Bennett's 1st Birthday

We celebrated Bennett’s first birthday by going to Monkey Joe’s, a local bouncy house play zone. I like the Monkey Joe’s because they have a specific area for kids that are 3 and under. Bennett had so much fun crawling on everything and playing with the things on the wall.

 

Lilly and I decorated the house with streamers, banners and we bought Bennett some balloons. Balloons have become a tradition at our house.

Bennett’s birthday dinner was Fettuccine Alfredo. He loves pasta! After dinner we opened presents. Lilly made sure to help Bennett open each one even if he didn’t want her to. He was really excited about everything he got. I think his and Lilly’s favorite was the play tunnel. It folds up into a carrying case. Sometimes Bennett will carry it over to me so I can open it for him.

 

 

 

Bennett’s had a John Deere cake. He was a little hesitant eating the cake with his hands. He finally got the hang of it but then he decided he didn’t like having his hands covered in frosting. He preferred if I would feed him with a fork.

My baby’s 1^st birthdays are always a little sad for me. It means my baby is gone. It is good toddlers are still pretty cute and cuddly.

 

 

Happy Birthday Bennett,

The timing of your arrival in our family was perfect. Everyone was so ready for you. You have brought joy and love to all of us. I am so lucky to have another easy baby. You always sleep well, eat well, and have an extremely laid back personality. You love being on the move, figuring things out, sitting on mommy’s lap when you are sleepy, and playing with your sister. And we love watching you do all of it.

You have had a busy first year including vacations to Arizona, Utah, Chicago, Wisconsin Dells, and Nauvoo, swimming lessons, play-dates, visitors, baseball games and many many many family activates. You are very active and the fastest crawler in the world. Whenever someone sees you crawl they always comment on your speed.      

Thank you for eating everything we give you quickly and easily. Thank you for being so relaxed and laid back. Thank you for being mommy’s little buddy. I am sorry your sister bosses you around and that the dog doesn’t want to cuddle with you.

Your mommy and daddy love you so much!

Love,

Mommy

First Day of Preschool

I was planning to only do one year of preschool for Lilly; however, she was really ready to start. She talked about going to school a lot and was really excited. So, I decided if she was interested I would get her started. Some of the preschools here are competitive. I had to stand in line for 2 hours to register to a Lutheran preschool that is close to our house.  Luckily, we got in.

Lilly and I talked a lot about preschool before she started. We picked out some cute new outfits and bought her a book bag. It was exciting but also a little sad. A couple of days before school started Lilly asked me if I was going to stand in the corner of the room while she was in school. I told her no and she was a little sad. It broke my heart a little bit.

We went to meet her teacher and see her room. That seemed to help a lot. By the time the first day of school arrived she was ready to go. I walked her to her room, helped her hang up her stuff and wash her hands. She then gave me a kiss goodbye and ran off to play. The next preschool day I asked her if she wanted me to drop her off or walk her into the class. She said just to drop her off and she would be fine.   

I was a little shocked about how sad I was. I thought I would enjoy the break which I do but I also kind of miss her. It was also sad just because she is getting older and that is always scary. I am now worried about all sorts of things I never even thought of before.

Lilly loves preschool and has made a lot of friends. Her best friend is a boy name Jack. I am not sure if he likes her as much as she likes him. It will be fun to see when I go into her class to volunteer. She loves all the crafts she does and playing on the playground. She has great teachers that she misses anytime they are gone. Since it is a Lutheran preschool they do Jesus Time and they do some funny prayers. I have tried to explain to her that our church has different prayers but she doesn’t seem to understand it.
 

 

Harris Family Reunion - Bettendorf (The End)

After Nauvoo Brandon, Julia and Leah went home and the rest of us headed back to Bettendorf. Lilly was excited to have everyone at our house and show them all of her stuff.

On Saturday Tyson and Chad made us a yummy breakfast and we spent the morning recouping a little from the previous week. Around lunch time we took a cruise down the Mississippi. I love the cruise because you get to see all of the old houses, the river and they tell you about all the history of the area. It was perfect weather too.

 

Lilly took the following pictures: This is what it is like to be in Lilly's shoes.

 

After the river tour Tyson took everyone to the John Deere Pavilion to see all the John Deere stuff. I meet up with everyone for dinner in Le Claire. We ate at a Mexican restaurant that Tyson and I like. Then we headed back home for the night.

 

 

In the morning Kathy went back to Chicago to catch her flight and the Chad Harris family came with us to church. After church they packed up and headed back to Chicago as well.

 

It was SO much fun having everyone here. Lilly was very sad once everyone left. Thank you everyone for having the family reunion out here.

Note: I added a lot more pictures in the Nauvoo post. I stole them from Angie's smilebox. ;-)  

Harris Family Reunion – Nauvoo

Kathy, the Brandon Harris family and our family left the Dells and drove to Galena, Illinois while Chad’s family enjoyed the pools a little longer. Galena is a really picturesque tourist town with a Park City vibe. It has a fun main street with shopping and restaurants. We ended getting there just in time for the last trolley tour of the day. We had wanted to do the trolley tour but hadn’t had the time yet. It was a little expensive but a lot of fun. After the trolley we planned to visit the shops but they had all started shutting down for the day. It was a weekday and they closed early. Sorry Brandon and Julia. I thought it was still fun walking up the street.

 

Chad’s family met us there and Tyson was able to give them the unofficial tour. We drove the rest of the way to our house and had pizza for dinner. It was nice spending the night at home.  

 

Our next stop was historic Nauvoo. In the morning Tyson had to do some work so the family went on without us to Carthage Jail. We all met up in Nauvoo.    

Angie rented a house right on main street for the family. It was a cute house and it was a lot of fun to stay all together like that. The closet between two rooms was a secret passage and Lilly still talks about it.

While in Nauvoo we were able to go to almost all of the houses. My favorites were the visitor center, relief society garden, brickyard (for our Nauvoo brick), Brigham Young’s home, family living center, Lucy Mack Smith’s home, pioneer pastimes (kids got to play games), Scovil Bakery (for our free cookie), Trail of Hope (overlooks the river), and the blacksmith shop (we got our prairie diamond rings). We also went to the old burial grounds and took the carriage and the wagon ride.

 

 

Here is an interesting fact about old Nauvoo that I learned – The three most common ways women died in Nauvoo were: 1. childbirth, 2. falling down the stairs (when you see the crazy stairs you can totally understand this) and 3. having their skirts catch on fire while cooking. Don’t you think that if catching your skirt on fire and dying was such a serious problem you would just were less clothing to cook?

My favorite story was about Lucy Mack Smith. When she wasn’t able to walk around very well her grandkids made her a wheelchair to push outside so she could see her beloved gardens. I liked this story because it reminded me of my grandma who was in a wheelchair and how much time we would spend with her in her beautiful garden.  

In the morning of the second day there was a heavy downpour. Our carriage ride around the town of Nauvoo was pretty rainy and cold. We couldn’t hear what they were saying because the rain was so loud.  We also had to do some dashes from the car to the buildings. Both of my kids ended up getting soaked.

 

We were lucky to be able to see the Nauvoo Pageant and the British Pageant during our stay. Before each pageant they have a country fair where you can play games and do crafts. They then invited all the kids to help march the flags up to the stage in a mini parade. Tyson accidently joined the parade with Lilly on his shoulders while he was trying to find our seats. Lilly was SO excited to be a part of the parade.

I loved both pageants. I thought the British Pageant was inspirational because at the end they had a lot of the missionaries from the local area come up on the stage for the final song. The pageant was about the few missionaries that first went over to England. Watching over 100 missionaries go up on the stage at the end was such an awesome reminder of how much the church has grown. Our local missionaries were able to go and participate in that the next week.

Again, I didn’t take as many pictures as I should have at Nauvoo. Just too much fun!