Brady is 9 months old

What you are doing at 9 months:
1. You clap your hands all the time
2. You wave bye bye on occasion
3. You love to mimick Harper
4. You weigh 20 lbs and 11 oz - only 3 lbs less than Harper
5. You bear crawl whenever we are outside
6. You have recently started to climb on top of things- the other day you climbed on top of  chair and then climbed up onto the kitchen table.
7. You have mastered climbing up the stairs, but have NO clue how to get down
8. You get hurt atleast two times a day - this morning you got a black eye and busted your nose  up on the floor. I hope our insurance is GREAT when you get older
9. You have four teeth now - top two and bottom two
10. You will eat ANYTHING we put in front of you!
11. If we took away your bottle tomorrow- you could care less, you would prefer a sippy cup anyday of the week, especially if it was Harper's!
12. You are going down for naps and night time MUCH easier - less crying
13. You love the book - How Big is Baby Elmo - you get excited when Elmo pops out at the end
14. You walk everywhere, but not by yourself
15. Anything you can push and walk behind, you will - kitchen chairs, your highchair, toys, anything!
16. You stand without holding onto anything, but haven't taken any first steps yet
17. You feed yourself all the time!
18. Your laugh is the BEST and your are literally ticklish EVERYWHERE!
19. You dunk your head under the water during bath time, and it drives us NUTS
20. You are wearing 12 mos and 18 mos clothing - HOLY COW

We love you Brady - you make our family COMPLETE!!!

Harper is 27 months old!

What you are doing at 27 months:
1. You can count to 10 by yourself
2. You love to color
3. When you color, you TRY so hard to stay in the lines - but you normally just draw straight lines
4. You love stickers. I actually caught you putting stickers all over our windows the other day, when I told you that's not where stickers go you started peeling them off the windows and putting them on yourself!
5. Your new favorite word is TREAT - you constantly want a treat! This started b/c of potty training and it didn't help that you had a Valentine's day party at school on Monday
6. Your favorite treat are M&Ms - and you refer to them as Num N Nums  (I will never correct you b/c it is ADORABLE)
7.You are completely potty trained - I can probably count on one hand how many accidents you have had since we have gotten completely rid of the pull ups
8. You love your beauty and the beast underwear - but you refer to them as Belle.
9. Every morning when we pick out your clothes you request to wear Snow White underwear, we have never had any of these, but you still ask every morning
10. Your favorite song is by Luke Bryan - Country Girl Shake it For Me! You have a radio in your room, and this song is on repeat 24/7 - hopefully the song doesn't go bad!
11. You love dancing, and whenever a song comes on you will shake your booty
12. Along with counting to 10 you seem to enjoy counting everything - you are constantly walking around the house saying 1, 2, 3  - counting all the magnets on the fridge, counting your cereal, etc.
13. You are always singing some kind of song - right now your favorite is Happy Birthday to you - your version is Happy new new to you....and it's always Ava's birthday (your friend at school)!
14. You still LOVE school and you have started to talk about your friends when I pick you up after school. Every morning you wake up and say Miss Amy and Anna - meaning do I have school today?
15. You have a very strong will, and will try to beat me in a stare down at times - normally i give and start laughing though
16. You are wearing all 2T clothes, but I actually think you went through a growth spurt and you probably could fit into 3T pants.
17. Every night when we play in the bonus room, you completely take down all the pillows on the couch and make a fort. Mommy, daddy and Brady chase you around the center table - and you just laugh and laugh
18. You go to the bathroom all by yourself now - you require no help from mommy and daddy
19. The other day, I called for Danny from upstairs and you repeated after me....yelling DANNY!  You still tend to call him Danny and we think it's hilarious!
20. You have become quite a picky eater, not really eating any meat for some reason
21. You still love fruit though
22. Your dad found you the other day after you had gone to the bathroom all by yourself - he thought it was taking a lot longer than it should so he went to check on you, he found you dipping toilet paper into the toilet water you had just peed in and you were sucking out the water - YUP you did that! GROSS
23. When it's time to go to bed, you normally grab Brady's head and hold his cheeks while you give him a kiss.
24. You are getting up in the middle of the night walking down the stairs and climbing into our bed - without us knowing. This has happened quite a few times over the last month
25. You and Brady have started to really play with eachother - you make a sound and he'll make it back and then you just giggle and giggle.
26. You love dragging brady around the floor - by his shirt of course
27. You are a water baby - you love showers the most though!

We can't wait to see the relationship that blooms between you and Brady - this month has been a true test of mother/daughter - you are becoming a little kid and starting to have a slight attitude! I'm not sure where you get this from (maybe your daddy)! Just kidding, you are really the greatest little girl anyone could ask for! You use your manners just the way we taught you!!
WE love you Harper!

Daddy Daughter Date Jan 28th, 2012

Danny took Harper to their first ever daddy daughter date!  Harper picked out her own outfit, including the bow in her hair and even her boots!!  Turns out Daddy wore the same shoes on their date!  Danny took Harper to lunch, ice cream and then a movie (Alvin and the Chipmunks)! She even wore her big girl underwear and no pull ups!!!

I hope they continue to do this throughout the years!! I think they both are having a BLAST!!!

Potty Training

Day one of Potty Training!

Date we started to potty train Harper - Jan. 19, 2012
Day one: you thought it was fun at first and even went potty in your toilet 3x's before 10am. THEN a switch turned on and you fought EVERY waking moment from here on out. You absolutely let loose and screamed trying to find your diapers. I even caught you one time crawling in the cubby hole in the hallway throwing ALL the diapers onto the floor trying to find your cookie monster diapers (secretly I had hid all the cookie monster diapers a little earlier in the day) you even told me no mommy i'm not a big girl diaper on NOW- smart on my part b/c you finally gave in and had a GREAT first day of potty training overall. Right before you went to bed we put a pull up on you - with Tomater on the front, which you absolutely LOVED.

Day two: you woke up and said mommy no diaper, so we walked around the whole day with just a long sleeve shirt on. You had no accidents this day except for when you were napping (which we put a pull up on you).

Day three: Daddy's home and he was in charge of working on putting underwear on you for this day as mommy would be gone most of the morning. You had an accident in your underwear and got upset and then you pooped in your underwear and got really upset. Daddy grabbed you pulled your underwear off and took it to the toilet to flush. When he came back he was surprised to find you sitting on the couch with a dirty butt, b/c he had not wiped you yet! Overall you did not like your underwear

Day Four: You had a few accidents with your underwear on, and again got really upset, but after your accidents you were accident free the rest of the day! You were a little scared to go #2 on day 4, and I could tell you REALLY had to go around noon b/c you were grabbing yourself and saying mommy poopy....BUT you just would not give in and sit on the toilet. You kept grabbing diapers and telling me to put them on you. Once you actually laid on the ground in front of me and tried to put the diaper on yourself. I wasn't giving in. Around 7:30 after LOTS OF TEARS and SCREAMING, you went and sat on the big girl potty and were pushing and pushing and pushing.  You had waited so long you made yourself constipated so it hurt when you were pushing it out. I was cheering for you like you were giving birth - you will appreciate this later in life! You finally got it out and then flushed the toilet and said Mommy's turn!! HA HA HA~

Day Five: Today was your first day at school "potty training" we decided to put you in pull ups on the way to school just in case we couldn't pull over to let you go potty. As soon as we walked in your classroom you said mommy potty and you went potty like a big girl!  You didn't have any accidents at school and your teachers said you did a really good job telling them when you had to go potty.

We will be working on wearing your big girl underwear the rest of this week and weekend and hopefully by next Monday you will be FULLY potty trained!

We are so proud of you Harper!! You are quick to learn!

Brady is 8 months old

Smiling before your first New Years Party

Daddy and Brady

What Brady is doing at 8 months old
1. You have had your first two ear infections this month
2. You had Rosiola this past month as well (this is apparently very common in infants and it's basically when you had a virus which has started to go away)
3. You did not mind Santa
4. You are "cruising" around on furniture - your preference is to push Harper's potty around the floor
5. You hate being tied down to a toy (i.e. jumperoo, exersaucer and highchair), you prefer to be crawling around the floor
6. Your favorite spot in our house is the fire place and pulling the rocks out
7. You climbed up three steps today by yourself
8. You throw temper tantrums when we pull you away from the fire place - you arch your back and scream at the top of your lungs and bend your legs like you are jumping up and down - it's actually pretty hysterical
9. You are wearing 12 month clothes
10. We got you your first pair of shoes and you actually don't mind them
11. You love watching your sister and laughing at her
12. You have the best laugh and are giggling ALL THE TIME!
13. You like to play by yourself, but not for very long
14. When you are holding your bottle during feedings you are constantly twisting it around and tend to hold your bottle with only one hand
15. You just learned how to click your tongue and you do it on cue
16. You LOVE saying the word, YEA

Thank you for bringing such JOY to our lives Brady! We Love you!

Harper is 26 months old

Loving your new cowboy boots

Brady, Mommy and Harper New Years Eve

What Harper is doing at 26 months:
1. You are talking a TON more
2. You "try" to count to ten (we say one, you say two, three, four, five, six, seven, nine, ten YEA and clap your hands)
3. You "try" to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
4. You LOVE watching Disney movies - no white, reindeer, buzz, mumbo (dumbo) and many more
5. You have really started to throw temper tantrums lately, beating your head on the floor in the middle of stores is much too common these days
6. You have begun to stick your head under the water  while you are taking a bath
7. You love singing "I'm wishing" - from Snow White
8. You would wear rain boots everyday all day if I would let you
9. We have begun the potty training process with you - and I don't think you are a big fan
10. You are going through a cookie monster phase with diapers - you throw a fit if we don't put a diaper that has cookie monster on it on you. This is extremely hard since there are only 12 cookie monster diapers in a complete pack.
11. You help us feed the dogs every morning
12. Your hair is getting longer by the day, and your dad for one IS SO GLAD
13. You are becoming a better eater
14. You sing your ABC's - with some holes in the middle
15. You love to clean and are constantly caught washing your hands
16. You hated Santa this year, but LOVED the presents
17. You try and tickle Brady all day long; he loves it and you make him laugh
18. You are constantly stealing toys from Brady - we are working on sharing
19. You love coloring, but would prefer to color your body instead of on paper  - your teachers at school must paint on your hand and then have you press your hand on paper to make your hand print. This is what you do all day at home
20. You are becoming quite the "helper" around the house. We tell you to go get diapers and wipes for us and you gladly grab them. You also help me change Brady - by pulling the tabs away and then immediately you tell me whether it's a poopy or a just pee pee!
21. You have never given me a problem putting you to bed or nap - lately you've been telling us when you are ready to go nigh nigh, and you grab your blankie and head to your room, you tuck yourself in and you're out!
22. Your big word right now is "OH MY GOSH" you say this to everything!
23. You make sure you give EVERYONE a kiss before you go to bed!
24. Everything is a trampoline, even the stairs!
25. You LOVE brushing your teeth and washing your hands. You tell me ALL day long, momma I want to wash wash wash my hands! Or I am going to brush my teeth!
26. You love playing house with your baby dolls

You love saying "cheers" right before we eat and sometimes you don't stop cheersing our glasses until we say enough!  You are delightful little girl and we LOVE YOU!

Christmas 2011

Kunath and Roeth Christmas 2011

Memo and Papa Roeth

Uncle Andy, Brady and Harper

Daddy reading "The Night Before Christmas."

Christmas morning

Christmas Eve

Christmas morning