Leaf-jumping

Getting some air

Trying to stick the landing

Made it- hooray!

Staying here, for now.....

It seems like Andy and I are always toying with the idea of moving - in fact, we have been "planning" to leave Colorado ever since I finished graduate school and that was four years ago!  Recently, we have had a few opportunities that would allow this to happen come up again and I was seriously starting to think that it was really going to happen this time.  Well, it's not.  Or at least it doesn't appear that way. We have talked through the options and it seems best, particularly given the imminent arrival of baby girl #2, that we stay put for the short-term.   Andy also recently got another promotion at Quizno's, he is now the Senior Vice President of Corporate Finance, which essentially means he is the #2 finance person in the whole company, a significant achievement for someone at age 32.  We are very proud of his achievements and the recognition that he gets there on a regular basis.  He is a hard worker and I know the only reason he does it is to provide a nice, comfortable life for me and our girls.

Dressed up for Halloween

Eating one of her new favorite foods: roasted pumpkin seeds!

Harper's quotes of the week

I took out a CD of Christmas songs from the library to burn into our music collection, we listened to it and as soon as "Jingle Bells" came on, she said, "Jingle Bells! This is a wonderful song."

Oscar hurt his paw and had to wear a cone on his head, "Oscie has a bad boo-boo just like Jesus."

To the librarian, " My baby sister, she's in mommy's arm-hips."  Arm-hips are what she calls arm pits, we can't correct her, it's too cute.  Not sure why she thinks baby sister is there but I have gotten very big lately, I'm sure it's hard to tell what's what.

We have a 2 year old!!

Harper turned two yesterday.  Since her party was on Sunday and I had class/she had preschool yesterday, we didn't do too much to celebrate.  We had some cake last night, sang happy birthday and opened a few presents.  Harper has not really been into opening presents at all - she still favors the cards and balloons, which is nice, I know that won't be the case for long.  She had her 2 year old doctor's appointment this morning.  She is 23 pounds even (8%) and her head circumference is in the 70%.  We were unable to get an accurate check on her height because she threw a tantrum and refused to cooperate.  Ahhhh, the joys of a 2 year old.  It is really windy here today so we headed to L'il Monkey Bizness (basically an indoor playground) to meet our friends Fin & Theresa after the doctor's appointment and use up some of that feisty energy. 

Opening some birthday presents at home

with the bottoms of her giraffe costume on.

Visitors for Harper's birthday

Andy's brother TJ, his wife Quinn and their children, Lucy (3 1/2) and Leo (10 months) have been visiting with us for the weekend. Luckily, their visit corresponded with Harper's birthday so they were able to come to Harper's birthday party and celebrate with us! Harper and Lucy have been getting along and playing great!  They have been dancing, singing and playing all weekend. Harper has even been sharing with Lucy, which is a big step for her!   Harper is going to be very sad when Lucy leaves tomorrow. 

Cousins

drinking out of bowls on the floor

Leo on the swings

big girls going down the slide all by themselves

love is...trying the bouncy castle for the first time

We went to the pumpkin patch today and they had three bouncy castles set up, one specifically for the under three crowd.  Harper was afraid at first but once she decided to go in I could barely get her out.  She had a blast!  I had no idea she could jump the way she was jumping.  She would jump up and land on her bottom and tell me she did a "flip." I don't think I have ever seen her laugh so hard in her life.

Playing at the library

Finally Fall!

On our walk home from the library.

More photos

Family photo- 22 weeks along

Posing at the playground

A friend invited us to participate in a quick professional photo session at a park with a bunch of other families.  A local photographer gave each family 1/2 hour of time and for a fairly small fee, mailed us a disc of all the photos to do as we please with!  I have learned that age two is very difficult to get great smiles but we had a few that turned out well.  This one is one of my favorites.

Playing outside with Zoe on our first Fall-like day!