Wednesday, April 11, 2012
A little of this and that...January through April
Well, we are right in the midst of the two's...Terrific Two's, Terrible Two's...just depends on the day / hour / minute. Mostly it is lots of fun. We sure adore our girl as she grows and learns and says new things every day that make us laugh. Some things about Harper at 2 1/2...
1) We try to take turns who chooses the CD we are listening to in the car. When it is Harper's turn, she will usually choose the CD of praise songs our church put out. When it is Mommy or Daddy's turn, Harper will usually have a "helpful" suggestion for us. "Maybe Mommy wants to listen to the butterfly CD." I think she is going to really enjoy trying to influence a younger sibling. :)
2) Harper's favorite number is the #8. It doesn't matter what CD we are listening to, she always asks to have song number 8 repeated. And her favorite color is still blue, which has been the case since she was pretty young.
3) Probably pretty typical for her age, but Harper is becoming quite bashful with adults and strangers. We try to encourage her to say "hi" and "bye," but she really needs her warm-up time before she will open up and start smiling and talking.
4) Harper has many gifts, but we are not sure singing is one of them. She prefers chanting songs with gusto. I recognize the song from its lyrics and not the tune. And she usually likes to emphasize the last word of each line...(in a chanting voice), "Twinkle, twinkle, little STAR, how I wonder what you ARE!"
5) I think Harper has a natural understanding of numbers. The other day she held up three fingers on one hand and five fingers on the other hand and said, "Three and Five is Eight." I think she was understanding the concept of addition! Of course, her solution added up to the favorite number eight. Ha! :)
She also knows on her CDs which song corresponds to which number. One night she asked us to sing song #8 on her church song CD when we were putting her to bed. We didn't know off hand which song that was so we started singing the first song we could remember, and she said, "No, that's song #1." And she was right! She is very observant.
6) Harper has started saying her own prayers lately. For posterity sake, here was her first one...
"Dear God. Thank you for today. Thank you all those blessings. Thank you for Mimi. Thank you for Mommy's tummy. Amen."
Anyway, those are just a few things that come to mind, and here are some various pictures from the last few months...
I have been remiss to introduce this sweet little boy on the blog. His name is Sawyer. He is almost a year younger than Harper, and he has been staying with us once a week this school year. It has been a very fun introduction on what having a boy might be like, more practice for Harper with sharing and more practice for me to get used to doing things for two little ones instead of just one!
We try to go to the park each time if weather allows, and they have lots of fun running around. They also enjoy playing instruments and dancing around together in the living room.
Harper has learned the art of getting what she wants through "trading" toys. If Sawyer is holding the blue flashlight and that is what Harper wants, she knows I won't let her get away with grabbing it out of his hand, so she will bring over the green flashlight and say, "Here you go, Sawyer." And then slyly and gently take the blue one away. Sawyer almost always goes along with the trade, so it works out for now.
Harper on the tire swing
Playing in the sand...
...which almost always requires a bath when we get home.
One day Harper wanted to take her baby on a walk in the stroller all the way to our neighborhood park.
Since it was baby's first time at the park, Harper made sure that baby went on the swings and slide with her to get the full park experience! Then she pushed her all the way home too.
Our little bookworm surrounded by her literature!
And some light reading on the potty. So far potty training has not clicked. We read a ton of books and sit there...but...nothing happens. We're still waiting for that magic "aha!" moment. :)
Harper got to go to a tea party for one of her sweet friend's birthday. She came home with these darling little play gloves and bracelet. Too cute.
A pensive moment
Chilling out at Barnes and Noble. Um, we might have been needing some longer pants at that point for our tall girl. :)
Riding the carousel on a horse for the first time with Daddy. She was scared but braved the whole ride thanks to the help of Daddy's presence, and her very comforting thumb. Sweet girl.
We took a three-day trip to Austin over Spring Break to stay with Brent's Aunt Carla and Uncle Johnny and enjoy a little SXSW music. Harper adored "Mommy Fish" and "Buggy," which is what the grandkids call Aunt Carla and Uncle Johnny. Carla was so sweet to babysit for us one night so that Brent and I could enjoy a night out in Austin at a Shins concert.
We went to Zilker Park.
And we also went canoeing! We have had some unfortunate water experiences in the past, but this time we managed to stay upright! And Harper had a splendid time searching for ducks and turtles and eating from her bag of peanuts.
We stayed out for probably an hour and a half. I could have gone even longer, but as you can see, I was not rowing. I was on "Harper duty," which turned out to be quite easy and enjoyable and Brent rowed the whole time, bless him.
Harper taking in some music...
...and when she was done with that, we could always count on a good rock collection to keep her entertained!
Harper wasn't as keen on wearing her sound muffs this year. However, when she met these two sweet sisters wearing theirs, she suddenly thought they were perhaps alright to wear after all. :)
All that fun and music finally wore her out!
Being silly with some upside down glasses
The annual bluebonnet pictures...
Harper on Easter Sunday...climbing a tree? Harper had fun on two Easter egg hunts this year. She still did not collect very many eggs, though, because she would immediately sit down and open the egg to eat the contents before moving on to find another.
Harper opening up her slightly overflowing Easter basket...I will blame Nana for that. :)
Where did the Easter Bunny find those??
Our weekly Skype time with Ricky and Kim
Harper and Ricky get a little bit crazy together. And Harper wanted to show Ricky and Kim her Dora underwear from her Easter basket.
Growing, growing, growing!
And for anyone who hadn't heard, we found out at our 20 week sonogram that we are having a BOY! So excited to have a little boy in the family too!! We told Brent's family the news by putting these blue candies in Easter eggs for the family to open all at the same time.
