Are You Ready for Some Football?????

Is there a better combination than Mom & Dad's love for making home movies and Notre Dame football AND Harrison's birthday??!??!?!! As a preview for Harrison's party tomorrow, they threw together a little "pep rally" video...

Hopefully we'll have just as much fun watching the game as we will celebrating Harrison's birthday! Either way, I get to eat cake, so I'm very excited for tomorrow! Good night!

Long Time, No See!

Sorry for the delay in updates! Dad and Mom have been really busy getting our house cleaned up and organized. They have been meeting with realtors and finally signed on with a lady yesterday. As of next Tuesday, there will be a FOR SALE sign in our front yard. Keep your fingers crossed that someone out there hasn't been watching the news about the market and comes along to buy the house! We're also gearing up for another whirlwind tour of the country (this is why they're putting the house up now since it will be easier to show without us two kids and the two furballs running around!). We're headed up to see Grandma and Grandpa Brown and then heading out to DC. Daddy has a few interviews set up with various people and they're going to do a little househunting as well as visiting with all the family and friends that they can. By the end of the trip, they're hoping to have enough information to decide what to do next. Apparently we can put polls up on the blog now, perhaps we should let everyone have a vote????

Anyhow, in the midst of all the cleaning they have been taking us out for fun outings every once in a while. This past weekend we drove up to Enid (where Daddy was stationed once before) to see a big children's discovery center and playground. Unfortunately the camera died so they don't have pictures of the treehouse/playground but it was the most incredible thing any of us had every seen. It was a lot of fun. Inside the discovery warehouse were all kinds of things to climb around in and on, experiments, art projects, etc. They even had a T-37 plane that Daddy used to fly. So he hopped in with Allison and me to show us how to fly it. Then Dan and Daddy put on a puppet show for us. When we didn't seem too interested in the puppets Daddy tried using Harrison as a marionette! Mom and Margaret were entertained at least!

We should have pictures again soon...at least by this weekend. Harrison's birthday party is on Saturday and I can't wait (I keep talking about presents and cake!). Can you believe he's already going to be a year old???

Tulsa

We packed up the car and headed out as soon as we woke up Saturday morning and had a very uneventful drive over to Tulsa and went straight to the aquarium. I loved looking at all the fishies and plants and I even got to feed some stingrays -- but unlike Harrison, I did not like the sharks very much. Once Daddy assured me that they were in a cage and couldn't get me I was a little more willing to walk through the tunnel where they were swimming all around us, but I still wasn't a huge fan.

After we left the aquarium we checked into our hotel (which will remain nameless since it wasn't a Marriott!) and took naps. When we woke up, Mommy and Daddy took us downstairs to a really fun indoor pool with slides and water geysers and we had a blast splashing around and sliding and jumping. Harrison loved that it was so shallow he could just crawl around (and he just kept crawling into deeper water until someone would stop him....that kid has no fear!). After we swam and headed back upstairs I decided to streak through the hallways instead of getting my diaper back on! I had room service for the first time and then we went to bed (although this part took a while because I thought it was pretty nice of me to keep going into the other room to check on Mom and Dad!). We woke up and went swimming again and headed back home. We were supposed to go see a safari animal place but Hurricane Erin brought lots of rain to Oklahoma, so we skipped the outdoor activities and headed to IHOP instead. It was a really fun weekend and the best part is that the weekend technically never ends because Daddy doesn't have to go to work tomorrow (or the next day or the next day or the next...)!

Bowling

Today I got to go bowling for the first time and I loved it! I was actually pretty good at it to, thanks in large part to the bumpers and the ramp they provided to aid me in my efforts. As you can see, even the lightest ball was still a tad bit heavy, but I wouldn't let Mommy help me. I kept saying "I do it myself!" Even Harrison tried to join in on the fun. All he wanted to do was crawl down the lanes and get to those pins himself and he was getting pretty frustrated at Mommy for always stopping him. This weekend we're headed on a road trip to Tulsa (not much of a road trip...it's only an hour and a half away) to see the aquarium and some other explorations.

Happy Day!

The biggest news about today is that it's Daddy's last day of work! I'm so excited to celebrate with him! We bought him a present yesterday and I actually managed to keep it a secret and not tell him about it yet! This morning we went to the store and bought some balloons for him (I wanted to get a fishy one and a Cars one, but we settled on the congratulations themed ones instead). So when he gets home this afternoon he'll be greeted by a big present and balloons right inside the door! (the sign on the wall is the same Welcome Home sign we made for him when he flew home from the desert...we haven't taken it down yet because Daddy likes seeing it even when he's only been away for a regular work day!)....

We also got a lot of things at the party store for Harrison's birthday party, which I am very excited about ever since finding the invitation! I was quite the shopper once I caught on to the theme and starting throwing things into the shopping basket for Mom. I actually found a few great items and Mom only had to tell me no a few times (apparently luau shirts, flowers and Curious Geoorge don't fit in with football).

After our shopping we met up with Allison and Bailey at the indoor playground and had a great time playing and eating lunch together. Even Harrison had fun crawling around. He found a triangle block/slide thingy and thought it was hilarious because he would crawl up it a few inches and then end up sliding back to the bottom. He kept laughing and laughing. I came up with an ingenious idea to take the car shaped piece and ride it down the slide (and of course inspired a few other brave toddlers to replicate the stunt!). And even more exciting is that I stopped playing to go tell Mommy I had to go potty and I went! (and then I proceeded to repeat this three more times because they had the cutest miniature toilet stall for us little girls to use and I liked it so much that I would tell mom I had to go potty "quick!" and then go in just to sit on it, flush and wash my hands again. Mom put up with it because I'm learning and I did such a good job the first time. Perhaps we should install one of those at home!

We're napping now and getting ready to celebrate with Daddy when he comes home. Mom also got a sitter for us so that she and Daddy can go out and celebrate at dinner. Mom might be nice and let Daddy sleep in tomorrow morning, but then she says she's putting him to work!

Toddler Aerobics

Today was another toddler aerobics class. Even Harrison joined in with us. He really liked "if you're happy and you know it..." Here he is clapping his hands and pretending to be a kitty. Mom took a video of me doing the jumping jacks song again. You'll be able to see that even though I've been practicing a lot, my jumping jacks could still use a little work! But I had a blast and that's all that matters, right?

Playing Games

This morning before church I decided to play a little game of Hide and Seek. I got Mom and Dad ready to play and then I ran and "hid" in this great hiding spot. Do you think you can find me????

Since that game didn't take all day, Mom and Dad took us to the Omniplex Museum where we met up with our friends again and played all afternoon. There was a lot to see and do, so bear with us as there are a lot of pictures tonight (and this isn't even half of them!)

I rode on a boat (and wore my life jacket to be safe)

And I got to drive a tractor (although I kept pointing out that it wasn't working!) Grandpa Ken, we'll be ready for the spring harvest next year!

For some reason I decided I needed to kick my leg out for balance on the spinning thing. Mom and Dad thought I looked like I was trying to be a ballerina...

I really enjoyed screaming into the Echo Tube

and looking at all the Nemo fish...

They had a great mirror maze that was fun to run through. I kept thinking I found the way to go and then I'd bump into the mirror and go "oh" and then run the other way. Pretty entertaining. Harrison found lots of friends to play pat-a-cake with:

Then we went over to the new Gadget Trees exhibit that had a huge treehouse with a slide and a bunch of other stuff to climb on and play with. We see sawed for a while and Harrison tried to play ball with Ethan...

Afterwards we all went out to dinner and managed to get through that without incident. All in all it was a very fun day. Too bad Daddy has to go back to work tomorrow. The good news is that this is his last week!

Sleepy

We hosted our playgroup at our house again today and apparently there was so much fun going on that it wore Harrison out. He was sitting quietly eating his lunch with everyone else and suddenly he was out cold...sound asleep. Mom couldn't resist the photo op:

The rest of the afternoon was pretty quiet (mostly because I napped from 1:30 until FIVE!). When I woke up, Mom and Dad broke out the Gymboree bubbles and I had a blast blowing them and helping Harrison pop him. He seemed to like them a lot too (except he kept trying to eat them!...or getting them stuck on his head!)

Pretzels

On Monday we went on a tour of Auntie Anne's Pretzels. Mommy didn't take her camera, but her friend Jonnelle did and we just got the pictures today. Thanks Jonnelle. I got to make my own pretzel (but really all I wanted was one that was cooked and ready to eat!).

What a busy day!

So we started out the day at Pump It Up with a bunch of friends who decided to go play there this morning and avoid the heat. I jumped and jumped and ran and slid and climbed until I was totally exhausted. I even played a little bit of air hockey with Maddy -- see me on my tippy toes? Then we went to lunch and climbed around on the playground at Chick-fil-a (and we learned a great fact -- if you turn your kids meal toy back in, you get free ice cream!!!!).

We came home for naps and then I learned Italian -- yep, Italian. A lot of the other mommies speak other languages, so we've started doing bilingual storytimes. Last month was Spanish and today we did Italian. We sang Old McDonald in Italian and read a story and then did a craft where we matched up and glued pictures of animals and their Italian words onto paper. I was mostly interested in the glue but I did learn to say Ciao and how to count to five in Italian.

The storytime was held at the clubhouse in our neighborhood which is connected to the pool, so Mommy was prepared for the fact that once I saw the pool we'd be going swimming. She packed our swimsuits and floaties and Daddy met us at the pool after storytime was over and we went swimming. I tried on a pair of goggles and thought I looked pretty silly! I'm trying to learn to blow bubbles and swim (but I won't let Daddy teach me how to float on my back!). As expected, we were worn out after our day and had no trouble going to bed early!