Congratulations!

...to my cousin Paige who is pregnant!

...to my dear friend Christy who is also expecting in the summer!

...and to my book club ladies (Liz, Lisa, Kim, Cathy)--all of whom have had babies in the last few months (and one who is expecting--Stephanie), congratulations!

And here's my lovely baby...

Pictures

Here is a photo tour of our summer--completely out of chronological order. Can't believe we're already headed into September!

Balloon art from our friend Matty Jenkins

Harper's new hiding place

At the Minter Family Reunion. Harper loves her cousin Pat!

Learning to use adult utensils

One year check-up

First trip to the pool

Father's Day with the family

Fingerpainting a picture for Daddy

Daddy and Harper

Happy 1st Birthday, Harper!

Daddy and Harper...Keeping it Real...

We have a lot of catching up to do...

It's becoming more and more challenging to keep this blog up but I won't abandon you all, I promise.

Let's see...Josh and I had our first vacation in years a couple of weeks ago. Where did we go? I'm glad you asked. For our ultra-glamorous getaway, Josh and I chose Branson, MO. We had to pick somewhere cheap and within driving distance so off we headed to the Las Vegas of the midwest. Okay, not really. I mean we really did go, but I was kidding about the Las Vegas part. Obviously.

We stayed on Table Rock Lake and honestly, it was the most relaxation I've experienced since Harper was born. Every parent needs a good getaway! We stayed in a really beautiful condo overlooking the lake and mostly just slept and sat on the back deck. We did venture down to the strip and plunked down $50 to see the new Titanic exhibit. We also went go-cart riding (Josh's choice). Unfortunately we didn't catch any shows. We just couldn't decide between Shoji Tobuchi and the Circle B Chuckwagon Supper & Cowboy Music Show.

Here's a picture of me lounging on our deck in my cabin PJ's and "Branson Hair." FYI, Branson hair is BIG hair. I just couldn't get mine that big. Oh well.

View from our back porch:

A quick stop in Mima and Papa Gatewood's hometown, Halltown, MO:
While we were gone my parents babysat H. Here are some great pictures my Mom took:
In other Harper news, we decided to keep her at her old daycare. After all the teary goodbyes we realized how much the teachers love her there. We really had a hard time pulling Harper out and she just wasn't adjusting well. I know, I know...she wasn't even at her new daycare for 24 hours. She would have adjusted eventually but we are so, so happy that we decided to stay put. Harper is so excited to get to school every morning and her teachers give her lots of love and attention.

Also, check out Harper's latest trick:

She's standing up!!!

I'm also happy to announce that in order to spend some more time with Harper and get a little more work/life balance, I'm going to a four-day work week. It was a hard decision but a necessary one. I won't be missing much work but it will be just enough to help me catch up with life a little bit. I'll be starting my new schedule in April.

Josh has some exciting news also. He submitted an art show idea to a local, high-profile art organization. They accepted it and will be helping him curate the show over the next year. It will be a mixture of work from lots of artists and that's all I'm gonna tell you right now. There's a lot of planning to do but I am really, really proud of him and even though he might not say so, this is a really BIG DEAL.

That's all for now. Here are a few more pictures to keep you occupied:

New Daycare

This is Harper at daycare. As you can see, she actually loves it there. She has really enjoyed her teachers and friends at Montessori Academy. Tomorrow, she will be moving to a new daycare and that kind of breaks our hearts. She's been on the waiting list for the new place since before she was born. It has a great reputation and we know she'll be well taken care of but we had no idea how sad we'd be to put her through such a big change. This is Harper with her favorite teacher, Jackie:

We know that Harper is too little to really know what's going on but we wanted to make sure that Harper could see pictures of her very first teacher--who absolutely adores Harper, and who we hope might babysit once in awhile.

I don't have much else to report so I'll leave you with a few more random pictures...

Long Week

It's been a long week.
Harper came down with a virus around Thursday and that meant very little sleep for Mom and Dad. She is also always and forever teething so she is not a happy camper. I think that with parenthood, just when you think everything is falling into place, your little bundle of joy throws you for a loop. In fact, when Harper was first born, members of our church put together an advice book. My favorite quote was "Just when you think you've got the hang of it, everything changes--so don't get smug," or something like that. Pretty apropos. Did I just use the word "apropos" correctly? Anyone? My brain left the building a long time ago and I think I've finally made peace with losing my mind.

Speaking of losing my mind...
The beginning of the week was rough. One of my kids from work lost his brother. He and his girlfriend were murdered and the reason is still unclear. I think the reasons are always kind of unclear in that neighborhood, at least to outsiders like me. I don't think these things are ever very surprising to the kids I work with and that's what's so chilling. It was an uphill battle for me to try and understand the details of it, and the kids' reactions, and the brutality of the circumstances. In a very understanding and kind way, my boss told me that this was my first "tragedy." (She actually said "murder" but when I type it out it sounds very unfeeling which is not how the conversation was going at all). When my boss tells people that we are trying to save lives, I guess he isn't kidding. And I don't get it. Which is why I didn't sleep much the first part of the week--that, in addition to Harper's end-of-the-week late nights have made me very tired.

Because I know my family reads this I just want to say that I am not unsafe at my job. These are isolated incidents and usually accompany very specific behaviors and activities.

Please say a little prayer or put out some good thoughts, (whatever it is you do), because these kids need all the goodness and grace they can get their hands on. I love, love my job but I seriously question what impact I bring to their lives. I don't even begin to understand how they survive the battles they have to fight.

Harper Crawls!

This is coming out a little late...we're barely keeping our heads above water, but at least we have this to show! January 21st at 7:30...we were fortunate enough to both be home, have the camera out and have a proper lure. These are the first crawls from the big H! Within 2 weeks she has improved her new skill greatly and we're very thankful for her progress and her fantastic disposition. She's everything to her daddy (me)!

Or This?

Does Your Child Do This?

Torturing Annie the cat

Kansas City Christmas

Picking out our Christmas tree

Decorating it.

Great Grandpa Sherrill & Princess, the dog

Gigi

Present time!!

Daddy's new tool bag

Papa Richard

Santa came!

Christmas day tupperware sorting

Pop Ed swinging Harper around

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Wichita Christmas

Alexandria and Jill playing piano (Brad rocking out in the background)

Uncle Jason

New fishbowl toy!

The family


Grammy Janice looking at her new photo book

Harper eating her new shopping cart cover

Auntie Jill

Papa Jeff

Cousins Price and Ellery from Houston

Oooooklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plains!

My sis is moving to Oklahoma in a couple of weeks. She and her husband will be the Bible Belt's newest residents! This is my long distance dedication to them both. Good luck and godspeed!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrSnlLuuKSM

And here is why I love my sister and am actually thrilled that she'll be closer to me. Here is a picture of us from the weekend:

My mom bought us matching Christmas pajamas. We get these every year. Since we are both going to be with our in-laws on actual Christmas day we had our Wichita Christmas on Sunday.

Saturday night, after an evening out, my sister (who is 26 ya'll), ran down to her room to try and find her new pajamas. My mom hadn't put them out yet. She came back upstairs very slowly with a really dejected look on her face until my mom handed us the above pj's. My sister was so very happy.

Then, we couldn't get through the picture because of an inside joke from eight years ago.

And that's the joy of sisterhood. When you get together you still get to be ten-years-old. I'm not sure that's it's wise to capture these moments permanently in photos, but there you go. I get to see my sister a lot more often in the New Year so I am happy!

Merry, Merry, Merry, Merry Christmas!

I know I get off topic here (the topic being namely, my daughter), but sometimes I like to share some other things with you on this blog. Today, for some reason I was thinking about an incredible documentary that Josh and I saw a couple of years ago about Father Mychal Judge, the priest who died on 9/11(he was made famous by the photograph of the firefighters who carried his body away from the crumbling towers in a chair). The documentary about his life is called "The Saint of 9/11." I know it is available through Netflix and I bet you could find it at your local library.

Rather than describe the film I've included the trailer here. It doesn't really do the film justice, but the only thing I'd like to add to the trailer is that it is an uplifting film. Very, very uplifting.



And on the topic of uplifting, here is yet another of my favorite documentaries. This one is about how a small town school found a way to understand the enormity of the Holocaust. Lest you think that I am tempting you to watch a depressing piece of cinema right before Christmas, I will tell you that this movie too is very, very uplifting.



And that folks, is why I share these films with you in the first place. For one, it feels like our precious little country is kinda in the gutter lately and we need to reinforce our generally good humanity. And secondly, the holidays are supposed to be happy and joyous. They hopefully remind us that we need to dig deeper to find new ways to love and understand each other and to embrace each other's differences. These films are pretty incredible at doing just that.

Or, you know, if you're a holiday-hater then these might at least be a welcome break from non-stop cable re-runs of "It's a Wonderful Life." Scrooge.