January Happenings

 Most important thing that happened this month was that Harper got her first haircut!   Her hair is wispy fine and has a bit of curl to it.  Together, this means that it likes to stick in all directions.  It has gotten long enough that it was always in her eyes and when wet, the back of it is past her shoulders.  Off to my favorite hair guru we went.  Harper is now the proud owner of cute little bangs.  She looks so serious in this picture because her mouth is full of shortbread cookies.

 We had our first snow of season last night.  The kids thought it would be great fun to "help" Daddy shovel the drive with the ice scrapers that belong in the car.    If you look closely at Harper, you can see her poor split, swollen, bruised lip.  She tripped over the cord to the laptop the night before last and face planted into the floor.  Much crying and bleeding ensued, but she acted like nothing was wrong the next morning, even though she looks like she was on the losing end of a boxing match.

Spenser was actually pretty effective with the ice scraper.  There is a squeegee on one end and the snow was very light.

The kids were not particularly bundled up in the first photos because we were on our way to the store to get SNOW BOOTS.  Spenser was very excited about them.  Since he is likely only going to wear them a few times before he outgrows them, I was pretty please to get them on sale at Target.  Both pairs were $20 and Harper's are big enough that she can probably wear them next year as well.  Here they are, each  with snow boots, snow bib, coat, sweat pants, two shirts, hat, and mittens.  (OK, Harper is refusing to wear mittens in this pictures)  They were pretty over-stuffed looking as they toddled through the snow.

Harper's 18 month update

Harper had her 18 month doctor appointment today.  She is 27 lb 8 oz and 33 inches tall.  She is in the 85th percentile for both those measurements and she is only 4 inches behind Spenser.  Baby girl is solid and strong.   She has figured out how to carefully go down the stairs on her bottom, but would prefer to hold a hand and walk.  She is starting to talk, saying:  Mama, Daddy, Kitty, book, belly button, eat, please, woof (for dog), kitty, milk, cheese, and juice.  There are many more, but we can't quite pick them all out.  She is very good about following directions and will put away toys or fetch her coat if asked.  She is also very willful and determined and cannot be swayed if she thinks there is something she needs to do.  She continues be fascinated by animals and is learning how to pet the cats gently.  She has finally started to sit down long enough to look at books with us and can point out many different items in the pictures when asked.  At school, her teachers describe her as "very busy".  When asked, she can point to her hair, eyes, ears, nose, teeth, cheeks, fingers, toes, and belly button.  She continues to love her bath time and shoes.   She loves to color at the easel.  She dances to music and prefers to hold your hand and have you dance along.  She can wave bye-bye and will give kisses as well as blow kisses.  Her favorite song right now is "Row, row, row your boat".  She also knows the hand gestures to Itsy, Bitsy Spider and Twinkle, twinkle little star.

On Friday, she goes for her first haircut.  It's finally long enough to put up into a tiny little ponytail, but she won't leave the elastic in for any length of time.