Happy Birthday

TO ME...........................

Well, as of yesterday I am now officially closer to 30 than I am 20 :( Despite turning 26, I had a great day! I worked at the hospital yesterday (which I enjoy) then met my family for supper in Mason City. Adam and Harper bought me yellow roses, a bottle of wine, and wax beads for my candle warmer. My parents got me a few cute shirts and the Hungry Girl cookbook that I wanted. And Brett got me lotion, a Christmas wallflower plug-in with Balsam Fir refills - perfect for Christmas next year! But the BEST gift of all was a 45 minute phone call from my friend Hailee, who has been traveling South America for the past 5 months! It was great to hear from her and to hear all her fun adventures!

Tomorrow we will be heading home to FINALLY celebrate Christmas with my family. I actually received my birthday presents from my parents BEFORE my Christmas presents this year - first time for that! I can't believe that there is only 2 days left of 2009!

Here is a question for you to ponder: Every decade has a name, i.e. the 80's, 90's, 2000's - so what are we going to call 2010-2019? The teens? The ten's?

Music to my ears

These are the sounds that fill our house....and our hearts :)

{ pause the music on the side bar so you can hear Miss H }

Baby's First Christmas

Harper's first Christmas has already come and gone...tear :*( Santa must have thought she was a good girl because he stopped at our house! Here is a picture of Harper and her stocking that her Great Grandma Betty made for her. In her stocking was two car seat toys and a pack of socks.

Santa also brought Harper two toys that light up and play music, and a dress for her to wear this summer. She doesn't really have an interest in the bigger toys yet, but she likes her toys that attach to the car seat!



And of course we had to leave milk and cookies for Santa, and carrots for this reindeer!


Although Harper is not old enough to remember this Christmas, we wanted to start some traditions now. Adam and I were discussing how there are specific things we remember doing with our families around Christmas time and we someday hope our children can look back on their childhood and say the same. :)

Here are the traditions we started this year:

• Making lefse
• Christmas morning breakfast of french toast and sausage
• Driving around town looking at Christmas lights

We would like to start these traditions next year:

• Making cut-out sugar cookies
• Making homemade cinnamon rolls
• Cutting down our own real Christmas tree
• Reading 'The Night Before Christmas' before bed on Christmas Eve
• Giving our children a Christmas ornament to open up on Christmas Eve (something that represents that specific year)
• Attending Christmas Eve church service

I know it may sound cheesy, but we want to provide our children with as many happy childhood memories as we possibly can! Even though I listed all the superficial things about Christmas - we will teach our children the real meaning of Christmas as well.

We hope everyone had a very merry Christmas! We were unable to make it to see our families because of the weather. So it was just us three together on Christmas, which was nice. We will be traveling back home over New Years to celebrate Christmas with my family. Only 5 more days left of 2009!!!!

Merry Christmas

Love,

Harper

Best Friends

Harper met her future husband last weekend at Baptism, Jack Shields! Harper Shields....doesn't that have a lovely ring to it??!! This was the first of MANY more play dates to come. Harper is only 10 weeks older than Jack so they will get along great as they get older. We decided to have a mini photo shoot with the babies - it was a hoot! Enjoy!

I hope Harper and Jack grow to be best friends, just like their mommies are!

Aww - they're holding hands

Cuddle time

BEST BUDS!

Baptism

Harper was baptized this past Sunday, December 20th, at the First Lutheran Church in Northwood, where I was baptized and married. We had a great day surrounded by our closest family and friends! Harper did not make one peep during her baptism, or even church for that matter ~ she was a very good girl! Thank you to everyone who helped celebrate Harper's baptism with us - we appreciate your support!

Pastor Hart and Baptismal Sponsors: Uncle Michael, Uncle Justin, and Ashley & Ryan

Harper wore Grandma Dawn's Dress

Our little family :)

Holy water - I think she thought it was bath time ;)

Harper's Grandparents

?!?!

Did I hear you say that Santa is coming in ONE WEEK??!!??!! I better be a good girl! (don't mind my finger in this picture)

Couch-to-5K

After watching the season finale of biggest loser, I became motivated to seriously start getting in shape. The next season finale of the Biggest Loser is in May 2010. I made a goal to weigh 'x' amount of pounds by then. If I reach my goal, as a reward, Adam and I are going to Worlds/Oceans of Fun! How am I going to do this, you ask??? RUNNING! And I HATE running! But I figured if a 400 lb person can run, so can I! So I found a beginners running program on the Internet. It's called The-Couch-to-5K running plan, which is to take 9 weeks. I started week one on Sunday. This week my goal is to run 60 seconds and then walk 90 seconds, doing this interval for 20 minutes, 3 times a week. As you can tell, it starts off very slow and increases slowly at a gradual and achievable pace. Wish me luck! To read about this plan, click on the link below!

Cool Running :: The Couch-to-5K Running Plan

Here Comes Santa Clause

Adam, Harper and I went to Mason City today to finish up our Christmas shopping. While we were at the mall, we ran into a very special person....SANTA!!!!!!! Harper is a very lucky girl because she got to sit on his lap - I told Santa that she has been a good girl so hopefully he will come visit us! I thought she may cry while sitting with him, but she was smiling the whole time, until the camera came out of course! Hopefully we get to see him next year too, but I bet she'll be too scared to sit with him! So we may have to wait a few more years for another photo with Santa! :)

Harper and Santa - 2009

3 months

Happy 3 month birthday to Harper!

She's growing so fast! We weighed her the other day, with clothes and diaper on, and she weighed around 14 1/2 lbs! So shes gained around 2 pounds in the last month! She's definitely getting longer too, as she has just started wearing 3-6 months clothes because she's getting too big for them. In the past month, her legs have gotten a lot stronger, along with her neck. She loves to stand on your lap. She also likes to sit up, I think anything EXCEPT laying on the floor and playing with her toys! She does a lot of drooling and squealing throughout the day - wish I could say the same for sleeping - but her daytime naps are usually no more than 30 minutes now - which makes it hard to get stuff done around the house.

Luckily Adam is very good with her, and lets me get stuff done. Like today, I made some lefse, peanut butter fudge, and holiday pretzels. I was in the baking mood I guess. It's hard to believe Christmas is only 2 weeks away - it sneaks up so quickly now. I remember that Christmas used to seem like and eternity away when I was a kid! Tomorrow we're going to Mason City to finish up our Christmas shopping. This will be our first time out in 3 months as a family - we are so excited to get out and do something - its a big deal now - we're even going to eat Chinese! The things that excite us now...we're officially getting old!

Fist Eating 101

1. Bring your fists up to your mouth

2. Open your mouth up wide

3. Shove, shove, shove!

Harper has been sucking on her FISTS, yes fists, not fingers, a lot in the past few weeks. It is so cute because she tries shoving her ENTIRE fist into her mouth - and sometimes gets mad because she can't do it. But for the most part, this entertains her well.

You can chew on your arm too!

Or anything that comes near your mouth, like daddy's strings from his hooded sweatshirt!

Silent Night

My favorite Christmas song and my Christmas wish!

Harper has had a great week in the sleep department! She has been going to bed around 9 pm and sleeping for stretches of 6-9 hours! She wakes up one time now - anywhere between 3 and 6 - drinks a bottle - and goes back to sleep until 7 or 8! It's wonderful! Even though she's not sleeping ALL the way through the night - I consider waking up only once a success! And I didn't have to give her rice cereal - although the thought crossed my mind! The extra sleep at night is much needed!

Hope everyone is having a great weekend and staying warm!

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Holy December!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love December for many reasons:

• Christmas music!
• driving around town looking at the Christmas decorations
• Christmas shows on TV (I'm almost 26 years old and my mom called me last night to tell me that the Grinch was on)
• Lots of family time
• my birthday (I think my years of enjoying turning another year older are winding down though)
• yummy holiday baked goodies
• the smell of real Christmas trees
• a light snow
• or a LOT of snow so there's no school! (teachers pray for this more than the students - TRUST me!)
• candlelight service at church

The list could go on and on - but those are just a few of my favorites. This year we have another exciting event to look forward to - Harper's baptism, which will be on December 20th.

Last night I watched Christmas Vacation and the Grinch while I was designing a Christmas card online. I scored 50 cards for only $3.19!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All I had to pay was the shipping! Awesome, huh?! At one time the shipping was free, but due to a huge demand they added in shipping costs. I heard about this fabulous deal from a blog that I follow daily - Money Saving Mom. Sorry - the deal ended last night - otherwise I would've shared this news with all of you but I didn't realize this until yesterday. Here is the runner-up picture that almost made our Christmas card. Remember - I'm not a professional and an 11-week old baby only has so much patience for this kind of stuff. I'm not going to post the picture I decided to use because I don't want to spoil the fun - you'll just have to keep checking your mailboxes!