Thanksgiving

What I'm (Erin) thankful for this Thanksgiving:

• A super smart, hilarious and kind daughter who makes me laugh each and every day (even when she's driving me crazy with her stubborness and pokeyness).
• A hubby who is one of the hardest workers I known. I'm appreciative of his ability to have a vision and know when take calculated risks. And he's a pretty great daddy too.
• A baby brother for Harper who will join our family in April.
• Family - near and far. Grandparents, aunts/uncles and cousins Harper adores.
• A great job and awesome co-workers who make going to work each day enjoyable and rewarding.
• Family farmers - who face uncertainty each and every year but never give up because of their love for farming and providing for our country.
• A great farming partner for Noah. Caleb understands that farming comes second to family and he never makes Noah feel guilty. Caleb and Noah are a perfect match in that their skills complement each other well so they can be efficient and productive. They accomplish more with less due to their creativity and innovation. Their equipment may not be new, or clean - but their operation is successful and progressive.
• Amazing medical professionals (many of whom I have the pleasure of working with) who tireless work to care for children and families in some of their most desperate and critical times. I admire them all.
• A daycare that Harper loves to go to each day. She has had incredible teachers that are patient, kind and loving. They help make being a working momma a little easier knowing that she's in capable and caring hands each day.

Updates

We started potty training Harper 3 weeks ago. And it's been going really well. Only hiccup is that she does not like to poop on the potty. But hopefully we can work through that soon. She even wakes up from her naps/nighttime 90% of the time dry. So we are very pleased with how well it's going.  And a little surprised at how time consuming it is!  Below is Harper's potty sticker chart after the first weekend. She loves to pick out the stickers for the chart.

One Sunday night, after watching a Curious George cartoon where George had made puppets, Harper asked to make puppets. Since I was busy making dinner, it became a craft activity with Daddy. And it turned out hilarious. Noah really got into designing the animal puppets out of recycled containers we had.

This is Harper's turtle puppet.

This is all the puppets they made - a horse from a butter container, a turtle from cardboard and a fish from an OJ jug.

And then of course, they had to put on a puppet show! Noah put rubberbands around them so she'd have something to hold onto.

Baby #2 is now 19 weeks along - and this is a photo at 18 weeks. We had an appointment at 18 weeks and then an ultrasound at 19. And the ultrasound revealed that Harper will be a big sister to a little brother! Noah is extremely excited and I was very surprised (but excited). Harper says she's having a little brother and it'll be a girl! Kind of funny.

Harper is loving the Christmas season!  We put up our decorations very early and have been watching xmas movies and reading books. She loves it all! We have a very small tree that we put up since our living room would not accomdate a large tree. So Aunt Amy invited Harper up to help decorate her big tree. Harper again loved this and thought it was pretty fun!

Festival of Trees

Amy and I decided to decorate a tree - for the first time - at Festival of Trees and Lights.  We've been going to the event for YEARS...and since it's a fundraiser for Blank, the last six years I've been working at the event. So it was about time we decorate a tree! We decided to do this last year so we were able to get some ornaments on discount following x-mas.  And then we found some patterns in craft magazines for felt ornaments we could make ourselves.  So we spent one whole Friday off of work making the ornaments....which taught me how to sew! 

Enjoy the photos of our tree below.  And if you are going to Festival, vote for us in the "people's choice" voting award.

Fall Update

Well - where to start!?!  It's been a long 34 days but hopefully combining will wrap up this week! Some highlights of harvest this year:

• 34 consecutive days of combining - not one day off.
• Extremely dry weather - leading to only one, minor, fire.  Thankfully Noah and Caleb were able to keep it under control and find the problem in the combine that caused the fire. Other farmers were not so lucky this year with the fires.
• Only minor breakdowns - nothing that kept them out of the field more than a couple hours.
• AWESOME help by two gentleman (Lincoln and Cole). Cole is a high school student who's been running the grain cart after school while Noah runs semi. Lincoln is a friend/cop who helps in his off time. Both have helped considerably to keep the combine running and enabling Noah to tend to the cattle twice a day.
• An awesome daddy/hubby who made stops in almost every night just to say hi to Harper. He hates not being home with her so he'd make special trips, or we'd make a special trip to the field, so he could see her.
• One "farm with your hubby" day by Erin. Spent the day with Noah and Caleb. Actually drove the tractor - with MUCH coaching from Noah. Future farm wife?  We'll see about that! Ha!
• Decent yields despite the down corn from our wind storm this summer. The down corn definitely slowed things down. They could go from one field averaging 1800 bu/hr rate to another field where it was 400 bu/hr rate. The down corn made it difficult to see the rows and stay on track. But thankfully, still a relatively decent crop.

In other news, pregnancy number 2 is going good.  This time around it is different than with Harper.  At 16 weeks, I still have days where I feel crummy.  With Harper, at 10 weeks I was pretty much back to normal. This leads Noah and I to believe it's a boy this time.  We'll be able to find out around Thanksgiving what the sex is - and this time we will be sharing with everyone!  Photo below at 16 weeks....tummy starting to show!

In Harper news, she continues to be super fun!  But we are starting to see the toddler attitude and stubbornness shine through!  She frustrates us with her not following directions and having to tell her 5 or 6 times to do something.  But despite all that, she makes us laugh each day with her humor and intelligence!

Harper dressed as a clown. No this is not Halloween. She got this shirt at one of Joe's (Noah's broker) parties that was a carnival theme.

Checking out a butterfly at Reiman Gardens. We had a season membership there this year and loved it. We have been there many times and Harper loves it. Highly recommend to anyone in the area.

By the giant gnome.

On this visit to Reiman Gardens, we let Harper lead us around to anyplace she wanted to go. Love this picture of her running ahead of us, excited to explore - and the beautiful fall trees!

After our exploring, she enjoyed a $.75 bag of popcorn. A nice treat that the cohorts sell for those at the gardens.

One of Harper's favorite musicians is Laurie Berkner.  Well, Laurie came to Des Moines for a concert/fundraiser in October. I took Harper. I thought she'd be more into it....but I think she's just a little young yet. She LOVES to listen to her music in the car and will sing the songs on her own.

OK, now this is Halloween!  Harper in her sock monkey costume - minus the hat.  I couldn't get her to wear that hat.

But thankfully her teacher (pictured in black) was able to get Harper to wear it! This is her class trick or treating at the hospital on their annual "Monster Walk".  I met up with them along the way and Harper was having a blast!

Harper with her friend Madison. The two love to play dress up together at daycare.