shiner

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

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

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

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

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

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 :)