Harper's First Christmas

Harper had a great first x-mas! We spent x-mas eve at home...and Harper opened one present.  X-mas morning, she slept in an extra hour (allowing extra time for Santa to make his delivery!). We opened presents at home and then headed to Grandma/Grandpa Sandquist's for lunch and more presents. It was a very fun day - Harper enjoyed it all. That night, though, she ended up getting sick...so she spent the day after x-mas pretty miserable with fever before we could get her to the doctor on Sunday - to discover an ear infection. She's on medication and doing MUCH better. With all the darn snow - Noah was out doing snow removal. Even today, with the cold weather, the roads in our area are still 75-100% ice covered.  UGH! Makes for a slow drive to/from work. I am hopeful for some sun to melt the ice very soon.

We are headed to Noah's family this weekend - to celebrate x-mas and someone's very special 1st b-day! That's right - Harper is almost 1. How quick did that go? Too quick in my opinion.

Enjoy the photos below from x-mas!

Harper is figuring out how to put Legos together.

Noah making egg nog from scratch!

 

Her x-mas eve gift - she loves the pink pig. You will notice it in lots of photos.

Having breakfast x-mas morning!

 

Yeah - presents! Still holding the pig!

Little People Tractor to go with the Farm!

All dressed up for Grandma/Grandpas!

Trying to drink from a funky Diet Coke bottle. The lid is on - don't worry!

Riding the horse the VM's got her!

In a new chair from G'ma/G'pa!

 

With G'pa in the box the chair came in!

Loving the chair!

Harper and Santa

Harper had her picture taken with Santa tonight. They do a Santa party at work for employees' kids. So we went over. Thought it would be better than having to go to the mall!  And it was. But as you can see - she wasn't that thrilled about meeting Santa and Mrs. Claus. But doesn't everyone have a photo similar to this?

Thanksgiving

We had a great thanksgiving - getting to see both sides of the family.  Had lunch with Noah's family in Pella and then dinner back home at the farm with my family. Harper enjoyed seeing everyone - and believe it or not she was the only one who actually ate turkey on Thanksgiving! Of course, it was baby food turkey and noodles....but the rest of our meals did not feature turkey, which was kind of fun!

Hard to believe it is December 1 - and I'm happy to report today is the day Noah and Caleb will finish combining! Hooray! It's been another LOOOONNNNGGGGG harvest/fall...but at long last, it will be over. Just in time for him to start taxes, holiday shopping and other year-end "stuff".

Highlights in Harper's development:

• She's learned to clap! It only took her one night to learn.
• She's finallly waving "bye bye" to people. This took a couple months of teaching!
• She has 6 teeth now.
• She loves crawling, climbing and exploring. On Thanksgiving, she decided to follow Mollie up the stairs! I caught her as she got up her first step. Guess it's time for baby gates!
• She's eating more table food - this has been a slow process. But so far she likes fruits, yogurt, green beans, carrots, graham crackers, vanilla wafers and has figured out her sippy cup.
• She likes to help me pull laundry out of the dryer.
• She loves books and LOVES to pull them off her shelf and flip thru the pages.
• Her hair is finally coming in - and has a little curl in the back.
• She looks like Noah when he was a baby - same face and hair! (Poor little girl! Ha!)
• She loves the legos at Aunt Amy's house.
• Mollie can still make her laugh unlike anyone else! It's so fun to watch them together!