And it begins....

Baby sister is officially on her way - her first pair of shoes have made their way into the house.

Good Morning

6:35am - Harrison enters our room....

Harrison: Hi Mommy. I'm done restin'.

Me: Sweetie, it is still very early - why don't you play with the toys in your room for a little while?

-PAUSE-

Harrison: I don't think I understand you. I'm DONE RESTIN'!

Halloween Festivities

A trip to Jordan's office for the company Halloween lunch and trick-or-treat, where Jordan won best original costume for being a building that Spiderman climbs....

The ward trunk-or-treat and dinner where Harrison was captivated by the clown....

Carving pumpkins at home before the trick-or-treaters showed up......Harrison was disgusted by the entire process until he realized that fire would be burning inside them at the end....

We decided to stay home this year since it will probably be the last year we don't actually have to go out trick-or-treating. Harrison handed out candy and shot everyone who came to the door with webs - it was hilarious. Loved it.

Halloween lives on at our house, Harrison wears his costume everyday - during naps, to the store, at the park - everywhere.

A Weekend Away

I did it. I left town. All by myself. On an airplane back to sunny, warm Huntington Beach. One of my dearest friends was getting married - and the girls were gathering. We ate at all of our favorite restaurants, shopped at beautiful South Coast Plaza, danced and danced at a wedding celebration, reconnected with old friends - and I feel rejuvenated. Jordan stayed home with my little Harrison and they were fine. They went to a movie, watched lots of football, skipped naps, visited family, and ate their weight in M&M's. I think all three of us had a WONDERFUL time.

Conversations with Harrison at 27 months

HARRISON: Where is my black spiderman jacket?

ME: It is on the couch in the living room.

HARRISON: Mommy, how did you remember that?

ME: Because I am a smart mommy.

HARRISON: And I'M the smartest boy EVER.

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HARRISON: Mommy, where did your lunch go?

ME: It went to my tummy.

HARRISON: (Silence.......)

HARRISON: NO! Baby Sister is in your tummy.

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Getting him up from his nap.....
ME: Harrison? Do you want to go to a birthday party tonight? We need to go soon! There will be games and pizza!

HARRISON: (Stands up on his bed) I NEED CAKE! FANCY CAKE!

Baby #2 - dates to remember

5/14/09: Our four year wedding anniversary - found out we were expecting

6/15/09: Saw the baby and heartbeat for the first time

8/26/09: Felt first kicks at almost 20 weeks

8/28/09: Found out we are having a GIRL! And Harrison has decided that she can only be named one of three names:

1) SPIDERMAN (the clear front-runner)
2) GREEN ALIEN
3) ISAAC

Take your pick.

Pumpkin Harvest

Everyday, all summer, we watered and watched. Harrison grew 7 pumpkins. Not too bad for a two year old eh?

Go Jazz

Quote from Jordan: "I NEVER thought this day would come."

Meaning this: Harrison was a little tough on us at first (I have actually mentally blocked out the first 10 months of his life so I don't have an anxiety attack about baby #2). So when Jordan looked at me during the fourth quarter of Harrison's first professional basketball game and said the above quote - I knew what he meant. Our lives have never included any sort of outing with him after 6pm - EVER.

We would leave family dinners after being there just a short while because he had worked himself into a sweating vomiting tizzy, restaurants were attempted a time or two only to have one of us outside with the screamer while the other wished they were any place but there, etc etc etc.

So when Harrison calmly sat on our laps, transfixed by everything around him - for four entire quarters of basketball - we couldn't help but smile. He loved the crowd - mimicking everything that others were doing (shouting, pointing, fists in the air), the infamous Jazz Bear and all his crazy game antics, and of course the treats! The day has finally come - Harrison functions in public even late into the evening. Oh happy day.

An English Grandmother...

Happy 88th Birthday to my Nanna!

I stole the description below off of my aunts blog - hope she doesn't mind - and I hope I look as fabulous as she does on my 88th!

My Nanna is an amazing woman! She has lived in several countries and traveled all the way around the world. She is an artist. She is very good at starting over and making a new life for herself. As a young woman during World War II she served in the Women's Land Army in England. The "land girls" did the farm work of the men who were away fighting in the War. She emigrated to the United States with her husband and children while expecting her fourth child. She is the mother of five children, whom she raised in northern Utah. She is always reading and learning. When you have a conversation with her, you realize how well-educated she is. This is through her own efforts to add to her British education, which ended when she was fourteen. She then completed a 3-year apprenticeship at a hair-dressing shop. She has a lot of "spunk." While living in New Zealand, she became an art teacher under her husband's tutelage. She has taught watercolor painting in Germany and has exhibited her watercolors and stitcheries in California. Now she lives in England, the land of her birth. Her posterity totals 15 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren.

First Attempt

Now that we are homeowners, we attempted a garden this year. We weren't quite sure what would grow if anything in our long neglected soil - but we took a chance.

It was quite beautiful by the end of the summer (of course I didn't take a picture) but we really didn't enjoy the harvest:

Reason #1: Being pregnant, the very idea of any kind of squash or vegetable being cooked in my kitchen sent me running to the bathroom.

Reason #2: Our zucchini turned out to be orange. Pumpkin Orange. So in addition to me being grossed out by veggies in general - the thought of orange zucchini made it even worse.

Reason #3: Jordan doesn't really like squash - and we had a lot of it.

Reason #4: We planted our tomatoes too late, and only got a few cherry tomatoes and one big one off the vine before it froze.

Better luck next year I suppose.

A Spiderman Obsession

No matter where we are or what we are doing - Harrison's left hand is ALWAYS shooting a spiderman web and he is making a swishing sound. Just last week, he made it through an entire gymnastics class without breaking form in his left hand. He was of course a little puzzled as to why he was not able to hang on the bars properly, and his somersaults were quite crooked, but he stayed true and shot webs the whole time. He got his teachers, his fellow tumblers, and most often aimed directly at my growing tummy and proclaimed "I'm shooting the baby!" Fantastic.

We build all different colors of spidermen each day with legos, when he drinks any kind of juice - it is of course spiderman juice and his red football is his spiderman football. And for Halloween? You guessed it - SPIDERMAN. That is, if the cheapo Wal-Mart costume can make it to the end of October, he naps in it everyday and insists on running around in it outside every afternoon. All the while of course shooting cars, dogs, trees and people with his webs.

Coloring

Finally he will sit down and color. Most of the time he just wants to destroy the house with his T-Rex and Spiderman. So when I saw this I had to snap a few pics from across the room. I love how he is concentrating so hard - the tongue sticks out just a little. Love this little guy.