Dog-Dog

Howdy Y'all!

Harper has been building her vocabulary over the past couple of weeks.  She now says, da-da, ma-ma, nana, uh-oh, thank you and her newest word is dog.  But, she doesn't just say dog...she loves to say dog-dog.  It is the cutest thing!

She does get a big confused because not only is Landry, our cocker spaniel, a dog-dog, but our cats, Sophie and Chloe, are dog-dogs as well.  And, I was reading her a book tonight and the pigs were also dog-dogs.

Speaking of Harper and her dog-dog, here are a couple of pics of them trying on Harper's new sunhat this weekend.

Toodles!

...10 Months Later

Howdy Y'all!

Almost 10 months ago, my little buddy ran away from home.  He was always a runner (and apparently still is if you continue to read the story) and he would run away from us a few times, but we were always able to catch him.  On July 4th last year, our front door wasn't shut all the way and the wind from a storm blew the door open and out the door Toby ran.  My parents and sister were here visiting and they, along with my husband, searched for almost 2 hours looking for him.  And, we never found him.  I stayed inside with little Harper and my niece Ava and cried my eyes out.  I am not a crier, but I was just so sad that he was gone.

He was the sweetest dog and so loving - I know that Harper would have loved him and Toby would have loved her.

Today, Tony goes to get the mail and inside the mailbox is this flyer - he immediately got chill bumps.  He thought, "That's Toby!"  He called the number just in inquire about the dog and sure enough, a wet dog showed up in this lady's garage last summer and she has been taking care of him every since.  He had a blue collar on when she found him and she said he loves to run away!  But, guess what?  He has decided to bolt again so if you are in the Bentonville area and you see our sweet Toby/their sweet Will, please call the number on the flyer.  Tony and I have already made the decision to let Toby's new family keep him for a couple of reasons - 1) we already have a new dog (but we would certainly make room) and more importantly 2) her children love Toby and they are so sad he is gone.  I could never take the dog away from them now, but we did ask if he could come for a visit if (and hopefully when) they find him.

As for us, we are getting anxious to take our first family vacation very soon and it looks like Harper might be really excited to see the Mouse and his lady friend.  :)

Toodles!

Toy Boxes, Tebow and Tushies

Howdy Y'all!

Harper got a brand new toy box this weekend and she loves it!  We have had a bassinet in the living room since she was born and we stopped using it several months ago...or should I say that we stopped using it for its intended purpose several months ago.  It has been full of toys and we needed a way to finally put it away and a new toy box was the answer.  Harper loves to stand at it (she was only standing in it for the picture) and throw the toys out...silly girl.

This weekend at the Walmart Saturday Morning Meeting, we were surprised by an appearance of Tim Tebow.  I will be honest - I haven't been the biggest fan.  I was watching one of his football games and after the play was over, he got right in the faces of the opposing team and did the gator chomp.  I just thought it was an arrogant/cocky thing to do and the opposite of what I would have expected from him.    And, I was (and still am) irritated by the media infatuation of him, but that is really beside the point.   Being a fan of the Texas Longhorns, I, of course, love Colt McCoy and he has never displayed that sort of behavior and he was my example of an upstanding football player.  From the moment I saw the gator chomp, I was not a fan, BUT I think he changed my mind on Saturday.  It is amazing to see a young man speak so eloquently and I can see God doing great things in his life way beyond football.  So, I have decided to let go of my first impression and give the guy a chance - so from Saturday's surprise visit, Tebow gained yet another fan.

I did love how we (Walmart) flat out told him that he didn't create Tebowing - that Sam Walton did.  Check out this picture and see for yourself.  :)

Now, onto the last subject of this blog...tushies.   Lately, Harper has loved to sleep with her tushy in the air.  Every night we check on her before we go to bed and find her like this.  I have even tried to straighten out her legs and they just go right back.  It doesn't seem to be comfortable, but I guess it works for her.

Toodles!

Whoooo's 10 Months Old

Howdy Y'all!

I can't believe it - I am a mother of a 10 month old!  Where has the time gone?

My sweet Harper is still (and will always be) the greatest joy in our lives.  She just continues to grow like a weed everyday and is now wearing 12 month clothes and size 3 Pampers Cruisers diapers.

I feel like this month brought us all kinds of development!  Harper started crawling, going from a laying position to a seated position, pulling up and walking with the aid of a walker.  She went from being so easy to keep up with to being ALL over the place!  She keeps us on our toes.

Here is her first attempt at crawling...pretty good if I say so myself!

And, here is her first attempt at walking with the walker.   I love that when she learns something...she just gets it and acts like an old pro.

My little peanut still has a toothless grin and it is mighty cute!  She has also started saying Uh-Oh or I should say that she has started copying me when I say Uh-Oh.   I love it.

Harper loved her first Easter and was pretty good at hunting those eggs!

I can't believe that Harper will be one year old in a couple of months.  Birthday party planning is in full gear and for some crazy reason, I have decided to go with an invitation that has to be cut out by hand and it has 16 pieces to it!  I am glad I am starting early because they may not be done in time.  :) Yikes!  And, then Pinterest has given me so many ideas for the party that I hope to pull off as well.  Wish me luck.

I am ready to see what developments we will see before Harper turns eleven months old.  I guess time will tell.

Toodles!

Rescue Me

Howdy Y'all!

Last weekend my parents came for a visit to celebrate Harper's first Easter and while they were here, we had the strangest thing happen.  My mom and I were walking to my car and we heard some scratching from inside one of our columns on the front porch.  We had no idea how something could get down there and we had no idea what it was...so my dad came to the rescue.

He got out a ladder and with a flashlight, he determined it was a large black bird.  Now, it was time to put in a plan of action...

First idea was a wash cloth with fishing line tied to each corner.  He pushed the cloth down the narrow hole and came so close to getting the bird.  After this failed attempt, he gave up but you could tell it was still bothering him.

He sat down for awhile and then bolted off to the garage and came back with an extension cord and duct tape.  For the second attempt, he would wrap the tape around the extension cord sticky side up and then push the cord down into the hole.  And, after a few minutes, the bird stuck to the extension cord and came right on up.  One bird's life saved that day!  Yahoo!

After all my dad's hard work, he plugged up the small hole with some newspaper and he was glad he did because that silly bird was back and trying to get in the column later that day.  Maybe it was a do-do bird.  ha!

And, I will leave you with a few pics from Harper's first Easter - she really seemed to enjoy herself!

We had a little hunt inside the house.

She's taking a little break...crawling wears a girl out, ya know!

So proud of herself that she found another egg.

Look!  Another one!

Papaw helped her find one too.

Out of a few pics of us...this was the best one...still not good.

Harper loves her cousin, Hay-Hay.

Nana and Papaw are pretty amazing too!

Some of Harper's loot for Easter.

Mommy, the Easter Bunny left me something too!

My happy little girl!  We love her.

Toodles!

Whoo, Whoo is 9 Months Old?

Howdy Y'all!

Guess whoooo is 9 months old!  I can't believe we are 3/4 of the way through her first year.  It is just going by so fast.  Look at my growing girl...I can't believe she is getting so big.

Harper learned a trick this month...but, it wasn't crawling, pulling up or getting to a seated position on her own.  We are so close to all three of those...she started getting on all fours and rocking back and forth so I am sure the crawling is right around the corner.   Her new trick of the month is waving - I just think it is so cute when she waves at me and waves to her caregivers at daycare when she leaves.  She always seems so proud of herself when she does it.

She really enjoys playing with her toys and one of her favorites is her Stride to Ride dinosaur.  She loves for us to push her on the dinosaur back and forth between me and Tony and she squeals with delight.

Harper went to to zoo for the first time this month and the whole family had a great time.  She went for a ride on the carousel and just had the best time.  I know she is going to love Walt Disney World in two months.

Harper is wearing mostly 12 month clothes and size 3 diapers.  We are so thankful it has warmed up around here (except for today and tomorrow) because we have lots of cute short sleeve clothes we need to wear before we outgrow them.  And, it seems like she either has short arms or her clothes just have freakishly long arms because I always have to roll her sleeves under when she wear long-sleeve clothes.

So far, she has only rejected one food - avocado.  The poor little girl was just gagging away...but, she chows down on everything else.  She has eaten apples, pears, bananas, peaches, mangoes, strawberries, yellow squash, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, green beans, sweat peas, broccoli and carrots.  I guess we need to start introducing meat in her diet as well.  I hope it goes just as well as everything else.

During this last month, Harper got completely off the bottle and I have daycare to thank for that one.  I sent some juice to school in a sippy cup and by the next day, they sent all of her bottles home and from that day on, we have never gone back.  She is a bit picky with the cups though...she will only drink out of the Nuk cups.  Silly girl!

Harper loves her books - and we have discovered some amazing ones this month.  Her grandmother bought her a new book that is a Magic Ribbon Book about Rainbows...it is a cool concept that she loves!  At the Oklahoma City Zoo, we found a book called Tails that is so neat...it has different textured tails to touch and Harper loves it.  She barely wanted to go to bed tonight because she wanted to keep feeling the tails.  I love that girl!

We are ready to see what the next month brings - we love you baby girl!

Toodles!

Case Closed

Howdy Y'all!

Tomorrow is little Emma's first birthday.  She was known to me as Kinley - and she was our sweet girl for 3 days until her birth mom changed her mind.  We, of course, got a lot of closure when we adopted our wonderful daughter, Harper.

I have always wondered what happened to Sarah and Emma and I wanted to know if they were happy so today, I emailed Sarah to say Happy Birthday to Emma.  I also included a picture of Harper because I wanted to reassure her that Tony and I were very happy with life and things worked out exactly perfectly.  I really didn't expect a response from her, but to my surprise, I got an email from her about an hour later.

Here is a picture of Emma (not the best quality, but all I have...obviously) - she has those cute cheeks just like Harper!

She was glad to hear from us and she said that she had been thinking about emailing us as well.  Sarah sounds like she is happy with her life and I am so glad to here that.  Emma had a rough start to life - Sarah informed me that she ended up in NICU on her 9th day and that she almost died.  I am so thankful so many of you were praying for her around that time because God does work miracles.  Emma was only weighing in at 3 lbs, 5 oz at day 9 and she had to have a feeding tube until she was 5 months old.  Today, at 364 days old, she is completely healthy and so cute.

I feel like the case is closed here since I have heard back from Sarah - and the small weight that was still left on my heart has been lifted.

And, here are some pics that I took on Sunday of my little Harper...I really don't think she can be any cuter.

Toodles!