Our Day

This is Harper's new favorite face to make

About 4 years ago - some girls from my Sunday School class who had all had new babies got together and formed a play group that met every other Thursday. There were about 5 or 6 of them. And since then our class has multiplied rapidly and we now have about 20 mothers and over 30 kids in the play group. It had just gotten OOC (out of control). So we decided starting this week to split up into rotating smaller groups. I hosted one of the groups today!

I made poppyseed chicken, rice, salad, The Pioneer Woman's rosemary rolls (see her cookbook in the background - love her!) and brownies.

Brayden was first to arrive and wasn't thrilled. Harper was looking at him like "what's wrong with you." ha!

Sweet sisters - Lena and Sarah Grace

This is Julie and Shepherd. This was their first play group to attend. Shepherd just turned 2 months.

Harper took a great nap this afternoon and then we were off to Copelands to meet some friends for dinner. A sweet couple from Scott's hometown just moved here recently so we met up with them. Their little boy Jack is about 6 weeks older than Harper. They were checking each other out here.

It's been a fun filled and busy day! We are glad tomorrow is Friday!

Don't forget about "Show Us your MINISTRY" tomorrow. I'm excited to see all the different topics you may cover and my wish is that anyone out there who is hurting or would like to connect with others going through or who have gone through something similar will find encouragement!!! I'll have the post up sometime mid day tomorrow! So please come back this weekend!

13 months

We had a really fun day planned for today. We were spending the night in Tulsa last night and then today we were going to go to the Aquarium and to these great Mexican restaurant for lunch before heading home. We were so excited about this little mini vacation while Scott was off this week. But as I've learned over the last year............you can never really make too many plans when kids are involved. ha! We all went to bed at 9 last night since we were in one room and at 10 Harper was up screaming. At 2 a.m. - she was still wailing so we packed up the car and left the hotel and headed home. I had taken just two dressy outfits with me so I left the hotel in my pj's and cowboy boots. I think Scott was "chawed" but we were driving home and I was exhausted. It was a LONG night! It may be a while before I can talk Scott into an over night trip again.

Anyway - I'm a day late but I thought I would post this anyway for our personal memories!

Harper - you are THIRTEEN months old!!!

What are you up to?

You weigh around 24-25 lbs. You are a "healthy" girl.
I am starting to put you in 18 months clothes. I was wanting to buy a few summer things recently and started stressing because I have no idea how big you will be this summer. ha!

You LOVE to eat. You will eat just about anything. It's fun now to be able to go to restaurants and order off the menu for you. It makes it easy to travel and be out and about.

You can walk pretty good but you prefer to crawl. You walk a little more every day. You get around our house so fast I can barely keep up. I will look away for 2 minutes and you are in a different room.

You and Dawson have finally settled in as friends. He loves you because you always feed him. He has learned to run from you when you crawl towards him and you love to point at him. You always say a word when you see him. It's not quite Dawson but I think you mean it to be.

You are SO social. Almost so much that it embarrasses me and daddy. When we are at restaurants or anywhere in public - you will do anything you can to get someones attention and then flash your cheesy smile at them. You love to have people talk to you. You really are so happy 95% of the day. You just smile and smile and smile! I love that you are outgoing!

You do great in the nursery now and it has made it easy for me to leave you. The only time you cry is when I pick you up. It always makes me a little sad that you cry when you see me but I'm pretty sure it's because you are suddenly remembering that I left you. ha!

I think I've decided you will never be a good sleeper. You still get up several times a night. I think we have both gotten so used to it that I rarely think about it. You just have too much going on to want to sleep. ha!

You love baby dolls and you hold stuff animals and dolls and love them. You like to ride your play horses and play with your different toys - the mailbox, the blender, the purse, the teapot, the talking turtle. You are playing pretty independently now which is nice.

You love to play "where's Harper" (a.k.a. peek-a-boo), patty cake and giving us high fives.

You talk all day long. ALL DAY LONG. LOUDLY!

I can't believe how fast you are growing. You are the light of my life!

Oklahoma where the wind comes sweeping through the plains

Today we headed over for a little trip to Tulsa. Our first stop was the Ronald McDonald House where we dropped all the donations we collected for Harper's birthday. They were so thankful for what we brought them and we were so blessed to take it! It was emotional to visit where we spent a very hard but also wonderful three weeks.

Scott, Harper and Ronald

We ate lunch at Jason's Deli and then headed over to a cupcake place to get treats for the nurses we were going to visit. Can we say HELLO LOVELIES????
Since we were in the NICU - they moved from a old cave like room they had been in for like 30 years to the brand new Children's Hospital and it is SOOOO nice. I have no desire to ever be in the NICU again - but if we did - we would want to be there! This is Tina - she was one of our favorite nurses and helped us so much. We have kept in touch with her. I like this picture because she and Harper are smiling at each other.
I love how big Harper is smiling in this picture. She was SO happy all day. She just had the best time. She is SUCH a people person. Scott and I are both shy so we don't know how we got such an outgoing child but I'm so glad we did. Hope she stays that way!
"Nurse Carrie" was another one of our favorites. And she is having her own baby soon! You can tell I've been crying in this picture. We just saw a baby on ECMO and our doctor told us he was so glad Harper was able to avoid that and I was just a little overcome. I've been praying for that baby tonight.
We didn't expect to see Harper's doctor but we were thrilled we did. He will always be our hero. He was so nice to give us a tour of the new NICU.
This afternoon we did a little shopping and then ate dinner at the cheesecake factory. Could my salad be any bigger? We topped off our night with red velvet cheesecake. There are no words for how good that was. You know I'm a red velvet freak.

What a great day this has been for our family.

Also - thanks for praying for my dad. He had his heart cath today and had a stint put in and is feeling good. I wish I could have been there with him. We had already planned this trip and my mom told me not to come. But I was there in spirit and we will be going to visit them soon!