Chillaxing

After a hard day of playing, Harper likes to put her feet up and relax....and sometimes Riley just happens to be there to help. 

Soccer...Brrr

Grandma Judy, Buppa, Harper and I went this weekend to watch Sydney's soccer game. It was a double header so we got see twice the action this weekend! Sydney did a great job running up and down the field and had some strong kicks. Dave was the assistant coach - he says he yells a lot, but I don't think he is as scary as he thinks!. Stephanie and Reid spent the majority of the game in the car because it was COLD! Reid wasn't a fan of the chilly wind and I don't think Steph minded sitting in the car and watching the game from a distance. However, since we made the special trip, we were determined to watch the action up close so we bundled up with hats, mittens, heavy coats and blankets! It was worth it in the end to see Sydney in action.

She's going to be trouble...

Over Easter, we spent the night at Grandma Ruth and Grandpa Dennis' house. Harper was very interested in the large ficus tree in the living-room  Well, rather she was interested in the dirt in the ficus tree's pot. She took numerous handfuls of dirt from the pot. We kept correcting her and putting her in time out. However, she kept going back to the pot every few minutes and
taking another handful out of the pot.

Finally, after the 20th handful of dirt was grabbed, Grandpa Dennis tried to help us scold Harper. He got down next to her face and in jokingly started to scold her in a stern voice...."Harper, if you take one more handful of dirt out of that pot, I'm going to never..." Well, we don't know the ending of Dennis's threat because Harper cut him off...by leaving over and giving him a GIANT SMOOCH on the lips!!! It was ADORABLE. Grandpa Dennis couldn't even finish his sentence and walked away with a smile on his face.

If Harper continues using her charm to get out of trouble, I think we could have a long childhood!

School Pictures, 2013

Harper is not even 18 months old yet and she has already had school pictures twice! This year Harper is in the crawling room. As you can see from the group photo, she is the oldest in the room. She will be moving up to the next room at the center in May. In the meantime, she makes daily visits to her new room to play with the older kids. She still enjoys her current friends and teacher, Ms. Cheryl. When Harper first moved to the room, Cheryl said it was a battle of the Divas and there was only room for one Diva in her room. In the end, Cheryl ended up winning Harper over and retained her title as Diva of the crawling room. Now they are best buds and she helps Cheryl with laundry in the morning. She has been sleeping on a mini cot and eating at a tiny table for months.

From what we were told, picture day was a challenge for Harper. She is very particular about strangers at daycare. She is slow to warm up to new people and is especially hesitant around men. Well, the photographer just to happened to be a man and Harper didn't want anything to do with the situation. Eventually they were able to take her picture. In the individual photo, Harper is actually sitting on Cheryl's lap (who is covered up by a sheet) and the photographer was completely hidden under another sheet. Eventually she was calm enough to take a picture. Considering the stress she was under, I think she looks wonderful! 

Taking Care of Riley

As Harper is getting older, she enjoys helping to care for Riley. She will feed Riley her dinner every night. She does an excellent job of carrying the cup of food to her bowl, dumping it and returning it to the dog food bag by herself. In addition to feeding Riley, she will sometime clean her up and then cover her up with a blanket. Harper is a very considerate and responsible 17 month old!

Easter in Iowa Falls

We celebrated in Iowa Falls a week after Easter this year. Grandma Judy and Buppa served a delicious meal and we all had fun chatting. The highlight for the older kids, as always, was the golf cart. Addison, Sydney and Abby spent most of the day rounding around in the yard or jumping on the trampoline. Brody had his own Gator at the house this year and spent time driving Reid and Harper around. Harper LOVED to be a passenger and the two of them spent an hour riding around in the back yard. During the excitement of a group photo in front of the house, the Easter Bunny made a surprise visit and all of the kids scrambled to find as many eggs as possible. It was a lovely day - especially when the sun was out - and relaxing to spend time with family.

Finally!

Harper has been begging to outside for the last couple of weeks. Although the snow has pretty much been gone for a while, the cold temperatures prevented us from going outside. It finally warmed up enough for Harper to play outside - and she took advantage of the weather. It started with Harper playing outside at daycare. When I picked her up that evening she was excited to get back outside the building. However, she wasn't nearly as excited about getting in the car and made it clear that she wanted to be outside. Once home, I let her walk up to the door - which was great until she took her first step inside of the house. Once she realized that she was back inside, she freaked out and began screaming and banging on the door. Her intentions were pretty clear so we let her play in the back yard while Ross worked on cleaning up from this winter's storms. Harper learned to climb up and slide down her toy all by herself - which was pretty impressive to us! She walked around and helped dad rake and let her do some additional work with a beach bucket and sand rake. She even found her shadow. Harper really enjoyed her time outside and I predict that we will be outside all spring, summer and fall!

Easter Craft

Harper came home on Friday with a cute Easter craft - her face in an egg that hangs on the fridge. Kallie said she got one photo of her smiling ....and then she also got one where she was puckering up for the camera. She decided the pucker photo was too cute not to use!

Friday was also Kallie's last day at daycare. Boo. She was one of Harper's favorite teachers and she will be missed! She was a lot of fun - a very sweet girl with some spunk. I would often catch her having a dance party with Harper when picking her up in the afternoons and she would teach her funny words like Diva.

Easter Weekend, 2013

The Easter Bunny made an early trip to our house since we were going to be out of town on the holiday. He was super generous and left a super soft bunny pillow pet and play doh. In addition, he left her a note wishing her a happy Easter! Harper really liked the note and proudly carried it around the house.

Soon we were off to spend the day at Grandpa Kirk and Grandma Linda's house. They had prepared an Easter gift for her, too! She got a cute bucket with animal crackers (her favorite treat!), raisins and a washrag rolled into a bunny. We spent most of the day just hanging out at the house. Harper enjoyed playing with Alyssa's old toys - she was a busy girl with the kitchen, play food, a little wagon and coloring. Aunt Em decided that ice cream sounded good so we went out to Dairy Queen for a treat. Aunt Em tried to share her ice cream with Harper - however, our little sweetie pie still doesn't like how cold it is and immediately made a terrible face and spit it out. It was pretty hilarious.

That evening we spent time with Grandma Ruth and Grandpa Dennis. Harper spent time doing laps around the house and terrorizing Bo and Stella - who she called by name. She loves dogs. Stella was a good sport and enjoyed playing games with her. Harper was a little rough on poor Bo - she loved grabbing onto his longer hair and pulling out little tufts. Soon Bo was hiding from her, I think.

The next day the Thompson clan came over to celebrate with us. It's amazing to see how much the kids have grown since Christmas. The girls did an awesome job playing with Harper - they sat in a circle and sang nursery rhymes with her and Harper LOVED the special attention. The girls also demonstrated their ability to do the Cup Song - and so now I'm determined to learn it, too! Harper had fun collecting her eggs - she did surprisingly well walking around to find her eggs and very much enjoyed the mini candy bars inside. I am also happy to report that I won the adult egg hunt and came home a $100 richer!

As usual, the weekend was a whirlwind - but it's so worth it since we get to hang with our awesome family!