Trainspiration

I was uninspired while H was gone, so I waited til he returned to put together his tracks. But when he got home from Christmas with Daddy, he immediately ran to his trains. He helped me decide what should go where and we built some of the best tracks ever.

We love the new rug from Robin and Susan. It's so bright and colorful!

Mommy's Helper

And no, I don't mean Harper.

Every morning when I wake up H, or afternoon when he's getting up from his nap, Mona has to run in with me and help get him out of bed. She licks his hands and on this particular day she got halfway into his bed. It was so cute... minus the hair that was left behind...

Christmas Joy 2008

Christmas morning we woke up and headed to the living room. (Don't you love his shirt?! He's been really into the Charlie Brown Christmas story, then we found this at Target... I couldn't resist!)

Santa brought him a bike and a Thomas helmet.

He got some new Thomas stations from Mommy.

Some Pick Up Sticks from Grandmother.

Then we headed in the car to go to Uncle Steve's for the day. He doesn't look very excited, but he was tired because of the dramamine and didn't want to sleep.


He got some great new toys and books, and had SO much fun playing with his cousins. I love this picture of Kenzie... someday I'll show this to her and laugh at how innocent she looks, I'm sure. And the following picture of Conner. The sheer joy on his face fills my heart.


Every year we try to get a picture of all three kids. When Kenzie covered her eyes, I had a burst of inspiration...

Our Little Monkeys

He slept hard on the way home.

We left shortly after lunch so we could have time to ride that new bike before dark. The helmet is obviously too small, I'll have to exchange it for a larger one before he rides again.

Christmas Eve

Well, Harper had a VERY busy Christmas Eve! We had lunch at The Brook, then went home for a nap. I had to wake him up so we could go to the Christmas Eve service at our church. He wasn't really very happy with me... it's the first time he's ever said 'Just let me sleep!' lol ~ at least he likes his naps when he takes them.

Once we were at church, he had a really good time. (Not that you can tell by this picture...)

They told a story and asked the kids who were 5-12 to go up front. Harper asked if he could go and I said yes. He sat up there for 30 (!) of the 40 (!!!) minute story. Once that was over, we headed home.

We ate some dinner, then I let him open a present before bed. He picked the present from JoJo...

Can you tell he loves it?

Before bed, we set out cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for the reindeer.

Now he has visions of sugarplums and Santa will be here any minute... I'd better get to bed, or he's going to skip our house!

Chatty McGee

Here are a couple of pics of H talking on the phone. He's getting awfully good at it.

Picture Tag

Okay, so I had seen this tag going around a while back and thought it was a cute idea...

The object of the picture tag is to:

1) Choose the 4th folder where you store your pictures on your computer

2) Select the 4th picture in the folder

3) Explain the picture

4) Tag 4 people to do the same

NO CHEATING! (cropping, editing, etc!)

Here is mine!



This was taken in June 2005... H was 3 months old. We were going to have dinner with some friends to celebrate a very pregnant Darci's birthday. Isn't H handsome? We thought he was so big!

Oh, and I tag EVERYONE with the picture tag! (I know, boring---but I would LOVE to see into the lives of my favorite peeps in the world.) Leave your website in my comments when you post your pictures, or email me!

Christmas Wishes

We went to see Santa today. Harper was so excited and planned what he was going to ask for. He told Santa he wanted Thomas toys and a bike.
He said he'd been a good boy and he'd leave out cookies and milk for the Big Guy and carrots for the reindeer. Santa was pretty excited about that...

Instead of just posting pictures from today, I thought I'd post all of his Santa pics...

Getting Into the Christmas Spirit

Today when I picked up H from school, it was really cold. We decided to have chili for dinner, make hot cocoa and watch a Christmas show.

H ate most of his chili...

He helped make the hot cocoa. Here's his taste test. It was a successful batch.

We made a pallet on the living room floor so there wouldn't be a chance of spillage onto the furniture. H didn't want marshmallows in his beverage, but he did want them. So I just put them in a bowl on the tray with his cocoa.

I had told him to keep his drink on the tray, and he did. Until at one point, I didn't realize I was holding my mug, and he had to do what I was doing. It was pretty cute. I immediately set my drink down and so did he.

It was a magical night. He was so amazing and sweet.

Kicking off the Christmas Season

Harper came home from Daddy's tonight with a sugar cookie and a Christmas tree he made at school. He was sweet enough to actually share a couple of bites of his cookie with me. I had to convince him that eating the Christmas tree wouldn't be such a good idea. Who knows how many grubby little fingers from school helped apply that green icing. Ick. Fun to look at, not so good to eat.

Thanksgiving Blessings

What a wonderful Thanksgiving we had! Grandad made it and brought the green beans. Uncle Steve, Aunt Andrea and Kenzie made it and brought Uncle Steve’s famous mashed potatoes. Mimi brought the pies. As for me? Yeah. I think it was my best turkey ever. Ever. That’s right, you heard it hear first. EVER.

A couple of days before Thanksgiving H and I found some costumes in his closet. I’ve posted the pictures of H in the dragon costume. Here are some of him and Kenzie (in his horse costume we found).

While waiting for lunch, the kids got bundled up and went outside to play. How cute are they in H’s pullover hoodies and hats?

After lunch, it had warmed up enough, they didn’t need the coats. H sat down and watched our neighbors’ grandkids play in her backyard. I love this picture of him.

Here he is being spun around by Uncle Steve.

By the end of the day, H and I were pretty tired. But we had decided to see the lights come on at Utica Square with Mimi. When we got there it was SO busy. We thought there were going to be mechanical Santas and reindeer and elves. There weren’t. We thought we’d get hot cocoa from Starbucks. Not going to happen. They and Pottery Barn Kids were the only shops open and you can imagine how packed Starbucks was. Insane. H did have fun checking out PBK. They had a big dog at the door who gave H a giant hug when we got there.




Unfortunately, it was meltdown city when the ‘lights’ came on. He didn’t want to go. He didn’t care. He wouldn’t even calm down enough to hear me when I said we’d go back into the store and play. So we went home. It was past his bedtime, it had been a long day. I understood.

All in all… it was a wonderful day.

Amendment & Bragging Rights

In my post on the 24th, I told about Harper 'losing his phone at work' and saying 'it'll work itself out'. I remembered today, what he actually said was, 'No harm done!' I have to assume one of his teachers says this, because it's not something I say regularly. Still cute and not something many 3 year olds say!

I was reading to him tonight, and when I finished, I turned to the back of the book to see the titles of other stories that are available. I asked H if he knew what they said and HE DID! He started reading them to me... I was completely blown away. Some examples are 'New Baby', 'Go to School', 'Go to the Doctor', 'Moving Day' (which completely surprised me!), 'Visit the Dentist', 'Go to Camp', 'Get in a Fight', 'In the Dark', 'The Messy Room', etc. You get the point.... the Poing being my kid is a freaking genius. I mean, there are 54 titles listed, we went through 20 of them and I only had to help with 3 words: strangers, allowed and pollute. I told him HE'S going to start reading to ME at night!

I'm a Terrible Blogger!!

Well, I know I've been a terrible blogger this month. I started a new job and by the end of the day, well, it just hasn't been happening. For that, I apologize.

So now, I'm going to post a conglomeration of things that have been happening this month.

We went to see Madagascar 2 AND Bolt this month. Both are such great movies! Harper is getting better about sitting through an entire movie. He still needs to get up and move around, but he really gets into the shows and now looks forward to our dates.

Here is his scary face that he was demonstrating for me and Mimi.

Jack and his fam came over and had dinner with us last Friday. They stayed up way past bedtime and were SO good!

Here are some pictures that H took. I think they're hilarious. Obviously all at his level.





H and I were going through his closet over the weekend and found this dragon costume that Mimi bought last year or sometime. He's really into to 'Thomas, Percy and the Dragon', so he likes to wear it and pretend to be the Chinese Dragon.

He's said some funny stuff, too. He keeps referring to Thanksgiving as 'Nextgiving'. And Sunday, I hadn't taken a shower (I just didn't get around to it), so I had my hair pulled back in a pony tail and a headband on. He said, 'Why do you have this on?' pointing to my headband. I said, 'I didn't take a shower today.' He said, 'Momma... You hafta quit doin that.' Like I skip a shower all time or something. Eww.

Oh, and yesterday, he was telling me and Mimi that he left his cell phone at work. I said, 'Where do you work?' He said, 'Binger Stingers'. Okie dokie, then. He had this huge story about jumping beans of various colors and how he missed an important call, but it was okay. 'It'll work itself out.' I'm pretty sure that's what he said. Something very adult and not anything you'd expect a 3 1/2 year old to say.

Finally, he's wearing 5T clothes! Isn't that just insane? I'd stocked up on 4T jeans. Then one day he put them on and said they were too tight. And too short, for that matter. I had to go to Target and buy every pair of 5T jeans they had. I wish *I* could have that many new pairs of jeans!

I'm sure I'll have an update on Friday after Thanksgiving. I'm going to take him to Utica Square so we can watch the Christmas Lights be turned on.

Rockstar!

We were listening to Coldplay on Sunday and H started dancing and wiggling his fingers. I asked him if he was playing the guitar. He said no, so I asked him to pretend while I recorded him.

So adorable!

Cough Drop

Poor Harper has another throat infection. He's been coughing a lot, mostly when he lays down, or gets tired, since Monday night.

We went to the doctor yesterday (when he informed me that he LOVES going to the doctor... what? is this my child?), he was prescribed some amoxicillan and told to stay home for at least one day.

He's been doing well. He takes his meds like a champ. But just now, I went to check on him because he's been coughing since I laid him down at 7:30p. He had thrown up all over his pillow and Happy and Bobbies. Since Mimi is here, I dragged her in to strip his bed while I got him cleaned up. I gave him a little more cough medicine, and I can still hear him coughing some, but not as much as before.

That little guy would have slept in his barf if I hadn't gone in there. He just didn't feel like calling to me.

Hopefully, the coughing will subside and he'll get some rest tonight.

The World Dances

I posted this on H's blog back in July...

They used some of the video and the song for an Obama election celebration montage on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart....



Pardon me while I quote myself, "...along comes a dude that makes you think maybe the world isn't such a bad place to raise a child."

Footagrapher

H is practicing using the digital camera. He actually is getting the hang of it. I just thought it was funny that he said he wanted to take my picture, then he took it of his feet.

Rain Man

Harper had a fever Monday night after I put him to bed. Tuesday morning he still had a fever, so I kept him home from school. This morning, too, he was still really warm, so we kicked it at home. (He's doing much better now, so I'm sure we'll resume our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.)

When we woke up it was really overcast. Harper asked, 'Where's the sun?' I told him that it's behind the clouds. It's supposed to rain today, so we probably won't see the sun.

A few minutes later, he asked where Mona was. I told him she was laying on the back porch.

He RAN to the back door and started yelling at her 'MONA! GET IN HERE! IT'S GONNA RAIN ON YOU!' Then he struggled to open the back door to let her in. He said, 'She's not gettin' in here!' I reminded him that she has the doggie door, and she'll come in soon enough.

He was SO worried that she was going to get wet.

Halloween-day... and Night

For a couple of weeks, H would wake up and say 'Mommy, is it Halloween-day, yet?'

Harper's class had their Halloween party yesterday and the kids got to wear their costumes to school. Harper loved showing off his Thomas costume. He was disappointed when he found out that Isaac was Thomas, too, but by the end of the day, they had decided they were a Thomas Team. How clever is that? It was a good way to resolve resentment for wearing the same costume.

Here's H enjoying the cupcakes I took to the party.


That evening, Jody brought H home so I could take him trick-or-treating at some of the neighbors'. Then they headed out to go trick-or-treating with Zeta.

Mona put on her costume and helped me pass out candy.