Update on Harper

She continues to grow and develop - and amaze us with what she has learned.  Some highlights:

• Her teacher at daycare put up photos of the president, vice president and the Iowa governor. So now you can ask her questions on who these people are.  Who's our president? "Barack"  She likes to call him just Barack and not Barack Obama - like they are friends on a first-name basis.  Who's our vice president?  "Joe Biden"  She says this with much enthusiasm.  Noah is completely impressed with this as he wasn't even sure who our VP is. Who's our governor?  "Terry Branstad" 
• She is obsessed with people's birthdays.  Likes to ask the birthdays of all her family members.  She knows her b-day and mommy's b-day.  And we are working on everyone else's.
• She knows the months of the year and can say them in order.  She did this one night several weeks ago out of the blue - and Noah and I were totally surprised.  So I asked at daycare how she learned that....and there is a song that teaches them the months. She's now got it memorized.
• Went potty on her little girl potty Friday night - unprompted by us.  She earned a lollipop as a reward.  Has not done this since.  At daycare, she does not like the loud flush the toilet makes - kind of scares her.  We are not really looking forward to the potty training process...
• She's now really singing along to songs on CDs that we play in the car.  It's really cute to hear her trying to keep up and sing the right words.
• Loves playing outside since the weather is so nice.  Especially loves riding in the tractor with G'pa to feed the cows, and with G'pa on the gator.  If G'pa drives by our house on the gator and does not stop to pick her up, she gets very mad.
• Enjoys going for runs with mommy (and sometimes daddy) in her jog stroller.  Usually give her a lollipop to distract her through the run. Sometimes we sing songs as we run too.  Thank goodness our runs are out in the country with not many people around to hear us sing!
• Still a picky eater...but her teacher at daycare has been getting her to try new foods.  At home, she's not that willing. We use a lot of bribery....if you eat your chicken you can have 5 M&Ms.  If we put the M&Ms in front of her, it usually gets her to eat what we are requesting.  But sometimes she's just completely stubborn, especially with trying new foods, and she's just look at me and say "I'm all done."...even with the M&Ms in front of her. 

Dress Up!

One night at the Van Maanen's, Amy decided to play dress up with Harper with all of Mollie's old dance costumes.  Harper LOVED it. She thought it was so fun to put on the clothes, then come out to model to all of us....and enjoyed all of our cheering for her in her pretty outfits.

Here she's a ducky.

 

A fairy princess or something with wings.

No clue what this one is - but Mollie wore it when she danced to some sort of Candy Land routine.

Non-dress up, but a general cute shot of Harper outside.  Notice how she likes to wear her bracelet way up on her arm and not on her wrist?  She's a trendsetter already! Ha!

Big Girl Bed

We have transitioned Harper over to a "big girl" bed...and the transition went very smoothly.  First she really loved shopping for her new bed at the furniture store.  She absolutely loved climbing up and down all the big beds. Then, she helped shop for her new bedding and she made a good choice.  She especially loves the birdie accent pillow that goes with her bedding.  And after letting her play for a day in her new room, to get acclimated to the new surroundings, she was ready for the bed.  She's done great!  Loves the bed and is sleeping great.  Saturday night this past week she slept from 8:30 p.m. to 8:45 a.m.  I had to wake her up because we were going out to breakfast.

Future Botanist

Harper loves helping water the flowers...especially with her spray bottle.  It's fun to just watch where she goes and what she does - quite the imagination!

Outdoor Fun!

Harper loves driving her car!

Aunt Amy picked up a water table for Harper, and she LOVES it. Hours of fun!

She now prefers to swing on the "big swing"...thanks to G'pa S who taught her how to hold on and swing on her own.

Daddy taught her how to fly like a plane on the swing. She also loves to do this.

This tree at the farm is so pretty! I wish they stayed like this all summer! 

Farming with daddy - riding in the kids' seat. Thankfully it has a seatbelt. 

More of the tree... 

She likes to help water my flowers....or the cement.  

More fun with the water table. 

She enjoyed watching G'pa and Russ get the planter ready right by our back yard. She loved it even more when Russ burned the seed sacks right there in the field. She kept saying "Fire....fire!" 

G'ma and G'pas dog Chloe loves to ride around in the gator. So she came down to help plant. Harper loved having her at our house and petting her.

Here, Chloe is licking her toes - she thinks that is hilarious! 

Dr. Harper

Harper truly enjoys going to the doctor, and never fusses when being examined - except for when they have to look in her throat. Otherwise, she's an ideal patient. So for Easter, she was given a doctor's kit and she's been having fun playing doctor...especially with daddy.

Planting the Garden

We finally got our garden planted this weekend. Let's hope for a bumper crop - especially since it's fertiziled with home-grown manure! :)

Harper helping daddy plant.