We're Still Here

Now don't die of shock, I know it has been an incredibly long time since I have done anything with the blog, but I got tired of looking at the same post every day. (Caleb put our blog as our home page in hopes of reminding me to update it more often. He did this probably over a year ago... so I guess it is effective, but probably not as much as he hoped it would be.)

So how to sum up a year as quickly as possible? I'll just hit the highlights of each of us.

Caleb: He has been promoted and has recently passed his last exam. He impresses me all the time with all he fixes around the house. Disc golf is his activity of choice, which he tries to do every Saturday. Over the past year he has been doing a lot of work, so not much time for play. Caleb and I did sneak in a trip to San Antonio in September to celebrate a late five-year anniversary. We went to Sea World and Six Flags so we could act like kids again. I enjoyed some time spent with him without any interruptions from the kids. Grannie was nice enough to come and watch the kids for us.



Pattern I have come up with

Me: I have spent the last year opening my own Etsy shop. I have mainly been selling crocheted items, but I am moving to focus more on selling patterns. I did a craft fair in December at a local high school, which was a good experience. The kids have kept me on my toes. They keep me busy and entertained. I also went on a cruise in November with some of my girl friends. It was on the Carnival Triumph, the one that had a fire last week and was stuck in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. Thank goodness that was not me on that boat! I had a good time, but I was definitely was ready to get off that boat after the fourth day.




Tayce: He has grown so much over this past year. He is looking forward to going to kindergarten in the fall. He is a sweet boy who is always eager to learn. His imagination is running wild right now, and I love to hear the things he comes up with when he is playing. Tayce is a wonderful big brother. He gives me updates constantly about Cosette's doings. He is always looking out for her (or himself at times). We have been helping Tayce learn to read, and I believe that he will be a bookworm like his mother someday.

Cosette: She has also grown so much over the past year. She has made parenting challenging by being a stubborn little thing. I wonder who she got that from... ;-) She lets  you know if she does not like what you are doing or making her do. I just keep praying she gets over this stage quickly. I was watching her Friday smiling and playing, until she saw that I was watching her. When she discovered she was being watched, she immediately dropped to the floor and started screaming. Yes, I will be ever so grateful to get past this stage. I do enjoy her smile and laughter. She is not scared of anything and loves doing tricks, which ended with a dislocated elbow from doing a flip in November. Cosette is taking her time communicating. I know she knows a lot of words because when we open a book her big vocabulary comes out. When she want to communicate, it's mainly by pointing and screaming. We are trying to help her to use her words, but I have a feeling that she will only do it when she feels like it.

So that's us in a nutshell for the last year. We just had a visit from the bat man yesterday. A small colony of bats took residence in our house last week. They were not too happy when they discovered that they could not get back into their "new home." If they hadn't been stinking up our house, then we might have let them live there and eat all of our bugs.

I apologize for just one picture. For some reason, I couldn't get any pictures saved on the computer to upload. I could only use my online Picasa album, which only has pictures of my etsy stuff. So just imagine in your head, all of us happy and smiling.

Any bets on how long it will take me to update next time? Is anyone still following this blog? Alright, that's all from me.

Tayce's 3rd Birthday

I do realize that Tayce's birthday was asix months ago, but I am just happy that I'm finally putting it on my blog. We celebrated Tayce's birthday with family in Smithfield, Utah the Saturday before his birthday. Unfortunately, I don't have any of those pictures. Caleb does and he is not around at the moment. I figured I better not use that as an excuse and just blog. But we had a really good time with family, and Aunt Katrina and Grandma Harmon made an awesome Mickey Mouse Clubhouse cake! (I will have to post a picture of it later because it was pretty awesome!) The first picture is from the influence of Grandpa Luthi. It's just too bad that Mickey mouse isn't upside down on the bag or it would have worked out rather well. Anyway, Tayce loves Mickey Mouse and I found this picture a little funny.

Tayce is also a big fan of Kung Fu Panda. This was the gift that he got on his birthday. The panda kicks, spins in circles, and moves its arms around. It is pretty entertaining.

Here is Tayce blowing out his candle. Tayce isn't a lover of sweets, (I don't know how that happened) so I didn't bother making him a cake. I got him birthday cake ice cream cake instead. My parents and I enjoyed it. I don't think Tayce tried any.

Tayce is such a funny little boy who loves playing with any sort of ball and his cars. He enjoys reading his books and playing with his little sister. He is a big help to me around the house. I love him to pieces and am so glad that he is part of our family.

Cosette

I know she is almost 5 months old, but here is our sweet Cosette, born October 27th. She was born at 2:34 am. She weighed 7 pounds, 6 ounces (if I remember right), and was 19 inches long.

This was Tayce's first time meeting his baby sister. It took him a little while to figure out what was going on, but since then, he has been a wonderful older brother.

I worked for the hospital, so you can see how the "spoiled" me with this baked potatoe. I haven't seen potatoes like this since I have lived in Idaho! It was good though!

Tayce is checking out his baby sister at home. I just love this picture!

Cosette in her beautiful blessing dress. Grandma Emma made it for her.

Cosette in her Christmas dress made by Grannie. Isn't she a doll?

Cute pictures of Tayce and Cosette together.

Of course we can't leave the dogs out of the picture!

We just love having Cosette in our family! She has the cutest smile that lights up our home. I'm looking forward to watching her grow up!

Update

Here are some pictures of our visit up north during the middle of July.

Tayce and Kaboo napping in the car. You can note that Kaboo's back end is standing up. I don't understand why he thinks it is comfortable, but that was his favorite place to be during the ride.

Me and baby Hannah.

We went camping twice during our trip. Here Tayce is hanging out with some of his cousins. They really enjoyed throwing rocks, up in the air or at each other. We discovered that Tayce had a diaper full of rocks later that night. We enjoyed catching up with Caleb's family and even spent some time at Ross Park pool for a nice bath!

This is a little glimpse of camping with my family. The first picture is if of Aliyah (sorry if I spelled her name wrong) feeding her cousin Vinny. Don't they look so sweet?

Tayce standing by his favorite pass time. He would find anyone he could to go with him to throw rocks into the water. Thanks to his Uncle Derek for going with him most of the time!

Pancake man! Dad always does something fun with his pancakes. He is willing to try to make any design per request. There is never a dull moment with Dad around!

The 24th of July Celebration! We enjoyed a wonderful dinner and then were able to have dessert dropped from the sky. The candy drop is the highlight of the night. The kids are all separated according to age and just wait for the airplane to drop its goods. Tayce loved watching the airplane. It took a little while for him to get the idea of chasing after the candy. We had a really good time though.

Waiting in between drops.

Tayce getting his hair cut. He was obviously enjoying it.

Now to update you to today. We are anxiously waiting for the next little Harmon to arrive, at least I am. She is due November 9th, but I am hoping for an earlier appearing. I have recently quit my job to be a stay-at-home mom. I must say the first week home has been a little challenging. Tayce has decided to take on the terrible twos. His favorite words recently have been "mine" and "no!" If he doesn't get what he wants, he drops to the floor - it doesn't matter what kind of floor is underneath him. He has smashed his head into more things than not, which just makes him cry more. He is certainly trying my patience, but I try to ignore his tantrums and keep repeating in my mind that this is only a phase. I hope we both come out of this period sane.

Caleb is studying for his exam. He has been working hard and playing hard on his kickball team. I didn't know that kickball was available for city league, but apparently it is. He has enjoyed playing and it was fun to watch him. Caleb has also recently become the ward missionary in our ward. He will be busy, but I think he will do a great job!

That is a quick update of our lives. Hopefully the baby won't be 6 months before I write again, but I haven't been doing so great lately, so don't hold your breath!

Tayce's birthday!

Here's Nicole with Tayce's birthday cake that we both made. He liked it, but I think we spent more time preparing it then actually eating it.

We tried our best to get him to blow out the candles.

The happy boy!