4th of July Weekend

Our 4^th of July Weekend was a lot of fun this year, especially because Tyson had Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off from work. On Wednesday morning Tyson took Lilly to the movies on a daddy daughter date. It was the first time Lilly has been to the movie theater so to make it special he bought candy, a drink and popcorn. They went to Despicable Me 2. Tyson said that Lilly enjoyed the movie for about 30 minutes and then probably spent the rest of the time enjoying watching people in the theater. She did really well though and lasted the whole time.

We started our 4^th by going to our local parade. Tyson stayed home for that. Lilly and I were lucky to sit in between two families that were extremely interested in her filling up her candy bag. They thought she was so cute and small. She loved the parade. Her favorites this year where watching the big trucks and the dancing cheerleaders.

 

After the parade and a nap we played outside in the swimming pool. Tyson made a slip and slide for Lilly out of a tarp. Her favorite thing to play with was probably the hose though.

 

Once Lilly had her fill of playing in the water we took her to get fireworks and items for our dinner. The firework stand was extremely under stocked so we ended up with only a handful of items. We had a yummy impromptu picnic in our back yard and watched our small firework show. Lilly loved the Snaps the best. We bought two boxes and she enjoyed them so much I wished we would have gotten more. She was not a fan of the other fireworks though, they scared her. We kept asking her if she liked fireworks which she would say yes to but then we would ask her if we should light more and she would say NO. She won’t even hold the sparklers. It was a good thing we didn’t get very many items.

This is Lilly acting scared of the fireworks

Friday we spent relaxing and recovering from our adventures on the 4^th. Lilly did have a swim lesson Friday that we went to. We took a fun Parents and Tots class where a parent goes in the pool with the tot. The next class up is the 3 year olds and Lilly was really ready to be in that class. She could do everything they taught in her class and was somewhat bored of it.

On Saturday we decided to explore the marshes over in Illinois, by Tyson’s work. The area we went to was set up as a park and had walking trails and some cool look out points. Tyson spent about 20 minutes unsuccessfully trying to catch Lilly a frog.  It was sweet that he tried though – Lilly said she wanted one. We saw lots of frogs, a turtle, a beaver, birds, and bunnies. The marsh was a little flooded so we couldn’t go on all the trails. But that was okay for my big pregnant self.

 

We tried to get a picture of my belly so everyone can see how me/Bennet are growing

 

Auction

We spent last weekend going to an auction in Solon, IA. It is about an hour away and was a pretty drive. Tyson was looking for some wood working tools and he thought Lilly would enjoy a short auction. When we got there I realized that I didn’t dress Lilly appropriately since it was at a farm and there was cow poop everywhere. Lilly was wearing sandals and shorts. There was also no place for me to sit which is a necessarily this far along in my pregnancy and Lilly was scared to use the stinky bathrooms. To top it off the short auction ended up being a LONG auction. After spending about an hour hanging out in the car with Lilly, I decided to drive to Iowa City and get her some better shoes so she could enjoy looking at the animals on the farm.  

Iowa City was about 30 min away but it was still worth the trip. We used the potty in Walmart and got her some socks and cheap sandals. I was going to get her rain boots but they didn’t have her size. Lilly was so excited that the socks were for her and not for baby Bennett. We also got some lunch and drove around their awesome mall. The mall had a children’s museum, skating rink, movie theaters, shopping, and full size carousel. You could spend a whole day there doing all of the activities.

When we got back to the auction I put Lilly’s new socks and sandals on. She thought they were so cute and stylish she still wouldn’t walk on the ground with them. She was afraid they would get dirty. She now thinks that it is quite fashionable to wear socks with sandals. Lilly had to enjoy the chickens and cows from afar because she wouldn’t walk around.

Several of the trailers were cleared off when I got back so there were places for us to sit and we enjoyed the rest of the auction. Tyson got 2 tool items he needed and I got an old fashioned trunk for $10. They weren’t going to get to the trunk until later in the auction so I played the pregnancy card and told them I couldn’t stand for much longer and asked them to do the trunk next. Then I was so confused by the way the auctioneer talked and I didn’t even know they were selling it and almost lost it. But they had my back and told me to raise my hand.  The trunk is storing our sheets nicely in the closet. It will be perfect for a teenage boy’s room.

On the way home from the auction we stopped by Lake Mcbride State Park to see what it was like. It was a nice state park that had a camping area and a lake people could swim in. The lake even had a nice beach area. We decided that it was worth going back to the lake and Iowa City for a small weekend trip. There was plenty to do there.

After we got home Tyson told Lilly that they could sleep out in the tent that night and eat candy. I don’t think Tyson understood what he was getting himself into. Lilly stayed up until 10:30 and woke up at 5:30. Then guess who had to take care of her once she was awake – me. It ended up being a two nap Sunday and hard day at church. She is not going camping with daddy again until she is older.

It was another fun weekend for the Iowa Harris Family.  

Zoo

Last weekend we took Lilly to the zoo. It was an enjoyable family activity and we all had fun. However, Lilly did have run-in with a swan. She was feeding the fish, ducks, and swans at the feeding station. She was picking up the loose food on the ground and throwing it in the water. She got a little too close to a swan and it bit her hand twice. She was shocked but she didn’t cry. It made her upset for about 30 minutes after ‘the incident’. It left a small bruise on her hand. Tyson let the swan bit him just to see how bad it hurt. He said it wasn’t too bad.

We found a lost carousel ticket on the ground. There was no way to return it to the owner and no one came looking for it so we decided it was okay to use it. I hope that is honest. I am glad we did use it because Lilly loved the ride. She was sad when it was over and had a lot of fun waving at daddy. Next time I’ll make sure to buy her a ticket because she had so much fun.

We also had tickets for the train. Lilly could see it and hear it throughout the park and was obsessed. Every time she saw or heard it she asked if we could go on the train. We told her we would ride it at the end but she didn’t really understand that so I told her we could ride it after lunch. Then she started asking if we could eat lunch every time she heard the train.

Before you look at the pictures you should look at our blog from last year’s zoo visit. http://tysonkarenlillyanddontforgetthedog.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2012-05-26T13:55:00-05:00&max-results=7&start=34&by-date=false. I can’t believe how much Lilly and Tyson have changed.  I guess I have changed too - this time around I am big and pregnant. I took a couple of the same pictures just to do a comparison.

 

This was before the biting occurred

 

 

I thought this was a good stomach picture - you can kind of see how big I am getting

 

 

Flat Stanley

We had a visit from Flat Stanley. He arrived from Mr. Holt's Class at Ponderosa Elementary School where my nephew Sam Wirick attends. We had so much fun with Flat Stanley. We felt like tourist. Here are some of the things we did.

While he was here, these are some of the things he did and saw:

·         Stanley stayed in our home in Bettendorf, Iowa

 

 

·         Stanley hung out with our cute dog, Herbert

 

 

·         Stanley visited the Mississippi River and fed ducks

 

 

·         Stanley crossed the river and visited Moline, Illinois

 

 

·         Stanley went to John Deere Headquarters in Illinois

 

 

·         Stanley enjoyed the John Deere Museum and sitting on all of the tractors

 

 

 

 

 

 

·         Stanley saw a farm. There was no corn growing on the farm yet so it was pretty bare

·         Stanley thought it was very cool seeing two different states while visiting us

·         Stanley liked coming to Bettendorf, Iowa and visiting the Harris Family

 

Some other interesting things about my home are:

Bettendorf Iowa is part of a bigger area called the Quad Cities which originally consisted of three cities in Illinois and one city in Iowa. The area has now become larger and contains more than 4 cities. However, it is still called the Quad Cities. The Mississippi River divides Illinois and Iowa. The Quad Cities is home of John Deere Headquarters. We have a lot of tourist come to this area to tour the John Deere facilities and museums. We also have a Buffalo Bill’s museum and a lot of interesting history regarding the Mississippi River. The thing we like most about this area is the River. We like driving across the many bridges, seeing the boats, barges, and locks, and learning about the ecology of the Mississippi. We are also home to the TV Show on the History Channel, American Pickers.     

Cinco de Mayo and Mothers Day

This year Tyson really wanted to do celebrate Cinco de Mayo. I think he just wanted an excuse to get a piñata for Lilly. It was a fun family activity though so I am glad he recommended it. Lilly loved the piñata. She wasn’t strong enough to break it so we had to help with that. She liked picking up and eating all of the candy and yelling at Herbert not to eat it.

 

 

Lilly stopping to give the pinata a hug.

Lilly and Tyson getting a treat

Tyson made us a yummy Mexican dinner. He made us Carne Asada Tacos which is my favorite kind of tacos. They were very yummy and made awesome leftovers. We had all the side dishes with it too. I was most impressed with the grilled jalapenos stuffed with pepper jack cheese. The only thing I missed was the good guacamole; store bought isn’t as good as restaurant guacamole.

Mother’s Day was also very nice this year. Tyson cleaned the kitchen for me in the morning. That was probably the best part of the whole day. Lilly and Tyson didn’t make breakfast for me because I just prefer cereal. We had a beautiful day at church. They didn’t make us mom’s teach primary and we got a yummy cookie. After church Tyson made fettuccini alfredo for dinner. I got some cute jewelry from Lilly and Tyson. We let Lilly pick out my bracelet and she got me one with a star on it – not surprising.     

Everything New

A lot of new things have been going on around our house. Here are some important ones.

Lilly: 

Lilly got a big kid toddler bed. As soon as it arrived she insisted on Tyson putting it together for her. She was SO excited. I didn’t want to move the crib immediately because I didn’t know how she was going to do with the big kid bed. She wanted to sleep in it that night. About 2 minutes after bed time I could hear her whimpering in her room. It was such a sad whimper. I went in and I could tell she was scared. I tried putting her in the crib but she was too excited and still wanted to sleep in her bed. So I put her back in bed and the whimpering started again. Tyson went in there and sat with her for about 30 minutes. While he was in there she told him that she wanted to sleep under the butterfly (where the crib was) so Tyson moved the big kid bed over to where the crib was. That seemed to fix her being scared and she fell right asleep. 

She has been doing pretty good in her big kid bed. She does wake up a little earlier in the morning and comes and finds me. If she can’t find me she starts yelling “Mommy, are you”.  A couple of times she has tried to sneak out of the room if she doesn’t want to go to bed.

We have also had a couple of interesting nap times. Today I put Lilly down for her nap. It was dead quiet up there for an hour so I assumed she fell asleep fast. I went in and checked on her and she had: 1. diaper rash cream all over her arms, legs, face, and a little in her hair, 2. the wipes out trying to wipe off the cream, 3. her clear hair elastic bands all over the bed and floor and 4. all of her blankets and stuffed animals on the bed. She also had all of her binkies out.

We have also started potty training Lilly. I started off with the pull-ups and having her sit on the potty every hour. That didn’t work at all so I switched over to big kid panties. She has been doing really well with those. She does still wear pull-ups for naps and bed time. She is also a little scared of public bathrooms.

We also bought Lilly her first bike. She loves it but is still getting the hang of steering and pedaling.

My favorite new thing that Lilly is saying is ‘me too’. Anytime she wants to do what I am doing or go where I am going she says ‘me too’. Most of the day is spent with her following me around saying ‘me too, mommy. Me too.’  

Baby Boy:

We have decided to name the baby Bennett. You may call him Ben, however; I think that I will most likely call him Bennett. We are still deciding on a middle name. Lilly calls Bennett, bet-it. I really liked the name Peter but every time I told someone the name they told me not to use it and that he would get made fun of too much.

We have started buying everything for the baby and have moved the crib to the nursery. We got his bedding set and have made up his crib. For some reason I am nesting really early with this baby. I feel the need to buy everything right now.  

These are some things we have gotten for the wall. The picture on the left I got at Michael's for 1 penny. No joke!

The baby is healthy and is doing well. He is a kicker and really likes it when I eat food. However, he does like to kick in the middle of the night.  

Karen:

I am doing well. Here is a picture of me about 2 weeks ago. I have gotten a little bigger since then.

This baby is sitting really low and is hurting my body. I wake up every morning feeling like I got hit by a car. I feel like I am 85 years old hobbling around and I grunt a lot, which is embarrassing because I am not far enough along to be grunting when I move. People keep giving me weird looks because I am not big enough to be having such a difficult time getting around.

I cut my hair again because it is growing so fast. This time I told her to cut it even shorter so it doesn’t lose its style so fast.  I didn’t take into account that it would no longer stay in a ponytail. I miss my ponytails.

Tyson:

Tyson is moving along with school. He is about to finish an intersession course. It is a full credit course that was smashed into 4 weeks to fit in between semesters. It has been online but requires him to logon for 3 hours every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.  Lilly and I have missed him a lot and can’t wait for it to be over.
 
Herbert:

Herbie is getting old. He will be turning 7 years old in November. He has some issues with his knees like most small dogs do. He has been limping around the house the last couple of days and whimpers when he steps on his foot/knee wrong. I feel so bad for him. Tyson told me we couldn’t pay the $1,500-$5,000 per knee to fix him so I am just praying that Herbie won’t hurt himself too bad. Say a small prayer for him too. I would be crushed if anything happened to him.