The many faces of Harper

When Harper was born, she received a little onesie and matching teddy bear from a company that I work with. Today I put her in the onesie and tried to get a cute pic to send to the company to thank them. She was cracking me up with all of her cute little faces.

"Mom - I'm not so sure about this thing!"

"I think I'll eat it." "Yum yum!"The perfect shot!

You want me to hold that for how long??

At the beginning of the year, Jeff and I joined the brand new 24 Hour Super Sport in Murphy. I've done pretty well at getting to the gym the last week and a half. We take turns staying home with Harper. I'm enjoying the pool and the group classes that they offer. So far, I've done a couple of spin classes, yoga, and pilates. Last Sunday I attended my first class and it kicked my butt! I was sore for 3 days. Pilates is all about strengthening your core and considering my stomach looked like this 4 months ago - I haven't done any core work in about a year. (pre pregnancy) The class is one hour long of constant moving, bending, holding, and stretching. Towards the end of class our instructor says "Ok now for the fun part." Fun part??? Not so sure about that. Try torture! We got into the "Plank position" and held it for 30 seconds. Ok not so bad. I did it.Then she says "Let's go for 60 seconds." Yikes - my whole body was burning! Then she says, "Let's go for 2 minutes!" Whew - I was done at that point. I'm going to have to work up to the 2 minute hold. Here's a few other "fun" poses that we held for what seemed like an eternity.

After class, I jumped in the pool and got a little half mile swim in before I had to leave the gym. I'm sure that I'll be sore tomorrow but it will be a good kind of sore. I have a long way to go to get back into pre-baby triathlon shape!

**Please note I found these pics on the Internet - they are not me.

Locked out and girls night

Jeff has been out of town for the past two days for the Texas State High School Baseball Coaches convention in Waco. He and the other 3 baseball coaches from Centennial left on Thursday morning. They have spent the last two days attending clinics, seminars, expos, etc. While Jeff was gone, I decided that Harper and I needed a little company. Yesterday, my college roomies - Natalie and Sarah made the drive out to Wylie to hang out for the night.

Natalie was set to arrive around 11:00am yesterday. Harper was getting a little fussy and it was 77 degrees outside, so I decided to go outside with her and wait for Natalie. I walked out of the front door and closed the door behind me. I turned back around to go inside and grab my cell phone in case Natalie called if she was lost. PROBLEM - The door was locked!! Oh no - I just locked myself out of the house!! This was a first! Thank goodness that I had Harper with me!! At this point, I realized that Jeff was out of town and we didn't have a spare key hidden anywhere. I went over to my neighbors house and asked if we by any chance had given them a spare key. We have one of their keys so I thought maybe we had given them one of ours. Nope! I couldn't think of any one else that had a key to our house except my parents.

Thankfully, they were on their way to Dallas yesterday to take my sister Carol to the airport. Natalie, Harper and I were planning on meeting them for lunch in Dallas. I called Mom and luckily she had my house key with her, so they quickly made a change of plans and came to our house instead of going straight to the restaurant in Dallas. It took them 45 minutes to get to my house so Natalie, Harper and I waited patiently at my neighbor's house. Thankfully I didn't have to call the locksmith. I've definitely learned my lesson - hide a key outside or give one to the neighbors. After our small delay, we all made our way to Plano to meet my Grandmother for lunch at the Olive Garden.
Carol had a direct overnight flight to London, a 12 hour layover, then another overnight flight to Israel. Please pray for Carol as she goes back to Tel Aviv for her ministry. Israel has been all over the news the last few weeks because of the war in the Gaza strip. Please pray for Carol's safety and protection.

After lunch, Natalie, Harper, and I went back to my house. Sarah came over after work and she and Natalie had fun playing with little Miss Harper. Harper drools so much that I keep a bib on her most of the time.
Sarah is an accountant for Brinker - the parent company for Chili's, Macaroni Grill, On The Border, and Maggiano's. One of the perks of working for Brinker is Free Food! The only chain restaurant we have in Wylie is Chili's - so it worked out perfect. Sarah ordered take out for us and we enjoyed a yummy dinner in the comfort of my kitchen. For dessert, we tried the new Chocolate Chip Cookie Molten Cake. We assembled it ourselves and it was so yummy!It's a "warm chocolate chip cookie cake with milk chocolate fudge filling, topped with vanilla ice cream under a crunchy chocolate shell." Is your mouth watering yet...

Natalie feeling pretty miserable after eating dinner and dessert.

After dinner we played cards and stayed up talking. It was so fun to have a little slumber party while Jeff was away.

Harper 4 months

I can't believe that Harper is already 4 months old. She is growing up so fast and changing every day. She loves to smile and "babble" all the time! Everything goes straight for her mouth. She loves kicking her feet up in the air. This past week she has discovered rolling over. She hates tummy time so she rolled from her back to her front first - which is opposite of what most babies do. Now every time we lay her on her back she almost immediately tries to roll over. Once she gets on her tummy she is not sure what to do next. I put toys out in front of her to see if she will start grabbing them and scooting - but she hasn't figured that out yet. On Dec. 31st we had Harper's 4 month Dr. appointment. She is growing like a little weed. She had to get shots this time so Jeff was able to come along and offer some comfort. Here's her 4 month stats:
Weight: 16.4 lbs. (95%)
Length 26 3/4 inches (100%)
Head 16 3/4 inches (75%)

Life with Harper is so much fun! It was great having Jeff home for 2 weeks over the break. He started back to school on Monday. His schedule won't be too crazy this month until baseball starts the last week.

5 Generations

I found a few more pics from our time with my mom's family over Christmas. We celebrated my Great Grandmother's 100th birthday. Here's a 5 generation picture with Harper, me, my mom, her dad, and his mom! I hope that I look this good at 100! Grandma Jane says that she reads mystery stories and does crossword puzzles to keep her mind active.

Happy 5 Years!

Whew - I'm a little behind in my postings. January 3rd marked our 5 year wedding anniversary. It seems like just yesterday that we were at our wedding surrounded by so many friends and family. We have had so many great experiences over the last 5 years it's been so incredible. Unfortunately, our wedding photographs were not digital so I don't have very many of our pics on the computer at all. Actually after looking I only have these two. I need to scan a few in so I have more in a digital version.

On Saturday evening, our sweet friends Michelle and Charlie, came over to babysit Harper so Jeff and I could go out for our anniversary. We went to PF Chang's over in Allen then went to the Cheesecake Factory for dessert! Yum yum. It was such a blessing to be able to go out on an actual date. We haven't done that since this last summer. Things definitely change once you have a baby. At dinner we were able to reminiscence about the past five years and look forward to all of the years to come.

I love you Jeff. Thanks for an AMAZING five years!

ICE

When my mom's family was all together last week, we went to the Gaylord Texan's ICE exhibit. It is a pretty amazing exhibit filled with huge ice sculptures. I think that it's less than 10 degrees in there, so they give you these big blue parkas to wear. We look pretty ridiculous but at least we were somewhat warm.

Our sweet friends, the Diamonds, met us at the Gaylord to go through ICE with us. Abigail, their almost 2 year old, had a great time. Jeff and I under the ice arched walkway. Two life size figure skaters on a pond. Jeff and I sitting on some ornaments. My favorite room was the life size nativity scene. Jeff decided he wanted to pet one of the lambs. Pretty sure that you weren't supposed to touch the ice - oh well!My grandmother kept Harper outside of the exhibit while we walked through. It was a little too cold to have her in there with us.