Monday, April 27, 2009

Fun with Harper & Atticus

This past weekend my mother & I went to Arizona to celebrate Harper's 2nd birthday. We had a blast. I hadn't seen them since last summer and I was a little concerned that Harper might not remember me. It didn't take her long to warm up to either of us. Unfortunately, my sister was sick and Brad was stuck taking care of her all weekend but that pretty much left the kids to me & mom.

Harper, as it turns out, loves shoes. Her shoe gene is already fully developed. My mom brought her two pairs of shoes. As soon as she saw the first ones, she took of her shoes and put on the new ones. Then my mom pulled out the next pair and off came the new shoes and on went the newer shoes.

Atticus is six and he's almost as tall as I am.
He's in kindergarten and can already do "take away". He was giving me subtraction problems in the car on the way back from the airport. I am sorry to say he beat me at coming up with an answer every time. He's also missing his two front teeth.We picked Harper up from school and as soon as we got home, my sister had to go to bed. I felt really bad for her. However, that left us with Atticus and Harper. Atticus is no stranger to a Grandma visit and he was stoked. He even left this note on the mirror for his mom so she'd remember not to take him to after school care.Harper got into the spirit of things when she saw the shoes. Since I helped her put them on, I became the official 'shoe putter oner'. Then she saw a bunch of clothes that were all for her and she proceeded (on her own, I swear) to try on all the different outfits that my mother had laid out for her.

The we said something like "do you want to go outside?" and that took up the rest of the afternoon. They both LOVE to be outside. Luckily, it was April and the weather in Arizona was actually pleasant.Harper rode her car back and forth along the porch.

Atticus was out in the yard playing soccer.

I was on baby duty which meant that when Harper got up at 6 am and started singing to herself, I had to get up with her. She was very cute. She would sit in her crib and sing to herself and when I walked in she'd sit there listening to me chastise her for being up so early and giving me the baby eye roll. Then I'd ask her if she wanted to get down and boy, she jumped up so fast - I don't think I even had to finish the sentence. Once we got up, we'd feed the babies and play with them all.I also got her after nap time. She was equally as cute. But she knew a novice when she saw one. I'd ask if she wanted to change her diaper and she'd say no. I kept asking her because I thought surely she needed to. Finally, she gave me a big sigh and we went to her room to change her diaper. I told her I hadn't done this in a while and I know she was laughing at me.

We also watched a lot of Baby Einstein. Duck! Water...
My mother, on the other hand, had Atticus. Here they are reading.They are reading Walter the Farting Dog. Seriously.
Later, we celebrated Harper's birthday. Here we were all singing to her and I think she really wanted us to stop.
At first she wasn't sure about the ice cream cake and just gave it a tiny taste. That was all it took. As you can see here, she's enjoying it quite a bit.
Here, Harper and Grandma are reading a story and, apparently, Harper is really enjoying it. She learned the word "again". I think we all read that book about 30 times each.
Here's my sis. She's all dressed up waiting for the photographer to show up and document the life and times of the Doan family.
Here's Atticus shooting hoops. At one point, Grandma even got up and shot baskets with him. She was pretty good.

I played soccer and got bruised legs. I was horsing around and got bonked on the head. I started to play basketball and got a punch in the eye. Let's face it. I'm not all that athletic.
Harper sure loves her Papa.
Apparently, every morning Harper comes out to check out how she looks after she gets dressed.

We really had a good time playing with the kids. It was a short visit but we had fun. I think the kids had fun too. I hope my sister gets better.