Christmas

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

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

It will grow back, right?

kids update

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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.