For Posterity...

Just some pics for people who care

Today, I Feel Like Blogging

So I will. I really have no excuse not to blog. I mean, I am home all day with Harper. But I never feel like blogging so I just don't do it. I don't usually do things that I don't feel like doing. Like cleaning the bathroom... ugh I hate cleaning the bathroom. (But I promise I clean it... at least more often than I blog anyway!)

Anyway, tomorrow my baby girl will be 9 MONTHS OLD!!! That means I can say the whole she's-been-out-of-me-as-long-as-she-was-in-me thing. That's weird. I must admit that the out-of-me time has gone way faster than the in-me time did. Boy did I not love being pregnant. Plus now that she's out of me I get to enjoy her cuteness rather than imagine it, or in my case worry that she was going to come out ugly. And dang, my baby is CUTE. Oh my gosh and I'm not just talking about her chubby cheeks and squishy thighs. Her personality is so dang fun. This girl is hilarious and she definitely keeps us on our toes. She started crawling about a month or so ago and ever since then she is busy, busy, busy. She is always on the move and does not like to sit still. Which has made church rather exhausting. But she also has discovered her voice and she loves to hear it. She talks all day long and it's so fun! Our favorite is this awesome zombie noise that she makes. I don't know where she came up with it but she's been doing it for a few months now and it still makes us laugh every time. Only now when she does it I'm pretty sure she's doing it to get us to laugh at her. And when we do laugh, she copies us with this funny little fake laugh.

I'm pretty sure that aside from the cuteness thing, she's also very smart. She started making the "mama" sound a couple weeks ago. We had been trying to get her to say it for months and you wanna know when she finally decided to use it?? Well she and I were in Washington visiting my family and she decided to wake up in the middle of the night and I was trying my darndest to ignore her (not the easiest thing to do when the pack n play is 2 feet from my bed) and after several minutes of her kind of whining, she paused, and then I hear the saddest little "ma ma ma ma ma" you could ever imagine. It just about broke my heart. And of course it got me out of bed to get her and hold her... See what I mean? SMART! She waited for the most opportune moment to use those words in order to get the maximum benefit for herself. Ever since then she uses it when she's sad/wants something that I'm not giving her. It usually makes me give in. Oh boy are we in for trouble with this smartypants.

Enough chatter, let's just let some pictures do the talking, shall we?

Harper's first trip to Disneyland!! It was a pretty quick trip, but she had lots of fun.

Just eating some oatmeal and looking cute, as usual.

Hey little crawler!

Harper's first major owie. OK, it wasn't really that major. And it was much more traumatic for me than it was for her. She pulled my plugged-in phone off a shelf and it landed directly on her eye which bled on my white sweatshirt and I freaked out and felt like a horrible mom. It was bruised for a week or so but she recovered just fine.

Such a sweet girl!

Story time with Daddy! Don't be miss-led by the picture though... She doesn't really like story time all that much. Too much sitting, not enough moving.

Haha love that funny face! She's gonna be just like her daddy.

Just hammin' it up.

She is pro at sitting up after crawling around. She is not pro at avoiding sitting on things. It doesn't seem to bother her to have toys under her bum. Maybe it doesn't phase her thanks to the diaper padding.

Eating an orange. She LOVES oranges.

And this is the most recent picture of her... Somehow she got the sweet potatoes all over her face. Which just adds to the cuteness factor.

In other news.... I got my diploma in the mail! That was a pretty cool feeling. Eric took a picture of me when I first got it. I was wearing an apron and holding my baby on my hip. Classic? Yes. Cliche? Totally. But I wouldn't have it any other way! We'll be walking across that stage next month and it's going to be surreal. The end of an era for us. Eric picked up our caps and gowns the other day and I may have shed a tear or two when he brought them home. BYU has been good to me and it will be hard to leave. Even if we just go up north a few miles.

The next couple months will be bringing some big decisions our way. Maybe I'll update, but don't hold your breath. I don't want to be held accountable for anyone passing out or anything. :)

St. George

Welp, here's another post about Eric. But, I can't ONLY blog about Harper, right?? I don't have many picture for this event, but on October 1st, Eric ran the St. George marathon. Holy cow. THAT was an amazing thing to witness... All those marathoners running/walking/barely moving across the finish line. We saw so many people get right to the end and their legs just totally gave out. Their legs literally stopped functioning and it was all they could do to limp across the finish line. Eric didn't have much time to train after the half Iron Man, so the longest run he had ever done in his life up to this point was a half marathon. He felt really good through the whole race and was keeping a pace to finish at about 3 hours, 45 minutes. But then he became acquainted with mile 20 and slowed way down. He just did a run/walk combo for the next 4 miles and then was able to run the last 2 miles. He finished in about 4 hours, 18 minutes. He's not super thrilled with his time but I think it's pretty dang good considering the amount of training he was able to do. He already wanted to do another one as soon as he finished!

Harper seems to have one method of showing her support... by falling asleep. I couldn't believe she fell asleep in this position but it was so cute! She even slept through me cheering for all the racers.

Here comes Doug!!

And there he is!

My old seminary teacher also happened to be running this race. She used to talk about her marathons and running in seminary (I was lucky enough to have her as a Freshman AND a Senior) so it was really neat for me to see her crossing the finish line at one of her races. She totally rocked it and got a PR on this race! Pretty impressive considering she trains at sea level back in Vancouver and came to race somewhere around 2,000 feet higher.

Again, it was really inspiring to watch, but I don't think I'll ever run a marathon. It definitely takes a huge amount of desire and I just don't have that. 26.2 miles?? No thanks!!

Half Iron, Half Man, 100% Sexy

A half Iron Man people. Eric did a HALF IRON MAN. That's a 1.2 mile swim, a 56 mile bike ride and a 13.1 mile run. A total of 70.3 miles. He trained for it all summer and the big day was Saturday, August 27th. I must admit, I was a bit nervous about the whole thing... I didn't want him to overdo it and injure his back and I also didn't want him to fail (heaven forbid) and not finish and be super disappointed. But he did great and I was so impressed!!

Early in the morning waiting for the race to start. The guy on the right is Eric's good friend D Brack, who did the race last year and was the reason Eric signed up for it this year.

Eric, Jonathan and Doug just before the race started

The race start, transitions and finish were at Utah Lake. It was actually really pretty early in the morning and so serene

Random homeless guy that ran the race... Just kidding! This is Eric's friend Jonathan that Eric got to do the race with him. He's a BYU student but didn't shave ALL SUMMER and this was the result.

Gettin ready to go

Eric was most nervous about the swim... You can just see the anticipation on his face

What a sight it was to see all these crazy people getting in the water

And they're off!

Here's Eric coming out of the water. Eric did really great on the swim! He did have a small panic attack right as the swim started, but he was able to turn onto his back, regain his composure and then he rolled back over and got into a great groove. I was so nervous during the swim because it was impossible to tell who was who so I had no idea where he was or how he was doing. I knew how nervous he had been so I was just worried and seeing him come out towards the beginning of the wave of people was quite a relief!

Yeah! So pumped for the next leg!

Starting the bike portion

His number one fan was quite a trooper, hanging out all day outside. She slept for most of it.

Waiting for him to come in on the bike... The bike part took him the longest and it was KILLER. Every one of his 3 friends that were racing with him came in way before him on the bike and me and Kelly (Doug's wife) were kinda getting worried. He finally came in and just looked so beat. I felt horrible and honestly I didn't think he would finish. But he took off on the run and did so great on that portion!

Here he is coming into the finish line! Halfway through the run they loop through the park so I was able to see him at mile 6.5 and I jogged with him for about a quarter of a mile. He probably was most prepared for the run and it showed. He made up some great time and felt really good crossing the finish line.

Victory!!!

Wow! What an accomplishment! I pretty much thought he was insane for wanting to do this race and I think I was more nervous about it than he was but it turned out to be such a great experience. He finished in just under 7 hours... Can you imagine doing intense exercise for that many hours STRAIGHT??!!? I'll never do one, but there were plenty of women participating and it was quite inspiring.

Harper's Hawaiian Adventure

This spoiled baby of ours has already been to Hawaii! When she was just 2 months old, we accompanied my family on their annual trip to Maui. We flew to Portland on Saturday then to Hawaii the next day. We were only there until Thursday when Eric and I flew back to Portland then back to Salt Lake on Friday. We had to leave early to get back for his BIG RACE on Saturday!

Eric the packhorse at PDX

My mom bought Harper these sunglasses just for this trip. She was rockin' em!

This was right after we got into town... We went to grab a bite and Harper was so hot and sweaty while she was sleeping. I just had to put her across my lap like this so we didn't melt!

Enjoying the morning out on the lawn

My hunky husband and his baby girl, ready to hit the beach

AMAZING fried rice from the Gazebo. Here Eric is demonstrating the MONSTROUS portion size, but this picture doesn't really do it justice. The leftovers fed my entire family for lunch the next day!

Banana pineapple macadamia nut pancakes. Wow.

Harper's hangout

This is the only way we were able to get a little sun time... We just made Harper her own little tent and she slept perfectly in there.

The line-up

What a life!

Oh how I love this place!

We had a great time, but it was much different this time around. Usually when I go to Hawaii with my family, I just soak up as much sun as humanly possible and read as many books as I can. This year, I pretty much only got to be outside in the mornings before it got too hot for Harper's liking. I spent the afternoons in the hotel room with her and then went out on the town in the evening for dinner. One day my dad stayed in the hotel while Harper was sleeping so Eric and I could play in the ocean and we had a blast with my little sisters.

The flights were actually super easy. We just made sure Harper was nursing at take-off and landing and she mostly slept the rest of the time. She is a really good baby, but she did not love the long car rides across the island. Actually, she pretty much hated them. My 14-year-old brother Jody thinks she's a really fussy baby because he somehow always managed to be in the car with me and Harper. Oh well... She can't be perfect :)