Disney Princesses on Ice

November 11th Ben and I took Grace on a date to the Disney Princesses on Ice. G&G Harper watched Garett and we went off for a Magical Evening. There were plenty of little Princesses all dressed up there and lots of souvenirs to buy. Luckily Grace was happy with a bag of Popcorn.

Grace was sooooooo excited about this. She was an angel all day in anticipation for our Date. As soon as the music started and Mickey and Minnie came out on stage, she was on the edge of her seat. It was so fun to watch her "scream like a 12 year old seeing Miley Cyrus". Those are Ben's words. She really would start screaming out of excitement every time a new princess came out on stage. Here are 6 of the princesses at the end of "act 1".
We were able to sit in the IM Flash Booth at the ESA. It was perfect for us so we could snuggle up and talk and not worry about bothering our neighbors.
My very favorite part of the night was when Cinderella came out in her carriage. Grace was speechless. Her mouth really dropped open (you know like Sebastion does in the Little Mermaid), then she slowly brought her hand up to her mouth in amazement. It was priceless and totally worth the whole evening.

This was the best picture I got of Cinderella. I wish I could have gotten the carriage, but I was busy enjoying my little Princess.

We may watch a lot of Princess Movies (she can act out the story of each one...in detail...and she does!) but I love that my Princess loves Princesses. This was a priceless night.

As we were leaving I asked Grace if she liked it and she said, "I wish that I could be up there so everyone could look at me." A star in the making?.....maybe just a true wish to be a Princess.

Look Who's Standing!

Garett has figured out how to stand up all by himself! Hooray Garett! One more step closer to walking! I love the look on his face when he does this. He looks so proud and loves the praise and recognition we give him.

I hope he's walking by Christmas. He's sure going to like his present a lot more if he is!

Halloween

We decided to go visit Grandpa Harper for Halloween, Grandma Harper had been out of town for a week and he was feeling a bit lonely. We headed up in the early afternoon and Grandpa watched the kids while we went to the Temple. When we got home we changed into our costumes, had some dinner and headed out around the neighborhood. Both of the kids were pretty exhausted before we went. Especially Garett, he was so tired!

He made a really cute Turtle though.

Grace's favorite Princess (for this month) is Snow White. She worked really hard to earn this dress by being so great at Preschool! She decided that since she was Snow White that I should be the Wicked Witch. I did have a basket of Poisonous Apples to share! (Grace was not thrilled about having to take pictures before we left.... can you tell?)
Our Family..... Ben's costume turned out to be..... a member of the Japanese Mafia? Hey, at least he put some effort into it! If Grace had any say he would have been a Prince for sure!

Halloween Party!

I was in charge of Preschool the week of Halloween. I had the kids come dressed up, they all looked so good! We played lots of Halloween games, made Frankensteins and spiders, and read lots of Halloween books. What a great day at Preschool!

Preschool Fieldtrip to the Pumpkin Patch

We headed to the Pumpkin Patch with Grace's Preschool on October 27th. We of course went the only day it snowed in October! It was freezing so we made a quick trip of it.

It turns out Garett had a double ear infection that week. Poor guy! What a trooper.

Grace was not at all interested in getting her picture taken, she just wanted to play!

Just about anywhere she can find a platform she will get up and sing!

All the preshool kids together!

Garett in the Garden

I was inside making dinner one day while the kids were playing outside. Grace ran in and yelled at me, "MOM! Garett's in the Garden!" I thought she meant he was playing with the dirt in the Garden, but no he actually climbed into our Garden box! He had a great time too!

Luckily we had already pulled out all the plants except for our measly red pepper plant. Did I mention this boy loves to play outside? It's going to be a long winter!

Bathtime

It's been a while since we've had any tub pictures so I thought I'd take some. Both of my kids love to play in the bath, and luckily they are really easy to bathe together. Such cute kids!

General Conference

This is how our kids spent their time during Sunday's sessions of General Conference. Ben helped Grace build this pretty impressive fort that could fir the whole family. It was fun to go "camping" with the kids inside.

Grace has been building forts and tents ever since and her messes have tripled in size beacause of it. I used to love building forts as a little kid! We would draw a plan of our fort during church and then rush home to set it up. My mom made us this huge teepee that was the mainstay of every fort we built. Even though they're big messes I hope the tradition of Fort building continues!

Apples!

The first weekend in October became Apple Overload for us! Ben's Parent's have 2 tree that were out of control this year! So I loaded up all of my canning bottles that I inherited from my mom and we went up to can. I had no idea it was such an intensive process, but the Harper's have been doing this for years.

First you have to get the Apples out of the trees. This can happen several ways. 1- you can hand pick them which is the best way to get pretty apples, but very time consuming. 2- You can climb up into the tree and try to shake them down.

3- You can throw a rope with a brick tied to one end over the tree branch and then shake with all your might. This method results in a downpour of apples which all end up getting bruised. Oh well, bruised apples are okay when making apple sauce!

My job for the day mainly consisted of picking up all of those apples and loading them into this bin. I swear I filled that thing up several times.
Grace (ignore the hair, she's lucky she got dressed that day) spent most of the day playing and holding the new bunny.

After the Apples were washed they were taken in bucket loads out to be peeled, skinned, and cored. Whoever invented this machine should be blessed!

Then into the bottles they go! I think we ended up doing around 180 bottles that day!

We were all exhausted by the time we were done, but enjoying the fruits of our labor is very sweet! (in the form of Apple Crisp, Apple Pies, Apple Sauce and Apple Butter!) I took 2 boxes of Apples home with me and made 24 jars of Apple Butter. Yummy!

The Zoo

September 28th I woke up, had no plans and needed to take advantage of the warm weather. So I called up my mother in law and said we needed to go to the zoo. I headed up with the kids and picked Grandma up and convinced Uncle Corey to come with us. This was one of the best days at the zoo ever (well besides the Singapore Zoo. That is the best zoo!) Our first stop was the monkey house. Most of the monkeys were hiding but the last one we stopped was there to see. We looked for a second and then as I was turning away I saw a sign that caught my eye. It said, "New Arrival, born Sept 28th". Huh, I thought how cute a baby monkey..... Then I realized that Sept 28th was today! That monkey had just had her baby a few hours before we got there. You could even still see the placenta in her cage. I didn't notice the baby at first because I just thought her hands were white. Then I realized the baby was white and she was holding it. The zoo worker came out then and I got to ask her some questions. It was so cool!

After that excitement we decided to head over and visit the baby Elephant. Here's a cute picture of Grandma Harper and Grace at the Elephant Exhibit.
The baby Elephant was so cute!

We then stopped at the Rhino's and got an up close view of him eating. Grace was amazed at how close he was.

In the background here you can see 2 rhino's, plus Grace sitting on one.

Garett's favorite thing was the Penguins! I think he like them most because he could really see them from the stroller. They were really close to us through this fence. He laughed at them playing and kept pointing and getting really excited.

Next up was the baby Giraffe! He was pretty cute too, though he didn't do much but sit there and chew on grass.

There were so many new babies at the zoo this year. We got to see some baby tigers, and some other baby cats (I can't remember which ones). Here is my cute baby on a baby tiger.

Last but not least we got to see the Big Apes. The Orangutan baby was really fun to watch. He was swinging on a rope and bugging his mom. Grace had to measure up to a baby Gorilla. They've changes this since I was little, we used to be able to only measure up to the big Gorilla. Looks like she's just the right size.

On our way out we stopped at the Playground where Grace became a Turtle asleep in it's shell.

We love the zoo!

Garett at 12 months

We took Garett for his 12 month check. He is doing well and growing so fast!

Height- 30 1/4 in 62%

Weight- 22 lbs 6 oz 41%

Head- 18 1/2 in 66%

Garett is such a fun baby! He loves to tease and play. If you lay down on the ground he'll come climb on top of you and "wrestle". We are often found having family wrestling matches in the evenings. He thinks it's hilarious to throw things down the stairs (including chairs, walkers...whatever he can get his hands on). In fact, he thinks it's funny to throw just about anything, his bottle and food in particular. He loves to be snuggled while he drinks his bottle, especially first thing in the morning. He mastered the stairs a few months ago and since thinks he needs to turn around and scoot backwards to transition from carpet to kitchen floor, or drive way to road (he thinks it's funny to go into the road! AHHH!) He LOVES to play outside and gets mad every time we walk into the house from the car because he wants to play. He is learning to climb, hence the picture. He will push around a walker and cruise around the furniture but still has no interest in walking and won't even walk while holding onto our fingers. He loves touch and feel books and is becoming quite attached to his blanket.

He is still the happiest most cheerful baby and is such a joy to us! We love you Garett!!!