.:Sunriver 2012:.

I think it’s safe to say that we all look forward to Sunriver all year long. Every year comes and goes, and as our numbers grow, so do the houses!

We headed first to Klamath this year, to spend a few days there before we all ventured to Sunriver. We got there on the 4th of July, just in time for fireworks and a s’mores bar around the campfire.

Great picture of Mom at least!

Harper and Evie hanging out in their strollers.

“Helping” Grandpa

Sparklers! We loved this solo cup trick we found on Pinterest to protect little hands!

Watching the show

The rest of our time in Klamath was spent playing with toys, hanging out, and swimming of course!

If you couldn’t find a spoon, then you knew Remi had been around!

Reece loves swimming around the pool in her life jacket.

Remi preferred the safety of the beachfront entry.

Heelllloooooo cute baby!

Then it was time to head up to Sunriver! We scored a great house this year! Every family had their own room and bathroom, and there was an extra room for some of the older kids. It is of course, a huge generous gesture on my parents’ part to provide this for us. I think we all appreciate having our own little space!

We were sure to do all of our usual things. We spent some time down in the village.

Three littlest grandbabies!

Walking with Gramzee

The village has been re-vamped, and they have this little train that Gramzee treated all the kids to.

Oh yeah, the mommies all got to go, too! I pretty much forced Remi to go.

And no trip to Sunriver is complete without one (or more!) trips to Goodies for ice cream.

One day we visited the high desert museum. There are some of the local wild animals to look at, as well as a fun play area for the kiddos.

The “twins” – Remi and Hudson

Daddy even got in on the playing!

The three two year olds aka troublemakers

My dad is the president of OAHHS and they had a big banquet one nite while we were there. It was impressive! Delicious food, goodie bags for all of the kids, free caricature drawings, s’mores and ice cream bar, live band, and a little speech from this good looking guy!

It’s always neat to see my dad in these settings. We all know how hard he works and how amazing and wonderful he is, but to see the respect that others have for him makes me feel pretty proud!

While the band was on, Reece was doing some serious (and a bit seductive, thanks Zumba!) dancing for all of us. They decided to bring her up on stage and dress her up. She got a bit of stage fright while she was up there, but started to loosen up a bit towards the end.

Since the last time we were there, Sunriver has opened up a huge new rec center. It has water slides, splash pad, kiddie pool, indoor and outdoor swimming, and a lazy river. We spent one day there, and the girls loved playing in the water!

And biking! The biking is one of the best parts! We went for rides down to the lodge to get cokes, and even ventured to the village (for more Goodies!) and enjoyed a lovely ride back to the house in the dark. We were following cell phone flashlight apps and it turned into a pretty fun little adventure!

The house also had a hot tub, so that was a nice alternative to dragging everyone to the pool.

The boys did a little golfing.

And the girls did pedicures and our annual favorite things exchange.

Also thrown in the mix was board games, my Dad’s annual marriage FHE, and lots of great meals. It’s such a wonderful time for us to all be together, and for our kids to be together. We sure appreciate my parents making it possible for us to do this each year. I hope it never ends! I think we’re all counting down the days until next year already!

.:Harper–Nine Months:.

Ahhh! I don’t understand how another month has come and gone.

What can I say about the Harpster? She continues to be such a joy!

Harper is a crawling fool! This baby is everywhere! She loves to explore our house, and especially loves to follow the older girls around. She is starting to get pretty quick, too! When Harper is on regular carpet, she’ll usually just crawl normally (unless she is working around a dress). But on any other surface, she does a Mogli walk – and is getting quite proficient at that as well! Within a couple of weeks of her crawling, Harper started pulling up on her knees to things, and occasionally on to her feet. She can pull up to the couch or other furniture, but doesn’t do it very often. But things that are slightly lower, like the trundle bed, saucer, or baby chair, she can more easily get up on her feet to those things. She’s just very curious and very busy and wants to be everywhere that we all are! I can’t even begin to imagine how fun it will be for all the girls once she is running around with them!

We finally have some teeth! Harper’s two bottom teeth broke through right when she started crawling. She’s definitely been our best teether so far. She is still happy and sleeping well. I hope we luck out for the rest of her teeth!

Harper started doing this little face where she opens her mouth really wide. It reminds me of a monkey for some reason, and looks like she is just trying to show off her teeth. I don’t know why, but I just love it. I think it’s super cute and super funny!

Eating continues to go well for Harper. I think she is getting to the point where she’s not loving the baby food anymore. She will still eat it, but it’s a push to get her to finish an entire jar. She much prefers to have whatever we’re having, and to be able to feed it to herself. She does a great job most of the time picking up small pieces and eating them. Cheese, fruit, and bread seem to be favorites!

Harper is noisy! She loves to yell, shout, talk, and squeal. She reminds me of her cousin Bobo. Even in Sunday School yesterday, I’m sure people were trying to will us out of there with her; she doesn’t make fussy sounds, but she is just very vocal! She must know that she is going to have to be loud to be heard in this house!

Sleeping is back on track, thank goodness! I still feed her when I go to bed, but then she will often sleep until eight or nine. It’s nice not having that 6 a.m. feeding! Now I just need to wean her off the feeding before I go to bed and I can start catching up on some sleep!

Reece and Remi love to play with Harper. They love to try to make her smile and laugh. Often, Remi and Harper will be off playing together somewhere. I think Remi likes being older than someone for a change! It’s really sweet, and I just hope that they will always want to spend time together!

We just love this baby and can’t believe how fast she is growing up!

At nine months, Harper likes:

- nursing

- eating

- squealing

- laughing

- talking

- shouting

- crawling

- kneeling

- standing

- playing with toys

- playing with Reece and Remi

- putting things in her mouth

- exploring

- Baby Einstein

- Mommy’s singing

- grabbing

- jumping

- drinking from a sippy

At nine months, Harper does not like:

- being left alone

- being in her car seat

- waiting to be fed

.:Sleeping Rem:.

Enjoy this progression of pictures of our sweet Rem. The pictures speak for themselves. She is her father’s daughter.

Anytime, anywhere….if Rem-a-lem need to sleep, she’s gonna sleep!

.:Harper–Eight Months:.

Sweet, crazy Harper.

This baby gets more fun the older she gets. And maybe more wild, too!

Look at that smile. How can you not just want to squeeze her?

The biggest news with little Harpie is that she is officially crawling! She held out on us for a long time; I think she rocked on her knees and planked for a good 3-4 weeks. She still gets frustrated because she doesn’t remember that she can crawl and because she isn’t fast yet. But I love to watch her zero in on something and crawl to it. It’s going to be hilarious watching her follow Reece and Remi around. Before she started crawling, Harper figured out how to go from her hands and knees to a sitting position. She’s pretty efficient at that, so she is able now to get around, and then sit and play with whatever she finds!

Still no teeth for the Harpster! She’s been gnawing on her fingers a lot lately, and has had some crabbier moments, so maybe they are coming in. But maybe not! It’s tough to know with babies! I’m loving her gummy little grin, still though!

Harper is still a champ with eating! She loves her baby food (including meat, gross!) but loves to have tastes of what we are eating, too. She does a great job feeding herself mum mums and graham crackers – anything larger like that. She is also starting to get good at picking up smaller pieces of food (like puffs) and feeding herself. Harper loves her food, and hates to be left out of any eating.

Sleeping….yikes. We’ve taken a major nosedive with the sleeping. I don’t know if she’s been growing, teething, or just out of sorts from all the new development she’s been going through – or maybe a combination of them all, but Harper’s sleep has not been great. Before we went on our trip to Oregon, she was starting to wake up at random times in the early morning; sometimes 2ish, or 3ish, or 4ish. All too early for her needing to eat! Then we got to my parent’s house and she slept horribly there. She did slightly better the rest of the time in Oregon, but even since we’ve been back she is still waking at random times during the nite. I’m trying to be better about not feeding her and working to get her back to sleep; it’s hard sometimes because it’s just faster and easier to feed her! Hopefully we can get back on track soon.

Harper loves to talk and squeal, and just be noisy. I think she knows that she’s going to have to be to be heard with two sisters around! She just goes crazy sometimes, it is so funny.

Little Miss H has always been super wiggly. She is always leaning, squirming, reaching, grabbing, and just trying to get to everything so she can get her hands on it. Whenever someone tries to talk to her, she always starts grabbing and touching their face. It’s like her way of saying hi. Even with learning to crawl, I think it took her longer than it should have because she just would start wiggling, planking, and squirming before she could figure out how to just put one hand forward and then one leg. It’s just what makes Harpie, Harpie!

Reece and Remi are still way obsessed with Harper. They love to make her laugh and smile, love to give her toys, and love to play with her.

At eight months, Harper likes:

- nursing (kind of – she is so distracted these days!)

- eating

- smiling

- laughing

- playing

- crawling

- grabbing

- wiggling

- squealing

- shouting

- Baby Einstein

-  standing

- exploring

- Mommy’s singing

- touching faces

- rolling

- being outside

At eight months, Harper does not like:

- being left alone

- when Mommy leaves the room

- being in her car seat

- not being able to crawl fast enough

- going to bed for naps or nite time

- waiting to be fed

Love our sweet girl!

** Just as a sidenote, there are not many pictures of Remi with Harper or of Remi in general – she has a huge aversion to the camera these days and gets super mad when I try to take her picture! Stinker! **


Here is a little video of Harper crawling.

.:Harper–Seven Months:.

It’s hard to believe that another month has passed already! We are just smitten with little Harpie!

Harper is still just such a good baby. I know I always say that, but I just have to keep saying it because it’s true! She is generally pretty happy, and can keep herself entertained for periods of time. Which really comes in handy when you’ve got a couple of other kiddos who need help, too!

Still no teeth for the Harpster. I think they might be moving up and down, teasing her – and us – about when they are going to come in. She still is constantly gnawing on things, which is just what babies do, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they came in soon. She’s had some pretty grumpy days because of teething pains, so I’ll be glad when those things finally make an appearance!

Within the last week or two, Harper’s spitting has gotten sooooooo much better. It still happens, but not nearly as often, or as bad as it used to be. This is a welcome relief for me! She was going through some tummy/constipation issues for awhile there; I had to start giving her prune juice every day, but things seem okay for now. Apparently she was following in Remi’s footsteps with the bowel troubles! Hopefully we can keep it under control. Constipated babies are sad.

Harper’s development has really taken off in the past week. All of the sudden she started getting up slightly on her knees, and in less than a week is now getting up on her knees and rocking. Today she even ‘jumped’ her knees forward a tiny bit, trying to get to a toy. I’m sure she’ll be crawling in the next few weeks. She is just so busy and so curious; I think she wants to be in the middle of whatever her sisters are doing! She’ll be happier when she’s able to get around better.

Harper is loving eating! She eats baby food fine, but appears to be more interested in whatever we are eating. She’s had small tastes of lots of different kinds of foods. She’s learning how to hold a mum mum or a graham cracker, which is nice so I don’t have to sit and feed her little bites at a time.

Harper is still taking her binky! She is not super attached to it or anything, but I can usually get her to take it when she needs to. It’s nice to have that soother!

Sleeping is still going well! I’ve been continuing to feed her before I go to bed at nite, which she probably doesn’t need any more. It’s partly selfish because she’s so calm during that feeding, instead of so distracted like she normally is. It’s nice cozy and cuddle time with her! She actually didn’t have that feeding for the first time last nite, and it didn’t seem to affect her at all! So maybe it’s time to drop it. Harper usually takes a shorter nap in the morning, and then a longer nap in the afternoon. Occasionally she’ll need a third nap, but most days it’s just two.

Reece and Remi continue to love on Harper all the time, and I think they will all be the best of friends! We just love our girls so much!

At seven months, Harper likes:

- talking

- shouting

- rolling

- sitting (when she is distracted enough to actually sit still)

- rocking on her knees

- exploring

- playing with toys

- Baby Einstein

- watching Reece and Remi play

- Mom’s singing

- standing

- jumping

- eating

- nursing

- looking around

- being outside

- being tickled

- grabbing things (she has an iron grip when she gets ahold of something!)

At seven months, Harper does not like:

- being in car seat for too long

- going to bed (sometimes)

- being left alone for too long

- getting stuck on her tummy (still happens sometimes!)

- teething

- having to wait for food

Love this beautiful babe!

.:Dance Recital:.

Reece has participated in a little neighborhood/ward dance co-op for the past year. It really has been perfect for her age and getting her introduced to being involved in activities like this. The cost was free (except for costumes) and the way that everyone ‘paid’ was by donating their time and talents. Just about everyone would take a turn in the nursery, and then there were committees and other jobs. I headed up the costume committee for both performances (I’m certain this is what put me into labor with Harper).

Reece had some of her good little friends in her class with her this second time around, and they recently put on (that’s a loose term!) Sleeping Beauty. Reece’s little class were the Sleeping Beauties and they were absolutely adorable!

Reece is a totally natural born performer. She loves to dance and sing, and loves to have an audience. I’m certain she gets this from the Stewart genes running through her!

Hanging with Mom before her performance. Check out those eyelashes!

Reece and Emerson

Reece with her buddies: Dylan, Dixie, and Emerson. These four will all be in the same grade together, if you can believe it!

With Aunt Em and Grandpa Gary afterwards

With Mom and Dad

Posing by the castle

Reece’s official dance photo

Reece’s little dance class