10 months

It's that time of month again. Crazy. Only 2 more months of monthly documenting and then we'll have a one year old. Man oh man. As much as I want time to stand still right now (Harvey is SO much fun), I still am excited to hear his first words and see what he's going to start getting obsessed with and all sorts of things that are down the road.
He hasn't gotten a ton closer to walking like I thought he would this last month. He won't even stand unassisted by himself. Although he did let go of my hands to go to Tanner - it was more like a fall into him rather than a step, but still - he at least let go :) He's cruising along furniture like crazy and is pretty stable and has gotten quite quick with his hands and knees crawling. He hardly ever army crawls anymore. He's all over the place and doing that normal baby thing of getting into everything he can. Pulling open drawers and emptying them and wanting to knock stuff over and pull books off the shelf.

He does really love his book shelf. Our routine lately has been him waking up early (usually well before 7), me being super tired, and then me laying on his floor while he crawls around with his toys and looks at books forever. I think he's more interested in flipping the pages around than actually absorbing images into his genius brain :) He really likes his baby einstein books and Peek a Who right now. Oh and his farm animal book that makes sounds. He hasn't figured out how to push the buttons himself yet though.
I think we've made some progress in the sleep department, but then again, we had some serious set backs. I think he's working on a LOT of new teeth. One more has popped through so that makes 9. It's been awhile since he gotten any. He had diarrhea for a few days and there was a 5 day stretch where he did not eat one morsel of solid food. He seems to be better that way. His gums are all way swollen and look like they are on the verge of popping, so hopefully they do soon and he really starts officially feeling better.

This was the aftermath of this last picture...

I think he looks like Jack Nicholas junior. He obviously has enough hair to get some good disheveled bed head!
There was one day this last month that was almost 40 degrees (thus December has been ten times warmer than last year!) so we made a break for the park. First time the dogs had been out in awhile! Oops!

 This little guy loves his puppies. I love watching him crawl around or on them, play tug of war with Gus or even an infant moderation of fetch. He actually discovered he could crawl into the kennels this month too, which was a funny day.

 

 

 

Sorry, that's a lot of pictures of the same thing. But it was just all so cute!
This month he has learned more to stack blocks. He's gotten to 3. And he can stack the ring tower and this other shape/peg stacker thing (all but the heart shape). He really likes those games and is entertained by them for a good amount of time.

He tried pomegranate for the first time. That was one of the only things I got him to eat during his no food phase. My dad was pretty proud. Those are like his favorite!
He still is a major water baby. Loves the bath and the pool. We had a fun family outing to the rec center a few weeks ago. He loved it and we love that he loves it.

Tanner took him once with our friends the Mabeu's while I was working and he sent me this picture. One of my favs of all time. Tanner said that when he had him on his stomach he'd kick his feet and move his arms all around. And as soon as he put him on his back he'd do this. Every time. Hilarious.

He got up close and personal to the shower the other day and was enjoying getting soaked apparently.

I went visiting teaching to a friend that has a baby just one month younger than him. I should have taken better pictures of them playing, because that's the first time he has with someone his own age. It was really cute. They were playing by themselves in his room for awhile (when I snapped this pic) and then crawled out together, all synchronized it seemed. I loved it. I want more play dates with kids his age. I can't wait to take him home to cousins and stuff this week!

This is how gangsters eat tomato soup I guess.

Tanner took him to our wards Christmas party. I was working - of course. Tanner played an inn keeper during their acting out of the Christmas story. Emily was nice enough to take this picture of my boys. Love it.

And here's one last one for good measure. Harv getting into the Christmas spirit.

Gosh we love this kid so much. Can't stand it :)

Farewell

One of our favorite family's/friend's we have made up here, the Merkley's (many posts involving or including them) got a new job in Houston and are busting out of the Bakken soon. Too soon. They thought it would have happened a lot sooner this year, but it didn't. And then I just kept enjoying their presence and thinking they would never leave. A couple weeks ago, Emily told me they got the new job and were going to be moving in like a month from that time. Crazy! So we had to squeeze in one final meal together, since we were leaving to Utah and they were going to be gone when we would get back.

Such a great family. Emily is a great person and I really learned a lot from her about selfless service and friendship. Things I hope I can remember and incorporate as well as she does. She has some super cute and really funny boys. I'm sad Harvey won't get to become better buddies with Declan.

Williston will most definitely not be the same without them. I really am going to miss them, but hope they find all manner of success and happiness in a much warmer Houston!

Gus and Rozzi

I figured it was time to do a little update of the dogs. They kind of get the back burner to Harvey. And I have to admit that I've been struggling a little with them the last little bit. Actually the last couple of weeks have been much better. Guess it's a good time to blog :)

I vaguely remember how hard Rozzi was as a puppy, but obviously not enough to stop us from getting another puppy. But now I am reminded of how hard puppies are. Especially with a little baby. I've sworn to myself that we will NEVER get a puppy again, but I don't know if I believe it. It's probably like a kid. You forget all the super hard stuff about a baby and keep having more, right? My complaints are just those of normal puppiness, really. He has chewed on things. He still has accidents (although the last 2 weeks, maybe why they have been so good, he has been AWESOME). Those accidents would randomly come immediately after vacuuming and mopping it would seem. And tracking in mud and leaves and dirt. And the house being messy and the hair. And feeling bad I'm not paying as much attention to them as I should and getting annoyed with them when they look for attention. I've almost lost it a few times. Just like a few minutes ago as I was watching Harvey sleep, I thought to myself that all the hard parts of a kid are above and beyond worth it for those precious moments and I guess the same is true for us with our dogs. We do have precious moments with them too, and as you will see in upcoming posts, Harvey LOVES the dogs and Gus and Rozzi are SO incredibly good with him.

He pulls stuff out of Gus' mouth and puts stuff in it and plays tug of war and it is fascinating to me that Gus just has the sense to be extra gentle with him. There have not even been any close calls with him biting Harvey. (Him getting stepped on is a different story). I am really happy Harvey gets to be around dogs and isn't afraid of them and will love animals. And it still really is a lot of fun seeing the two dogs together. They have become good buds and I think that is just great. It still is funny how uncannily the roles have changed from puppy Rozzi and Samson to puppy Gus and Rozzi.

 

??? Gus is crazy!

My favorite!

 

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!