Visit from the Carlsens

On Wednesday Tom's sister Robyn and her kids were passing through town so we were able to get together with them, as well as Denise and AJ, at Griffith Park for a little bit. Harper LOVED hanging out with her cousins and has been asking for Mia ever since.

We rode the train and then played at the playground for a little bit. Harper loved holding everyone's hands.
And then Robyn came over to see our apartment before heading up to Bakersfield.
We really appreciate them taking the time to stop and see us!

due date change

I had an appointment with my midwife on Friday and she made a slight change to my due date. The baby is measuring well ahead of schedule, so she has moved my due date from June 21st to June 17th. That is very soon :)

Here is a little video of Harper running around on her new mattress before we got her bed set up. She has been sleeping in her big girl bed for the past two days and it has gone pretty well, but I'll make a post about that later.

35 weeks

My sister complained that I hadn't posted any pregnancy pictures, and that's because we haven't taken any. It was fun the first time but I already feel huge, I don't need to see the photos. But I guess I should post one. Here I am at (almost) 35 weeks. To compare, here I am at 34 weeks pregnant with Harper:
And here's one of Harper, just because she's cute.

Harper casts her vote

The debate for Jose's name rages on ("Jose" is baby number two's code name). However, Harper seems to have already cast her vote for her favorite. Plus, she already knows how to write his name.

guess who learned how to climb out of their crib . . .

It looks like we're going to be needing a new bed sooner than we thought. We had planned to keep Harper in her crib for a few more months, but tonight she figured out that she could easily climb over the side of the crib (it takes her about 5 seconds). That little monkey.
This next picture is very classic Harper. She gets really bad eczema on her foot and is constantly scratching and she always get this look on her face.

new stroller

We finally decided on a stroller and a carseat so I am feeling a little more prepared for the baby. Thanks everyone so much for your advice and suggestions.

We went with the Phil and Ted's stroller, which can be a single or a double stroller, after realizing that this was really the only thing that was going to fit in our trunk. While I don't love everything about it, it is pretty cool and Harper seems to really like it. We decided to take it to Santa Monica yesterday to test it out. Now we just need to get Harper a bed . . . (see next post).

quilt

A few months ago, after many nights of Tom having to work late, I decided that I needed a hobby so I decided to get a sewing machine. When I was a teenager I was very resistant to learning how to sew and my Mom likes to make fun of me for saying that I didn't have room in my head to know what a bobbin was. But I have really been enjoying teaching myself how to do something new, so recently I decided that I would try to make a quilt. Tom's mother is a wonderful quilter and he really treasures the quilts that she made for him and I love the quilt she made for our wedding and I wanted to do something for Harper. I found some instructions online for a simple quilt as well as several tutorials on how to do each step and started working on it a couple weeks ago.

The finished product is certainly not perfect, but I can't believe I actually did it. Harper calls it her pink blanket (everything these days is pink).

testing

A couple of weeks ago we were very upset to find out that Harper had a kidney infection. You may remember that she has a history of urinary tract/bladder/kidney infections due to a defect in her urinary tract system, but it had been over a year since she'd had an infection so we were hoping that we were past this. Apparently not.

We got in touch with Harper's urologist and she wanted to either repeat the test she has had in the past (which was traumatic and inconclusive) or do a renal scan. We decided to do the renal scan which means we (well, Tom took her since I can't be exposed to radiation) took her to a radiologist who gave her an IV of something radioactive and then took some scans to see how the kidneys were functioning. The urologist was concerned that this infection, and past infections, had possibly damaged her kidney.

Apparently the IV was quite traumatic, but Harper survived it (while watching Finding Nemo on Tom's iphone) and then the radiology tech freaked us out by saying that one of the kidneys looked balled up (which is apparently bad). However, a couple of days later we heard back from the urologist that the differences were within the normal range and it looks like there is no scarring on the kidneys! Yay! We will meet with the urologist in a few weeks to figure out what we are going to do from here, so for now Harper is back on daily antibiotics (boo) but that is better than having more infections that could damage her kidneys.

Here are a couple of photos of Tom and Harper at Arby's between scans (we had to wait a couple of hours after the IV to get the scans done). She was still a little traumatized, but the bag of Goldfish helped.

Saturday frozen yogurt

Tom finally had a little free time this weekend so we spent the day up in Burbank enjoying Ikea, Indian food, and frozen yogurt. Harper loved spending the day with Daddy.

baby gear headache

Since we are counting down the last few weeks of this pregnancy, I am feeling the need to get everything that we need before the baby is born. Luckily, we don't need much since we have Harper's things and I have found some really great garage sales lately. But these last few things are giving me a headache.

• infant carseat (we never used one with Harper, just went straight to the convertible carseat)
  
• double stroller
• bed for Harper

I have the carseat narrowed down to a couple of options depending on which stroller we get, but I cannot make a decision about the stroller. It is a BIG decision since we only have one car and our stroller is like our second vehicle and I do a LOT of walking over some pretty uneven sidewalks. Tom and I are both a little obsessed with researching products until we find the right product for us, so a lot of time has been spent on this subject and it is giving me a headache. So I need some advice.

We currently use this stroller most of the time:And I love it and they do make a double version, but there is no way the double version is going to fit in our trunk. We drive a hybrid sedan which has a battery in the trunk so it has very limited trunk space. Plus, as much as I like this stroller, Harper doesn't like it much because she sits so far back and can't see what's going on.

In a dream world, I would get this stroller:
But it is ridiculously expensive and I'm not sure if it would fit in our trunk. According to the dimensions, it might fit but it would be very close.

And then there is the Phil and Ted stroller, which is also expensive but we would probably get rid of our current single stroller since this one can be used as a single or a double so that would help with the cost. It would definitely fit in our trunk, but I have read that people were disappointed in the quality of the stroller and I am worried about kicking the double seat when I walk.
Any opinions on double strollers?

Tom and I have now made two trips to Ikea to try to figure out what kind of bed we want to get for Harper, and we still have nothing. We have decided not to get a toddler bed because we want something that we could potentially use for guests and we aren't going to move her out of her crib for a few more months and I don't want to buy a toddler bed if she isn't going to use it for very long. I am thinking about getting a full sized bed and I want something that is low to the ground, sturdy, that doesn't need a box spring (to keep it low to the ground), and isn't too expensive. Does anyone have a bed that they like?

Any advice?

birthday recap

We started off our morning by opening presents. Harper received her first money - $3, which she lined up nicely on the floor. She also got some books, blocks, and a leapfrog junior. Since Tom had to work today, I decided Harper and I would have a fun morning to celebrate her birthday. We started off at Yummy Cupcakes in Santa Monica. Harper ate the entire, giant cupcake and then asked for more. And then we went to Wahoo's fish tacos where Harper had some french fries. Ok, maybe I had some too. And then we walked over to Third Street Promenade where Harper rode on the escalators in Old Navy a few times and then chased around some pigeons. We finished off our morning at Barnes and Noble in the kids section where we read stories until her nap time.
Then this evening we picked up Tom at work and came home to read stories with her leapfrog. I will post a video as soon as I get it off of Tom's phone. It was very cute :)

Harper Likes

I'll add my two cents to Harper's birthday post. Erica can change this if she sees fit.

Harper likes, in order of awesomeness:

chocolate >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> gold fish >> "shows" (hard to say which is her favorite at any given point) > everything else

Everything else in no particular order

• singing the ABCs
• pointing out things that she knows the name of (observations of "water" and "bike" are never missed)
• hugs
• kisses, or as she says it, kiiiiisses
• dogs (still)
• waking Mommy and Daddy up in the morning
• running around like a mad woman
• turning down food we know she likes
• going up and down stairs while you hold her hands
• BOOM BOOM POW (the music video)
• sitting in Daddy's lap while he is at the computer
• bringing you stuff - she will bring you a can of food from the cupboard and then bring you another one and then bring you another one and then bring you another one and then bring you another... If she ever spots anything that she knows is yours, she will bring it to you, saying "thank you" each time she hands you something.
• saying what she wants until she gets it - Erica alluded to this in her post, but this applies to everything: show, show, show, show, show, show; or yo yo (yogurt), yo yo, yo yo, yo yo, yo yo... It is like she gets into these mental feedback loops that won't stop until you put your face 3 inches away from hers and tell her that you understand that she wants something, at which point she says "o tay," as if it was your idea to get her what she wanted