Sunday Dinner

Gina's parents try and have everyone over on Sunday nights for dinner. Harper has been to several of these family dinners, but we haven't really taken any pictures. Until tonight of course, as it was Grandpa Ron's birthday dinner. Luckily enough, Harper was in a great mood. Also helpful was Aunt Lesley being there to joke with Harper about the mini-van some more. Harper really gets a kick out of it.

Grandpa Ron:


Grandma Georgia:


The grand-parents, mom and Harper:


say mini-van again:


mmmmm, my fingers are awesome

The big update

So Harper just took her first vacation. I was extremely nervous about it, as we were driving to Milwaukee, some 650 miles away. Too say it went better than expected would be an understatement. We left Memphis at 10pm, hoping to capitalize on Harper normally sleeping thru the night. And at 530am, we actually had to wake her up to eat, as we were already stopped and didn't want to chance starting back up and her waking up as soon as we hit the highway again. Then she was great the entire weekend - 4 days of meeting great grandparents, aunts & uncles, second cousins, just about everyone on Gina's side of the family. Even disrupting her routine was not a big deal for her. Then we took the same approach to the drive home and made it all the way to West Memphis before Harper made a peep. I would say the first road trip was a huge success. I am still recovering from driving all 11 hours up, and 7.5 of the 9.5 hours it took to get home. A big thanks to my parents for letting us borrow the mini-van. Gina's sister Lesley went with us and was a big help with Harper in the van, and kept joking that it was Harper's future mode of transportation. Uh, NO! Couple of pictures below, and going to try and load the rest to Flickr or some other photohosting site that will be linked later.

Pre-road trip:





Milwaukee pics:
Great grampa Joe


Great Aunt Marcia


Second Cousin Kathleen


Nap time with Great Uncle Tony


Aunt Lesley and Great Gramma Millie


Great Aunt Sue


Yes, we were that tired when we got home ...


Harper's sweet smile

Happy Mother's Day

Don't worry, I didn't forget Gina's first Mother's Day, we just had a very busy weekend. On Friday night, we went to my sister's house to have my mom's birthday/mother's day dinner. Then on Saturday afternoon we went and hung out with cousin Brad, who had flown in for the weekend to spend mother's day with Aunt Marcia. And on Saturday night I ran to Lowe's and surprised Gina with sushi from Sakura for dinner. Finally Sunday, I cooked breakfast, then Gina went to Banana for 2 hours, before we went to Lesley and Jay's for an amazing brunch. While we there we got a big surprise, my best friend Shannon called because he was in Nashville for mother's day, and was willing to drive to Memphis if we would be around. So of course we said yes, because he had yet to see Harper. All in all, a pretty successful first mother's day from Gina's perspective.

Mom and all her "kids"


My beautiful girls


Uncle Shannon's first meeting

Sweet dreams

Don't miss the actual blog post and photos below. Sorry about the orientation, I couldn't figure out how to rotate it.

Developments

Sorry for the long delay in posting, because there really is no excuse. I don't want to jinx it, but Harper has found a routine, and is sleeping through the night too. We can put her down anytime between 8 and 9pm and she won't get up until about 430am. She still eats just about every 2 hours during the day. But when she isn't eating or sleeping, she really likes to "talk" to us. I think the biggest thing, that really makes us go nuts, is she will smile back now, and will mimic you if you stick your tongue out at her. Unfortunately I haven't been able to snap a picture while she is going it. Gina took some great ones though.

Pretty smile


Sleeping beauty



Harper's first Rock N Romp


In her new outfit today, looking cute