Costume Party

On Monday, Harper and I went to a fun costume party hosted by Erin and Duke Trevor. I think I counted 11 mommas and 13-14 kids (all under age of 2). The kids enjoyed playing in their costumes. I didn't get a good picture of Harper but she was a ballerina. Thanks to my friend Sarah for making the cute tutu for Harper's birthday. Here's Lindsay in the middle of Minnie mouse, strawberry shortcake, a dalmatian, a ballerina, a monkey and a cowboy. Pierce the Guitar.

Lindsay and her little Minnie Mouse and Ashley and her little bumble bee.

Harper was checking out the Great Dane and the Wolf that live in the back yard!
Harper and Pierce playing. "Hey mom - this tutu is crimping my style!"
The funniest part of the whole morning was when we decided to try to get a group photo of all the kids on the couch together in their costumes. We put all the babies on the couch and then the moms all stood back with their cameras and tried to get a good shot. It was mass chaos because one started crying then they all started screaming. They were all crawling off the couch in different directions. I decided to capture a quick video of the chaos!

Thanks to Erin for hosting our little costume party.

Puzzled

When Harper was born, my mom went through her attic and found some toys and books that my sisters and I used to play with. It is fun to see Harper playing with things that I used to play with. (not that I remember playing with them.) There are several of these old wooden puzzles. We are practicing our vegetables with this one. Trying to figure out where the carrot goes. "Mom, can you help me with these potatoes?"

Not sure what this pose is all about.

I love this sweet face!

"Look mom - I'm eating my veggies." Too bad these are the wooden kind and provide no nutritional value.

Our little Entertainer

Thanks to Abigail for giving Harper this fun little toy that is a little computer, music station and karaoke machine all in one. It's been in Harper's closet for a while but I just put the batteries in last night. It didn't take her long to figure out which buttons changed the song. She loved dancing to the music.

Here she is checking it out for the first time. "I think I'll sing a song."

"Or maybe I'll just eat the microphone."

Here's one more video.

Fun afternoon

This morning Harper and I let Jeff sleep in. On Friday nights after games he has to stay at school and break down all of the film. I think he came in around 2:30 this morning. We try to let him sleep in a little before Harper is ready to play with her daddy!! The weather has been a little dreary this week. Today was too chilly to take her outside and walk around so we went to Willow Bend mall. They have a great play area for kids. Here is Harper plotting her first move.

On the moveThis was just before she decided to tumble off the edge. Good thing the floor is padded.

Sliding with daddy.

" You want me to smile? Why would I do that?"

After playing at the mall, we headed to Cheesecake Factory for a yummy dinner. We enjoyed our day together.

Clean Plate Club

Harper has hit a not so fun stage in regards to her eating habits. She likes to pull her bib off every 30 seconds while eating. She thinks its a game. So last night I just stripped her down and let her eat without a bib. She was much happier. Another struggle I'm having is getting her to eat her vegetables. When she was younger I made all of her baby food and she ate veggies like a champ. But now that she is "feeding herself" by picking up what she wants - she is not liking the veggies so much. I've tried different tactics to get her to eat them. Instead of dumping the food on her high chair tray, I left it on a plastic plate. She loved picking the food off of the plate and then before I knew it she had cleaned her plate. She decided that she would lick it clean also.

"Ladies and Gentleman - We have our first induction into the clean plate club!"

* Don't mind the turkey dog pieces that she left on her tray. What I was most excited about was the eating of the squash!

Lately...

Harper is so fun these days - she is into everything and driving me crazy some times. She got these cool blocks from her cousin Austin for her birthday. She has started to figure out how they stick together. She still loves reading - morning and night.

"Mom - if you didn't want me to get these down, then you should have put them higher."
"If I stand on my tip toes, I can still reach them."

Harper and Jeff went to a baseball game on Saturday. I didn't even think to send sunscreen with them. We managed to go all summer without getting her sunburned - and then in October she gets it! You can't really tell in this picture - but her arms were both bright red. We felt horrible!

She enjoys going to the park with our new friend Addison that lives behind us. Addison is just a few weeks older than Harper.

Murphy's Law: A baby will always want something that the other person has."Your water bottle is cooler than my cup."

Harper has a fascination with climbing into things- boxes, cabinets, and now small metal objects.

Our attempt at one year photos

Yes I know - I'm a little behind. I just had Harper's one year old photos taken yesterday. This was our first attempt at professional photos of her. She really didn't want to cooperate. She wouldn't keep her hair bow in, she wanted to take off her shoes and socks, crawled around the room and wouldn't smile when we needed her to.

Already pulled out her bow and the socks and shoes.

Of course she had to pick up the letters and rearrange them and then throw them.

"Get me out of this thing - it itches!"

Refusing to smile

We tried feeding her animal crackers to make her happy - didn't really work.

Trying to escape...

After all of that effort I only ordered 1 photo. Maybe we will try again with our own little photo shoot at the park.