June Photo Dump

June was very full.  Summer started so Cody, Taylor, and Carleigh were home everyday.  We did lots of fun stuff to keep ourselves busy and enjoyed the outdoors as much as we could when it wasn't too hot.  Finished the month at my parents and July will be a new adventure for us in Denison.  

Loves Playdough

Playing Hide and Seek in the pillows

Always wants to go play at the park

Visiting Daddy at his school on the last day

Day 1 of summer - Golf for Cody

Harper always wants to sit up front or drive.  We are entering the 

phase of fighting getting in the carseat. 

Coloring

Sunday morning cartoons with the cousins at Mimi and Pops house.

Harper has started "going boneless" when I ask her to do something she doesn't want to do.  I can't get her to walk or pick her up, she just goes limp and falls to the ground.  I get frustrated, especially when we are in public.  My friend Lisa told me to just walk away and eventually she would stop.  I finally walked away from her the other day in Target and she crawled around on her hands and knees for over 5 min.  Never once worried about where I had gone (I was hiding around the corner).  What a turkey.

Doesn't everyone get into the pool in their heels?

Enjoying the weather in her kiddie pool

Playing catch with the dogs at the pond.  

Maggie loves to swim now.

Combing Pop's hair.

I used to sit on the top of the couch and comb my dad's hair when I was bout 6.  

I was such a daddy's girl.  It's so cute to see her doing it now.  

First batch of homemade cookies.  Of course I let her have a (tiny!) lick.  

Her poor cookies didn't get any chocolate chips because of soy.

This girl is potty trained and out of a high chair.  She is growing up so fast!

Harper the Hilarious

2 year Stats and Info

All moms are biased, I'm sure of that.  But of course I think my kid is pretty stinking amazing.  She can make my whole day better.  She can truly make us laugh out loud about the dumbest things.  She is usually smiling and happy to be doing whatever every day.   And she loves me.  In all my imperfections, she loves me and trusts me completely.  What a fabulous self esteem boost.

At 2 years old, Harper is in tall and weighs 26 lbs.  That is 25% in height and 75% in weight (um, yikes).  She doesn't seem short or fat though, so i'm not too worried.  However, after a meal that belly sticks out like it's about to burst.  

Her hair is a fabulous mixture of blonde and almost white hair and it probably goes almost halfway down her back.  It's getting pretty thick and is one of my favorite things about her.  Even Taylor has complained how unfair it is that Harper has the perfect pony tail (which she asks me to do, like mama, daily).  Her eyes are still a beautiful blue and she has almost all of her teeth (missing her 2nd year molars).  She is wearing between 18 month and 24 month clothes.  Shorts run big on her; her tiny tush can still fit into some of her 12-18 month shorts.  But shirts run small; it's the belly, and I can't let my 2 year old walk around sporting midriff bearing tops.  Feet are a 5 1/2 wide (maybe double wide...) and we wear crocs most of the time because they are just easier and fit better.

Harper still eats like a beast and loves her schedule (like always).  Wake around 7, up at 7:30.  A scrambled egg, 1/2 cup of oatmeal and a banana in the morning.  Cheerios for midmorning snack around 10.  Cheese, yogurt with granola, grapes, beans, and pita chips at 12 for lunch.  Nap from 1-3.  Afternoon snack of bunnies after nap.  Dinner around 5:30 is always different.  Since we've been living with my parents, Kristi has cooked tons of soy free meals that make dinner with Harper so much easier, and for that I'm grateful.  Bath at 7 and then books and bedtime at 7:30.  She usually lays for awhile and is alseep an hour or so later.  Life gets quiet and slow after 7:30 for us and we like it.  ALOT.

Harper talks all the time, sometimes it's understandable, sometimes it's not.  She sometimes does something to get attention and then covers her mouth and laughs and says, "Gorsh...funny.  Haha."  It's so cute and I have no idea where she got it.  Words that she says that are incorrect but adorable: Baggie (Maggie), Car-ye (Carleigh), Yuh (Yeah), 'Mon (Come on), Yuv U (Love you), Fwimmin Pool (Swimming Pool), Wunch (Lunch).  She is always asking where people and things are.  "Dada, R U?"  And everything is in the third person, she loves to tell me when "Harper" does something.  One night Cody said, "Harper, that was a stinky fart" and she repeated "stinky fart" in a sing-song voice all night long.  

We love counting.  She can count to 12 on her own, but when she gets excited she skips or repeats numbers.  She mostly counts to 4 (I don't know why).  She knows her colors.  She almost always guesses blue first, but then guesses the right color the 2nd time.  Her favorite new songs include Rain, Rain Go Away, Mr. Sun, Jesus Loves Me, Twinkle Twinkle, and a few off her ipad that include Candy Cane Jane, Blast Off Rocket Ship, and Buzz Buzz.  She also enjoys listening to her spanish jukebox on her ipad and I really don't know if she knows it's a different language or not.

Her ipad is a kid's version of one called Nabi Jr.  It is our go-car ride toy.  She loves the animal flashcards, animal sounds, counting games, puzzle pieces (she can usually get the head in the right place), the music, and now some shows that Cody put on there.  It's a fabulous toy that has saved us tons of headaches with this move.  She also loves her new Minnie Mouse dress up toy and her new baby doll stuff that she got for her birthday.  She loves to play mom.  She also has gotten very into hide and seek lately.  She is always hiding in random places, crawling under covers, or making people find her.  She absolutely loves it.

She loves people and her dad, but she is a mama's girl alot.  She does everything with me still, errands, chores, dates, etc.  She will now tell me how and when to play with her, Harper's turn vs Mama's turn, and she usually leads me around and tells me to follow her.  Sometimes this is the only way to get her to share.  She loves to play with her friends.  She likes to people/kid watch and then play with something how someone else did.  She still loves any park or playground.  She's in a timid phase where things scare her (tunnel slides, bigger kids, larger animals).  But if people let her be, she will play by herself for hours on end.  Most of the time she gets annoyed when people try to play with her, which I think is funny.  She is still a serious girl.  Walks around in her heels, accessorizing, changes clothes a lot, wants her finger nails painted and wants to wear lipstick.

  

Happy 2 years Harper Elizabeth!  It's been such a joy watching you grow this year!

A Week in Frisco with Reesey

The McCool's took Kristen and Brian to Hawaii this year for their family vacation.  They took Grayson but knew that Reese would be much harder to take.  She still takes 2-3 naps a day, can't walk on her own, and wouldn't be able to do all the fun tourist things that the older kids could do.  It worked out pretty well because we were able to stay at their house and have a mini vacation while we watched Reese.  

Day 1: Reese is happy to see us!  

Harper was seriously excited to go stay at Kristen's house.  They have a ton of toys, stairs to climb, a new dog to play with, and sweet Reesey Reesey.  Harper loves Reese.  LOVES her.  She wants to hold her, hug her, feed her, change her diaper, and do everything with her.  Everything except share her toys and share her mom.  But she really does love her.  When I got home in the afternoon on the first day with Reese (from school) and not Grayson, Harper started crying so hard because he wasn't coming home.  

Harper wanted to dress Reese everyday.  She kept showing me all 

of Reese's clothes that were "cute".  

We are in the process of thinking of having a 2nd kid.  So Kristen and I had decided that this would be good practice to see how I did with 2 kids.  It seemed like it wouldn't be hard, but as the week wore on, life got a little harder.  Harper had to get used to me holding Reese more than her, having to be quiet because Reese was sleeping, and having to share toys because Reese was younger and didn't know better.  I think she did great, it was just definitely a learning experience.  

Bathtime

Reese is a little slippery sucker

Having two is definitely more work and takes a lot more planning.  I am so glad Cody was there to get some practice too.  He pretty much took care of Harper while I dealt with Reese.  Considering that Reese decided to stop being perfect angel baby this week, I did pretty good.  Reese napped pretty well during the day, morning and afternoon, but woke crying every night and sometimes took up to 2 hours to go back to sleep.  Thankfully it was 5 hours behind in Hawaii so I could call Kristen at midnight and she would still be awake to talk.  The second night Reese was up from 12-2:30 and then woke up at 5am for the day.  That one was brutal.  

Getting a little too tired to crawl after Harper 

7:05 on the 1st night - out.  

The best part of staying at Kristen's house was the pool.  We hadn't really gotten a chance to swim much this summer, so we took full advantage.  We swam every day in the afternoon.  Harper got really good at swimming with her puddle jumper.  She would just climb in the pool and jump off the stairs and float around the pool.  Eventually, she would ask to be pushed back to the stairs, so she could jump again.  When she got back to the stairs she would say, "Yay!  Good Job, Parper!" (yep, we are talking in 3rd person for now).  She loves swimming, running around naked, and jumping in the water.  

Reese likes to be outside, but isn't as in love with the pool.  She liked to be at her water table instead or being held.  It was kinda nice that swimming time coincided with her bottle because I could just bring her high chair out and let her drink her bottle in it while we swam.  

Harper wanted to watch a show one day while we were swimming.  

Love that their backyard patio makes this happen!

We were there for 9 days and were busy almost every single day.  Our friends, the Rhode's came over one day to swim and have dinner.  Kara came over one day to swim and relax.  Taylor and Carleigh came over 3 days to swim and sleepover.  And Cody had to go to Denison 2 days to check on the house.  We only had one empty day to hang around Frisco.  

Swimming with Kara

Shopping at Target one day while Cody was in Denison with both girls.

That was an looong experience.  

Harper and Reese played well together.  They both seem to like playing with other kids.  They also both didn't mind going naked alot.  Reese was just starting table food and was so dirty after every meal. And Harper was only on week 2 of potty training, so she liked being naked so she could run to the bathroom anytime she wanted.  

Reese wanted to climb the stairs so bad after Harper.  She is quick too, so 

if you aren't watching, she is gone in a flash.  

Eating table food with Harper

We sent Kristen and Brian pictures of Reese a few times a day, showing them all the fun things she was doing.  But she is such a happy baby that she seems to always be smiling!

 Carleigh and Taylor came over for 3 days to hang out.  They swam each day, played with the girls, and watched movies with Cody and I.  We went shopping one day in Plano, ate at In & Out Burger, and hot tubbed one night before they left.  It was nice to just relax and enjoy the days.  

Hot tubbing

Swimming 

Laying out

Harper's new swimsuit was too tight already and her right check 

seemed to always be sticking out.

Reese in the water

Carleigh got to dress Reese one day and she looked SO cute.

Plus, this is pretty much all she did in the evenings, crawled around and held onto the back of your legs.  

She mostly just wanted to be held.  :)

TayTay, Harper, and Cody spent 2 hours throwing Grayson's balls on this ledge above their staircase.  They got 15 balls of all sizes up there and it only took Grayson about 10 seconds in the house to find them.  He thought it was funny!

After dinner one night, Taylor was carrying Reese and just set her down on the sidewalk to leave to go get in her car.  I wasn't paying attention and was so surprised to find Reese just sitting alone on the sidewalk.  We had to have a little talk with Taylor about why that wasn't really appropriate to leave a baby and walk away.  Poor Reesey.

Telling McCools good night fro Frisco.

Pretending to be in Hawaii with her fam...

We had a great time and it ended up being a relaxing week.  Reese was SO excited to see Kristen, Brian, and Grayson when they got back.  We left to go to Denison for a few days to do some work on the house and Kristen and Brian went to sleep for awhile (when they got home at 6am they hadn't slept for the night yet).