Nest Cam

You HAVE to check out the link below!!!!! It's a live nest cam of the Bald Eagles over in Decorah, Ia. A non-profit organization that protects Bald Eagles, among other birds, has set up a live video camera right above a Bald Eagle's nest. Apparently there is a pair of nesting Bald Eagles that have been tracked for the past few years. It is amazing to watch. The Eagle's are beautiful! There are three eggs, with the first expected to hatch on April 1st. I'm warning you though, once you start watching it's hard to shut it off, because you're worried that you might miss something! Visit Nesting Falcons

Labeling...

Just an update from the last blog, Harper is back to her normal sleep schedule. Hallelujah! She's in bed b/w 8 and 8:30 and wakes up around 7:30-8:00. Naps are still up in the air, sometimes one, sometimes two. Anyways, for the last month or so, Harper points at objects around the house and label's them 'mommy's' or daddy's'. She is a very observant and smart little girl. For example, as I fold clothes she can label EVERY single item, right down to the socks! Although I wish she'd say "shirt" or "pants," I'm happy with where she is at right now. Now onto the funny part - here are a few items in my category, and a few items in Adam's category: Mommy's = vacuum, broom, Daddy's = popcorn, beer This is no joke - I think Harper is already figuring out life :)

Sleep Strike!

We still haven't adjusted to the time change, well at least Harper hasn't! She is taking a strike against sleep all together - including naps. She used to take two long naps every day - now she's down to one. Which is fine - I knew this day would come eventually. Her normal bed time used to be around 8:00 - now we have to make her go to bed at 9:00, sometimes she even stays up until 10:00! The good part about the later bedtime....she sleeps in until 9:30, sometimes 10:00 :) Which was fantastic during spring break when I could actually sleep in too!
Last night she woke up at 2:00 AM and was up until 3:3o AM - I have no clue why she woke up and wanted to play. She's never done that. She has so much energy these days and is requiring fewer hours of sleep, it seems like. She is a funny and crazy little girl - but man I miss the days when she enjoyed going to sleep!

Care Packages to Help Troops

Check out the link below! Make sure to watch the video to see Adam on the local news!

Care Packages to Help Troops

Catch Up

I realized that I've forgotten been to lazy to blog about some important events in our lives. This blog may be random and lengthy; I apologize now.

Celebrations:

Today is my father-in-laws birthday! Happy Birthday Grandpa Gary! We all love you very much! We're happy we got to celebrate with you last night.

This one is WAY over due - Happy BELATED ( x 1000) to Adam! He celebrated his birthday back at the end of January (whoops!) Adam had to work and I traveled to Des Moines for a girls night out with some college friends. Thank you June, for watching Harper!

On Tuesday Adam and I 'celebrated' our 3 year anniversary of renewing our vows. We don't really consider this a celebration - we celebrate the day we were legally married by the Justice of the Peace - which is coming up in June - FIVE years baby! However, March 15th was still a special day for us - it was a great way to celebrate and honor our vows since we weren't able to have a traditional wedding before Adam deployed to Iraq.

Harper

Well, Harper is sick again :( We took her to the doctor today for exhibiting symptoms of a low-grade fever, rapid and heavy breathing, harsh cough, and a rattling/wheezing sound in her chest. The doctor informed us that she has an ear infection in her right ear and probably has RSV or bronchitis. (A child in the nursery at Harper's daycare got diagnosed with RSV last week) The doctor didn't draw her blood or anything to do an official test to differentiate because he would treat both infections the same anyways. So why put her through torture?

Anyways, she is now on an antibiotic for her ear infection. And she is also to complete four nebulizer treatments every day until her lungs clear up. She is not a fan of the neb treatments - it's too hard for her to sit still for 5 minutes. I'm not sure how effective the nebulizer is at this point, but it sure is better than nothing. We're also giving her ibuprofen to help with her pain and fever, and we have a humidifier in her bedroom.

Please keep Harper in your thoughts and prayers and pray for a speedy and healthy recovery.

I was supposed to go to Iowa City tomorrow night for a bachelorette party. My MIL was going to watch Harper b/c Adam has to work. However, I don't want to leave her. I know she'd be fine - but I guess it's just be being a first-time mom that has me worried.

My spring break FLEW by - I am not looking forward to going back to school on Monday. I think we only have 6 weeks of class left! Yipee!

Hope you're all having a fabulous weekend!

PS - tomorrow is the first day of SPRING! Yay!!!!!

Great Day!

Today has shaped up to be a great day!

1. I saw my first robin of the year!
2. It is 60 degrees and sunny - which allowed for us to get outside and play a little bit. Harper did NOT want to go inside - I think we'll be spending a lot of our time outdoors when it warms up for good.
3. It's Wednesday- half way to the weekend!
4. I get my hair cut and colored tonight!
5. Harper got an excellent report at her 18 month Well Child Check today!

Weight: 24.8 lbs { 50th percentile} (with shoes, coat, duckie, and full sippy cup)

Height: 33 3/4 inches {95th percentile}

Spaghetti a la PHILLY recipe

I made a delicious version of spaghetti the other night. Simply put, I added 4 oz of cream cheese to the pasta sauce and heated it through. It made the dish kind of taste lasagna - but much simpler to make! I also made it as healthy as possible, by using whole wheat spaghetti, no-sugar added pasta sauce, 93% lean ground beef, and fat free cream cheese. You should definitely try this easy and tasty recipe. Click on the link below for directions!

Spaghetti a la PHILLY recipe

1.5 Years!!!

Harper is 1 1/2 years old today! For some reason I am way more sad about this than when she turned one. She is growing up way too fast! I want to remember these every day little moments FOR.EVER! She is an awesome little girl - what more can I say?!?! For example, as I'm typing this, Harper is sitting in her chair, rocking one of her babies while saying 'shh, shhh, shhhh.' Okay enough, I'm tearing up :(

Weight:

Clothing Size: 18 months, some 24 month tops and PJ's

Diaper Size: 3

Eating Habits: LOVES canned oranges! Harper would eat them for all 3 meals if we'd let her. She also loves to snack on yogurt-covered raisins (thanks for the idea Ashley and Jack). She eats almost everything - with the exception of any form of potatoes. We also taught Harper how to dip her hot dogs in ketchup - she thinks that is pretty cool.

Sleeping Habits: Still a great sleeper! Harper's bedtime is around 8 pm and she wakes up around 7 am. Still two naps each day.

Speech: This month Harper has learned how to say Abby, Happy, Snow (noooo), bowl, blue (boo), juice and choo-choo. She learned how to sign 'water.' Whenever she sees a fish she smacks her lips together :)

Favorite Toy: baby Elmo and accessories

Favorite Activity: playing with her babies

New Things:

• I'm embarrassed to admit this one, but she can pretty much fart on command, AND she thinks it hilarious!
• can climb up and go down her little slide all by herself
• working on color recognition - I think she understands blue and orange

I'll post a video of her trying to say 'Happy Birthday' later this weekend. TGIF!

100 prints for $5

Here's another Snapfish deal - 100 4 x 6 prints for $5 flat!

Offer expires on 3/20/11.

Promo Code: STPATPRNT

Feeling Better

Not much to report here in the Nerlien house.

Harper is finally feeling better and is back to her old self - running around like a wild woman, reading books, dancing, bouncing off the couch, and constantly pulling snacks out of the pantry! She ending up getting sick again on Friday - vomiting and diarrhea, but has been fine ever since. Daycare called Adam this afternoon and informed him that a child in the nursery was just diagnosed with RSV - Harper was there on Friday - but will not go back until this Friday - so I'm crossing my finger that she will miss that one! The daycare does a great job of disinfecting EVERYTHING when a child gets sick.

It's hard to believe that Harper will be 1 1/2 on Friday! She is sooooo funny and happy! I'm hoping to post a video of her later this week being silly :)

I'm still plugging away at school - spring break is next week! I'm definitely looking forward to a little R&R with my two loves. I completed my first 6-week rotation of clinicals and got an A! This week marks the 2nd week of my other 6-week rotation - school is going by so fast.

As I mentioned earlier - nothing exciting going on here, which is a good thing, I guess. Adam's brother is coming to stay with us on Friday- he is going to ride around with Adam while he works. Harper is excited to see her Uncle Justin!

Hope you all have a great week - check back for more blogs this week:

• Snapfish photo deal
• recipe
• video of Harper
• Harper's monthly update

Harper Update

Thank you to everyone for all of the concerns. Harper seems to be doing much better today. Still a little off - but MUCH better than the past two days! She pretty much layed around and slept again all day yesterday - no vomiting, just diarrhea. Today she has been running around, reading books, and starting to eat again. I think she ate 1/2 piece of toast, 1/2 hot dog, 1/2 piece of cheese, 2 slices of peaches, 1/2 graham cracker and two glasses of juice/milk today -- total. It may sound like a lot - but not for our little piggy! We'll see how Harper does tomorrow at daycare. I really wouldn't mind having to leave clinicals early to go pick her up ;)

Poor Harper :(

Our poor little Harper got 'sick' for the first time on Sunday. For the most part, she has been a very healthy little girl - just a few small colds here and there, nothing major. So it broke our hearts to see her throwing up and just not being herself. I knew something wasn't right on Sunday morning when she took a 3.5 hr nap, and then only ate about 5 grapes for supper. She was also super cuddly after her bath on Sunday night- which is not like her at all! I continued on with our nightly routine of rocking in the chair while Harper drinks a sippy cup of milk before bed - all of a sudden she sat straight up and projectile vomited all over me and the chair! Curdled milk - NASTY! I took her upstairs and wiped her off, changed her PJ's, and gave her some medicine - only for her to throw up again! Meanwhile - Adam is cleaning up the mess downstairs and I am still covered in vomit - now drying to my skin! It's amazing how parenthood changes a person! I did not care ONE bit that I was covered in vomit - my ONLY care at the point in time was making Harper feel better. We decided that it would be best if we just kept Harper in her diaper until bedtime to avoid another wardrobe change! When it was time for bed, we brought Harper in our room to sleep with us - she wasn't having it! I guess it's a good thing that she doesn't like sleeping in our room - even when she's sick! So Adam ended up sleeping on her bedroom floor on Sunday night to make sure she was okay. I think she threw up about 3 times in the middle of the night- mostly just dry-heaving. We felt so sorry for her!

Sunday Night

Harper woke up on Monday morning - still not feeling well. She couldn't keep anything down that she ate or drank. Adam stayed home with her while I went to class and work. On top of vomiting, she started having diarrhea on Monday too.

Duckie - check! Paci - check! Elmo - check! Pedialyte - check! Cracker - check!

Harper pretty much slept ALLLLLLL day on Monday. Normally she only likes to sleep in her crib - but she slept on the couch with Adam or I and on the living room floor.

She hasn't thrown up now since about 6:00 on Monday night. She slept all night in her crib without getting sick. I was worried that she wouldn't be able to sleep last night because she pretty much slept all day yesterday, but she did just fine. She did wake up a few times in the middle of the night, requesting milk. I did give her a sippy cup of pedialyte/apple juice and she CHUGGED it right down - and was able to keep it in her system.

However, today she is not eating or drinking much. But still no vomiting - just diarrhea. Adam put her down for a nap at10:30 and she's still sleeping and it is not 1:30. I've heard her stirring around up there - I think I'll go get her up so she sleeps tonight :)

Although we hate seeing Harper suffering, it sure it nice to cuddle with her! I would also like to mention that Adam has been AMAZING throughout this whole process. He is such a good daddy to Harper! He hasn't complained one time - and he has been doing laundry and cleaning up puke like it's his job! I haven't had to worry while I'm at class/work because I KNOW Harper is in EXCELLENT hands!

I hope Harper starts feeling better soon. I'll keep you posted. On a happy note - today is the first day of MARCH! Yay!!!!!!!!