the jackmans

Utah Trip

2012-02-07T17:39:00.000-08:00

I am a little behind on posting, but better late than never.

In December Southwest had some really cheap tickets, but we had to leave on January 24th and come back on January 31st (my birthday) so that's what we did. I didn't really think about the fact that it is the middle of winter and it would be cold but it wasn't too terribly cold.

Jonah was very excited to be in Utah!

Harper's hair pretty much looked like this most of the time we were there. Mine didn't look much better.

Kelly is going to be so happy that I posted this picture.

My Grandparents were able to come by for a visit, which I always love. They are so great.

We spent lots of time goofing around at Grandma's house.

On Saturday we went bowling at Fat Cats. Harper pretty much thought it was the best thing ever. Here she is in her bowling shoes.

Here she is bowling:

And then we had pizza. These guys love pizza.

Here is my brother Chase with his girlfriend Makay. Harper really took to Makay and has been asking about her since we got home.

The kids had TONS of fun with their cousins. Hailey is about a year older than Harper and Gavin is about a year older than Jonah.

We took some more senior photos for Carly since I wasn't happy with how few of them turned out last time. We got lots of good ones (Carly, I will send them soon).

We got to visit with my Dad for a few hours. Jonah was not in the best mood since he had fallen asleep in the car on the way there.

My Grandparents brought over these computers and Jonah and Harper had a great time playing with them.

Dual monitors.

The kids reading with Grandma.

I left the afternoon of my birthday so I was able to go to lunch with my Mom, Eric, and my kids which was really nice.

I even got to enjoy a 25 hour birthday since I gained an hour when I flew back to LA :)

Cafe Rio + Park

2012-01-21T22:30:00.000-08:00

Tom has been pretty busy lately at work and the kids have really been missing him, since he is frequently not home before they go to bed, so we made an effort to get out of the house and do something fun today. We went down to Manhattan Beach to Cafe Rio and then to a nearby park to play for a little bit.

Notice in the last photo that Jonah is a little short on teeth. Until a couple of days ago he only had six teeth (most of his little friends his age have a mouthful), and we have been amazed at what he can eat without molars. But last week the top two molars broke through and this week he got two on the bottom.

These guys love Cafe Rio tortillas.

I only got one photo of Harper, oops.

Tom was getting annoyed that I was taking pictures.

Jonah loves to go down the slide. He will sit at the top and say, "Two, three, wee!"

Jonah saw this, thought it was a ball, and kept trying to pick it up. He was not successful.

Recent

2012-01-19T17:44:00.000-08:00

I haven't been posting much because we haven't been doing much.

Jonah is now 19 months and he is such a little motor mouth. He is constantly jabbering nonsense, with an occasional word thrown in. He now says things like I see you, snack, sock, shoe, show, yuck, love you, car, truck, choo choo, up, down, out, etc. He can probably say 30-40 different words right now and he makes good use of them.

Whenever he sees an open door or something he says "BEEP!" really loud. At first I couldn't figure out what he was trying to say, but when we close a door and he is in the way we say "beep beep beep" so he will move. He is constantly saying BEEP and then closing something.

Jonah has taken after his Daddy and loves burritos.

He LOVES Daddy. In fact he is standing right next to me and when he saw this picture he gasped and yelled "Daddy!"

A couple of weeks ago we went out for Chinese food and discovered that both kids are big fans of orange chicken. Harper will eat so few foods that it is always exciting to find something new for her to eat, even if it is just a slightly different version of another food she likes. We told her they were orange chicken nuggets.

Other than that we haven't been doing much. Tom has been pretty busy at work and the kids and I are headed to Utah next week.

In preparation for the trip I finished this bag the other day. It involved a lot of bent pins, bloody fingers, and sore shoulders, but it is done and it is huge. I am excited to take it to Utah, I just hope it doesn't fall apart on the way there!

First day of primary

2012-01-09T14:56:00.000-08:00

Someone was VERY excited to be a sunbeam!

2011: The year in which I made a bunch of stuff

2012-01-01T21:54:00.000-08:00

This year I have spent a lot of my free time working on some sewing projects. When I was going through our photos for the previous post, I came across photos of some of my projects that I haven't shared so I thought I'd go through what I worked on this year.

I made this at the beginning of the year to keep in the living room because Tom said our other blankets were too small.

Quilt for Harper.

I made this for Harper's friend for her birthday.

I made this for no particular reason, but it has turned out to be a good play-on-the-floor quilt for Jonah.

Zipper pouch I made for Harper's crayons.

I made these little bags for Harper to give to her cousins when we had a little family reunion in June.

University of Utah quilt

Quilt for my cousin's baby.

Jonah's birthday present. My grandparents bought the fabric, I made the quilt.

Twin quilt for Harper's bed.

Queen size quilt for our bed.

Quilt I made for myself. It is only half-quilted because I got busy with Christmas stuff.

Advent calendar.

Christmas stockings. I made the kids' last year, and miraculously finished mine and Tom's on Christmas Eve this year. I will have to add our names next year.

Tree skirt.

I made this for one of Tom's co-workers who just had a baby. I finished binding it earlier this evening.

That's pretty much it. I also made a quilt for my brother when he came home from his mission but I never took a picture of it. I will have to get one when I am in Utah later this month.

I am looking forward to doing some more sewing in 2012 :) By the end of the year our apartment might be overflowing with quilts.

2011 review

2012-01-01T21:01:00.000-08:00

2011 was a very good year for us and I spent some time today going through some of our photos for the year. Here are some of my favorites, roughly in order.

San Diego Zoo

Harper, post-dog bite, eating her favorite food (chicken nuggets)

Jonah trying to figure out the whole crawling thing.

Yogurtland!

This girl loves frosting. Harper at her 3rd birthday party.

We did a little co-op preschool at the beginning of the year. This is Harper with the other kids, Christian, Addy, Harper, Zoey, and Jack.

My favorite picture of Jonah.

Harper in Park City after spending all day on the Alpine Slide.

Family photo in Utah.

Jonah eating his first birthday cake.

Harper and her sparkly shoes on UCLA campus.

Gelato with Grandma while in Utah.

Waiting for Daddy at work.

Family photo at Holmby Park.

Jonah at Tyson's wedding.

Tinkerbell and her BFF Alice in Wonderland.

Christmas outfits in Venice.

This boy loves the Apple store. Must run in the family.

Arizona trip

2012-01-01T20:37:00.000-08:00

The day after Christmas we drove down to Tucson to visit the other Jackmans and the Carlsens. As much as I hate the drive, we had a really nice little visit and I am really glad we were able to go.

While we were there we went to the Tucson children's museum. I don't think Jonah has ever had so much fun in his life. We just let him wander around from room to room and explore things. He has never had so much freedom! Harper had fun hanging out with her cousins. It was really sweet to see him play together.

Christmas

2011-12-31T18:20:00.000-08:00

We stayed home for Christmas Eve/morning this year and then went to Bakersfield on Christmas day. Harper was so excited for Santa to leave some presents under the tree. He left them each some pajamas to open Christmas Eve. I'm not going to post a picture of everything that they opened but they received a lot of wonderful things that we have had a lot of fun playing with.

SO EXCITED!

Jonah doesn't really know what's going on.

But he liked his reindeer pajamas.

Harper loved her Tinkerbell pajamas.

Tom picked out the kids pajamas this year and it was so cute to watch him watch the kids open their gifts.

No one was very interested in having their picture taken.

The rest of the photos are from Christmas Day.

Jonah got this truck book that he LOVES. It might be his favorite gift.

Harper in her bathrobe that I made her. Jonah has a blue one but he was not interested in trying it on.

Jonah's first video game, but if he takes after Tom it won't be his last.

I got Tom this T-shirt.

My Mom got Harper these cute masks. She tried on just about every single one and then she would go into the bathroom and giggle at herself in the mirror.

Picking oranges in Bakersfield. You can't do this on Christmas everywhere!

This was probably Harper's favorite gift. She has been asking for a princess dress for a long time.

Tom's secretary gave him a gingerbread house kit for Christmas and we decorated it in Bakersfield.

G.I. Jonah

2011-12-17T23:29:00.000-08:00

Jonah was in need of a haircut, and well, it got a little out of hand.

It will grow back, right?

kids update

2011-12-15T14:16:00.000-08:00

Jonah is 18 months old today! I have been waiting for this day for a long time because this little boy is a real stinker at church. I actually snuck him into the nursery last week and he LOVED it. Harper is actually in the nursery until the end of the year, so I think it will be good for them to be in there together to help Jonah get used to everything. That means (as far as I know) I now have the oldest and the youngest kid in our nursery.

We took Jonah in for his 18 month check up yesterday and he weighed 24 lbs. 7 oz. and is now 32.9" tall (that's a little more than 2 pounds and a little more than 2 inches bigger than his appointment 3 months ago). If I remember correctly, that means he is in the 30th percentile for weight, the 68th percentile for height, and his head is down to the 90th percentile (it has been off the charts for the last few visits). Yay for being a little more proportional!

A few things about Jonah . . .

He gives lots of hugs and kisses. The other day he was sitting in my lap and he stood up, walked over to Tom, gave Tom a hug, and then walked back over and sat in my lap. He does things like that all of the time.
He is still a huge fan of all things Sesame Street and that will be reflected in his Christmas this year.
He loves to be read to and he will bring me a book and sit in my lap.
He can say Mama, Dada, thank you, love you, please, car, book, dog, no, okay, bagel, banana, a few other things, and make various animal sounds. He will also try to repeat pretty much anything you ask him to say.
When he is going down a slide he loves it if we say "one" and then he says "two, three, wee!"
He is a big fan of stuffed animals and has a bear and a zebra that he likes to carry around with him.
He is very sweet to Harper and if she is in time out he will sit next to her.

He has become a picky eater! Boo. He will still eat things like enchiladas and Indian food, but I have a hard time getting him to try new things. Both kids love whole wheat bagels and fruit, and that comprises a big portion of their diets.
He loves the freedom that walking has given him. We went to Santa Monica this morning and I just let him walk around for about a half an hour this morning just walking up and down the street and checking everything out (that's where these first two photos were taken).
He has a now found love of cars. He has gotten a couple in his advent calendar that he carries around and when we are walking through a parking lot he will point at every car that we pass and say, "Car, car, car, car."

Harper is getting so grown up and is constantly saying new, weird things.

She is fascinated with mermaids, fish, sharks, and all things ocean.
If she doesn't want to try a new food or something she will say, I don't like orange foods or I don't like square foods or whatever she thinks will get her out of trying something new.
She loves to be doing the right then when Jonah is doing the wrong thing. If he isn't eating his dinner, she will say, "Look Mommy, I'm eating my dinner," about a zillion times.
She is fully potty trained and has been for a few months (staying dry at night took a while). Yay!
She loves princesses, particularly Rapunzel. She also likes to wear dresses and refers to the dress by the corresponding princess color. If she wants to wear a blue dress she says that she wants to wear her Cinderella dress, etc.

She is going to primary in January. I am a little sad because she has loved nursery and her nursery leaders. Everyone has been so good about her allergies and I really appreciate how much they have done for Harper.
She has broadened her horizons a little regarding food and will eat turkey and sweet potatoes now. She also eats a little of what we eat for dinner every night and I think that has helped. It has been so tricky because she has weird allergic reactions or eczema outbreaks to new things all of the time and that doesn't leave much that she can eat.
She is strong-willed, but she can be so sweet and fun. I really appreciate that Harper and Jonah both have really happy demeanors most of the time and I try to make our home a happy, fun place to be.
She finished her toddler dance class a couple weeks ago and will be starting pee wee ballet in January.

This is a classic Harper expression.

Park time

2011-12-10T16:20:00.001-08:00

We took the kids to the park this morning to enjoy some nice, sunny 65 degree weather :) Don't you want to come visit us?

And here are a couple of Harper from yesterday, just because she is so cute.

Speaking of Harper, you have never seen a child who was so excited for Christmas. She is constantly asking if we can have Christmas in a minute and various Christmas things have dominated most of our conversations. She even woke up last night and told me that there were spooky reindeer outside her window who were helping Santa and she couldn't sleep.

Christmas tree shopping

2011-12-10T16:09:00.001-08:00

After 5 years of marriage, we finally got our first Christmas tree. There is a tree lot 2 blocks from our house so we have no excuse for not getting one. They had different kinds of sizes, and even some different colored trees (they painted some of them purple or pink), but we picked out a nice little green one, it's about 5 feet tall.

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-12-10T16:06:00.001-08:00

We had a VERY low key Thanksgiving this year, with just the four of us and Tom's Mom. Having fewer people let us keep it simple and skip the dishes that we don't really like. I made my first turkey and it actually turned out pretty good. We even convinced Harper to eat some and she eat most of the turkey leftovers.

blog failure

2011-12-10T15:59:00.001-08:00

I don't have a good excuse for not updating lately, I just haven't felt like it. Here is an assortment of photos that I haven't posted yet.

Harper with her dollies.

I have no idea what is going on here.

Sweet Jonah

Look who is walking!

These 2 are SO CUTE together.

As you can see, Jonah has decided to start walking. He took his first steps a few weeks ago, but was still primarily a crawler until a couple weeks. I thought that Harper was a late walker (15 months), but Jonah was 17 months so it looks like he out-lazied her. He also finally has 2 new teeth coming through, so that brings us to a total of 6 teeth. I don't know how this boy eats anything, but he surprises us with what he is able to get through.

we caved

2011-11-11T20:40:00.001-08:00

After living in LA for 5 years, we finally got Disneyland passes. I am not a big fan of amusement parks so we have only visited Disneyland a couple of times since we moved here. However, we may not live here forever and we want to take advantage of how close we live.

We wanted the trip to be a surprise for Harper the first time we went so we told her we were going to the park. She was NOT happy when she found out that we were not going to the park. Here's a little video of after we told her.

She did LOVE Disneyland though.

on the teacups

Jonah loves to hang upside down. Here he is while we were waiting in line to meet the princesses. His shirt is a pretty good description of his behavior lately.

Harper was SO EXCITED every time she saw a girl wearing a princess dress. She would yell, "Look, it's Rapunzel," or whichever dress the girl was wearing. So we thought that when she actually got to the meet the princesses she would go crazy. It was so funny because she was just totally in awe. She didn't say anything, just looked around with really big eyes.

In case you were wondering if we all changed our clothes for this last photo, I have a confession: we got our passes last week and we have already been twice. Tom insisted that I not bring our camera this time, so here is a terrible camera phone photo.

One of the first things that Harper wanted to do the first day we went to Disneyland was find Mickey. We finally found him on our second day.

Halloween!

2011-10-29T21:34:00.000-07:00

Last night was Tom's office Halloween party and tonight was our ward Trunk or Treat so we have quite the stockpile of candy for me Harper to eat. Harper has been insisting for MONTHS that she wants to be Tinkerbell and she REALLY thought that she was Tinkerbell with that costume on. When people asked what her name is, she said Tinkerbell and I saw her try to fly several times. I have a feeling this costume is going to get a lot of wear as a dress up outfit. We had Jonah dress up as Peter Pan because it was easy and he isn't old enough to object.

This is Harper with her cute friend Alice in Wonderland (aka Kate). These two were born a couple of weeks apart and have been hanging out every since. Check out the last photo in this post from 2 years ago.

We got a photo of him wearing his hat! He was not a fan.

I am pretty much caught up now. I do need to make a 16 month photo about Jonah with all of the funny/weird things he has been doing lately.

Utah Misc.

2011-10-29T21:17:00.000-07:00

Here are some random photos from our trip.

Harper eating gelato after having lunch with Grandma.

The kids in their matching Elmo pajamas that my Mom and I got them. These guys are big Sesame Street fans.

Harper with my Dad. We had lunch at Red Rock, YUM!

While I was in town Carly and I went up Big Cottonwood Canyon and did some senior photos. It was good practice for me and some of them turned out really cute!

I dressed Jonah in this outfit one day and Chase saw it and said he had a matching one. Of course Chase's doesn't have a green dinosaur on the side. I think it is interesting to see these two together because they have really similar coloring and look a little alike.

Jonah with Great Grandpa Montgomery, one of my favorite people.

Kelly and her friends had a paint fight. They are going to wear the resulting clothes to a school dance. Harper was very concerned about what happened to Kelly.

Harper coloring while visiting Grandma in her classroom.

A couple of other random things . . .

While we were in Utah we went to Wal-Mart. We don't have any easily accessible Wal-Mart in our area so Harper has probably only been there a couple times. While we were shopping Harper kept saying, "This store is weird, I don't like this store." Me either.

This was the first time Harper has really been around Rocko (my parents' dog) since the biting incident. I was really curious to see how Harper would respond. We kept Rocko locked up in his room while the kids were around, but Harper was pretty scared of him. I am glad that she is still afraid of Rocko but isn't afraid of all Dogs.

pumpkin picking

2011-10-29T20:55:00.000-07:00

While we were in Utah Harper picked and painted a couple of pumpkins from Grandma and Grandpa's garden. She thought this was pretty amazing and took great care in painting them.

Ty's wedding

2011-10-29T20:46:00.000-07:00

The main reason we were in Utah last week was for my stepbrother Tyson's wedding. Tom and I have been married for more than 5 years and this is the first time since we got married that one of our siblings has gotten married. The wedding was beautiful and it was fun to see Tyson and Abi so happy.

Jonah saying "cheese"

The two K.T.s, Kara and Kelly

Eric is VERY EXCITED!

Harper with Tyson

Kara and Harper

Chase in his tux.

Harper was SO TIRED by this point

Gorgeous Carly at the ring ceremony

The siblings. Chase (23), Kara (25), Kelly (16), Me (old), and Carly (who turned 18 today!)

Bath time at Grandma's

2011-10-29T20:31:00.000-07:00

Since we were in Utah last, my Mom and Stepdad have remodeled their room and bathroom. They have a big, gorgeous new bathtub that no one had even used yet!

We didn't make it to a pumpkin patch this year . . .

2011-10-29T20:12:00.001-07:00

So the Trader Joe's parking lot will have to due.

If Harper dressed herself . . .

2011-10-09T20:04:00.000-07:00

She would probably look something like this every day.

Uh oh

2011-09-28T15:20:00.001-07:00

I recently ripped a bunch of my CDs from high school and put them on my iPhone. We were listening to it in the car today when "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morrissette came on. After the song was over Harper said, "Oh boy Mommy, that is my favorite song." I should probably be a little more careful about what I listen to.

Trip to Bakersfield & Tom's reunion

2011-09-26T20:39:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we went up to Bakersfield for Tom's 10 year high school reunion. And of course to visit with family. We even got to see Denise & family for a few minutes before they headed back home.

A very awkward photo of Harper and AJ.

Jonah LOVED playing with the dogs. Harper still loves them, but since the incident with the dog bite she has been more cautious.

He also loved playing with the keyboard on the kitchen table. This child loves electronics.

I was a little apprehensive about going to Tom's high school reunion, but it was actually really great. His friends were a lot of fun and it was great to meet them. They had a photo booth set up at the event and I managed to convince Tom to take some goofy photos.

Harper's first dance class

2011-09-26T20:12:00.000-07:00

I signed Harper up for a dance class at the community center. It is a pretty casual little class called "Dance and Movement for Preschoolers." I thought I'd be able to get away with just having her wear regular clothes, but when we showed up most of the girls were wearing leotards and ballet shoes and Harper was sad that she wasn't so we had to do a little shopping this week.

Harper LOVED the class and it was so funny to watch her.

I will have to update tomorrow with a photo of her new ballerina clothes.

new wheels

2011-09-19T21:19:00.001-07:00

Harper's new bling

2011-09-12T20:28:00.000-07:00

After Harper had a fairly bad allergic reaction at a playground a few weeks ago, we decided to get her this bracelet. We thought it would not only let other people know that she has food allergies, but also help Harper to understand what she can't have.

There is room for 5 charms and she has peanuts, eggs, dairy, soy, and strawberries on it. She is also allergic to hazelnuts and pineapple.

car shopping

2011-09-10T21:51:00.000-07:00

We have been thinking about getting a new car lately. While we love our Camry, it has a small trunk because of the hybrid battery and with all of us in the car there is no extra room for anyone else. Since we would like people to be able to visit us, we would like a little more room in the car. Last weekend we went up to Bakersfield so Tom's Mom could help us with the kids while we did some shopping (thank you!).

We didn't come home with a new car, but we did narrow down our search to a Toyota Highlander and Ford Explorer. After car shopping in the heat we went to Dewar's for some ice cream and to stock up on some Dewar's chews.

Harper was VERY red from the heat. She is not made for warm weather.

We have also been enjoying the start of the BYU football season. Here is one of Tom and Jonah watching the game together last week.

I don't think that he was all that interested in the game, but he adores Tom and is always happy to sit in Tom's lap.

Last week I took the kids to the Visitor's Center one afternoon. I feel like we don't take advantage of it enough considering that it is just a few blocks away and it is a fun, free activity for the kids.

Harper has recently developed a love for noodles, which she calls "doodles." Especially spaghetti which she calls "snake doodles." Here she is attempting to slurp one up. I am always happy when we find something that she will eat :)

Last year for Christmas my sister Aubrie gave the kids some Zhu Zhu pets. They love them. I will set one of them on the floor and Jonah will chase it around for a long time. Here's a quick clip from the other day.

We did a little more car shopping today and the wheels have been set into motion so hopefully we will be picking up our brand new Ford Explorer sometime this week!

first haircut

2011-08-28T23:36:00.000-07:00

Harper has had her haircut before. I have cut it and my sister has cut it, but it has been particularly unruly lately and Tom needed a haircut so we decided that Harper needed a trim too so this was her first haircut by someone we don't know. We were a little worried that she wouldn't sit still, but she actually did a really good job. I think she felt grown up.

Harper has definitely been catching on to things lately and the other day we were picking up Tom from work and she started to ask me about dying. She was concerned that some of her friends that she hasn't seen recently had died. I don't think she really grasps the concept at all, but it was interesting that she brought it up.

She is also very aware of her allergies lately. While I was getting her ready for bed today she started to list all of the things that "make her itchy." She said, "Pineapple, yogurt, and ice cream all make me itchy." Unfortunately, those are all things that she really likes to eat. So far we know that she is allergic to peanuts, hazelnuts, eggs, milk, soy, pineapple, and strawberries.

Having two kids is definitely a lot harder than having just one, but I think that these two definitely make up for it by having so much fun together. They do fight over toys sometimes, but they also chase each other around the house and make each other laugh constantly.

Jonah has a really funny personality. I don't know quite how to describe it, but he is definitely very goofy and he loves to try to make people laugh. One of his favorite things is to play with sunglasses. He just laughs and laughs.

14 months / 3 yrs 4 months

2011-08-15T20:58:00.000-07:00

Jonah is now 14 months! He has changed a lot in the past few weeks so I want to document what he has been up to.

He is very verbal, much more so than Harper was at this age. He says Mama, Dada, wawa (water), Oooooh (Elmo), no, ball, hi, uh oh, and a couple more things that I am forgetting. He also does the signs for "more" and "all done" although it usually takes me a minute to figure out what he's doing.
His favorite food is chicken tikka masala, but he also really likes enchiladas.
He loves to give kisses to everything.
Still no interest in walking, though he is cruising around the furniture and he can stand for a few seconds at a time.
Loves electronics, particularly the iPad, but also anything with buttons.
Finally has two teeth! He had a rough time teething so I am not looking forward to the rest of them coming in.
While he is still a happy baby, he definitely has more crabby moments lately. I think he gets frustrated when he can't communicate what he wants.
Throws lots of little tantrums, which consist of him pouting, whining, and falling to the ground with his head on the floor. It's so cute I have a hard time not laughing when he does this.
Loves to be my shadow and follow me around the house.

Harper loves to tell Jonah what to do. Tonight while we were eating dinner Jonah was playing with his food and Harper kept coming over and saying, "Baby Jonah, eat your dinner."
She is getting better about eating new foods, but it seems like every time we get her to eat something new she has an allergic reaction so that has been really frustrating.
She loves to paint. She asks to do this about ten times a day.
She loves mint ice cream.
She loves to spend time with Tom, and if Jonah gets close while they are playing together, Harper will say, "No, it's my turn."
Insists on having a sippy cup with water by her bed at night. I only mention this because Tom does the same thing. These two definitely have a lot in common.
She is 90% potty trained. She still wears a diaper for naps and bedtime. I pretty much gave up on potty training a few months ago and just waited until she started asking to use the bathroom, so she pretty much potty trained herself.
I'm not going to lie, Harper drives us nuts sometimes. She loves to ignore what we are telling her, steal toys from Jonah, and throw giant fits. But she can also be very sweet, especially toward Jonah, and she is generally in a good mood. We just have to keep her very busy.
She loves to eat plain Crispix. She also calls them "hexagons."
Her diet consists mostly of fruit, chicken nuggets, and crackers, but she does eat a lot of fruit so I don't feel too bad.
Occasionally we will pick Tom up from his office at the end of the day. I usually wait for him in the valet area, and I always tell the valet that I am, "waiting for my husband," so they just wave me through. The last couple of times we have picked Tom up, I have rolled down the window and Harper has yelled, "She is picking up her husband." I didn't realize she had picked that up.

update

2011-08-13T14:51:00.000-07:00

I haven't really felt like updating our blog lately, so I'm just going to post a few things so that I don't get too far behind.

Harper feeding ducks at the park. She is wearing her swimming suit under her clothes because there used to be a splash area at this park, but it was broken :(

On Wednesday mornings I have been trying to take the kids to the farmer's market in Santa Monica. It is so much fun and there is a wonderful stand that sells baked goods including these amazing chocolate walnut cookies. It was probably the best cookie I have ever had. And it was big (and rich) enough that we all split one.

We had to take Tom to get a root canal in Westwood last week. While we waited for him, we went up to UCLA and walked around. Harper got tired so here she is taking a little break. Her red shoes are the same shoes that she wore for Halloween when she was Dorothy and they STILL FIT. She definitely did not inherit my big feet.

Jonah has been loving Tom lately. They are so sweet together.

Almost every afternoon we walk over to the mall by our house and they kids play for a few minutes. They have this play structure that is kind of like a treehouse and Harper loves it. You can kind of see his bottom teeth in this photo. He seems happy to finally have some teeth and puts them to good use when he is eating.

On Thursday my friend Rachel invited us to come over to her place and play in a little pool. The kids loved it. Rachel has a little boy Dean who is the same age as Jonah and they are so funny together. Jonah is cruising on the furniture a little and will occasionally stand on his own, but appears to have no interest in walking. Harper didn't start walking until she was 15 months and Jonah will be 14 months on Monday, so I think he will probably start walking around the same time.

shiner

2011-07-31T23:08:00.000-07:00

Yep, Harper gave me a black eye. She was sitting in my lap and we were reading a story. She leaned forward, and then shot backward right into my face.

I got some funny looks at church this morning.

I would certainly never wish harm on my child, but later that day we were at a friend's birthday party and Harper collided with someone in the bounce house and ended up with a bruise in the exact same place.

Speaking of that birthday party, we got to celebrate our friend Jacob's 4th birthday yesterday. We have known these guys since we first moved to LA. We have a few families in our ward that we knew from UCLA and I am so glad that we have all remained friends. The guys get together for movie nights and we all get together for birthdays and playgroups.

Today marks our 5th anniversary of moving to Los Angeles. I haven't lived this long in one place for a long time. I was at BYU for 4 years and before that I lived in Salt Lake for 3 years. I lived in Texas until I was 15, but that was so long ago that LA has really started to feel like home to me. I know there are some haters out there, but I really love living here.

Ok, enough about that. We have done a few other things recently. Last Saturday we went to a Pioneer Day Celebration at church. They had some fun activities for the kids.

Harper has really started to look so grown up yesterday. Most days she insists on having ponytails, but the other day she agreed to leave her hair down and she looked so old!

I gave the kids Oreos the other day for the first time. Harper was so excited that there was a cookie that had frosting inside (she inherited my love of frosting). Jonah just loves cookies.

In my last post I mentioned that my Grandma had a stroke. Well, she actually had another stroke last Saturday (on her 77th birthday) and she is doing okay but this stroke has caused some speech issues. My Grandma is so much fun and I have always really looked up to her. The memories I have of her are all of us laughing together.

I wanted to do something for my Grandma since I couldn't be there to see her, so I started sewing this after my Mom called to tell me about the second stroke. I started on Saturday night and mailed it out Monday afternoon. It is certainly not perfect, but I hope that she likes it and gets better soon :)

Not the best week ever

2011-07-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

The title of this post has nothing to do with the visitor we had earlier this week (see below) and more to do with my Grandma having a stroke (she's okay) and what Tom is currently doing. It is 2:30pm right now and Tom has been at the dentist since 9am getting about a billion dollars in dental work done. Poor guy. I just keep thinking about how uncomfortable he must be right now.

But our week did start out great. On Monday we had Tom's cousin Sarah spend the day with us. She has been in Orange County with her husband while he does an internship and they are spending a few days in Beverly Hills. We checked out Santa Monica and then hung out at our place for a while.

We love having visitors but don't get very many. Come visit us!

13 months

2011-07-18T14:55:00.000-07:00

Jonah is now 13 months and there has been a lot going on with him lately. Let's see if I can remember everything.

He got his first tooth! Well, it is very slowly coming in but it has at least broken through the gums. Both of my kids have been late to get their first tooth and then the tooth comes in very slowly.

If you look closely you can see the tooth in this photo. I didn't have much luck getting him to open his mouth. He has been very sad for the past couple days.

He now says a few words in addition to mama and dada: Elmo (ohhh), no, and uh-oh. He also loves to copy what you are doing and steal whatever toy Harper is playing with.

Jonah talks A LOT and is pretty much always jabbering about something. I believe that he inherited this from Tom.

He eats a lot less than he did a few months ago but continues to be willing to try just about anything.

Just to clarify, this is a root beer bottle and it was empty.

Jonah has ZERO interest in walking. He hates it.

Jonah's friend Dean had a first birthday party last week and his wonderful mother Rachel made a cake for Jonah to do a cake smash. Neither boy was really interested in smashing the cake, but Jonah did stick his finger in the frosting a few times.

If Harper wakes up in the middle of the night screaming (this happens a lot) Jonah will just sit up in his crib and stare at her. I think that Jonah thinks Harper is crazy.

He loves to play peekaboo.

He is afraid of strangers if they get too close, especially men.

He loves to bang on things like they are drums. He actually takes his naps in our laundry room in a pack and play since Harper tends to do more playing than napping. I can usually tell he's awake because I can hear him hitting the washing machine.

He loves to open and close doors.

He has a giant head. I think it is bigger than Harper's.

We have really noticed a change in his attitude over the last couple of months. He is still jolly sometimes, but is more often a little morose and occasionally cranky. Overall he is still a very happy baby, but we have definitely noticed a difference.

He is very curious and spends most of the day crawling around the house trying to get into trouble.

He is such a sweet boy and he seems like he has gotten so much older all of a sudden, my little baby is getting so big!

Newport Beach

2011-07-18T14:38:00.000-07:00

Tom's law firm does a casino night in Newport Beach every summer for the interns. We actually haven't gone since Tom was an intern, so it has been four years, and we weren't going to go this year because of Carmageddon but we decided at the last minute to go anyway. Actually, my main reason for wanting to go is that Harper has been begging me to go swimming and this seemed like a good way to make that happen.

We stayed at a really nice place in Newport and since the hotel was full, we actually got put in the members only area and our door looked right out onto the beach. Friday night we had a sitter come to our room while we went to dinner and then on Saturday morning we went swimming.

Harper was in HEAVEN and Jonah had a good time too.

And it turns out that we didn't need to be afraid of the traffic since we made it hope in record time and the freeway felt pretty much empty.

Visit from Grandma

2011-07-18T14:32:00.000-07:00

My Mom decided to a couple weeks ago to come out and visit us for a few days (yay!) and we had a really fun time.

On Monday we went to this playplace by our house. Harper built lots of towers which she then knocked over.

A couple weeks ago Harper started telling me that she wants a "girl sister." Sorry Harper, not happening any time soon. When we were at the playplace there was a little girl about Jonah's age and Harper said, "Mommy, I found a girl sister!"

On Tuesday we went down to the beach and were forced to get cupcakes since my Mom has never been to a cupcake shop before. What torture.

They even had a cupcake that combined two of Harper's favorite things: chocolate frosting and M&Ms.

Here is Jonah at lunch on Wednesday. I have finally weaned him and he now constantly wants to drink milk. He goes through a few of these every day. I realize that this is a fairly normal thing, but since Harper has a milk allergy it's new to us.

Here is Harper showing off the new purse that I made her.

Grandma and Jonah reading an Elmo book.

We went to our ward BBQ.

We had a wonderful time with my Mom and we miss Grandma a lot!

boring

2011-07-06T14:43:00.000-07:00

Life has been pretty boring lately so I haven't had much to blog about. We were on vacation for a week in June and Tom still billed his normal number of hours for the month so he has been incredibly busy at work. While he has been busy we have been taking lots of walks, going to the park, and hanging out around the house.

Harper's skin is still recovering from a week in the desert. Her eczema has been out of control and her poor little hands are so leathery.

On the 4th of July we went to an indoor play place in the mall by our house. I have never been, but it is free on Mondays for the rest of the month so I think we will be going again. Afterward we had some watermelon. What is the 4th of July without watermelon? It was pretty hot outside (80 degree is considered pretty hot around here) so Harper was bright red. She inherited that lovely quality from me.

We all have a hard time with Tom being at work so much, but I think it is the hardest on Harper. She is such a Daddy's girl. See this angelic smile?

That's the face she makes when she's doing something naughty. We've been seeing this face a lot lately.

We do have something to look forward to since my Mom is coming to town on Sunday and I am so excited :)

some random things

2011-06-28T15:53:00.000-07:00

Jonah has been pulling himself up for a while now, but for a long time he would only do it if he really wanted something that he couldn't reach while crawling. This little boy did not like to stand up. But over the last week or so he now pulls himself up regularly. We stopped by to see Tom on Sunday afternoon since he had to work (boo) and the kids ran around for a while in the courtyard behind his building.

This is Jonah in his stroller on the way over there. He LOVES graham crackers and I usually let him have one or two for a snack as we walk and he ends up covered in graham cracker.

We have been working with Harper for a while to get her to try new foods. The only foods that she will eat willingly (that she isn't allergic to) are chicken nuggets, grapes, granola bars, apples, pears, and plain spaghetti noodles. So every night she has to try a few bites of what we're eating. She does this incredibly annoying thing where she will put the food in her mouth and then just let it stay in her cheeks FOREVER without chewing it. And when we try to get her to eat some more she says that she is "finishing." Such a little staller. Here she is with cheeks full of something.

I gave Jonah a cookie the other day for the first time. He has had little pieces of cookies before, but I have never given him his own. He went crazy and gobbled the whole thing down in about 2 minutes.

It is so weird to go from such a picky eater to a little boy who will eat any and everything!

The Birthday Boy

2011-06-19T23:28:00.000-07:00

In between the zillions of doctors visits we had this week between Jonah's well child visit and the 3 visits we made for Harper's UTI, we had a little cake. I used a recipe from Tom's aunt Judy which uses a cake mix and a can of cherries and it is delicious. Jonah thought so too. I had to add some frosting to the recipe since that is the only part of cake that Harper will eat.

I didn't get any photos of Jonah opening his presents since we opened them that morning before Tom left for work. But I did want to talk about one of Jonah's gifts that I am really excited about.

My grandparents were wondering what Jonah might like for his birthday, and I thought it would be a good idea if we got some fabric so that I could make him a quilt for his birthday. I am really excited with how it turned out. If you can't see from the photo, there are trucks and little dogs and I think it is a great little boy quilt.

I have been working furiously to finish the quilt this week which is a big reason why the blog has not been updated. Also a big part of the reason that my house is a disaster right now, but I wanted to finish it close to his birthday.

Jonah think it's pretty awesome.

Vacation - Park City

2011-06-19T23:11:00.000-07:00

This is a long, picture-heavy post so if you aren't related to us you can probably skip this.

Our vacation didn't end there. We left on Wednesday for Park City where we were renting a house with Tom's parents and siblings.

Harper and Wyatt

We tried to go to the Alpine Slide on Thursday, but it was raining so the slide was closed.

Emma making funny faces in the hot tub

On Friday it wasn't raining but the alpine coaster was not working. We got day passes for a few adults and most of the kids.

Brent and Aiden on the alpine slide

Grandma and Sydney

Tom and Harper

Mia on the rock climbing wall

Harper bouncing. You are supposed to weigh 40 pounds to do this. Harper weighs less than 30, so she wasn't very bouncy.

Harper and Aiden sharing a snow cone

The coaster finally opened later in the afternoon and everyone got in a few rides.

Cute Sydney

AJ hugging Harper

Harper and I waiting for Tom to take another ride on the coaster. Look at that scenery!

Harper was surprisingly happy after such a tiring day.

After we left Park City we headed to Tom's Grandpa's 80th birthday party. It was great to see everyone, but the program was a little long for lots of crazy kids. Mia helped me out with Harper.

Taylor was getting a little antsy.

Both of our kids have two cousins that are their age on Tom's side of the family which I am so happy about. Harper is halfway between AJ and Aiden and all three of them will actually be in the same school year. Jonah just turned 1, Taylor will be 1 next month, and then Tyler will be 1 in January.

After the birthday party I was excited to get to go to my cousin's baby shower. I miss pretty much all family events since we live far away, so it was exciting to see some cousins and aunts that I haven't seen in a while. Harper helped Sarah open some of her presents.

We snuck in a quick attempt at family photos after the shower. Tom and I were planning on leaving at 3am the next day so we needed to be in bed early.

Jonah playing guitar with Uncle Chase

Chase and Jonah

Kelly

Kara and H ailey

We were hoping we could find someone around to take the photo since we hadn't brought a tripod, but no one was around. So Tom is missing from the photo.

Just pretend like he is there.

Greg, Aubrie, Hailey, and Gavin

We tried to get a photo of all of the kids together. Jonah DID NOT want to participate, so Harper tried to hold him in place. This did not go over well.

The next day we actually succeeded in getting on the road by 3am and made it home by 3pm. We only stopped twice. Once in Beaver for breakfast:

And once in Barstow for lunch. Notice that both kids are still in their pajamas at this point.

We let Jonah have a little bit of milkshake and now he thinks that any cup with a straw in it must be a milkshake so he will try relentlessly to drink out of it.

Vacation - Las Vegas

2011-06-19T16:18:00.000-07:00

Since this past week was Jonah's birthday and Harper was very sick, I haven't had a chance to blog about our vacation which is something that Tom has reminded me about at least a dozen times now. Here you go Tom.

On Sunday afternoon we left to go to Las Vegas. We had told Harper that we were going to go swimming on vacation, so she was constantly asking to, "go to the beach." She calls all kinds of swimming going to the beach. Every time we stopped she asked if we were at the beach. Since we didn't leave LA until around 2 in the afternoon, we got to the hotel too late to go swimming so I think Harper endured the longest wait of her lifetime. After all of that, I didn't even get a photo of us at the pool.

On Day 1 we spent some time walking on the strip since it wasn't outrageously hot. It was very bright outside, so we got Harper some stylish shades.

We went to an exhibit at The Mirage where we saw dolphins.

And white tigers.

And then spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool. After that we thought it would be a good idea to walk back to the strip (it was a couple blocks away) with no stroller and find somewhere to eat. That ended in us wandering around for an hour with two heavy children until we finally found somewhere.

On Day 2 we started out at the Lied Children's museum.

We played with water tables.

Played with giant bubbles.

Flew airplanes.

And made art projects.

That afternoon we went to an aquarium which was probably the best part of the trip. Harper really wanted to see the sharks and didn't really want to look at anything else until we found them.

I loved the jelly fish. Pretty amazing.

After that we headed toward M&M world. On the way there, we saw an old friend. We saw this very same guy when we took my sister Kara to breakfast for her birthday when she was visiting us in LA last year. I guess he moved to Las Vegas.

We made it to M&M World and Harper was not disappointed. That girl loves her candy.

That night I started some laundry in our hotel (the washer was in the room where the kids were sleeping) and put the kids to bed. When I came back to put the clothes in the dryer, I opened the door and heard Harper making some very fake snoring noises. And then I heard some crinkling sounds. Harper had found her bag of M&Ms during the night and was pretending to be asleep so I wouldn't figure it out. When Tom and I went to take them from her, she fessed up and said, "Harper has M&Ms in her mouth." Yes Harper, we noticed.

all about Jonah

2011-06-15T13:39:00.000-07:00

Today is Jonah's birthday! We celebrated by visiting his pediatrician for his well child visit where he received 4 shots and got his blood drawn. Very exciting. That is in addition to the two trips we had to make there yesterday because Harper has another urinary tract infection :( Hopefully the rest of the day will go better.

At his visit he weighed 21 pounds 7 oz and was 29.5 inches (somehow 1 inch shorter than he was at his last visit, I think they measured wrong last time). He has continued his downward slide on the growth and weight chart and is now below the 50th percentile on both. His head is still as big as ever and is in the 90-something percentile. Harper has commented several times recently that Jonah has a large head.

Here are a few things about Jonah:

We haven't really found a food that he doesn't like. He even likes Indian food and especially likes meat.
While he is very sweet, he is also stubborn. If he wants something, he will persist until he gets it.
He can pull himself up, but doesn't really have any interest in standing or walking. It takes real effort to get him to straighten his legs out so that he will stand.
He gives big, open-mouthed kisses.
He is afraid of most men.
He loves to turn pages in books. One of his birthday presents was an Elmo book with flaps that open and close, and I haven't been able to pry it away from him today.
He loves music, especially this song.
If Harper is laughing, he will start laughing too.
If Harper is holding a toy, he will try to take it away. This has led to many problems.
He is the funniest little crawler. He really smacks his little hands on the floor when he crawls and he also likes to smack his lips. It's pretty cute.
He is so good natured. He has a high tolerance for being hungry or tired and it takes a lot to get him upset.
I think he's a Mama's boy, but he certainly loves his Daddy too. When Tom gets home from work he doesn't want anything to do with me.
I can't remember if I have mentioned this before, but if I am sitting on the floor he will crawl over and lay his head down in my lap. I LOVE IT. Harper has noticed this and will now crawl over and put her head in my lap. Silly girl.

Overall, Jonah is just the sweetest little boy. We love having him in our family. Here are some photos from the last year.

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

January

February

March

April

May

June

goings on

2011-06-03T12:29:00.000-07:00

We are getting ready to head out of town for a few days. First we are going to Las Vegas to try to relax and hang out at the pool. And then we are getting together with Tom's family. We have a niece and a nephew that we haven't met yet and we haven't seen everyone else in ages. Harper is so excited she keeps asking when she's going to get to see her cousins. She even helped me make some little presents for them and has been walking around the apartment saying, "These are for my cousins, I'm going to give these to my cousins." She's going to have a blast.

Jonah pulled himself up to standing for the first time yesterday. He was trying to get to the ipad and was so incredibly pleased with himself. He just kept giggling.

Lately Harper insists on being called Cinderella and is enjoying playing dress up and walking around the house wearing shoes that do not belong to her. She also insists on wearing a dress all of the time.

Wednesday was our first ward BBQ of the year. During the summer we have a potluck BBQ every Wednesday night in the ball field behind our building and it is one of my favorite things about our ward. There is lots of room for the kids to run around and a little playground.

Harper threw a fit when we had to go home and has asked to go to the BBQ several times since. It's a good thing there are still plenty of BBQs left this year :)

Harper update

2011-05-20T16:09:00.000-07:00

I have had several people comment to me lately how much better Harper's scars are looking, so I thought I'd do a little update on her.

The scars are pretty faded and not very noticeable. I haven't had a stranger ask me what happened in a few weeks, although Harper mentions the incident frequently. She doesn't seem too traumatized but if she sees a picture of her right after the dog bite she gets upset. Here's a photo comparing how she looked the day of the dog bite, two weeks later, and then a zoomed in version of the above photo which was taken 2 months later. It's amazing how fast she has healed.

You can see the scar on her nose, the long one on her upper lip, a couple of punctures on her upper lip, and then she has a small scar on the edge of her bottom lip. The plastic surgeon told me that the most difficult part about repairing an injury like this is getting her lip lined up exactly right. She did a great job.

Harper is such a sweet (and crazy) girl and such a great big sister. This is Jonah and Harper at the park yesterday.

Jonah pretty much thought this was the best thing in the whole world.

Santa Monica with the Pedrozas

2011-05-15T23:55:00.000-07:00

We got to see the Pedrozas two weekends in a row! They came to LA on Saturday to use a Groupon at the Santa Monica Pier, and we joined them for a couple of rides and dinner.

Tom took the kids on a couple rides. Harper loved this one. . .

And was, once again, terrified by this one . . .

Both kids were fascinated by the ocean.

And John took a family photo of us. Just pretend that we took the time to take Jonah out of the carrier and that he was actually looking at the camera.

After this crazy fun-filled day, which began with her friend Kate's birthday party, Harper was exhausted. We had to wake her up at 8:40 this morning so that we could make it to church and then we came home and she took a 4 hour nap. Sounds like the Pedrozas need to visit more often!

Mother's Day

2011-05-09T21:52:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts, but I just got a new computer and it took me a few days to get switched over. We really haven't been up to much. Jonah is crawling like a little maniac.

And is as jolly and happy as ever. He loves the swings at the park.

Tom likes to call Harper our "feral child" because she is crazy and her hair is always sticking up in every direction. Last year we had an issue that when her eczema was really itchy she would tug on her hair and she ended up with quite the bald spot. The hair has been growing back for a while now, but she has this crazy patch the likes to stick up. Apparently it gets particularly bad after going to bed with wet hair.

On Mother's Day we went to Tom's aunt and uncle's house in Redlands with Tom's parents, cousin's family, and sister's family. Harper had a blast playing with the kids. They played with pretend snacks . . .

and real snakes. . .

Harper has talked about the snake and asked about Savannah, Ella, and AJ about 75 times today.

I even got one of my children to sit still long enough to have their photo taken with me.

Thank you Cannons for inviting us over, we had a great time!

Harper's birthday party

2011-04-27T20:41:00.000-07:00

We had a very small little birthday party yesterday for Harper at Roxbury park. Since the park is just a few blocks from Tom's office he was able to be there for part of the party.

Harper was so excited to have cake and see her friends. Several of them were able to come and we had a good time sitting around eating cake and playing at the playground.

Jonah also had a friend there.

We had a giant chocolate cake so after everyone had a piece (or two) we let the kids have at it. It started innocently enough.

And quickly turned into this:

You can see from the photo that the candles were never lit. It was extremely windy at the park and we couldn't keep the match going long enough to light the candles.

Harper had a great time and keeps talking about her birthday party and playing with her friends. I am so glad that we were able to do something for her turning 3 and we are very grateful to our friends for being there :)

Jonah is (kind of) crawling

2011-04-26T23:36:00.000-07:00

Jonah started crawling on Sunday! He is still a little timid. Pretty much he moves forward a couple of feet, and then changes his mind and retreats. This usually leaves him further back than he started. It is very cute and it is funny to see him crawl/scoot/roll around on the floor when he sees something that he wants.

This video isn't very good but Harper was trying to jump in front of the camera and Jonah wasn't very interested in crawling so it will have to do for now.

Untitled from Erica Jackman on Vimeo.

3 years old!

2011-04-22T22:15:00.000-07:00

Our sweet little girl turned 3 years old today. She woke up this morning to presents which she insisted on opening while wearing her new princess dress that I made her (don't look too closely, mistakes abound).

Then she helped me make chocolate frosting for her cake. I don't think she was a huge fan of the cake, but she did love the frosting.

Then we went to the park and spent some time playing. Poor girl hasn't been feeling 100% and seems to feel especially icky this evening.

We are going to do a little party for her on Tuesday with some of her friends so hopefully she is feeling better by then.

Here are some things about Harper lately:

She has a really funny way of describing things that happen to her. Like if I ask her what she did at the park, she will start to list everything that she did and repeat a lot of the things on and on for several minutes: I went on the swings and the slide and played and climbed and played and went on the swings and played . . . and on and on.

She has recently developed a fear of the scary parts of movies and I think she has started to have nightmares. Poor girl.
She tries to negotiate with me. She will say things like, "Ok, I eat all of my grapes and then have fishies. Ok." Ok Harper, that's not how it works.
We have made great progress with her eating new foods. I made spaetzle for dinner a couple of weeks ago and Tom convinced Harper to try it and she loved it. She will now try a variety of noodle foods (she calls them doodles) and will eat things sometimes if she sees Jonah eating them.
She is very bossy. If she sees Jonah reaching for something that he isn't supposed to have (or if it is something Harper doesn't want him to have) she will take it away and tell Jonah, "No no, baby."
When she describes something that she has done she will say that she either did it like a princess or like a big girl.
Every time I go into the kitchen she asks what I am doing, then proclaims that she wants to help me. She drags her stool across the kitchen, climbs on top of it, and says, "I be very careful."

Ok, I'm tired and that's all I can think of right now. But I have been holding back photos so I could include them in this post so here they are.

If you can't tell from this photo, she is about to do a summersault.

10 Months

2011-04-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

Jonah is 10 months old today! He is refusing to nap so he is sitting on the floor next to me trying to grab the computer.

The main thing that has changed lately with Jonah is his determination to get places. He still isn't quite crawling, but he can get around by scooting and rolling and pulling himself. If he sees something he wants, he will get there.

He still loves food and is happy to eat a little of whatever we are having for dinner. Actually, he will eat a LOT of whatever we are having. He seems to like more vegetables than fruits (although he loves bananas) and seems to love all carbs.

He really enjoys going to the park and is a big fan of the swing. He really likes to swing next to Harper and they will both giggle and laugh. I love it.

Another one of his favorite activities is turning pages in books. He can entertain himself for a long time just flipping through the same book. He also likes music and will bounce and babble along.

He enjoys clapping and saying "hey," which I think is supposed to be "yay." Unfortunately it appears that he has inherited my lack of coordination and when he claps there is very little clapping that actually occurs.

We love this sweet and we are so happy to have him in our family.

Someone . . .

2011-04-07T14:26:00.000-07:00

Is very close to being mobile.

He want from having no interest in crawling to being very close in just a couple of days. I am a little scared. Jonah likes to put EVERYTHING in his mouth.

quick photo

2011-04-03T22:39:00.000-07:00

We drove to Bakersfield today to visit Tom's parents. Unfortunately I had an awful headache so I don't have much to recount about the day, but here is a quick photo of Harper with Grandma.

recovery

2011-03-28T23:45:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd post a little photo update about Harper's face now that her scabs are gone. It is amazing how fast kids heal.

Click to see a larger version of the photo to get a good idea of what her lip looks like.

Harper has commented several times over the last few days that her "booboos" are now gone. It has only been two weeks and she is looking and feeling amazingly better. The plastic surgeon used dissolvable stitches so they pretty much came out as the scabs came off. She still has a couple of stitches left in her nose but they should be gone soon.

She is back to her crazy self!

Palm Springs

2011-03-27T10:57:00.000-07:00

We are in Palm Springs right now for a retreat with Tom's law firm. I think that the kids and I are having a lot more fun than Tom is because he has been in classes and doing team building exercises, but it is nice for all of us to get away for a few days.

We drove out on Friday (which was actually our 5th wedding anniversary) and had dinner with everyone. Harper had a little too much ice cream (which she is allergic to anyway) and ended up throwing up all over the place on Friday night. Yuck.

On Saturday Tom had to go to some classes after breakfast so I took the kids to a children's museum a couple of blocks away. Most of the activities were a little too old for Harper, but we did find one thing that she LOVED.

She kept turning around and saying, "Look Mommy, I'm painting!" I had to literally drag her away kicking and screaming so some other kids could have a turn.

When we got back Tom took Harper to the swimming pool. She was a little nervous at first, but ended up really loving it.

Jonah and I hung out in the shade while they swam.

And now we are just packing up our hotel room and waiting for Tom to get back from some classes. It's fun to get away, but it's nothing like sleeping in the same room with your children that can make you want to get home and sleep in your own bed.

9 months / 35 months

2011-03-18T23:10:00.000-07:00

This is going to be brief because I still have a giant, unpacked suitcase and a sink full of dirty dishes, but I wanted to mention a few things that have been going on with the kiddos lately so I don't forget.

Carly and Jonah

Jonah is still his jolly little self. His growth has continued to slow down (Harper did a similar thing around 8-9 months) and he weighs just under 21 pounds (I weighed him at Harper's appointment today). I am not taking him in for his 9 month appointment until next month because I wanted to do his 9 month and Harper's 3 year at the same time. He can pretty efficiently pick up his own food now and seems to love carbohydrates (waffles, bread, crackers, etc). I think he might be getting interested in crawling, but it is still going to be a while. Right now he can roll around on the floor and can also bounce himself forward pretty well when he is sitting up.

This little boy loves Elmo. Harper will be watching Sesame Street and Jonah will quietly be playing with his toys, but when the "Elmo's world" part comes on he watches and giggles. So cute. He is still toothless. I think it looks like his bottom two teeth are coming in, but I think he will be like Harper and have his teeth come in late and grow in very slowly. One of my favorite things right now is when we are standing somewhere in public Jonah likes to stare at someone and smile until they look at him and smile back. He does this all of the time and I just love it.

I love these chubby arms and legs!

Harper is doing pretty well. This morning she was wiping her nose and she wiped hard enough to break off some of the scab on her upper lip and that took some of her stitches with it. We already had an appointment with the pediatrician today and he said that the would looked healed enough that it didn't need to be re-stitched up. I have been surprised that she doesn't seem to be afraid of dogs. She comments on the bite several times during the day and will say, "Doggie did a big no-no, Rocko go to time out."

Harper + chicken nugget = one happy little girl

Other than that she is her normal self, which means she is happy and loving one second and whiny the next. One of her favorite things is to help with Jonah and she likes to bring me diapers when I need them or bring Jonah toys if he is fussing. She is really good at getting him to laugh and he just adores the attention she gives him. Our trip to Utah in combination with the dog bite has really hindered our potty training work and our progress with getting Harper to eat new foods, but we are going to get back on track now.

I know that our family is interested in how Harper is healing so I will try to update on that again soon, but just know that she is healing well and she is okay. The doctors at Primary Children's did such a great job. I just keep thinking about how much worse the damage could have been and I am grateful that she is doing so well. I know that my mom and stepdad feel really bad about what happened, but it isn't their fault and it makes me feel bad that they feel bad so they better stop it!

long day

2011-03-15T23:57:00.000-07:00

I have more stuff about the rest of our Utah trip but I will post that later. Earlier today I was fixing Harper some lunch when I heard Rocko (my parents' lhasa apso) growl and Harper start screaming. He had bitten her on the face.

I am not a huge fan of dogs, but I really like Rocko. He has always been pretty tolerant of Harper as she chased him around, but she must have done something today that pushed him over the edge. Harper loves dogs and I hope this doesn't change that. I just hope we can help her to be a little more gentle and give animals a little more space. But Rocko better stay away from my little girl in the future!

Luckily my brother Chase was home and he was able to go with us to Primary Children's hospital to get Harper stitched up.

I was pretty surprised at how well Harper handled the situation. She screamed a lot at first, but she calmed down by the time we got to the emergency room and was very brave as she got an IV to be sedated for her stitches (she had to have an IV since she is allergic to eggs which are in the sedative they normally use). They actually had a woman come in and talk to Harper about IVs and put a little IV in a doll's arm. I think it really helped. Harper got to keep the doll and colored on it with markers while we waited.

Harper chose the bumblebee bandage to hold on her IV.

I was really impressed with the doctors and nurses at the hospital and a really wonderful plastic surgeon stitched up Harper's face. She had to have stitches on her nose, along a cut on her upper lip, and also in a puncture wound on her lip. The plastic surgeon said that while it is never ideal to have cuts on your face, the location of her cuts were very good for healing with minimal scarring.

It was so hard to see Harper out of it. After she got her stitches we could see the wounds a little better.

I am so grateful that Chase was able to come with us. He was so helpful with the kids for the 5+ hours that we spent taking care of this.

Luckily we had a late flight. We made it back to LA even though just about everyone we saw asked what happened.

friday

2011-03-11T23:04:00.000-08:00

The highlight of today was definitely the BYU basketball game. Wow.

In addition to that, Harper checked out the rapidly melting snow

Took a nap on the couch with Kelly

Jonah hung out with Chase

Harper helped Grandma make cookies

And the kids played with their cousins and we all went to dinner.

And while we were doing all of that Tom waited in this line

Sorry for all of the boring details of our day, but I know Tom misses the kids so I wanted to post some photos so he could know what we're up to.

wednesday, thursday

2011-03-10T23:42:00.000-08:00

As you can see, Harper had some fun with her cousins Hailey and Gavin yesterday. They spent a long time just jumping off of the fireplace onto the floor together.

Today Carly and I went down to Provo to check out BYU. I am trying to persuade Carly that is where she should go to school. We also made a stop by the candy counter at the bookstore. Yum.

We drove by some of my old apartments and then walked around on campus. This is Harper in front of the MARB which is where Tom and I met.

Afterward we went to Cafe Paesan, which is a restaurant in Orem that is kind of like Cafe Rio but with Italian food. Harper and Jonah were both very happy and giggly even though neither of them had any yummy pizza.

We are looking forward to spending the day with my Mom tomorrow since she has the day off.

tuesday

2011-03-08T21:12:00.000-08:00

We woke up this morning to this

So we spent the day in the house until some of it melted away. Harper and I colored:

Jonah did a lot of crying. He has had a lot of trouble sleeping in a new place and he is a little sleepy and sad.

After Carly got home from school, we went to my Dad's house to visit him and my grandparents.

Chase held Jonah while he finally got some sleep. It has been so great to have some extra hands to help with the kids.

Utah

2011-03-07T19:18:00.000-08:00

We are currently in Utah to visit family and see my little brother who just got home from his mission on Friday. I was nervous about flying, and it was pretty much worse that I had anticipated. The kids were okay until the stewardess brought around drinks. Harper had a juice and I had a diet Coke. I don't know what I was thinking. Why would I get open drinks on an airplane with 2 kids? Within about 10 seconds the juice was spilled all over Harper and the diet Coke was all over me. I had a change of clothes for Harper, so after a few minutes of whining and screaming she had calmed down. No change of clothes for me, so I got to spend the rest of the flight with Coke-soaked jeans.

Today we brought lunch to my Mom at school, but other than that we have just been taking it easy.

Kelly has really been taking it easy.

Carly and Kelly didn't have school today so we went to Target and the distribution center.

Chase has been catching up on all of the things that he has missed on the last two years. He has already bought a new cell phone, laptop, and ipod and has been looking for a car. Harper has really enjoyed seeing him play his guitar.

We have been having fun, but we miss Tom and I feel bad that he has an empty house for the next week :(

fun with hats

2011-02-25T14:16:00.000-08:00

Harper loves hats. Over the past few months we have been keeping a look out for some cheap, post-winter deals on hats and picked up a few for around $1 each. If Harper is wearing one, she thinks Jonah needs to wear one too.

We are going to Utah in a couple of weeks and we are ready for the cold weather!

crazy girl

2011-02-22T14:39:00.000-08:00

I took the kids to Costco this morning. On the way there we saw several billboards for the movie Rango. We have been telling her for the last few days that if she can keep her pull-up dry during her nap that Tom will take her to see Rango, so when we saw the billboards we talked about going to see the movie. I guess poop must have been on her mind, because while we were shopping Harper made up a little song which she sang in a VERY loud voice. It included lines such as, "Don't poop on clothes, don't poop on bed, don't poop on floor, don't poop on Baby Jonah," etc. I hope my fellow shoppers thought this was as funny as I did.

quick Bakersfield trip / pinterest

2011-02-20T15:01:00.000-08:00

On Wendesday we went up to Bakersfield for the afternoon. Tom wasn't particularly swamped at work and we didn't know when that might happen again, so we left after lunch. It was a quick trip but Tom got to help his Dad with some home repairs and help his Mom explore her new iphone. Harper got to play with their dogs.

Harper and Tony

Tom + sheetrock

Recently someone told me about this website called Pinterest and now I am addicted. Tom makes fun of me because I my internet bookmarks are a disaster and are completely unorganized. Pages and pages of unorganized links that I will probably never look at again because I would never be able to find what I was looking for.

Pinterest is a way to organize and collect all of your favorite things. It says on the homepage that it will, "catalogue the things you love." You can make all kinds of folders like recipes, craft ideas, photos, etc.

Pinterest is just in beta so you can either request an invite or I can send you one. Llet me know if you want one.

Also, here is a photo of Tom and Harper reading yesterday. Tom has been really busy with work lately and Harper has sure missed him.

8 months / 34 months

2011-02-15T14:29:00.000-08:00

Jonah on Valentine's day. The sticker was Harper's idea.

Jonah is 8 months old today. This morning we were at this little program at a mall and someone asked me how old he was, and I said 6 months. No wait, he's 8 months! What? Jonah celebrated his 8 month mark by giggling uncontrollably while I was trying to feed him breakfast this morning. I would spoon some baby food into his mouth and he would start laughing and the food just drooled right back out of his mouth. It was hilarious.

A few new things about Jonah . . .

He now says "dada" in addition to "mama."
He has no interest in crawling or being mobile in any way other than rolling. He does not like to stand up and if you try to stand him up he will jump.
He seems to have slowed WAY down as far as growth. He still fits into the same clothes that I thought he was outgrowing 2 months ago.

Watching basketball with Daddy.

He does this funny squirmy thing when you pick him up which involves him rubbing his nose on your shoulder. This has been unfortunate lately since he has had what Harper calls a "goober nose" for the last couple weeks.
Jonah loves to try to eat what is in your hand. A couple of times I have been holding him while eating and I look down to see him eating the food that I am holding. Keep your fingers crossed, we have seen no signs of food allergies.

Harper holding Jonah on the couch.

Waiting for Daddy after work.

Harper will be 34 months next week.

She is now potty trained! Well, pretty much. She still wears a diaper during her naps and at night, but we haven't had any accidents for a while so I think she is pretty much there. The funny thing is that she has such tiny little hips that most of the underwear I bought for her is too big.
Whenever she does something to help or cleans something up, she's says that she is doing it, "like a big girl." I love it.

She loves to play dress up by putting on lots of hats and trying to wear her toys.

Opening her Valentine from Grandma.

She is trying to be done with naps, but I am trying to make her keep taking them. She probably naps 2-3 days a week, but the other days she will still play in her room by herself for about 90 minutes. This has led to a very messy bedroom.
We are making progress with food. Right now she has to eat 3 bites of whatever we are having for dinner before she can have anything else (usually fruit or a sandwich). She even ate some split pea soup the other day.

ie

2011-02-09T23:56:00.000-08:00

These are things that Harper said today:

Mommy, want to watch a show-ie.

Harper wants some milk-ie.

Where's my shoes-ies?

Pretty much every word ends in -ie lately. Last night Tom and I were wondering where she might have picked this up, when I realized that I should probably stop saying doggie, horsie, wipie, snugglie, etc. That little girl listens to everything that you say. Well, until you actually want her to listen.

temple grounds

2011-02-09T23:48:00.000-08:00

We live about a 15 minute walk from the temple grounds. Today I was thinking about walking over there with the kids and I was wondering why we don't do that more often. When we got to the temple I remembered why. Harper was running around like a crazy person. She was super loud and was throwing these little rocks everywhere. Not exactly reverent. Don't be fooled by this photo.

Jonah wanted to get out of the stroller so I set him on the ground. While I was chasing Harper around I noticed that he had a mouthful of grass. Oops.

In an attempt to restore the enjoyment of our walk, we went into the visitor's center for a few minutes. The visitor's center was recently re-done and it is really amazing. Well, at least the front is. The two times I have taken Harper, I haven't made it past the front of the building because they have this computerized coloring table that I can't pry Harper away from.

This is Harper folding her arms and being reverent.

Jonah charmed all of the sister missionaries. He's such a little flirt.

saturday shenanigans

2011-02-05T21:02:00.000-08:00

We are considering getting a new desks so we set out today to try some potential options. Harper wanted to run around the very-breakable store like a crazy child so we had to cut that visit short.

We stopped for lunch, where Harper got a balloon with her quesadilla.

And visited Rodeo Drive for the first time since we moved to LA.

Then we headed to Culver City to check out even more desks. Jonah tried one out.

And enjoyed looking at himself in the mirror.

And after all of that looking we discovered that everything was too ugly or too expensive, so it looks like we will be doing more looking in the future.

Also, Tom got some new glasses this week (and a haircut). Doesn't he look handsome?

Happy birthday to me (this is our 400th post)!

2011-01-31T15:41:00.000-08:00

This birthday has been pretty low-key. I wasn't really anticipating it, it doesn't feel like any kind of milestone, and it doesn't really feel like a birthday since HARPER IS DRIVING ME CRAZY AND WON'T TAKE A NAP. But we did go to Santa Monica this morning to celebrate by getting some cupcakes. Yum. We had a groupon that I had purchased a few months ago so we got 6 cupcakes. Since Tom isn't a big fan and I can't be a bad mother and let Harper eat a bunch of cupcakes, I guess I'm going to have to eat most of them. Actually, what I meant to say is that I have already eaten most of them. Oops.

Tom did take one of the junior mint cupcakes off my hands and Harper and I split the other junior mint and also the hostess-looking cupcake this morning. This was her reaction when we realized that we weren't eating all 6 cupcakes:

Full on tantrum. Probably the worst tantrum she has ever thrown.

I didn't plan on making our 400th post on my birthday and it really just feels like I was making our 100th post. I recently formatted our blog into books and had them printed for 2006-2008. One book had our posts from 2006 & 2007 and the other from 2008. The first book was a lot smaller than the second, so having kids has definitely increased our posting frequency. I am hoping to do books for 2009 & 2010 this year, but for 2011 I am doing a daily photo project. Basically I am taking a photo every day. Mostly they are pictures of Harper and Jonah, but I am trying to focus on doing something interesting every day. I feel like so many day pass without anything significant happening and they all blur together, so I am hoping that this will help me appreciate each day a little more.

first day of preschool(ish)

2011-01-30T00:30:00.000-08:00

This week Harper started a little playgroup/preschool with some friends from the ward. Harper LOVED it. I took this picture before we left. She insisted on wearing her sparkly shoes.

There are four other kids and we will rotate hosting the kids at our houses. The schedule is pretty relaxed since they are so young (Harper is the oldest). I think that it will be really good for Harper to spend a couple hours away from me every week and to have her own thing to do.

I have started to give Jonah little pieces of my food when I am eating and I don't think he is going to let me feed him baby food much longer. This little boy loves black beans and waffles.

Lately I've noticed that Harper acts really sweet toward Jonah. She still steals an occasional toy, but she is very concerned about how he is doing and always makes sure that he has a toy to play with. They were riding in a cart together the other day at Costco and Jonah started to fuss. Harper reached over and said, "It's okay baby, I hold your hand." I just about melted.

best friends

2011-01-25T21:08:00.000-08:00

Harper and Kate are the cutest little friends.

Every Sunday when I tell Harper we are going to church, she asks to see if Kate is going to be there.

They had a blast at the park today. It is so fun to watch them play together.

Siblings

2011-01-20T22:21:00.000-08:00

These two are cracking me up

And driving me crazy these days.

Anytime Harper laughs, Jonah will start laughing. But sometimes when she is crying Jonah thinks that she is laughing, so he starts laughing, which makes Harper really mad. Also, it amazes me to see these two sit next to each other because Harper isn't that much bigger than Jonah.

Jonah has discovered his tongue and is constantly sticking it out.

And Harper is definitely going to need braces. It looks like she has inherited my crazy crooked teeth and Tom's gap.

Iron Will

2011-01-19T20:33:00.000-08:00

Tonight Harper refused to try her mother's delicious mashed sweet potatoes. After much begging and pleading I finally told her that she could have one itty bitty bite or she could go to bed early without dinner.

She thought about it for a second and then told me, "ok Daddy, night night."

This girl does not bend. An inch.

Oh No!

2011-01-18T23:58:00.000-08:00

Tom here.

So as mentioned in the previous post, Harper may or not have learned the phrase "we have to buy a new one" from Daddy. She now uses it when we break something or we run out of something. Here's a video of her thought process in action.

A few weeks ago we bought a new TV to replace our old, dying one. We sold it on Craigslist for a few bucks and someone came to pick up. The new TV was scheduled for a few hours later, but (during that brief time) Harper was really confused as to why someone took our TV away and what life was going to be like without one.

Observe her devastation and (logical) conclusion below:

7 Months / 33 Months

2011-01-15T20:03:00.000-08:00

Jonah is 7 months old today. We celebrated by making a visit to Cafe Rio in Manhattan Beach. Jonah loved the Dr. Pepper.

Ok just kidding, it was empty. But we did have some yummy pork salads and Jonah did eat some mashed up black beans and seemed to enjoy them.

Now that Jonah is 7 months old he is a great sitter and really enjoys playing on the floor with Harper. He is also a great roller and rolls and scoots across the floor at a slow pace.

Lately when Jonah gets upset and wants to be picked up he says, "Ama," which sounds an awful lot like Mama. It's probably not intentional, but I will take it.

He wants to put EVERYTHING in his mouth. I know that is a normal baby thing, but Harper never really went through this phase. Earlier today I put some puffs on his high chair tray. He is just starting to be able to pick up food and put it in his mouth, and when he succeeded he started laughing hysterically. It was too cute.

He LOVES food. So far, he has happily eaten everything we have given him except for blueberry applesauce. He doesn't seem to have a preference for fruits or vegetables and gets very excited when he sees his baby spoon because he knows that he gets to eat.

He is still toothless. Every time he is cranky I think that it must be because he is teething, but no teeth have appeared.

He is still big, but he has been dropping in the percentiles. He is now in the 70th percentile for weight. Hopefully that means he will stop outgrowing his clothes so quickly.

Harper will be 33 months in a few days. She seems so old these days and she is changing so much.

Whenever she sees something that is broken she says, "Uh oh, it's broken. Better get a new one." She gets that from Tom.

She loves to sing and constantly surprises me by singing along with a song on the radio. I better be careful what I listen to!

We are potty training and it is going much better. I had been giving her chocolate covered raisons as a treat, but now that we have switched to M&Ms she is much more excited about the process. Right now she can stay dry all day (except for her nap) as long as I constantly ask her if she needs to go potty.

She loves to wear the red shoes we got for her Halloween costume and calls them her "sparkly shoes." Earlier today Tom told her that princesses always wear sparkly shoes and she said, "Oooh," like this was a life changing statement.

Harper loves to run around and play with her friends. The photo below is from our church parking lot where lots of people bring their kids bikes and let them run around for a couple of hours. This one is Harper on someone else's bike.

She loves to eat canned corn. Just plain. In a bowl with a spoon. She asks for it almost every day.

She is such a fun girl, even though she can definitely be a stinker sometimes. She is very friendly and happy most of the time.

What we've been doing

2011-01-10T23:11:00.000-08:00

Giving Jonah his first graham cracker. He LOVED it.

Spending Saturday afternoon in Santa Monica.

While we were at the pier Tom took Harper on her first ride. You can see in the picture that she was a little nervous.

Bringing dinner to Tom at work.

And potty training. It isn't going very well.

Hopefully potty training will go a little better this week.

San Diego Wild Animal Park

2011-01-01T22:08:00.000-08:00

You might have noticed that I didn't make a New Years post. That is because we put the kids to bed at their normal time, ate a frozen pizza, watched a movie, and then did a puzzle.

We decided to head down to San Diego to the Wild Animal Park today. We have season passes and they are expiring soon, so we are hoping to get a couple more visits out of them. Harper was SO EXCITED to see the animals. In the end she had a lot of fun but I think she was actually a little disappointed because I think she was expecting to be able to play with the animals. She kept trying to climb in the cages. Her favorite part of the trip was going into the bird cage where she got to feed the birds some nectar (one of them landed on her head and she laughed hysterically).

Jonah enjoyed the views from the stroller.

We loved the gorillas.

Harper has a long way to go until she is gorilla-sized.

Harper fed the ducks.

In front o fthe duck pond.

We saw the lions.

Here is Harper trying to climb into the cage.

So cute. What handsome guys.

Harper at the condor exhibit.

The elephants were my favorite part. There was the cutest little baby elephant. I loved it.

Harper and Daddy.

Exhausted but happy.

Photo overload Christmas post

2011-01-01T21:34:00.000-08:00

I haven't made this post yet because I was overwhelmed by the number of photos that I knew I would include. Here we go.

We drove to Utah on the worst day possible. I rained and rained and rained all the way there which made me very anxious and I think I drove Tom crazy. The kids both did surprisingly well in the car. Harper was so excited to see everyone that she talked about it the whole way. Tom was a saint for doing almost all of the driving.

She loved seeing Rocko.

And making a gingerbread house with Grandma (she had a gum drop in her mouth in this photo.

We loved eating at some of our favorite places and even got to go to a BYU basketball game (without the kids!).

On Christmas Eve we went to Temple Square to see the lights. We got there early so we got lots of photos on the temple grounds.

Check out Kelly's weird glasses.

And beautiful Carly.

Kara holding our little devil. Don't I have gorgeous sisters?

He's a happy guy.

The whole family.

Jonah with Grandma. This is my new favorite picture.

Jonah with Grandma and Grandpa.

By the time the lights came on Harper was super ornery, but she was excited to see this tree.

Harper loved opening presents.

Jonah loved eating the wrapping paper, but he loved his presents too.

Harper's favorite part was the chocolate. Not surprised.

Harper loves to give hugs.

Cute girl.

And we visited with my Dad. Here is Jonah meeting Grandpa for the first time.

Afterward my stepgrandparents and grandparents came over. Here is Jonah with my Grandma.

And then we went to visit Tom's Grandpa. Here are the men. Harper fell asleep on the way there and spent the entire visit asleep on the couch.

Afterward my sister Aubrie came over with her kids and Harper got to hang out with her cousins, Hailey and Gavin.

Here is Kara with Grandma. I think Kara (as well as most of the rest of my family) is confused about which school they should be supporting.

Here are Harper and Jonah in their Christmas outfits.

Tom and Jonah got matching T-shirts.

It snowed! Harper lasted for a few minutes. She was fascinated by her footprints.

We got haircuts from Aunt Kara. Thanks Kara!

We had a blast. Too bad we couldn't stay longer.

Happy birthday Tom

2010-12-21T20:46:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was Tom's birthday. Unfortunately, he had to work and he was sick. Not exactly fun. But he did enjoy a birthday brownie. We gave Harper one too. When we were singing happy birthday to Tom, Harper sang, "Happy birthday to me," so I don't think she understood that it was Tom's birthday.

opening a few presents

2010-12-21T20:42:00.000-08:00

Since we aren't going to be home for Christmas, Harper opened a couple of presents the other day while talking to Grandma Jackman on Skype.

Here she is opening her (not quite finished at the time) stocking and an awesome present from her cousins.

And her favorite gift of all: a piece of gum that was in her stocking. She was so excited.

Happy half birthday to Jonah!

2010-12-16T22:05:00.000-08:00

As of yesterday, Jonah is 6 months old. I was a slacker about making his 6 month doctors appointment and his doctor fills up really fast so we won't find out how much he weighs or how long he is for a few more weeks. We celebrated the day by being stuck inside most of the day because it was raining. Boo.

A couple of days ago Jonah started rolling from his back to his stomach. He has been going from stomach to back for several weeks, but he doesn't really like to be on his tummy so he hadn't tried the other direction. Now he is a rolling around like crazy. I left him on a blanket in the middle of the living room for a couple minutes this morning and when I came back he had rolled a few feet away.

As you can see from the above photo, Jonah loves food (and he also gets to wear Harper's pink bibs). Whenever he sees his spoon he gets really excited. He prefers fruits and rice cereal, but will also eat vegetables if he's hungry. He got (both of us) especially messy this morning since he sneezed twice with food in his mouth. Carrots were everywhere.

He has a very sweet personality and is frequently described as "jolly." He loves Harper and enjoys sitting next to her and jabbering. Right now he sits pretty well, but I have to stay close by because he falls down if he gets excited or tries to pick something up.

Jonah is a champion napper. He sleeps from about 9-12 every morning and then from about 2:00-4:30 every afternoon (pretty much the opposite times of Harper's nap). He is not the best night time sleeper, and wakes up around 11pm and 5am most nights.

If you start laughing, there is a pretty good chance that Jonah will start laughing.

He loves to stick out his tongue, take baths, go on walks in the stroller, and jump up and down while you hold him (not necessarily all at the same time).

He is so sweet and we are very grateful to have him in our lives. I can't believe how fast the last six months have gone. Our little guy is so grown up.

These guys are . . .

2010-12-13T14:41:00.000-08:00

Best buds.

Most of the time.

Sometimes Harper's hugs are a LITTLE too tight.

haircut

2010-11-30T23:40:00.000-08:00

Jonah's hair was looking more and more like a really bad comb over, so we decided it was time for a haircut.

I loved all of his hair but he looks so cute with it cut. Plus, his bald spot is now a lot less obvious. But it's still pretty obvious.

And here's a little cheesy grin from Harper.

Thanksgiving

2010-11-27T00:20:00.000-08:00

We went to Redlands this year for Thanksgiving with some of Tom's family. We had really, really yummy food and got to visit with family. Harper must have had a great time because she was asking about Aunt Judy's house all day today.

It was great to see everyone, and to introduce most of them to Jonah for the first time. He loved the attention and the kids were happy to see Grandma and Gramps.

Harper had fun playing with her second cousins Savannah and Ella.

Somehow we managed not to get pictures of anyone else, but Tom did get one of the turkey. Yum.

Speaking of food, Jonah is loving solid food these days. He can eat eight ounces in one sitting and still act like he wants more. I don't think he is going to have any trouble passing up Harper in weight very soon.

I did get up and do a little Black Friday shopping this morning while Tom watched the kids. It actually wasn't too crazy and I was able to get several things, but now I am exhausted. I think next year I am going to stick to buying things online.

5 Months / 31 months

2010-11-15T14:20:00.000-08:00

Our little chunk is 5 months old. Lately . . .

He loves grabbing his toes. He has been trying to do it for a while, but he couldn't quite reach over his giant belly until recently.

He loves to put everything in his mouth, especially my fingers. He has gotten really good at holding onto things.
He is now sleeping in the same room as Harper. I have been nervous about this for a while, so he has been sleeping in the living room at night, but I decided that it was time to give it a shot. It has gone much better than I anticipated. Both kids even slept until 8am today.

He has started eating some solid food. I haven't given it to him regularly, but a couple of times he has seemed hungry after he has eaten, so I have given him a few bites of mashed avocado. He was a big fan.
He always gets a huge grin on his face when he looks at Harper. When Harper sees that she usually says, "Baby Jonah is happy to see you."
This is probably too much information, but he blows out of diapers all of the time. At least once a day. Usually twice. We have tried all kinds of diapers in all kinds of sizes, and he still blows out of them.
He loves to blow raspberries back and forth. He will blow a raspberry, and then I will do one, and that can go on for a long time. He thinks it's very funny.

He has completely given up on tummy time and will roll onto his back within a few seconds of me putting him on his stomach. He will sometimes try to roll onto his tummy from his back, but he hasn't been successful.
He continues to be very jolly. When people see him, they usually either comment that he is very big or that he is very happy. Both are true.

Harper is acting so grown up these days.

She is definitely a Daddy's girl.

She loves to be a helper. When I say that I am going to change Jonah, she will bring me a diaper and say, "Harper is Mommy's helper."
She is getting better at identifying letters of the alphabet. We were waiting in line at Costco today and she correctly identified most of the letters in "Costco Wholesale" that are printed on the front of the cart. I was surprised at how many she could name.
She is really enjoying reading. When I put her down for a nap she likes to have a stack of books next to her to read until she falls asleep.

She is getting a little better about trying some new foods. It usually takes some negotiating and bribing, but at least it is progress!
We are working with a dermatologist and are making a little bit of progress on her eczema. This is not the first dermatologist that we have seen, but it is the first one that I have liked.

We have made no progress on potty training. Harper is afraid of the potty, so I'm going to wait a little while until we try. She is extremely stubborn and I am not ready to battle with her.
She loves to snuggle. Harper was not a snuggly baby, so this has been lots of fun.