Pre-school

Harper's 1st day - with parents

Have I mentioned that Harper started pre-school this September? By now it feels exactly how our routine has always been but it was a big adjustment for us. And by us I mean me.

Harper will turn 4 in February, that means that this is actually her pre-pre-school year.  Which to me means there's really  no great reason for her to go this year.

Except that she LOVES her school and we do to. She is going to pre-school where I took her to morning garden every Friday last year. She has the same two teachers and feels so comfortable. She is loving every minute and becoming such a grown up little person. It's tremendous to watch.

I met this new milestone with a lot of tears. Not out of worry for my little person but out of nostalgia for simpler times. Times without Paisley even, when Harper and I had no agenda and did everything together. In my 3 1/2 years of being a mom I've never looked back and wished for the past. Even now, I wouldn't change anything about either of our girls and it's nothing but amazing to watch them grow and develop. Every stage is better than the last.

So after my two straight days of tears, here we are. Loving pre-school and so happy with our decision. Harper is an amazing big sister but Paisley is at a very exploratory age and if Harper's doing something she wants in. Even if that means destroying something Harper's been working on. This time apart has been good for them and I get to give Paisley a little taste of what it was like for Harper to have mommy all to herself.

For our family pre-school has done great things.  But I'm still happy to know I'll have these girls all to  myself in the summer.

Harper's 1st day all on her own. Our beautiful big girl!

Fall Fun

I was not ready for fall. I needed the warm summer air and hot mid-day sun to stick around just a little while longer. My hopes were met with one very recent "heat wave" where it was nice and chilly in the mornings and night but got down right hot in the middle of the day. But it has passed and now fall is upon us.

We have kicked off the season with an apple picking trip and plan to go pumpkin picking this week. We usually go apple picking every year, this year, Harper dressed herself and insisted on wearing her sisters headband. Oh boy. She does a lot of outfit choosing...this was one of her first missteps.

Harper is becoming such a little lady. She wants to help and for the first time she's actually helpful. She can help me cook or prepare dinner and I recently ordered these choppers that they use at her school to cut carrots. They are safe for tiny fingers but still cut carrots.

She is so fun to be around and holds a full conversation with you...and her memory is amazing. You can't sneak anything by this little lady...she's unreal. I also can't get over the things she remembers from the past. She surprises me a lot.

In this picture Harper was helping me make some pretzels for an Oktoberfest party we were going to. She coated each pretzel with egg and butter and shook on the salt. They were delicious!

Paisley is at such a fun stage. Her and Harper and just starting to really be able to play and enjoy each other's company. It's so fun to watch their relationship develop. Paisley loves her sister...she is obsessed with the hair clips Harper wears and sometimes tries to pull them out of her hair.

She becomes so interested in new things. She is showing a preference to a few specific toys and really enjoys the play kitchen. She is finally starting to show more of an interest in books and brings me her board books sometimes to read. Paisley is growing her vocabulary and has added doll to the mix. She is doll crazy like her sister and especially loves the little dolls we have, I think because she can carry them easily and cuddle them right up.

She is super cuddly and will nuzzle in and give you a huge when you least expect it. Duck face has turned into a kissing face and she gives kisses all the time.

In this picture she's about to sneak up on her unsuspecting sister and grab her book so she'll pay attention to her. Oh boy!

Paisley had her 12 month check up and she weighs 18 lbs and is 28" tall. She barely gained since 10 months because she's so busy and is now running all over the house. I can't say I'm surprised.

Right now I'm working on organizing the toys so they are easier to play with and put away and getting rid of stuff that is no longer age appropriate. It's going to be a long winter indoors and I want to be ready!

Celebrating A Year

We recently celebrated a year in the life of this little girl.

Easily the fastest year of my life and by far one of the most challenging and enjoyable. Paisley's arrival made our family complete. She taught me that a mama's love grows when a new baby arrives, rather than being divided. She made Harper a big sister and that girl was made to be a big sister. She is loving, thoughtful, inclusive and gentle. Their friendship is growing each day and it's a joy to watch.

So last weekend we celebrated Paisley and we celebrated us. And what better way to celebrate than with a party full of family and friends.

My parents were kind enough to host since Will, Paisley and I went to a wedding on the Cape on Paisley's actual birthday and our anniversary. So on Sunday their house filled with kids running and adults chatting and catching up.

Paisley loved hearing us sing Happy Birthday to her. Her mouth got wide and her eyes lit up. We sang for several days because it made her so happy. She wasn't as big of a fan of opening presents but girl will have that down at Chirstmas.

She hated the cake. Everyone teased me for making Harper a cake with avocados and cream cheese frosting with very little sugar but Harper ate that cake up. Paisley's regular cake with store frosting was a little too sweet for her and she wasn't a fan.


But don't worry...the big kids LOVED it!

Earlier in the week we had a party with friends. Of course I didn't take a single picture but you can read more about it here at my friend's blog Rub Some Dirt On It.

Celebrating Paisley

Paisley's first birthday cake

Dinosaur cups and stickers for the kiddos

Annie & Paisley

 Pre-party nap...girl needs to rest up for such exciting events!

Happy Birthday Paisley Bryce. We sure love you!!!

Vacation Take Two

This year has been a little crazy for us...to say the least. Will is in paramedic school takes up at least one day of his week and now that he's doing clinical hours things have been much busier.

This is in addition to the huge home improvement project of putting in all new hard wood floors on the first floor of our house and taking out the wall between our kitchen and dining room.

Harper started preschool three days a week which changed our schedule even more. We all agreed that our vacation in June (although amazing) was not enough vacation for the summer. So we planned a weekend away with some fire department friends in September.

Will and I have lived a few places in our 6 years of marriage, Boston, Virginia, Brattleboro and Quechee/Lebanon. To say the least we are happy not to be moving again anytime soon but we are also blessed for the amazing people who have come into our lives along the way.

In Lebanon we have made some really great friends through Will's work. They aren't just work friends that you spend time with a work functions. They are real friends that we want to spend lots of time with. Our friends Michelle and Jimmy have a son who is just 2 weeks younger than Harper. We would want to spend lots of time with them anyway but our kids make it even more fun.

So we went with them to Maine to a place where they had stayed before. We ate good food, saw some sights, played on the beach, flew kites and found a zoo that was much more fun than it looked from the outside. It was a super fun and busy trip and we loved every minute of it.

Zoo watching on Daddy's shoulders

Feeding the goats

Most amazing butterfly I've ever seen

Flying kites - Harper flew her first kite at a puppet show in Putney with my dad...ever since we've been excited to do it again. The windy beach day proved the perfect opportunity.

We had as much fun flying it as she did

Elephant ride

Best pals

Daddy & Paisley at the beach

Duck Face

Paisley has started making this face that we lovingly refer to as duck face. She does it ALL the time. And yet capturing her on camera has proven to be rather difficult.

At first we thought we were going to have to simply show you an example of Harper copying duck face.



But then we got lucky...and Paisley did some repeat duck face that we were able to capture. You may think this face looks more like she's puckering up for a kiss but then you clearly have never been lucky enough to get a kiss from miss P (or any other 9 month old I imagine.) Her kisses come from a wide open mouth. They are awesome.

Without further delay....Duck Face....

Besides the novelty of trying to capture duck face on camera it's just so darn cute we encourage it. But sometimes...if you're really lucky...you get this face:

This one is the real favorite. She's so awesome!

Summer Vacation

In June we went on our first ever family vacation. We tried to organize the whole Gatz family and ended up with a decent turn out. Next year we'll get everyone!

There was 7 nights of this:

As well as 7 days of this:

We had a carrot and kid loving donkey for a neighbor and the beautiful Lake Champlain at our doorstep. Thanks to some friends from the fire department we had two kayaks and some amazing weather. We went on a few adventures but spent a lot of out time enjoying the beautiful house. It was an awesome time.
Harper had the best time with her cousin Owen. It was amazing to watch them play. They got along so well and had a lot of fun together. It was really awesome. You may be wondering where all the pictures of Harper are...she was much too busy to do much posing...I did my best.
I was reminded how much fun cousins are on this trip. Not just Harper and Paisley's cousins...but my cousins too.
Here's hoping we can make this happen every year!
 
 

Tiny Fashionista

I'm just going to go ahead and say it...Harper is one well dressed little lady. I've been saying since she was 6 months old that she's better dressed then I am. Not only that but she sets trends that I try to keep up with. Little girl rocked the skinny jean long before I did.

These are some of my favorite summer ensembles of Harpers.
Other then the jean jacket mismatch and the beautiful Ella-O-V-E dress in the last picture everything on Harper is a hand me down.

Lately Harper's been asking to try shoes on in my closet. The rule is that she can try anything she wants on, she just has to put them away when she's done. She totally did except there was a huge pile of shoes in the doorway to my closet. Close enough. She probably tried on 7 pairs....she'd hobble out to show me in the computer room. She says "do these fit me momma" and I say "not quite baby" and she says "ok, I'm going to try another pair."

I can't quite tell if she actually thinks she's going to find a pair that fits in my closet but she sure has fun trying.

I think Harper and I are going to have all kinds of shopping fun in our future...and if Paisley's interest in chewing on shoes is any indication...she'll be right there with us!

This is a Country girl dress by Ella-O-V-E (my friend Cedar's company.) Check out her website here.

P's Smile

 I hope you've been lucky enough to see it in person but if you haven't....Paisley has a smile that can melt your heart. Stop you dead in your tracks asking what you could have done to deserve that.

There's just something about that great big grin with those two tiny teeth peeking out at you. She's a love...that's all there is to it.

First Swim of the Season

We are very lucky to have very generous friends who live close by and have a pool they let us use. In May we had a couple of those super hot days where all you want to do is be by water and they use a solar cover so the water was finally warm enough to be bearable. We took a family trip to their pool!

Harper is still unsure of the water when she can't touch. She clung to us and opted to ride in the baby pool float that we had brought for Paisley. Check Harper out here in the same float at 5 months old! You'll also see pics of Paisley wearing that same giraffe bathing suit soon. Courtney bought it for Harper and it was always a favorite of mine.

It turned out to be ok that Harper took over the baby float because P was not comfortable in the water unless she had was next to our bodies holding on. She really needed to feel secure but loved splasing her hands and kicking her feet.

This month Paisley added crusing to her list of skills. She's surfing around the furniture, exploring the kitchen and showing off holding on with one hand while she waves a whisk found in a kitchen drawer in the other. She is amazing.

Harper is sporting a floatation device that was given as a favor at one of Alex's birthday parties. And it definitely wasn't his last one...I'm thinking 3rd birthday but maybe Dana can tell us. I clearly am good at holding onto pool toys.

Harper is also wearing her "favorite" bathing suit that I may have to sneak in the trash one of these days. It's always her first choice which is fine but she's had it FOREVER. It can be seen here in 2010 and more shockingly here it is again in 2009 in the infamous Jackson the pool boy photo. Amazing...talk about getting your moneys worth. Although Harper has two beautiful new bathing suits for this year that she has worn...just haven't been documented yet.

In other Harper news she continues to keep us on our toes. I got sick of her eating all the crab and avacado out of my sushi so tonight I got her some California rolls of her own. She was so excited to have dinner like Momma's.

She has an incredible memory. Tonight in the car she asked me where we got her princess toothbrush. I told her I wasn't sure and she told me we got it when we were at Theo's house. She was right...we had forgotten one and I let her pick out any toothbrush she wanted. I don't know how long ago that was but it had to be 6 months I think.

She really cracks us up but she's such a good little girl. We were at the grocery store tonight and I let her take a little cart and push it herself. Our co-op has a fruit program so she gets a free piece of fruit everytime we go. Tonight it was a plum but she would not allow me to help her push while she ate. We caused a few traffic jams but she managed to do it "all by herself". Then at the check out she proceeded to take each item out of the cart and put it on the checkout belt. Then she put our shopping bag up there and took the cart back out where she got it before she came back to stand with me. The woman behind me in line was astounded. I chuckled a little because some of it is that she has to do EVERYTHING by herself...but the other part of it is that she wants to help and she is very responsible and self aware. I really trust her.

Lastly, Will and I offered her a new doll of her choice if she stops peeing in her nighttime underpants. It's a challenge for her with a reward that she'll work for. We have a Corolle doll catalog at home and this afternoon she was pouring over it with Will showing him all the options she's considering. We had to chuckle but I bet she'll do it. We're not sure how long she has to go without peeing at night but we'll decide soon.

Other than that we're just enjoying the warm weather. The octopus sprinkler is out and sadly not reffered to as the "octakaw" like it was last year. Hopefully we'll hear that version of the word again when P is 2.

Happy Summer!

Happy Father's Day

This year for father's day we decided to revisit our local paint your own pottery place. I had big ideas of putting hand and footprints on tiles for all the dad's in our lives. Then they were out of tiles and Paisley decided to sleep through the event making her contribution temporarily unavailable.

So, instead Harper picked out a pencil holder. (No one owns more pencils than Papa!) And then she picked her favorite colors...purple and green with some sparkles for good measure.

She wanted to get every last inch covered...when we've gone in the past she could care less about the inside.

After she was done we picked out a teeny tiny mouse and owl that she wanted to paint for herself. They were super cute and she was so excited about them when we went and picked them up.

So even though I lost my father's day gift steam when I got there we had a really nice time. The most fun we'd had yet. Plus we went with good friends and there's nothing better than that!

I'll definitely be taking them there again soon...and next time this one will probably be awake...yikes.