Christmas, New Years, and everything else

I would like to say that I have been too busy to blog lately, but I'm sitting here re-watching season 1 of Lost so I guess busy isn't really the right word.

Harper has changed so much in the last couple of weeks. Right after Christmas her vocabulary exploded and now she walks around saying new things all of the time. Most of it isn't very clear but we can usually figure out what she is saying, but she frequently says "bahti" or "wahti" and we have no idea what that is supposed to mean. She also loves to sing. Her favorite songs are Jingle Bells, itsy bitsy spider, and head, shoulders, knees and toes.

This year we went to Tucson for Christmas. Other than the fact that we all came home with a cold that we still haven't shaken, we all had a fantastic time. Harper didn't really understand Christmas, but she had a great time playing with her cousins and she loves all of her new presents. Maybe next year.


Tom's brother was kind enough to take a quick family photo while we were staying at his house. He also photographed us last October and it is crazy to see how much Harper has grown up. (also, I think I am the palest person on the planet).
For New Years we took it easy at home. Tom has been really wanting to make some massaman Thai curry at home, so earlier in the week I drove to Hollywood to a Thai grocery store and got some curry paste and we made curry and chocolate chip cookies for dinner and then watched some movies. It was SO GOOD.

On Saturday we went to Orange County to check out the new Cafe Rio that opened with some of our wonderful law school friends. Afterward we put the kids down for naps and played Rock Band. We loved being at UCLA, but it's sad when people graduate and we don't get to see them very often any more so it was great to catch up with everyone.And to finish off this post, here are a few videos from the last couple months.

This is Harper at Tom's grandpa's house right before Thanksgiving. As you can tell, she is a big fan of sugar.


This is Harper dancing with some of my family at my Mom's family Christmas party.


This is Harper at the Container Store by our house. She loves to accessorize lately (jewelry, purses, etc.).


And here are our nieces, nephews, and Harper dancing to Christmas music. I think Harper was a little confused.

Funny things that Harper does

When Tom comes home from work every day, I usually share a story with him about something funny that Harper did that day. I thought I'd post a few of them.
A few days ago I was getting Harper some water and when I went to put the lid on her cup, I spilled some water on the floor. Harper tends to get upset when something is out of its place, so she pointed at the water and started saying "uh-oh." I hastily wiped up the water with a towel and walked into the next room for a minute. When I came back, Harper had taken some rags out from under the sink and was on her hands and knees cleaning up the remaining water.

Harper seems to prefer doing sign language to talking and will almost never say what we are trying to get her to say. But a few days ago I turned off a light switch and said "dark," and she repeated the word. Now every time I turn off a light she says "dark." It's probably the least useful word she could learn at this point, but I guess it's progress.

On Tuesday we went to Costco and, among other things, I got a carton of eggs. When we got home I was carrying Harper and the eggs up the stairs from our garage and she kept trying to grab them so I told her that they were "Mommy's." When we got upstairs she walked straight over to the recycling bin, pulled out an empty egg carton, brought it to me, and said "Mommy's."

The rest of our Utah pictures

We didn't do a very good job of taking pictures while we were in Utah, but here are a few more from my Mom's family party.

Kelly and Eric
Harper playing basketball.Kara and GrandmaAunt JulieHarper playing the piano with my cousin Olivia. Harper got so much attention while we were in Utah that I think she went through withdrawals when we got home. My mom with Harper.Harper with my Grandpa.And after Tom's grandmother's funeral, Tom's brother took a photo of his entire extended family together. There were only two cousins missing (one is on a mission and one had school obligations). One of Tom's cousins even flew in from Abu Dhabi.

Ruh Roh

(This was almost Harper)

Harper really loves dogs. She asked for a dog the other day, at least I assumed that's what hugging and kissing one at the pet store means, but Erica and I both agree that a dog at this point would be way too much work. However, we don't want Harper to be totally lonely so we have arranged for another sibling to come along. Expect to hear more about this additional member of the family as we approach the June due date. Erica thinks it is a boy. I hope it is a boy or a girl. Current name for the baby until we come up with a better one, Spot.

Utah

Unfortunately, we had to make our Thanksgiving trip a little early because Tom's grandmother passed away last week. Even though her quality of life has been decreasing over the last few years, we were very sad to hear about her passing but grateful to be able to spend time with family over these last few days. Tom's cousin posted a really great tribute to her on her blog. Tom and I were both very impacted by his grandmother's funeral service. She was a really great woman who raised really great children and we are so lucky to have them in our lives.

When we found out that the funeral would be this past Saturday, we realized that we would be driving somewhere in the middle of Nevada when the California bar exam results were posted on Friday. Good thing that we have iphones because we pulled over to a casino to find out the good news that Tom passed the bar! We are very excited and I am so proud of Tom. He has worked so hard.


For the past couple of days we have been taking advantage of having family around. Today we met Tom's siblings and their families in downtown Salt Lake and toured the conference center and spent some time in Temple Square.
We realized when we were downtown that we were within walking distance of Siegfried's Delicatessen which is a German restaurant where Tom's grandmother worked for a few years after she retired from teaching. It felt really great to go as a group and enjoy some delicious German food.

Harper and her ketchup

No, Harper does not eat ketchup. I don't think she even realizes that it is edible. But a few weeks ago she discovered the ketchup in the cupboard and now carries it around the apartment with her. So, for your viewing pleasure, here is a picture of Harper hugging the ketchup bottle (she's really into hugging lately). Please excuse her snotty post-swine flu nose.

Halloween

Luckily, Tom and Harper recovered from the swine flu in time for Halloween festivities which was good because we had a lot going on this year.
Yesterday morning we decorated cookies at the musicmakers class that our ward has on Friday morning. Since Harper will rarely try anything new that she hasn't seen come out of a plastic wrapper, I actually had to convince her to try a cookie. But after one bite she was a big fan.
Harper was a skeleton for Halloween this year. I actually made her a ballerina costume which she wouldn't let us put on her, so good thing I got her these skeleton pj's earlier this week as a backup. They glow in the dark.

Last night we went to a Halloween party at Tom's firm. It was really great. We walked around and got candy from different offices and then had a nice dinner. Sadly, I forgot the camera.

Tonight was our ward's trunk or treat. Harper doesn't really understand the whole walk around and get candy idea, she just wanted to eat the candy. Maybe next year. Here she is with her cute little friend Kate playing in a bowl of soup. Kate had the cutest little lawn gnome costume that her mom made.
Now for the best part of Halloween: eating all of Harper's candy :)

Hrmph

It appears that this guy is now rampaging Harper and Daddy right now. Snort. Poor little Harper just wants to be held, and that is strange for someone who is not a snuggler. She even said yes when asked if she was ready for her mid-morning nap earlier today. (Harper has never actually said yes to a nap before.) This is day five for her not feeling well. She had a fever of 103.4 two days ago. She just moaned, mooooommeeeeeeee, over and over again. It looks like her fever has come down somewhat, but she still has one. Hopefully this passes by us both in the near future. On the plus side - no need to worry about vaccine shortages.

Hopefully Mommy doesn't get infected. She has proven more resilient to viruses in the past.

the last two weeks

I have been getting some complaints from our families that they want more updates, but now that Tom is working and we have less time to do activities, Harper and I taking a trip to Target doesn't seem blog-worthy. So here is what we've been doing:

Visit from the Pedrozas
Last week Denise, John, and AJ visited us in our new apartment. Harper had fun playing with her cousin, and the rest of us enjoyed chatting and eating lunch at the Farmer's Market.
Harper started eating some fruit
This may not seem like a big deal, but we have really struggled with getting Harper to eat foods other than yogurt and cheese crackers. I don't know if she just got hungry or if she is having pity on me, but she will now eat grapes, melon, and oranges. Yay! Now we just need to get her to eat some vegetables. Here she is with a mouth full of grapes.Harper started nursery
Ok, we snuck her in a few days early, but Harper started nursery today. She seemed to do really well and didn't have a problem being left, so hopefully that continues. It sure made church more enjoyable for me and Tom. They even said she ate some strawberries. Why can't I get her to eat strawberries? We didn't get a photo, so instead here is a photo of Harper with her purse on her head. I asked her to "put it on," but instead of putting it on her shoulder she tried to put it over her head. Silly girl. Here are a couple miscellaneous pictures.

Photos from today

Harper and I usually walk over to Tom's office at the end of the day to walk home with him. It is a luxury we probably won't always be able to enjoy as work gets busier, but it has been fun. While we are waiting Harper likes to run around in the courtyard and today Tom got some cute photos.

17 Months

Harper is now 17 months old. Every day that passes she gets a little more opinionated and a little more strong-willed. People frequently comment to me that, "That girl knows exactly what she wants." We love our little spitfire.
1. Harper loves to blow kisses. She will blow kisses to us, to the checker at the grocery store, or to her favorite toys.
2. She loves to sing. Her current favorites are Popcorn Popping, itsy bitsy spider, and the ABCs. She tries to sing along and do the actions.
3. Harper loves to walk. She wants to walk everywhere and does not want to be told which way to walk. One of her favorite things to do is to go to the mall and walk up and down this ramp about 50 times.
4. She likes to say "hi" to people. We usually walk with Tom to walk and on the way home she usually waves and says "hi" to the people we pass.
5. Because Harper likes to wander away from us when we're walking, we recently bought Harper this little monkey to wear on her back that has a leash attached so we can keep track of her. We don't really use it for that purpose, but Harper loves the monkey. His name is Gilbert.
6. We recently showed her some of my favorite videos from when I was a kid. She LOVES them. Whenever she wants to watch she points at the TV and says, "uh oh."
7. A couple of months ago we found out that Harper has a lot of allergies. The doctor was able to confirm that Harper is allergic to milk, egg whites, soy, and is extremely allergic to peanuts. We will see an allergist at some point to see if she is allergic to anything else. For now we are just trying to find things that she will eat (since she is so picky) but that she is also not allergic to.

Harper's Room

We are very slowly unpacking the last of our boxes. Once we had all of the essentials unpacked, I lost motivation so we still have a few half unpacked boxes sitting around the house. Harper's room is the first room to be completely unpacked. Since life has been pretty boring around here lately, I thought I'd post a few photos.
Here's Harper sticking out her tongue. Her hair is getting really long and it's all over the place. I decided that Harper and I would take a walk to the park today. We have been missing all of the playgrounds that our old complex had and have been trying out the nearby parks. Harper refused to go in the sand so I think we'll have to cross this one off the list.

Some of Harper's Favorite Things

Last week while Weston was here Harper was very intrigued by his pacifier. We tried to get her to take one when she was a baby, but never showed any interest. After Weston left Harper found a pacifier in a box that I was unpacking and now likes to walk around with it in her mouth. Sometimes it's sideways, upside down, or backwards, but she really likes it. Our new apartment has 2 balconies and each one has a large glass door. Harper really likes to press her face against the glass. She thinks it's hilarious. Harper loves necklaces. I got these for her at the dollar store the other day and she likes to put them on, then take them back off repeatedly. She also loves this pink chair that she's sitting in it. I found it at the store the other day and she loves to sit in it and play with her toys. Harper took her first steps about a month ago and her skills are rapidly improving. She was pretty timid at first and still preferred crawling, but she walks about 75% of the time now.

the near future

I guess I should take a minute to catch up on the blog. We have been very busy with moving, cleaning out our old place, unpacking, and working. We FINALLY finished cleaning out our old place today and we still have several boxes sitting around the apartment. Photos will be posted of the new place once we are fully unpacked.

The day after we moved in, some friends of ours came to stay with us for a few days. This was planned long before we knew when we would be moving, but it worked out okay even though we were constantly trying searching through boxes trying to find things that we needed.

Our friends (Scott and Amber with their little boy Weston) came to LA so that Tom and Scott could go to a nerd convention (Tom has asked me not to divulge more details), but we had some extra time to enjoy some of what LA has to offer.

We started out with a trip to the Griddle Cafe for some gigantic pancakes, french toast, and eggs. We had never been, but several people have recommended it and we were not disappointed. We then headed over to Griffith park to ride the trains and play at the playground. We spent some time at the beach:And made Harper's first trip to Disneyland (actually, this was also my first trip).Harper LOVED having Weston around to play with. They enjoyed "playing" the piano together:
And eating graham crackers and playing with toys:And hanging out with Tom and Scott while they played video games:
We had a great time and would LOVE to have more visitors in the future, especially now that we have a larger apartment.