Beginning of a new erea

March 26, 2013....the first day of Harper's life without Babas (Bottles).

We tried replacing her normal evening bottle with a sippy cup of warm milk. Harper wasn't going to be fooled - a sippy cup is not the same as her Baba. She rejected the milk, but eventually agreed to lay on Ross's shoulder. The transition to the crib was ok - she would fall asleep wake up, fuss, play, fall back asleep. And repeat. Life is hard sometimes...

Cousins Weekend in Rochester, MN

We took a spring break weekend vacation to Rochester. I know, who goes north for spring break, right?! Either way, the sun was shining and we all had a blast. The group consisted of Renee (with Addison and Brody), Dave & Steph (with Abby, Sydney and Reid), Cousin Greg & Kasey (with Jayden and Joshua) and us! Seven adults and eight kids makes for a rowdy bunch!

We stayed at a hotel with a pool that was great for the older kids. Harper and Reid, well, they weren't exactly sure about the pool. Harper was fine with the environment as long as she wasn't expected to play in the water - but walking laps around the pool was a lot of fun! In addition to swimming, a few of the highlights included...

• Feeding the geese (and ducks!) at Silver Lake. Our group went through at least 6 loaves of bread - those geese were well fed! All of the kids loved seeing the animals and not a single tear was shed during the trip. I should add that poor Reid was sleeping in the car during this trip - poor kid missed the adventure AND the group picture!
• Walking through the mall in the skywalk. Sadly, the mall is much smaller than when we lived there, but we had a great time visiting the Barnes & Noble store that looked like a castle!
• The trip to Barnes & Noble also resulted in Harper's first (and hopefully LAST) time being lost!!! Ross looked away for a moment to listen to Jayden tell him about his new book - and WHAM - she was gone. The adults quickly scattered looking for her...she had made it around 20' and quietly tucked herself into the far corner of the elevator. A backpack (aka known as toddler harness) has since been ordered from Amazon....
• Lunch at Wong's Cafe. Technically, we chose Wong...we went to the 2nd location instead of the restaurant we remember eating at growing up, but the food was still delicious and cheap!
• A tour of the city courtesy of Dave. Since Dave was the oldest, he had the best memories of the city and did a great job driving us past our schools, old house, sledding hill and more!
• Dinner at Broadway Pizza with a group of tired kids! It wasn't a great idea to go out so late, but we all enjoyed some tasty pizza and the kids enjoyed watching the toy train. The most exciting thing at our table (Whittlesey, Cesafsky, and Abby) was the lost bookmark! Immediately upon sitting down, Jayden's new bookmark got swept under the table and it took our group at least 20 minutes to fish it out - good work from Kasey, Abby and Jayden to recover it!

It was a great trip for our family and reminiscent of all the trips we took with our cousins when we were small. It was so successful that I'm pretty confident that there will be many more in the future!

ABC, 123

Harper recently discovered that her farm yard toys were magnets and began putting them on the fridge. Since she enjoyed that game so much, we ordered her some magnetic letters and numbers. She LOVES putting them on the fridge and then taking them off and placing them back in the bucket. We haven't put too much time into identifying the letters and numbers yet, but it won't be long until she is counting and starting to know her alphabet!

SUPER BABY!!!!

It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's the cutest toddler in a cape ever!!!

As I've previously mentioned, Harper LOVES to walk around the house with a blanket over her head. It's become quite a problem because she will play with a bunch of toys (leaving them scattered all over the floor) and then pick up her blanket, cover her face, and begin walking. As you can imagine, she falls down a lot.

So, Ross tried a new approach and tied her blanket into a cape - and SUPER BABY was born. She ran from one side of the house to the other. She would often raise her hands when she started running  - making it look like she was taking off - which fit quite nicely into the SUPER BABY theme. She truly is SUPER CUTE!

Shopping Cart Princess

We gave Harper a shopping cart for Christmas this year. When she stood next to it, the cart looked HUGE. She was just beginning to walk while holding onto things and the cart handle was almost at eye level. Harper must have grown a lot in the past two months, because she now runs that shopping cart all around the house without a problem! Whenever she gets behind it, she runs and gets an enormous smile. It's hard to capture on film because she is moving so fast!

Finger Painting

We recently let Harper try finger painting. At first she wasn't sure what to think about the paint. She tried to eat it thinking it was "dipping sauce" but quickly caught on that it wasn't good. Once she figured it out, she was pretty good at smearing the paint and then quickly moved to folding and flipping the paper - which means that mom and dad have to be quick to intervene. We ended up with a beautiful piece of art from a beautiful little girl.

As a side note, we also learned that you have to be ready to clean up pint-sized artists as soon as they are done painting.....or they begin to decorate their face and hair. Lesson learned!

 

The coolest place in our house is....

According to Harper, the coolest and most fun place in our home is...... THE STAIRS!

Harper has been able to climb stairs for a long time. She went through a phase when all she wanted to do was climb up to the top and then be carried back to the bottom. And then repeat over and over.

However, her new favorite activity is to just sit on the stairs. Sometimes she will sit on the bottom stair with her toys - she'll play with her mini jukebox or blocks. Other times she wants to climb up about 6 steps to play. She won't bring any toys, but instead, will begin by kicking her feet and slamming them into the stair. Then she will practice screaming. And, finally, she will stand up and bounce. Of course, this is all done while Ross and I are located one step below her - we might let her act crazy, but we aren't nuts!

 

Linus?

Harper loves to play with her blankets. It started innocently enough - she would lie in her crib with her blanket over her face and kick and squeal. Eventually she started standing in her crib with the blanket over head. Then she began to jump and walk in the crib with her blanket over her face. And, well now, it's hard to stop her from covering her face with her blanket. She will walk around the house with the blanket clutched tightly in her hand, or in her mouth, or over her face. She trips on it. She falls because of it. She bumps into toys and furniture. However, no amount of stumbles or trips will stop her from carrying her trusted blanket.