Thanksgiving 2014

Last year we went home around Thanksgiving. This year we are heading home for Christmas which meant I had to work the whole weekend. Well Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I'll say it was a pretty good day at work. Not the greatest Thanksgiving - obviously. It's always hard not being with my little family on holidays - and my big family too. But I suppose that's the nature of working in a hospital. We certainly did not go without while there...

There was food and snacks and crock pots piled up on every spare spot of counter in the ER. It was crazy.  I had a couple Thanksgiving fails - the apple cheesecake pie I made the night before (along with a banana cream one for Tanner), dropped out of the fridge minutes before heading to work.

I felt rather devastated but it really was okay. It still did taste delicious. I made some candied yams for Tanner because those are his favorite and his party didn't have someone making them. I had signed up to take them to work but needed to get more. Tanner ran to the store for me but no more yams were in sight - only sweet potatoes. So I tried to make them out of that and they weren't awful but not as good as yams. Good to know. We also didn't have turkey - a girl that is allergic to it brought a ham - which actually was delicious. But the rest of the food was just mediocre really. So I feel like I didn't get a real thanksgiving feast. Maybe I can talk my fam into making one while we are home :) I did get some pumpkin pie from the hospital that was quite good. And Tanner allowed me a sliver of his pie - and that was KILLER. Wow. Probably my best banana cream to date ;) The day was good - I only saw 11 people (the next day I saw 30). So it was nice. Lots of leisure time. Those days don't really happen at work anymore.

He spent the day with the Mabeus'. They rented out a building at a park here in town because they invited all their employees. I asked multiple times for Tanner to take a few pics of the party. This is what I got:

They had karaoke going. He said it was fun. Good food and such. Not great pictures for documenting though. Oh well - what do you expect ;) ;)  Lindy sent me this one of her and Harv.

His face makes me laugh. I can't wait till the next holiday when we get to be home, all together and no work :) Right before I left for work we snapped a little family pic. Gosh I love these people. Hope everyone had a great holiday.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Niederhausers!

Baby Shower

I met a girl at church a few months ago. Super nice. From the Philippines. Her husband is a member. She is Catholic but comes to church just about every week. She has loved Harvey and has always been really friendly to me. She actually works in the clinic here at the hospital too. I found out a bit ago that she was expecting and I really wanted to make sure she had a baby shower because all her family is in the Phillipines and doesn't have any other family of her husband's here. When I asked her about it she was SOOO excited. She kept saying she's never had a baby shower before and on and on about how she couldn't wait and how excited she was for it. She is having a boy in January. She always says she hopes her baby is cute like Harvey :) He will be! 

I roped my friend Nikki into helping because she is a great party planner, she's always game for a good get together and her house is much more conducive to partying than our single wide. 

We kept it pretty simple. Not too many people know Lyn, but we still had a great turn out and it made me so happy that so many people would come support her. They basically have nothing for the baby and we learned at the shower how little she knows about babies. She knows a lot more people. Ow who she'll be able to get some help from. I hope to be able to help as well. Love the little tiny babies. And like I said, she's not going to have ANYONE here to help her with that baby. Her husband gets one week off and that's about it. 

Harvey helped keep Nikki's baby company while we decorated. 

We had pulled pork sandwiches, salad, fruit, crackers and dip and cookies. Nikki made the cutest umbrella cookies ever. 

We only played a couple last minute thrown together games since I'm an amateur party planner and forgot to think of that. We did an alphabet baby name race and a getting to know the mamma game since we all needed that :) The food, socializing and presents were party enough for me. It really was a lot of fun. 

She kept asking a lot of questions about what things were for and how to use the blankets etc etc. Nikki was kind enough to do a swaddling demo. 

I realized that even though she knows nothing really - that's not the most important thing. I read lots of books and had a pretty darn good idea about a lot of things but when baby came, I still felt clueless and like I was flying by the seat of my pants on a daily basis. She is going to be an amazing mom because she's gonna love that baby and I imagine she will do anything for him and will do her absolute best. And that's why I'm a good mom too. So I'm gonna give myself more credit in that department. 

Almost the whole crew - I think we are missing 3. It was so fun doing this because she was just bursting with joy and gratitude and it was just a really happy time. Happy baby Lyn! Can't wait to meet the little guy! 

Stake Conference

I guess the plus (or minus) to living in a stake that is enormous, is that any stake functions equal a vacation. It's nice that our stake center is now in Minot instead of Bismarck, though. This last weekend was stake conference and Tanner and I both had to be at the leadership training they had Saturday afternoon. Tanner hadn't used his MDO (monthly day off) yet, so he took Friday off and we headed there after a fun game of racquetball in the morning to make a fun weekend of it. Even though it's the "big city" to us, there still isn't TONS to do. First stop was Hobby Lobby. This was in the parking lot there. Harvey LOVES him some steering wheels!

Then we got lunch at Panera and then headed to the mall. Actually I think we checked into our hotel in the mall (we stayed there when my mom came to visit a few months ago). Then we wandered the  mall. It was pretty fun. We hit up Barnes and Noble, Scheels and Target and Cold Stone. Basically the essentials. Harvey had some fun in the kids section of B&N.

I didn't realize at first my phone had some weird filter on the photo, and then I just kind of was messing with it. That's why the colors are different. Anyway - another thing we found he loved was the little mini rides. I set him in the boat and he was in heaven! He was not happy when we finally took him out.

"This. Is. AWWESOMMME!"

 

Dad even spoiled him and paid to make it work. He was happy. It was worth it. Santa was all set up in the mall as well and we decided that we'd get him his first picture with Santa. We passed by him first because we didn't want him to freak out and be grumpy the rest of our mall experience. But he was pretty tired and grumpy by the end anyway. Tanner still wanted to get it done, and no one was in line, so we went for it. I was CONVINCED he was going to freak out. He doesn't love going to other people right now (in his mamma's boy phase a bit), and he was grumpy so it didn't seem like a good combo. But we were wrong. I think he was too confused maybe by it all he just stared at Santa. We left him in his lap a good 5 minutes and he just chilled. It was funny.

There was one other picture that he was looking at the camera but not smiling, but we liked them checking each other out. Sweet :)

After that, we decided to go swim. He had missed his afternoon nap and he was grumpy but I didn't want him to go to sleep just yet so we decided to distract him for a bit with water :) It worked marvelously. He loved it!

He was splashing like crazy. And that yellow thing is the bottom of a small slide that he was loving going down. And you can kind of see a fountain at the back of the picture. He caught view of that and was OFF. Like speed demon army crawling through the water. It was hilarious. This pool also has 3 big water slides. We took him down a couple last time and he just acted like "whatever". So we went again a few times. I'm pretty sure I heard him giggle a bit one of the times. I'm just gonna say that's what it was ;) He didn't cry though. Until this...

It's all fun and games until mom tosses up a wet, slippery baby and drops him in the pool and has to catch him by his foot and pull him out.  Oops. I felt horrible. He obviously didn't like it. But he only cried for a second and then he was fine and happy again.
He went to bed pretty early and he and I slept in one queen bed (he's a mover sleeper so one of us slept more than the other) and dad had a more peaceful night in the other queen. Until he decided it would be fun to wake up at 5:30. Man I can't get this kid to sleep past 6 anymore! Ugh.

We wandered the mall and the hotel early in the morning because he wasn't being the quietest in the hotel room. That day was the training. We found a sitter for him and went to that in the afternoon. Mine was much more productive than Tanner's. He probably didn't even need to be there. Kind of lame. But oh well. We ended up not going to the adult session because of Harvey, so we went back to the mall for a short bit, grabbed some Coldstone and headed back to the hotel basically.

Dad went to dinner with Steven Mabeus while we hung out. I was hoping he'd go to bed but mostly we just played. He read me some books and dad got him giggling like crazy after he got back playing steam-roller with one of the pillows.

 He slept a titch better that night - in his pack and play. So that was nice. Then it was stake conference - which unfortunately - neither of us got tons out of. Between taking him out and keeping him quiet, church isn't quite what it used to be. But it was good we were there and the whole weekend was great. Love our little family!

9 months

Life must be slowing down a little bit - the last time I blogged was a month ago when Harvey was 8 months. Oops. I probably need to be better about documenting the little things that are still fun and important to remember. I'll try. But for now - let's talk about the most exciting thing in life still. Here are some pics I took on his 9 month birthday :) Happy baby!

 

Harvey is learning so fast. It's crazy to me how much new stuff he can do. It's so much fun. I keep talking about his sleeping so I feel like I have to make mention of it. But I'm only going to mention I'm not going to mention it. Because it is the same and it is still so very hard for me.
That's the only bad thing. All other things are awesome. This month he has figured out how to get from his belly to his bum. I think that has made sleeping more tricky because instead of staying laid down in bed, he sits up and cries and then doesn't fall back asleep. He also has figured out how to pull himself to standing (and does that in the crib too with the same effects on sleep). He crawls so fast everywhere and is pulling himself up against everything.

Finally starting to pull his own weight around here.

We didn't do much for Halloween this year. He went to bed way early the night of the ward trunk or treat so we missed that and I worked on Halloween. So his first Halloween was kind of a bust. Tanner took him to a birthday costume party earlier in the month and I requested he take some pictures but he left his phone in the car and didn't get any. Luckily my friend Emily always is on the ball and gets great pictures all the time so I have one picture of him in a costume (she let us borrow that costume too).

On Halloween I wanted to get a picture of him in an outfit I bought from Old Navy so I stood him against the wall ready to snap one quick before he fell.  But he never fell. He just stood there forever balancing and being all big and stuff.

Then I made the babysitter take one of us so I'd at least have one of us together. I realize I have VERY few pictures of us together and that is saddening me. So I need to get better at that. Unfortunately this one isn't great of either of us. Oh well - we are festive :)

He has taken some small steps along the furniture as well recently. I bet he's walking by the time we go home for Christmas. I am going to miss has army crawl but I won't miss his chest and belly being a constant reminder of how dirty our floors are no matter how many times I vacuum and mop :)

He ate some salmon and asparagus the other night and he was LOVING this jalapeno chili I made a couple weeks ago. He ate a ton of that. And he even had a few bites of a chicken tikka masala indian curry dish I made that was kind of spicy. It made me proud. I'm not holding my breath, but I still hope that he's a good, healthy and adventurous eater. I still love watching him eat.

 And the after eating is fun too...

He's figured out how to throw now too. It's not great but he swings his arms and lets go somewhere in there.  That's throwing, right? Well, it works for food too. When he's done eating he lets all the rest of his pieces go. The dogs love it. He knows the dogs love it so sometimes he doesn't even make them work for it. He is definitely in that phase of dropping all things, not just food, just for the heck of it. He finds it quite entertaining. Wonder why babies find that so fascinating!

Dad bought him a new hat and gloves because he didn't have a good winter one that fit and winter is definitely here. I could take a thousand pictures of him in this hat. Oh my gosh. THE cutest.

I love his eyes in this picture. So intense.

This is one of our new favorite pics of him of all time.

Tanner sent me this picture while I was at work. He was crawling all around and then the dogs flopped down and blocked his way and he got mad. Tanner said it was kind of funny. I just think it's a cool picture. 

We went and visited my friend Larissa one day. Her kids love him and he was having lots of fun watching and playing with them too. So cute.

I was making dinner or something one afternoon and he was crawling around on the kitchen floor and he made a break for our bedroom and as I looked down at him passing by me I noticed something awry...

He likes to be upside down. A lot. He giggles and flops himself in that position often.

Checking out the fish tank.

One word. Handsome. Actually it should be two. Freakin' handsome!

We had a family date night to Sidney a couple weeks ago. We stopped at a grocery store there and Harvey was in heaven. He was jibber jabbering the WHOLE time we were in there. And loud too. I have to include these 3 pictures because I am obsessed with all 3.

At my friend Lindy's the other day, her daughter Lilly pushed and pulled Harvey around on that thing for awhile and he was in heaven again. Needless to say - I think he's getting some form of riding car something for Christmas and or birthday. Speaking of cars - he's starting to show a lot of interest in them. Dad bought him a few new hotwheels and he has been "driving" them across the table and floor recently. He is fascinated by wheels on anything too. He just spins and spins them. I love it.

He still is a water boy. Loves the bath and is all over the place in it. That makes it a little more interesting/tricky for me. And I've taken him to the pool a few times this last month and he starts trying to jump out of my arms as soon as we walk into the pool area. He gets so excited and shows no trepidation by deep water or water splashing his head or face. I hope he continues to love the water. .

Baby bums are the best

He figured out how to use his sippy cup like 2 days ago. I've offered it to him a few times over the last couple weeks but he hadn't quite figured out how to drink from it and only would do it if I was holding it. He handles it like a pro now.  One other thing that I don't have pictures of is he is all about destruction. Is that a baby thing or a boy thing or a Harvey thing? I pulled out the jenga blocks to play with and he was interested for a little while. Mostly when I would build a tower - he'd just want to smash it down. And then he'd get bored and crawl away. But if he saw me stacking - he'd race back over just to knock it. He's been doing that with quite a few things lately and it's pretty funny. He also learns to wave this month. It's awesome saying things to him and knowing he understands. He opens and closes his fist when you say "wave" or "say hi/bye". If he's being shy the fingers barely move, otherwise he gets pretty excited about it.

Here's some other pictures that have randomly been taken this last month.

Not cooperating for photos at the park during play group.

Nice outfit, huh?

He loves hanging out on the vanity while I get ready. He makes complete havoc of all of my stuff. So funny. Somehow, one day he ended up in the sink and he loved it. And so did I until he figured out how to turn on the water. Another thing he loves is our sonicare toothbrushes. I made the mistake awhile back of letting him hold onto the bottom of mine while brushing and he loves the vibration. Whenever he hears that sound he starts smiling really big and giggling and just wants to hold on and "help" me brush. Not entirely helpful.

Intimidating football face.

 I found this pic on Tanner's phone. And I just like both of their faces a lot. I'm a lucky lady.

And we started off with the bad note of sleep - I'll end with the good part of sleep. Because even though it doesn't feel like it sometimes, he does actually sleep. And it's adorable and precious.

This is my favorite.

Well, and this one.

I need to not focus on what he's not doing (like sleeping) and focus on the grossly larger amount of things he is doing and all the wonderful things that are Harvey. He's so happy and fun and giggly and stubborn and determined and smart. He can be challenging at times and I always worry about him for one reason or another but the indescribable amount of joy he brings to our lives far and away makes up for any challenges! 

It's a couple of weeks later and I found some pics on my phone and iPad that I didn't include. I know - you were wondering where those were ;) Hopefully I'm getting them in the right month.