Found it ...

We were over at my sister's a couple of weeks ago and Harper found her thumb for the first time. The pictures we got weren't in focus, so never got posted. But this week, Gina managed to get some great shots of Harper. We aren't really pushing her to suck her thumb, so the fact that she can't consistently find it is good, but it is very cute.

Not quite.


Now I got it!



Can't get enough of the eyelashes.

More Easter pics

On Masters Sunday, only fitting to get lots of pictures with the azaleas outside my parents house.





With her cousins Morgan & Grace.



Aunt Allyson.

My First Easter

Lots of pics.







Check out those eyelashes!

Place your bets ...

Gina and I like to guess how much Harper will weigh before each doctor's appointment. Yesterday was Harper's 2 month check-up, and her first since she was 2 weeks old. I guessed 12lbs 9oz and Gina had 13lbs 1oz and we were both way off. Her actual weight is less than we both thought, at 11lbs 3oz, which puts her in the 75th percentile. Funny how big we thought she was compared to her actual size. We also thought she would be longer, 18.75" at birth and now just over 22". The doctor said she is looking great and right on target for everything though.
I listened to Jay and took the camera off the mantle and went outside this morning with Harper to get some pictures in her first dress. At first she wasn't too pleased, but she calmed down and gave us some great shots. More to come this week once we get her in her Easter dress tomorrow.

6 weeks

We went to the hospital this past week to see our friends Brian & Erin and their new daughter, Taylor. I do not remember Harper being so tiny at birth, and she was 8oz lighter than Taylor when we saw her, and she seemed like a feather. Since yesterday was Harper's 6 week birthday, we put her in the outfit in which we brought her home from the hospital. The change is pretty amazing, how she fills out the pants more, and how much higher her head is in the car seat. She is also now able to hold her head up pretty much on her own. I can not believe how quickly the changes are occurring. One of these days, I imagine I will come home from work and she will be crawling to meet me at the door.

Tummy time

Coming home from work, it is always fun to hear about how Gina and Harper spent the day. Today, Gina insisted that I look at the pictures on the camera. We try and have activity time after each feeding, and recently we have started on tummy time to strengthen her neck and prepare her to crawl. Well today, she was working so hard, she fell asleep. And in the process gave Gina some great photos.

I can't believe it, but Jay has actually started a blog. Of course, he has only posted once so far. I try and be a good student of the master photographer though. If he makes a living doing it, and is a paid teacher of photography to boot, I would be stupid not to listen. So I turned off the flash on our camera, played with the settings, and started getting some pretty great shots with the Nikon Coolpix, or whatever it was he made fun of in his lone post. They would probably be even better if I took the time to read the manual too. But I can't leave Harper alone long enough to do that. She makes the greatest faces and I am afraid I would miss one.

the other kids

Today is a baby free afternoon for us, and we have spent it working on the house. The front door on our house was in horrible shape when we bought the home. I searched for months for the right door, and the one I found was finally installed last week. With the great weather, we took Harper to her grandparents, and Gina painted the door and trim, while I installed 2 new light fixtures and house numbers. Our first 2 kids, Coal and Shelby are enjoying the new door, as we now have a storm door too and can leave the front open to let the sunlight in. This will be one of the few baby picture free posts, I would imagine.

video

I have never tried posting video, so I hope this works. For the first 2 weeks we gave Harper baths with just a washcloth. Here she is getting her first bath, even though she wasn't really submerged in the water.

4 weeks

It is hard to believe that Harper is already a month old. The clothes that swallowed her up just a little while ago are now being stretched to the limits. I am sure that has to do with her having an amazing internal clock. At exactly 2 hour intervals, most days, she wakes up hungry. At night, Gina gets the occasional 3 plus breaks between feedings. I am back at work full time and Gina is so wonderful that she tends to only wake me up to help out once during the night. We seem to have a pretty good system in place for the time being. Once Harper starts going longer between feedings on a regular basis, we will be really excited. She is pretty awesome to just stare at though, with all the facial expressions we are starting to see. And she has several different smiles already. The one thing we haven't seen yet is a definite resemblance to either of us.

Growing

We were both pretty surprised by how small Harper was at birth. And then at the first doctor's appointment less than a week later, she had lost almost a full pound. I think we are pretty comfortable with how well she is doing since that point. At her 3 week check-up on Friday she weighed in at 7lbs 6oz, a two pound gain in 2 weeks. The doctor said she looked great and was moving in the right direction on all the charts. As for us, we are trying to get in a routine, but Harper has her own timetable most of the time. Gina was loaned a great book by Steph, "The Baby Whisperer", that she is flying through and learning a lot from, so once she finished that I will have to check it out as well. I feel like we are doing pretty good and taking it one day at a time. Shelby and Coal have acclimated pretty well, although it is quite funny that Shelby seems to want to go outside anytime Harper cries. The rest of the time Shelby has been very intrigued, and protective.

Doing alright

So luckily for me, Harper has not yet developed an ear for good music and allows me to sing to her. I am enjoying it while I can, because even I know I am tone deaf. My mom always tells the story of how she would try to sing to me as a baby and I would put my hand over her mouth. I dread the first time that Harper is going to stop me. She seems to really enjoy all genres of music, as I sing with songs as they play on the laptop to cover up some of my lack of musicality. More than anything though, she loves her mom and never wants her to put her down. I tried to catch one of her smiles the other day, but as soon as the flash goes, she tends to grimace, just like her dad she hates light.

Peanut

It is great to have a professional photographer as a brother-in-law. We took Harper to Dave & Marcia's house on Sunday and Jay came over with his camera. I can't wait to see the rest of what he took, because this one is awesome. And it really shows off just how small Harper is at 2 weeks old. I had a hard time keeping my hands from blocking out her head.

Sleep

The one piece of advice we seemed to hear alot prior to Harper's arrival was to get plenty of sleep, because that would be gone soon. Everyone was right on, and it isn't just because she is up crying in the middle of the night either. As a new parent, the slightest squeak makes you want to jump out of bed and check on her. We were also complicated by the fact that Harper didn't want us to put her down the first couple of days back from the hospital. She ended up sleeping on our chest in a chair for the first couple of nights, which makes for some great pictures, but not so great sleeping coniditions for the parents. But then on Saturday night Gina tried again, and as you can see from the picture, we weren't the only ones celebrating.

Making it work

So we have struggled a bit since we got home from the hospital and have been on our own with Harper. But that was to be expected as new parents. We had a doctor's appointment this morning and after that she slept for a good while and has been great since. So hopefully that is a sign of good things to come. She wasn't too happy that she was being compared to her dad though, by the look on her face in this picture. She does love sleeping on me and Gina though. And you can really tell that Shelby is doing ok with the new family member.