Our boy

Harrison is now 12 weeks and 3 days old. The best words to describe him are chill and cuddly.

We figured out his schedule around week 6. He does best when he eats, plays for a bit, naps, wakes up and repeats all steps. He does get a tad fussy in the evening, right in time for Lily's bedtime. Randy and I make a great tag team and we take turns bouncing fussy boy while the other performs Lily's bedtime routine. Seriously, if Harrison is fussy-BOUNCE. It's all it takes.

Harrison loves to cuddle with us. He loves to sleep on us for his cat naps and for a long time he slept in bed with us at night. We moved him to his crib about 2 weeks ago. He hasn't perfected sleeping through the night, yet. He was waking to breast feed every 3 hours, even at night, until week 8. I bought a swaddle blanket (baby straight jacket) and positioner and wahlah that night he slept for 5 hours straight. The next night was 6 hours! Ever since he has gone between 4-7 hours stretches at night. Until...I returned to the office this past Monday. Lily and Harrison are teaming up and plotting to keep momma from sleeping. They decided last night it would be even more fun to keep poppa from sleeping too.



Harrison is smiling a lot. If you talk to him he will smile. And likely coo and talk back. Randy got the first belly laugh out of him last weekend. I've been acting like a fool trying for more but for now I'll settle for the heart melting smiles. He will go from serious face to this huge smile so fast. Occasionally he'll take his time and go from serious face, to the start of a little smile to a huge smile.


Harrison loves to watch his big sister. He is able to visually follow her more. When Lily talks to him he will smile in return. It's a wonderful thing to see-- when your children smile at each other. A few times Harrison started crying when Lily screamed (not in a naughty way but a toddler-wow-I-have-a-loud-voice sort of way. When he does cry he will stick out his bottom lip, way out, and then do a silent cry followed by a pretty loud cry. He's getting used to these random shoutings from big sis cuz it hasn't bothered in recently.


Harrison is only 3 months old but he has made a huge impact in our lives. He has enriched us and we are so lucky to have him. I love you buster brown.

The Comparison

Tinkerbell in action

Introducing Tinkerbell and her sidekick monster

Halloween dress up began approximately 2 weeks ago when Lily decided to wear her Tinkerbell shoes to daycare.



















Last Sunday we took Tinkerbell and her blue monster to Boo at the Zoo...




























We got good use out of her Tinkerbell costume. She wore it to daycare yesterday morning. Wings, head band and all.















Harrison took a quick break from his monster costume to join me at my work party. He was my prop.



















Last night we went to Joy's house to practice trick or treating. Here is Tinkerbell and monster with their cousins Kelsey (punk girl), Payton (scary teenager), and Sydney (cotton candy).















Randy took Lily trick or treating around our neighborhood with Joy and the girls. She loved it. Lily would let Sydney and Kelsey ring the doorbell and get their candy and then she would walk up to the door, take a piece of candy and drop it into her bag. Her little nose was red from the chilly air but she had a great time. If we allowed her to eat candy all night she would have.



















I stayed home with Harrison and in between trick or treaters I did a Halloween photo shoot with him.

All about Harrison

Just because he is a boy doesn't mean he escapes mama's photo shoots...

Random pics

Pumpkin Patch (Harrison was sleeping)













The love













Lily and Randy during our day trip to the mountains













Big sis Lily holding little bro Harrison (he's really not scared of her, just the flash of the camera)














Harrison, 8 weeks old.














Lily's big girl room















Lily's birthday treat she shared at daycare

Lily says "I be 2"

Happy 2nd Birthday Lily!!!!!
















Last Saturday Lily entered the fantastic two's. After breakfast we took her into her new big girl room. In the last few weeks she saw us working in there and even helped Randy paint so she wasn't overly excited about the actual room but seriously dropped her blanket and ran to her new desk equipped with fun stool and lots of new crayons and coloring books.

















We spent her birthday playing house, coloring and part of the beautiful day outside at her cousin Syd's soccer game.














That night we hosted a dinner party with Joy, Bobby, Payton, Kelsey, Syd and Ted.















Elmo, Elmo and more Elmo...






















Happy birthday big girl! We love you so much!!!

Slap my hands, I've been a bad blogger

Hi, I'm here. My lack of posts can be blamed on family and work. Definitely not MY fault. Just kidding. We did travel across the lovely state of NE that is so full of interesting sights it's hard to sleep to visit our families. Harrison was introduced to my extended family and Lily showed off her walking and talking skills. Our last visit was Christmas 2006 when she was just starting to walk so she has changed a lot since then.

A day visiting family goes something like this...
7AM-9AM wake up, get everyone ready for the day.
9AM-10AM eat breakfast, frequently visiting mom-in-law at work to get a yummy breakfast.
10AM-12PM hang out with one side of the family.
12PM-3PM eat lunch and put Lily down for a nap
3PM-7PM go to other side of the family to hang out and eat dinner
7PM-8PM return to other family and put Lily to bed.

The above schedule is a pretty relaxed day. Other days are like this...
7AM-10AM get up, eat breakfast, bath kids, bath ourselves and visit family.
10AM-11AM visit one set of friends.
11AM-12PM visit another set of friends.
12PM feed Lily lunch.
1PM shop at Scheels for IA gear (love my new IA coffee mug and license plate cover!)
2-4PM Lily's nap time
4PM-8PM travel to other family and visit for the evening.
8PM return to other family to visit and put Lily to bed.

I left out Harrison's schedule but imagine the above schedules mixed with breast feeding every 2-3 hours and about 20,000 diaper changes (a day).

So yes, visiting family requires a vacation. Love you all but goodness it's hard work! On top of all that we never feel like we get enough time with our families. Lily handled all the traveling really well. The last 2 days were starting to wear on her and she was happy to return home. She did excellent on the drive to IA/SD and pretty well on the trip back to CO. Harrison did well both ways. The drive back to CO I spent a great deal of time wedged between the captain chairs, holding a pacifier in Harrison's mouth with one hand and playing with Lily with the other hand. Not safe at all but that's water under the bridge now.

Since returning from our trip my maternity leave has ended. I am officially working full time but thankfully it's from home for 4 weeks before getting my butt back in the office full time. It's only day 2 but I'm loving working at home. I have actually worked and snuck in a load of laundry too. I am grungy...without showering but at least my hair and teeth are brushed.

I know I comment about fall a lot but it's our favorite time of the year in this household. It's absolutely gorgeous around here. Bright yellow Aspen leaves, mixed with orange, red, brown and green. The air is crisp and the sun peaks out most days with a warm feel. We took a family drive to the mountains a few weeks ago. Most of you will see the fun we had in your Christmas cards. Yesterday we went to the pumpkin patch. Unfortunately the weekend long rain didn't make it easy on us. For some reason the pumpkin patch owners didn't feel the need to warn us either. We didn't get stuck but it was really close. Randy sharpened his mud driving skills to the sounds of my giggles mixed with occasional Lily's worries. The mud scared and intrigued her at the same time. After a $13 car wash some mud/clay remains to remind us of our pumpkin patch fun. Our digital camera was full so pumpkin patch pictures will have to wait since I resorted to our "old" camera, you know the kind where you have to take in the film and have it developed. So 5 years ago.