Littlest baker

Harper's quote of the day

Grandma made Harper a "mass bag," full of things for her to play with, read or look at during church to help keep her quiet. She is especially fond of the Jesus and Peter dolls and somehow they often find their way out of her mass bag and into the playroom.  She was playing with them today and she also ended up carrying around a container of dental floss, or as she calls it, "flost" or "flosting". So, she stated the obvious: "Mommy, I'm going to floss(t) Jesus's teeth."  I'm sure he appreciated it.

Harper plays the drums at the zoo.

Harper and Abby

Harper's quotes of the week

Harper's language has gone to a completely different level in the last month.  She constantly cracks us up with the goofy things she says and observations she makes, so I am going to try to record them.  Here are a couple from the last few days:

Harper has gotten very good about brushing her teeth ever since I told her that we brush our teeth to get the "sugar bugs" out.  She wants us to look in her mouth and count the sugar bugs before brushing.  At the dinner table she told us that she had sugar bugs and opened her mouth for us to take a peek.  I looked in and said, "Yuck, that's terrible, we need to get them out."  She pouted and turned to Daddy and said, "Daddy, tell Mommy that it's not terrible!" We have no idea where she learned the concept of asking Daddy if she doesn't like what Mommy has to say.

As we pulled into the Butterfly Pavilion parking lot: "Mommy, today I'm going to reach them." me, clueless about what she was talking about: "what are you going to reach?" Harper: "The butterflies."

About her baby sister: "she's going to come out and have a tea party with me!"

Butterfly Pavilion

Harper and her friend Tula decided to become bugs after our trip to the Butterfly Pavilion.  Of course, I couldn't actually get a clear picture with Harper looking at the camera.....

Daddy runs another race.

Daddy has been running a lot lately.  He runs to work (7 miles) about once a week, ran a 10 mile road race two weekends ago, a 5K today and signed up for the Denver Rock N Roll half-marathon in 4 weeks.  Harper and I like to go cheer him on.  Today he came in third place in his age bracket and Harper went up to collect his prize with him (a $5 gift certificate to a local cafe...gosh, a few thousand more prizes like those and we're going to have claim his race winnings on our tax return.) She was rather cranky at the moment of this picture because she wanted to see the balloons- a big balloon archway that was crafted for the finish line.

Progress!

No, nothing happened, but at least she sat on it.

Hiking girl

Harper is such a terrific hiker.  She is always excited to go and insists on doing everything herself when we are on the trail, which can be scary at times because there are usually some steep drop-offs and plenty of things to trip over.  On today's hike, I kept repeating the mantra, "Hiking is walking." Harper seems to think that hiking is running.

Charlie and Harper

Harper loves her morning play dates with her buddy Charlie.  Charlie's mom and I take turns going for a run and the girls get to play. It works out great for both us and the kids!

Our new addition!

We had our 20 week ultrasound yesterday and learned that our new baby is another girl!  We are very excited, overjoyed actually, to welcome another daughter into our life.  Everything at the ultrasound looked great.  She is a mover like her sister and the ultrasound tech had a difficult time getting all of the pictures she needed.  At first she gave me an 80% chance of her being a girl then took a second peek before the ultrasound was over.  Her final report was, "there is no sign of any boy parts down there." 

My midwife called me today and informed that the little peanut weighs 12 ounces and is over the 50% for weight! I know it's a little early to get excited about that but our true "little peanut" girl, Harper, was only 8 ounces at her 20 week appointment and it seemed to be foretelling of all of the weight concerns to come.  I would be thrilled if all of my, "is my baby too small?" anxiety was spared with this little girl.  They also confirmed that the due date January 31 is accurate- well, as accurate as due dates can be.  I already have my head wrapped around a February 8-10 arrival because I don't want to have any expectations of an on-time or early delivery because, as I learned with Harper, when you think you'll be on time and then you go overdue it sets you up for a lot of disappointment!

I will scan the ultrasound pictures and put them up, hopefully tomorrow.  She kept moving her hands around her head, in one picture she had her hand tucked under her chin and then in her mouth. 

Apple-picking with Daddy

Harper is the one who insisted that she and Daddy wear their matching football jerseys, by the way....

 Inspecting the goods.

Enjoying an after-dinner cupcake with her friend Marshall

Hanging out with Daddy downtown

Our little artist at work.

Guess who insisted on trying on her halloween costume early?

Grandma sent Harper a pumpkin costume and as soon as she saw it, she needed to try it out. In fact, she did not want to take it off and we almost ended up taking our nightly walk around the neighborhood with it on. I am not sure if this is the costume she's going to wear on Halloween this year as she already has a giraffe costume that is pretty darn cute.  But I'm sure our social butterfly will have more than one event to pull out a costume for....

Raspberry picking (with crazy hair)!