visit (maybe a week?).  Harp both loved having them around and got a little overwhelmed.  Like, she was super excited and loved having other kids to play with, but she was soooo tantrum-y and clingy.  I loved it because I got human interaction during the day and didn't have to entertain Harp a whole lot.  But, of course, I hated the cranky Harperness.

Tickle war just after she woke up from her nap.

Trying to catch flying dust particles:

Trying to catch Emerson's smile.  It's hard to video and look a baby in the eye at the same time:

Harper has never been a fan of milk.  However, with Emerson drinking "mama's milk" and her cousin Eliza at the house, carrying a bottle of milk around with her, Harper's interest peaked.  She requested a bottle of milk and was super happy carrying it around a taking tiny sips.  All in all, she still only drank maaaaybe 1 oz of it though:

Cousin Laura loved holding Emerson and the feeling was definitely mutual.  The poor kid gets a little neglected sometimes, so this was a special treat for him and he always slept very soundly with Laura.

Emerson's first book.  He's a fan.

Sometimes after Emerson's early morning feeding (6ish?) he just falls asleep on the bed and I let him stay.  Then, I try to take a little nap while I wait for Harper to wake up.  He's a very sweet bed companion.

Ring Around the Rosie with the cousins:

Emerson enjoying some cousin time.

5 little girl cousins 3 years and under, with Harper right in the middle.  Heaven for her.

Tandem skateboarding

For a few weeks Harper had been pointing it out to me every time she saw someone with their toenails or fingernails painted.  I mentioned it to Tom's sister, Em, and she was kind enough to paint Harper's toenails (I am HORRIBLE at this skill).  Harper was super happy about it.  It's a few weeks later now and she still shows them to me all the time.  One funny thing was that when Em was done painting them and they needed to dry we could NOT keep her from wiggling her big toe and the next toe together.  It was like she was utterly compelled to do it and couldn't stop herself.

Harper really seemed to be liked by her girl cousins.  At one point, Ellie, Harper and Anna were walking up the stairs and I hear this little conversation:

Anna: Harper is my friend.

Ellie: No, Harper is MY friend!

It was cute.  Anna, in particular, was kind of obsessed with Harper.  She just wanted to give her hugs all day...nonstop.  Sometimes Harp loved it and sometimes it was a little much for her, as you can see in this video below:

One day after Bob's family left, Ellie came over and I took she and Harper on a bikeride to the park while Emerson stayed home with Em.  They had a blast, as always and were super cute together.

Harper doesn't usually love apples, but one day she just climbed up on the table, nabbed one and went to town.  There's just something about the way a toddler eats an apple that's fascinating to me:

Tom still has paternity leave days to use (so awesome!), so he took a random Wednesday off to just spend time with us.  In the morning I took Harp to the ophthalmologist (always a blast) while Tom got some things done at home.  In the afternoon, we went to the zoo!  But, before I get to the fun zoo topic, I have to mention that at the ophalmologist's we learned that Harp will probably have to have surgery on her eyes.  There's a lot I could say on that, but I don't feel like this is the post for it.  All I will say is that it's a low risk surgery, with a pretty quick recovery time, that hopefully it will improve her depth perception and that (if it happens, which we won't know until the day of) it will happen on September 9th.  Anyway, onto the zoo!  The first thing we did was ride the train!  We'd never done it before, but Harper loves trains, so we felt like it would be a good idea.  She loved it!

The water ball, of course.

Ice cream, of course.

When I go to the zoo with Harp we usually do mostly non-animal viewing related activities because she's not old enough to be THAT interested in the animals and she loves all the other stuff.  We still look at the animals a little bit though.  This time we visited the apes - my favorite.

The zoo has a dinosaur theme going on right now, in honor of Jurassic World.  As part of that they had a sand pit where the kids could dig for bones.  Harper just really enjoyed laying on it for some reason.

One day Harper was cracking me up by putting her little "baby Jesus" from her nativity down her car ramp.  Also, isn't her new rainjacket cute? :

One day we went to the library.  While there, Harper was playing with some of their puzzles.  This one, below, was her favorite, but it was missing the oval shape.

At one point she walked over to the bin that it came out of, which has a picture of what the puzzle is supposed to look like on it.  She wasn't standing close enough to see the actual puzzle, but after just a couple of seconds of looking at the picture she looked at me with a quizzical expression and said, "green oval?"  I was pretty impressed that she made that connection.

I had been meaning to take some "glamour shots" of Emerson for a while and finally got around to it around the 6 or 7 week mark.  Harp wanted in on the fun too:

The star of the show:

A couple Saturdays ago we decided to find a very easy hike and go on a family hike.  We followed this really weird car up the canyon:

Harp isn't a big fan of being in carriers and she walks, well, slowly and distractedly.  She also hasn't developed a love for the great outdoors yet, for some reason.  For all of these reasons, it can be hard to go hiking with her, but we wanted to.  We found one that seemed pretty easy online, Donut Falls, and headed up the canyon.  When we got there we found that you had to park SUPER far away from the trailhead, to the point where just walking to the trailhead would have been the extent of our hike.  Instead, we decided to have Tom drop the kids and I off at the trailhead while he went to park and then ran up to meet us.  He dropped us off, then reconsidered the plan and (realizing that it would take him a really long time to run to us) decided to park illegally on the side of the road, where a ton of other cars had done the same thing.

Anyway, we went on the hike, which went pretty well.  Harp enjoyed wandering around on the trail, Emerson slept in the carrier and Tom and I got to actually have a conversation, for once.

When we got back to the car, though, we had gotten a ticket :( .  A bunch of other cars had done the same thing, but only about 4 of us had gotten tickets.  Strangely, it was also marked as a misdemeanor and mentioned something about appearing in court.  We kind of thought it must be a big mistake and kind of thought we should be worried at the same time.  Thankfully, a few days later, they sent us a $40 ticket and we were a bit relieved.

Harper enjoying her vacuum toy:

Did some impromptu babysitting the other day and ended up with 4 kids under 3.  You'd think it would be hard, but these three ended up swinging the whole time while Emerson napped on a lawn chair.  They were pretty cute.

She was SO excited to get this special cereal treat at the grocery store and wanted me to take a picture so she could "show daddy."

Harp just being Harp:

Hiding in the cupboard.

She's been loving water balloons.

Harper playing with her train (from Grandma) while I nap:

We went to the preview event for the Pioneer Day Parade:

We went to the children's museum with a new friend.  Here's Harper with her beloved scarves, looking a bit like ET:

We went outside to the gardens for a while and Harp reeeally enjoyed throwing little fish food pellets to the Koi:

On another day I took her to the farm at Thanksgiving Point.  She was a total bum.  

We waited like 20 minutes to ride the ponies and then she screamed when I put her on one.  That was fine, but she was even more of a bum when I tried to show her the animals.  Every time I'd try to point out a new animal She'd look at it with disgust and just say, "nope." and walk away.  She's in this weird stage where she seems to be unimpressed with everything we do.  It's lame.

I love when she reads to herself.  Her glasses make her look extra smart and studious.

Just being cute while she eats:

Rockin' out to Weezer on a Saturday morning:

She was just really cute at church one Sunday.  She was so happy to have a pink lollipop (in her hand) which the Primary President gave to her.  Nothing better than a happy Harp.

Got a bike seat for my bike so that now I can take both kids on bike rides.  It was a pretty happy outing:

We biked to the park:

I was proud of her for getting up on the dinosaur by herself.  Usually I have to help her:

She had fun running to me and having me tickle her:

Oh, and she's obsessed with wearing this fuzzy stuffed bowtie, which she calls a necklace.

We went to the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point.  She was a little nervous about certain parts of the Museum where it was kind of dark and was generally unimpressed.  She did like a couple areas though.  She kiiiind of liked when we watched a Robot movie in the theater they have there, but I'm not really sure.

She was too short to reach the sand and water :( .

Took the kids to Burger King.  Harper has been really into dipping things in sauce lately, so she liked that.  Plus, she got a cookie!

After eating, we went into the play area.  It was pretty much too old for her and she was just wandering around bored until...a hoard of kids descended on it all at once!  She got SO excited and was prancing around, chasing them, squealing.  This kid LOVES other kids.  I'm sure they were thinking, "what the heck?"

Harper talking on the phone:

We went to IKEA one day, to kill time, and Harper had a pretty good time.

Playing in one of the kid rooms.

Playing on the rocking moose

Being cute while eating:

Singing the ABCs:

On a train with her friends

awesome hair

Through his work, Tom ended up volunteering at the Deer Valley Music Festival and getting an additional ticket for free.  We got free tickets and went to it while I was pregnant with Harp, but ended up leaving early because I was super uncomfortable (you lay on the ground and I was in the late 3rd trimester), we didn't realize it would be cold and hadn't brought warm clothes/blankets and hadn't brought food (you can bring in any food you want and we were starving and staring at all the great food around us).  We were really impressed with it though and really wanted to try it again and do it right.  So, when Tom got the volunteer gig and the free ticket we decided to get a sitter.  Our friends, Jill and Dave, were kind enough to watch Harper for us.  She always has a blast with them:

We brought Emerson along, picked up some good food along the way and dressed warm.  I got there pretty late through circumstances outside of my control, got what I believe was 1 of only 2 parking spots left in their entire huge parking lot, strapped the baby onto me and starting lugging all our stuff up the big hill to the where they perform.  It was a loooong way and I wasn't sure I was going to make it when I noticed a hot guy in a security vest staring at me.  My first thought was that he was hot, my second was that he was staring at me and my third was, "hey, it's Tom!!!"  I wasn't sure if he'd really be able to join me, but he'd gotten the easiest job ever and got out of it early and was like my night in shining armor when he took all the stuff I was struggling to carry up the hill.  So, we ended up getting to enjoy the show together, even though we missed a big chunk of it.  Emerson was a pretty cute third wheel:  

Sadly, since we came up separately, we had to drive home separately too.  And driving home took a really long time because of all the concert traffic and the fact that we were in the far reaches of Park City.  We were pretty tired by the time we got home, but it was a great night.  Oh, and Dave & Jill even let Harp spend the night so we were able to sleep in the next morning.  Good times!

Finally, before I close this post, I just want to do a little update on the kids.

Harper:

- He language abilities just keep skyrocketing!  She creates full sentences, quite few words long and generally very grammatically correct.  It's not uncommon for her to say something like, "Daddy is eating an apple."  I feel like most toddlers would probably say something more like, "Daddy eat apple."  She even tells jokes!  For instance, one time we were giving her enchiladas for dinner and she said, "Enchiladas! Enchiladas!  Enchi-harp-iladas!"  Another time, I said something about laundry and she said, "laundry, laundery, laundsery, laursery, narsery, nursery!  Then when I said laundry again a few days later, she looked at me with this little, "i'm so funny" look and said, "nursery!"  Nursery is where the little kids go at church.  Another time, when we were hiking, Tom pointed out a pinetree and she said, "pineapple tree!"  Finally, one time I was telling her where something was and I said, "by the TV."  So, she said, "by the TV...BITE the TV!!!" and went over and bit the entertainment center and giggled.  These are just a few examples.

- She had a big growth spurt and finally grew out of the 9-12 month clothes she'd been wearing!  Now she mostly wears 2T!  She's still a shorty though.

- She stopped being cranky a couple days after all the visitors left and now is back to her happy, sweet, funny self.

- She really likes Emerson.  Sure, she's also tried to stomp on his face a few times, but that was more to get me to react than to hurt him.  Whenever she sees him she says, "beebee!!!" in a super high pitched voice and then points out whether he's sleeping or awake.  If he's awake she'll point out his eyes.  She really likes holding (and pulling at) his hands too.  Oh, and she loves to give him kisses.  If she ever hurts him (not that uncommon), she'll always say, "sorry beebee!" and give him a kiss.

Emerson (Don't read if you have hard babies and don't like hearing about easy ones.):

- Wow, we really lucked out with this kid!  Basically, in all the ways that Harper was an easy baby he's somehow even easier and in all the ways she was hard, he's easy.

- He slept 4 or 5 hours straight at night from day one and just gradually lengthened it.  At this point (end of July), he sleeps from around 8:30pm til anytime between 4 and 7:30am without waking, then will often go right back to sleep til 8:30 or 9am.

- He loves to cuddle but will also fall asleep on his own wherever you put him (crib, floor, bassinet, bed, carseat).

- He started smiling around 5 weeks of age and even laughs sometimes.  It's SO cute.  It's pretty easy to get him to do it too.

- He is a HUGE grunter and snorter, but not much of a crier.

- He has SO much gas.

- He almost never has blow-outs.

- He loves Harper and she was the first one he smiled at (even though she wasn't even looking at him).

- He takes a binkie, but isn't as attached as Harper was.  He doesn't always have to have it to fall asleep and if it falls out after he's asleep he doesn't need you to put it back in.

-  He has dreamy eyes.

Oh yeah, and in case the last couple months weren't crazy enough, we became service missionaries.  I'm tired and want to end this blog post, so all I'll say for now is that we help out with a local church branch (congregation) whose members are mostly refugees mostly from Swahili speaking areas of Africa.  I think I'll have more to say about it next month anyway, so that's all for now!