spring has sprung

It has been such a gorgeous February and March and we have been trying to take advantage of the unseasonably warm weather by going outside as much as possible.  Here are a couple of cute pics of activities we've been doing.

Harrison helped me plant these beautiful planters for the front porch.

Anne, meanwhile, was pretending to play tennis.

Another day they played golf in the caul-de-sac.

And we also take a lot of wagon rides.

One day we walked up to some neighborhood courts and they tried their hand at tennis.

And, yesterday we did some painting on the porch.

Harrison painted with his cars.

while Anne mostly painted herself!

And almost every night we're able we dine al fresco on our porch but this was the first night that the kids sat at their own little table.  They LOVED sitting together!!

We've had such a great time these past couple of months that we can't wait to see what the rest of Spring has in store!

today was a big day for Harrison

*(I wrote this post last week but am just posting today.)

The morning started out damp and overcast, plus I was tired, so we decided to have a morning in.  After watching tv for a bit so I could get some things done, I broke out the craft table.  For our first project we decided to decorate Easter egg cards to send to the Grandparents.  After a lot of pleading to get Harrison to do more than the bare minimum required of him in a craft project, he finally got into the paint and painted an entire egg a dark blue brown rust color (what you get when you mix all the paint colors together).  But, at least he FINISHED it!  Anne, on the other hand, was much more interested in playing with the markers themselves and only drew about 4 lines before she realized she liked them more in her mouth.  So, the cards aren't great but its the thought that counts, right?

Since the floor and table already needed a big scrubbing, I decided to get out the playdoh while we were at it.  This is what the kitchen looked like five minutes later (note how Harrison has lost interest and is sitting in a basket :)

Anyway, the reason I say it was a big day for our boy was because when I came downstairs from putting Anne down after lunch, Harrison was on the floor on his hands and knees trying to wipe up all the paint and playdoh with some wet toilet paper.  And the best part was that I had not asked him to help me clean - he just did it on his own initiative!!!  I was so proud of him!  Fast forward to tonight when Harrison snuck upstairs and cleaned the entire bonus room, without us asking!!  When I came upstairs he was BEAMING with the biggest smile ever because he was so excited to show me what he had done.  :) How great is that??  Again, without us asking him!!  What a great day!!  Now, if only I could figure out how to get him to clean my closet . . .

I so silly!

Anne just turned 20 months old and her personality continues to grow and grow.  I don't know whether she has realized it yet but she has a special knack for getting out of trouble.  For the past week, every time she does something she shouldn't she immediately smiles broadly and says "I so silly!"  It is almost impossible not to melt when she does this which doesn't result in a very convincing reprimand.  She also usually has her hair in an adorable pigtail that sticks straight up on the top of her head.  Here is a pic of her silly hairdo at the park last week.

Her silly self is also obsessed with the potty and what goes in it.  She is not above shoving you out of the way in order to peer inside.  And, she is not above shouting "bye bye poopies" every single time I flush the potty in a public restroom (which makes me want to shout out, but it wasn't poopies!).  This morning she got the wipes out of the diaper bag and was trying to wipe herself while standing up and saying bye bye poopies.  She truly is so silly and I'm loving every minute of it!

love is in the air

I kept meaning to post this because I thought it was so cute.  Every month in school the teachers send him a homework project for him to work on.  In February we were supposed to practice cutting out hearts but, more importantly, we talked about Jesus and how he loved everyone.  I told Harrison that you should love everyone, like Jesus, even if he didn't know them.  As with most of our conversations, he tends to just nod a couple of times as I'm talking and then say, "can I go now?"  (In fact, I've started withholding his snack when I pick him up from school until he tells me 2 different things about what they did at school.  And, you know I had to make it "different" things b/c he was basically telling me that "he played outside and he also played outside.")  So, back to my point.  I didn't think Harrison had been listening to our conversation about Jesus' love until the following day we were in the grocery line and as we were walking away after paying, Harrison leaned over and told the bagger "I love you."  I knew exactly why he said it and I was proud of him for it but then I was in the awkward place of having to whisper to him that maybe you don't need to really SAY it to everyone you don't know but just feel it.  Here is a picture from February 2008 of me and my little heartbreaker.

While I'm writing about Harrison's love for everyone (he also yelled out "I love you" to his friend Eloise last week as we were driving away from her house) I wanted to mention a post I wrote last fall about how Harrison had made me cry by out of the blue telling me he didn't love me.  He has made up for it tenfold since then.  I think he tells me at least 3 times a day that he loves me.  It just pops up everywhere and all the time and, you know what?, that kind of makes me cry too :)

snug as a bug, part 2

I made a post a long time ago talking about this http://littlelitzes.blogspot.com/2011/09/snug-as-bug.html but here is a picture from yesterday (Daylight Savings Time).  Again, we tried to keep him up without a nap so that he would go to bed earlier.  As with the last time change, I walked in to find this.  How cute is he?

I've been SO bad about posting lately but will definitely be better!!  I also plan to post about some of the things we've been up to this winter!

frustration

I read a quote recently that said something similar to: "A good job in parenting means raising the child that you have instead of raising the child that you expected to have."  That doesn't make sense when I read it back but it was something like that.  Whatever it was, it made me stop and think.  You always picture your child as an extension of you, but without all your bad qualities.  Obviously, this never happens.  And, in my experience, it can be hard - really hard - when your child isn't like you at all in certain areas.

Harrison is shy.  And, timid, and quiet (except around us).  He is very, v-e-r-y slow to warm up to new people and new situations.  For instance, today I took him to his first (in a long time) swim lesson.  The lesson was 30 mins and we got there right on time.  Which means that he didn't actually get in the water until 35 minutes later and he basically missed the lesson because he refused to get near the class.  That was really, REALLY frustrating to me.  Especially since we are paying for that lesson that he didn't get.  I can't really relate to him when he does this because I don't remember being like this (correct me if I'm wrong, Mom) and I get mad instead of empathetic.  But, I knew deep down that this would happen and I did attempt to get him there early to get him acclimated to the new situation.  I also know deep down that he would benefit from a private lesson more but it is 4 time the cost of a group lesson so that option is out.  The point is that this is my child - for better or worse - and I need to accept it and learn to deal with my own frustrations.  The positive side of this attribute is very positive.  I met with his teachers this morning for a parent teacher conference and they LOVE him.  I'm sure that they say that to every parent but I got the sense that they really and truly do.  He is quiet (a teacher's dream, and again, only in school), and very, very sweet; and he is respectful and minds well (school, again).  I will take that over a loud mouth, smart-alleck any day of the week.  And he is sensitive.  He gets beaten up by his 17 month old sister but just because he won't hit or bite her back.  And he loves his family.  He says almost every day that we are his best friends and that he "loves us - so much."  I love my shy guy, SO much too.

and, just to lighten this post up,  I thought I'd post these pictures of his dad.  Drunk after his surprise 40th birthday party.  Maybe he gets it from him??

we have a walker!!

Just short of her 18 month mark, Anne began walking!  She took her first official steps at my parents' house on the day after Christmas.  She walked from Jamie to me and took about 8 steps.  She didn't do much else until New Years Eve when she walked a full 15 steps - which we captured on this video, (which is pretty adorable by the way):