11 September 2012

Summing Up Summer

in one video...
Legos and trains
Constant interruptions from the dryer timer
Bad music (along with forgetting most of the words)
pants optional
baffled little sister

Yep, that pretty much covers it.  Our summer in a nutshell.

I know videos are super annoying...but I love it too much not to share.







30 August 2012

Presented in Pretend Polaroids.....

Harper at six whole months!
Here's what's up with our little Harps, Harpsichord, Chubber, Frazzletoe (yes, that one is sticking...)  

She's reluctantly mastering her sitting up skills.  She can last a good 30 seconds, but would much rather be perfecting her crawling.  When my iPhone is in sight she'll lunge for that thing with army crawling skills that Holden didn't manage until he was many months older.   I must not have done a good enough job explaining that she is skipping my favorite part of babyhood.  I like to call it the lazy stage, because I can be a much lazier parent during this part.  You know, the part where she can sit up in shopping carts so that I can stop lugging around my biggest enemy, her giant carseat,  but also can't get anywhere without my help.  Yeah, I don't think that stage is going to work for very long with this one.  No free rides here.


She's still rocking mounds and mounds of hair.  And it is getting more and more difficult to manage.. Especially when Reo gives her crazy hair at bathtime.  I know, right?  Wahh, my baby has sooo much glorious hair.  Cry me a river.


Speaking of bathtime, she totally digs it.  Especially right before she goes to bed.  For the first time.  Home-girl is not at all interested in sleeping through the night on a regular basis.  Even with Reo taking on some of the night shifts we are still bordering zombie apocalypse around here some days.

Also, despite the fact that she gives you major stink eye when you eat people food in front of her (as pictured below), she is indifferent at best about baby food.  Even the good stuff. (For reals, guys, just try to tell me baby food pears aren't delicious.  Just try.)


Favorite thing about Harper right now?  She loooves her toys...And in this case, her friend Culver's toy. Look at the intensity of her love.  It's almost frightening.


Finally, she continues to be a big ball of chubby goodness.  I can't get enough of all 26.5 inches (67th percentile) and 19lbs 4oz (92nd percentile) of her.



12 August 2012

Best Of: Going Unplugged

I spent a good portion of last week "unplugged."  That's a big fat checkmark on #4 of my 30 by 30 list.  Three days with no internet, TV, movies or games on my phone.  Surprisingly, the internet survived without me, and Friday Night Lights was waiting for me on Netflix right where I left off.  So you could say it went off without a hitch.  I MAY have planned the blackout for a few days when I had lots of fun stuff planned anyways to make the withdrawal a little less severe, but that's not cheating, right?

Oh, also?  I kickstarted the whole event the night before by completing number 16 at this restaurant with one of my favorite people who has the nearly psychic ability to call me whenever I could really use a friend.  

Some highlights:


Annual trip to Pineview Reservoir.  This trip always makes me remember that I can never spell reservoir correctly on the first try.  Or the second apparently.  Holden spent the bulk of the day building pirate jails on the sand.


Conning Reo into taking a day off of work for a "Family Fun Day,"  complete with ice cream for lunch, visiting Grandpa's office for a little game of chess, and impromptu bowling when it rained out our afternoon swim.  Harper was there, but hanging out in your carseat all day doesn't result in many pictures apparently.


And of course, we hung around the house, playing with toys and attempting new hairdos.

After feeling pretty darn proud of myself for my accomplishments, we capped off the weekend with our new favorite tradition of Reo and Holden watching America's Funniest Videos, which they both enjoy way too much.

05 August 2012

Lucky

Harper is pretty lucky to have Holden as a brother.  And she knows it, too.  Every morning Holden wakes her up by getting right in her face and yelling, and she just grins at him.  As of now he is the only one who can get her to laugh.  And, he likes to help her eat.  He takes his job very seriously.


And he also belongs to the "bite for you, bite for me" school of thought.  Whatever gets him to eat his vegetables, I guess.

On the flip side, Holden is pretty lucky to have Harper as a sister.  I'm pretty sure he gets in a couple good jabs or squeezes on her every day, and she never rats him out.

31 July 2012

Legit

Well, it finally happened.  We are real live parents now. The Manning household has seen its first big "owie."  Apparently my constant reminders to everyone to "be careful!" was not a flawless plan.  Last week, our typical afternoon pool rat routine ended at Instacare when according to Holden he was "jumping into the pool and (insert unintelligible jibberish here) and split my chin RIGHT OPEN!"  He'll tell you all about it if you want...Or even if you don't want.

Three stitches later---

And five days after that they're gone---
This was him right after some pretty harsh accusations.   "You LIED to me!  It didn't tickle!  It HURT!"  Mom of the year right here, people.  In my defense, I didn't realize that there were some pretty deep stitches going on in that chin.

Oh well, nothing a Spiderman sticker, a sucker and a bright orange Band Aid can't fix.

And also some late afternoon underwear modeling....Calm down everyone, it's never been worn underwear.  And look at both of them looking at me like it's no big deal.  Seriously mom, no need for the camera here, move along.

14 July 2012

Pinterest Day!

So, we all love Pinterest, right?  If not, it's quite possible you aren't doing it right, because it is awesome.  Just saying.   Anyways, I try to keep my Pinterest boards as realistic as possible.  You know, stuff I may actually utilize someday.  Well, someday became Thursday.  I had two slimy, not quite sick but definitely snotty, kids to entertain, so I declared a Pinterest day, hoping to knock off some of the stuff I had pinned but hadn't gotten around to trying yet.  You will see that most of our activities involved food.  That's because most of my Pinterest boards involve food.   But hey, whatever gets us through the day, right?  Here's how it went down...


The day started with this lime greek yogurt.  Super easy, and super delicious.  Holden even declared it his favorite pin of the day at bedtime, so take that for what it's worth.


Then we moved on to this (sourceless?) activity of food colored vinegar and baking soda.


It's supposed to keep your kids occupied for hours.  My kid has zero attention span for most things, so it wasn't quite that long.  But it was long enough for me to take a Diet Coke break and make my grocery list, so I was a happy camper, because holy cow, being a fun mom is exhausting.


Lunch was these Hillbilly Snack Teeth, shown below alongside evidence of the sliminess I was talking about earlier.  Holden thought these were fantastic and screamed "now I only have three teeth!, now 2 teeth!" and so on.  And yes, that's all he had for lunch, don't judge.


The afternoon brought homemade fruit snacks, and proof that I do indeed have two children.  Also, that I take a lot of blurry pictures.


They were okay.  Holden was a fan, but they mostly tasted like super concentrated and chewy jello.  And I am pretty sure the Star Wars fruit snacks I buy from the store are cheaper.  I did enjoy using my tiki man ice cube trays from Target, though.


Since I couldn't go to the store, I settled for some online shopping.  I pinned these shelves for Harper's room back when we were semi-homeless and Harper's room was a figment of my imagination.  Affordable shelving is hard to come by, so I am a big fan of this (local!) designer, for solving my problem.  And also for the photo since my shelves aren't here yet, and then most likely won't get installed for another few months, seeing as Harper's crib is still in the box.  That should probably take priority.  Maybe.


Dinner was  some yummy grilled chicken.  I didn't take a picture, but it looked like grilled chicken, so use your imagination.
Also, these baked potatoes.  Yes, I pinned how to bake a potato.  It's tough stuff, and THESE potatoes tasted like the potatoes at Outback Steakhouse, which are pretty much my favorite part of going to Outback Steakhouse.  Plus, it taught me how to smoosh the potato up all pretty.  At least it tried.  I'll get better.


After Offspring #1 was put to bed, I accomplished one more pin.  And I am super proud, so don't make fun of how easy it was.  Promise?  Okay.  It was this headband.


Sad story, when I clicked on my pin to get the tutorial for this, it was gone.  Disappeared into thin air.  Not to be deterred, I tried to make it without instructions.  And I pretty much did.  This is huge, people.  HUGE.  We all know my challenges in the domestic crafts arena.  I even enjoyed it so much I made three more.  AND, it totally counts as making something for baby, therefore I totally get to cross number 5 off of my 30 by 30 list.  Two birds, one stone.


So, there you have it.  Sicko kid day turned super fun day.  I had so much fun, this may not be my last Pinterest day.  And you should do it too.  And you should tell me about it.  And also pretty much tell me about all your successful pins, because clearly, I like to talk about Pinterest, judging by the most massive blog post ever.  Also, if you'd like to give me some praise, I wouldn't say no to that either....

10 July 2012

Flashback 4th

Maybe it's tradition.
Maybe we're creatures of habit.
Maybe we're predictable.
Maybe this 4th of July mirrored every other 4th of July since I started this blog....
Maybe that's just the way I like it.  
2009

2010

2011

2012
Maybe it means I don't necessarily need to blog about it.
Maybe I will anyways.

Maybe things aren't EXACTLY the same, since this year our pictures include a couple of this kid, too.