Lone Star Fun

Howdy Y'all!

Tony, Harper and I spent the Memorial Day weekend in Texas - one of my favorite spots on earth - with the rest of my family...mom, dad, sis and nieces and even had some time with my brother and brother-in-law.  Our fun existed of water, water, food, water and water.  :)

On Saturday, we never left my parents house.  We all swam in their pool and they cooked steaks, burgers and hot links for us so what was the point of leaving that day?  :)

How adorable is this little cutie with her bikini and chubby thighs?  Her smile is so cheesy, but genuine here and I love it!

Harper loves her cousin, Ava and Ava loves her some "Barper"!  How cute are the two bathing beauties on the float below?  I love the smile on my dad's face - he loves his granddaughters.  He has a special power over the both of them - they LOVE him!  I have to say that out of Harper's 4 grandparents, he would be her favorite.  I need to figure out his magic powers.

Saturday ended with Papaw pulling Ava and Harper around the house on a blanket.  When he stops, Ava goes around the house looking for him saying "Papaw?" and when she finds him, she simply says "More".  Hailey and Ava also helped Harper walk around the house.  Ava was so sweet trying to help out her little cousin.

Sunday brought on a splash park, a trip to Toys R Us, some yogurt and more pool time.  Harper didn't love the splash park too much, but I think it was because these boys sprayed her in the face with the water gun when she first got there.  The poor little girl didn't want to be in the water much after that.  She loved Toys R Us and yogurt is one of her favorite foods (I think) so she had a great end to the day.

Monday we took our time packing and getting ready, then had one final meal with the family and then headed back to Arkansas.  If someone could figure out how to move the Walmart corporate offices to Texas, that would be great!  You would be my hero...I promise!

Toodles!

Look Whoooo's 11 Months Old

Howdy Y'all!

I can't believe that I am less that one month away from having a one year old...where did the time go?  These past 11 months have been a blast (*almost* every minute).

Look how much she has grown since she was one and five months old!  She is a weed, I tell ya!

Harper wears 12m and 12-18m clothes and looks mighty cute in them, if I say so myself.  :)  And, she wears size 3 diapers.

She has successfully been without her pacifier for 2 whole days!  Way to go, big girl.  We took it away from her at night several weeks ago, but we didn't want to fully get rid of it until we got back from vacation.  The day after vacation, we quit it cold turkey and she has done remarkably well.

Harper is finally getting her first tooth - I can't wait to see what she looks like with some teeth in that cute little mouth.

Harper loves to prop herself up on the furniture and open drawers.  She also loves to get into the entertainment center and turn off the AT&T Uverse box.  She thinks she is pretty funny.

And, she LOVES to walk with her walkers.  She has a little dinosaur, elephant and baby stroller and she gives them all equal love.  I love seeing her "walk" her baby down the hall.

Speaking of walking, I feel like she will probably take her first steps before she turns a year old.  She is pretty steady standing on her own and she will take a step toward me before falling into my lap.

Harper loves her dog and loves to say dog-dog.  To keep her attention on the airplane the other day, we were looking through the Sky Mall magazine and my smart little booger was pointing at each of the dogs on the page and saying dog-dog.

She has started giving us kisses...open mouth, slobbery kisses, but I wouldn't trade them for the world.

Harper loves looking at pictures of herself (and we have plenty to show her).  We will show her a picture and she gets the biggest grin on her face and giggles.  She must think she is as cute as we thing she is!

Unfortunately, she has learned how to throw a fit!  When you tell her no or take something away from her, be prepared for a red-faced, fit throwing 11 month old.  Her grandmother witnessed it a couple of weeks ago and was shocked!  What in the world will the terrible 2's bring?

Birthday party planning is in full swing - the invites have been addressed and now it is time to get them in the mail.  Time really flies when you are having fun.

We love you lots Harper Aline!

Toodles!

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!