Monster Baby

A recent video of our little wild woman.  It seems like in the past week Harper has went from being a baby to a toddler.  She can now crawl anywhere and do so quickly, pull herself up to standing, while standing move from one spot to another, and clap her hands.  Everyone always said that she was going to be our wild child and I am starting to agree.  Think it is time to take the baby gates out of the basement!

Here is a typical scene at our house, Briggs playing on the floor and Harper deciding that she needs to be part of whatever he is playing with.  Briggs has given her the name "monster baby" when she attacks his stuff.  He is usually pretty good humored about it but I think that may only last so long.  Poor Thomas, his train tracks have been demolished by monster baby more than a few time.

Chanute Christmas

We headed to Chanute this past weekend to celebrate a early Christmas with the Herron clan.  It is starting to get harder each year to schedule around all the kids activities and other holiday celebrations.  We started the celebration on Friday with a suprise birthday party for Kelli with friends and family.  Jason did a great job planning a fun party and actually managed to pull off the suprise on Kelli which is tough to do.  There was good music, great company, and we had a ton of fun.  Happy Birthday Kiki, we love you.  

The adults woke up a little tired on Saturday to kids that were not tired and very excited to have Christmas at Doe Doe and Papa's.  We spent a good portion of the morning unwrapping presents, eating yummy breakfast treats, and playing with all our new goodies.  Briggs was super excited for his new Thomas wooden tracks, his rocket launcher, and his new books.  Harper did not really know what was going on but managed to try to eat every scrap of wrapping paper she could find.  Watching the kids open presents is always fun and their excitment is contagious.  More than anything I loved having my whole family in one place at the same time.  Doe Doe and Papa spent so much time prepping, shopping, and cooking for the weekend and it was all perfect.  Thank you guys so much for making the Holidays so special for us and our kids. 

December updates

We've had a lot of new news around our house with our kiddos lately.  As we all know Xmas is around the corner and it is so fun having a child in the house that actually understands it now.  As a parent we're also excited that we get to use the "naughtly list" to our advantage!!  I'm not going to lie, it's gotten him dressed a bit faster and put to bed easier from time to time.  Briggs is real excited now that there are presents under the tree and can't wait for the actual day to come.  I got to fill him in on the cookies and milk aspect and also asked him if he'd like to feed the reindeer.  Of course he did and told me how much reindeer like Golfish crackers, so I guess that's what we're leaving them.  All in all though, we are super excited to spend the day with them watching them open presents and just hang at home for the morning to watch their excitement.

Briggs has been quite the helper around the house lately as you can see from the dishes pictures.  And yes, he does wear pants 95% of the time, but it seems that most pictures on this blog are of him running around in his undies.  The dish night got a little messy and wet, so they were the first thing to go.  It is amazing how much he is learning lately.  A few days back I was at a red light waiting to turn and he said, "Hey dad, are we going to turn left?"  I looked at Sara and kind of wondered if I heard that right.  He knows his left and right and is also rhyming words and counting to 20 with ease!!  I don't know when he became such a big kid, but I'm loving it.  He is still obsessed with anything with wheels and last night our family did a little breaking of the law.  We drove around the neighborhood looking at Xmas lights and I let him sit on my lap and drive.  Honestly the kid is good and can turn wherever you need him to and he knows about the blinkers and headlights.  I just tell him which direction we are turning (left or right) and he puts the blinker on and starts turning.  It's completely illegal and he always asks me if the police are going to catch us, but I assure him not if we stay in the neighborhood....at least I hope.   

Harper is growing up literally before our eyes.  This past weekend we looked over and she had pulled herself up on Briggs' trampoline and was just standing there looking at us.  She must think she's big stuff because now she is doing it on everything around her...mostly the fireplace.  I even went in to get her up from her nap and she was standing in the crib laughing hanging on to the side.  Looks like it's time to drop the mattress down a few notches.  It's pretty amazing how quick they grow up.  She's been the happiest kid lately and also got to take her first big girl bath with no chair in the tub.  Briggs wanted in on that action and jumped in with her and she literally squeeled the entire bath and laughed at everything he did.  All he has to do is walk into the room and she is smiling and laughing...it's pretty darn cute.  She's also a music lover which makes her parents very happy.  She loves dancing and listening to any kind of music and it can calm her down too if she's in a bad humor.  If our neighbors can see in our kitchen window they may think we're a bunch of weirdos because we're always holding the kids dancing or just acting stupid.  We're pretty lucky to have two great kids around our house and are looking forward to watching them grow even more in the months to come. 

On the pet front, we now have a cat with a cone on her head and 15 stitches and a puncture wound on her back end.  I feel horrible for her, but it might be one of the funniest things I've ever seen.  The first day home she would try to run away and hide, but kept slamming her big ol cone into the wall or catch it on the corner of the furniture.  This cone is so big she can barely walk up and down the stairs!!  We have no idea what happened to her, but the vet assumes it was a fight.  Looks like she's going to be a full time indoor cat from now on.....YEAH!!!  That was sarcasm if you couldn't tell.

Thanksgiving

Happy Belated Thanksgiving everyone.  I am still kind of in shock/denial that Thanksgiving break has come and gone and we are already prepping for Christmas.  We started our Christmas decorating a bit early this year because I just love the house when it is all sparkly and red.  The weekend before Thanksgivng we put up our tree and other pretties around the house.  Briggs is totally getting the Christmas concept this year and was all about putting the ornanments on the tree.  By the time we were finished we had a very small space on the bottom of our tree with about 40 ornaments.  He was quite proud of his work and continues to admire the tree daily.  Harper, our new scooter who can get anywhere within moments also loves the tree and pulling off every ornament within her reach off.  Briggs is very much anticipating Santa making a appreance down our chimney and beleive me we have been using the santa is watching line often at our house.  Greg and I are so excited to be able to spend Christmas at our house with the kids and see their excitment.  

We had a fabulous Thanksgiving break.  We spent Wednesday, Thursday, and part of Friday in Chanute clebrating with my family.  We were able to spend some time with the Herron side of the family and catch up with everyone which is so rare these days.  Mom & Dad did a great job keeping everyone fed, kids happy and entertained, and as always did plenty of rocking babies to sleep.  It is always so nice to be with family and people that love us and our kids. 

While in Chanute Harper recieved her first haircut from our kids favorite beautican, Bridget.  She was in desperate need of getting locks trimmed, it was longer than mine.  She did awesome and it is so stinking cute I can not get over it.  It almost looks like a little bob.  Bridget actually took the time to dry and curl it, soo funny.  Crazy that she coudl be old enough already to get her first haircut. 



Harper's Baptism

After realizing that I was a bad mommy and had yet to have my daughter baptized I finally made the call to get it scheduled. We celebrated her baptism on Sunday with the whole family and had a great time. Harper was an angel during the whole baptism and did not even cry when they poured water over her head. I can not say that her older brother was quite the angel that she was. He kept asking Greg when the show was going to be over so he could go home. My brother Chris and his wife Liz were chosen as Harper's godparents. We had everyone over to our house after for lunch and socializing. Thank you to everyone that came to be a part of Harper's special day, we love you all and are so lucky to have such loving people in our lives.

She is getting so big.

Hadley came over for a early morning visit on Sunday. Nothing cuter than babies in jammies.

Love our PaPa and Doe Doe

Yet another failed attempt to get all three cousins in a shot together.

All the praying made her very sleepy.

Tomlinson happenings

I was just looking at our blog and realized I am such a slacker and have not posted since Halloween.  As usual we have been super busy with the day to day life with two kiddos.  Briggs started his new preschool about 3 weeks ago and we have been really pleased with how it is going.  The first few days were a little rough (probably more on me) but he loves it and I think being the smarty pants he is it is a perfect learning outlet for him.  I love hearing all his stories when he comes home, whether there is truth to some of them I am not sure but they are adorable.  Greg is getting down to about the end of his degree.  After this semester he will student teach and them graduate in May.  I am so proud of how well he is doing with this juggling act being a daddy, husband, employer, and student at the same time.  It has been interesting for all of us but so rewarding now with the end in sight.  I will happy not to be a single mommy 2 night a week and I know he will be happy not being away 2 nights a week.  We decided if we have survived the past two years of craziness we can survive anything.  Harper is growing up before our eyes, and just as perfect and cute as ever.  She is crawling like a mad man, has two teeth up and two on the way, eating two solid meals a day and baby talking all the time.  She adores Briggs and hangs on his every movement.  he is super sweet with her but I am sure it will get interesting very soon as she starts getting into "his" things.  While there are days Greg and I wonder what has happened to our lives I would not give up a moment of the craziness for all the riches in the world.  Really could you die for that face! 

Trick or Treat

Halloweeen 2011 proved to be a sweet success.  After a long day of partying at school I was not to sure if Briggs would be ready to rally for the big night but he was perfect.  He chose to attend the school party as a farmer (our last year costume) for practical reasons.  He looked super cute and had a great time.  Gram was able to stop by his school and celebrate with him as well.  Briggs has found some new buddies in our neighborhood that he calls "my boys" to play football and basketball with.  All of them are at least 3 years older than him and some about 8 years older.  They are all so sweet to him and always include him even though he has no idea how to play the chosen game.  In short we decided to make them all a Halloween bag and make a special delivery to each of them.  He was so proud to deliever them and see his buddies.  Here is the rest of the night in pictures.

 The delivery truck.  Notice the bags in the back, too cute.

 Making the drop off.  Yes that is me with the cape on.  I was the superhero (Super Fitness) at school that day. I think purple tights are making a come back!

 Soo proud.

 Our evening costume change was to a groom.  He was very excited to get to wear his special suit from Kiki's wedding again.  His little bride was more into eating her vail and pearls than trick or treating.

 I think they will curse us for this one day. 

 Hadley got to come and trick or treat with us too.  She was the cutest little pumpkin I have ever seen.  She loved seeing all the kids dressed up and the spooky houses.

 Briggs and his "boys" (and girl) 

 What a beautiful bride.  I was having future thoughts of her walking down the aisle someday, scary! 

 Briggs loved handing out the candy over the actual trick or treating.  He would only give them to the kids that did not have scary masks on...he made me do the spooky ones!  He had many comments on how daper he was.  I think I saw a few princesses checking him out, I will have to keep my eye out for them. 

By the end of the night our bride had turned into a bridezella and turned in for the night so we finished handing out our candy and called it a night as well.  So much fun to see what a big boy Briggs is becoming.  Hope everyone had a great Halloween as well. 

Look who is 1!

Happy Birthday to our sweet Hadley girl.  We got to help Hadley celebrate her 1st birthday on Sunday.  Seems crazy that she could already be 1 year old and such a big girl.  We love Hadely for her sweet smile, the way she LOVES Briggs and Harper, her happy disposition, her assertive ways, and for making our family much more complete.  We love you Hadley girl and look forward to watching you grow into a beautiful young lady. 

Pumpkin Patching

We headed to Weston's The Red Barn Farm on Saturday to take in our first pumpkin patch of the season. What a sweet little farm for kids to explore and have fun.  We were able to see horses, pigs, chickens, ducks, and goats.  We tried to persuade Briggs to take a horse ride but our little nervous nelly wanted nothing to do with the horse ride.  We opted instead for a tractor drawn hay rack ride which was a hit.  Briggs spent the whole ride checking out the huge tractor tires, such a boy.  It ended up being the perfect fall weekend which we took full advantage of, I think the winter cold is right around the corner.