Growing Up is Hard to Do

I am having mixed emotions about Harrison growing up. I am glad that he is getting older and more independent but at the same time it makes me nervous for the future. Harrison is a stubborn boy and that stubborness (is that even a word) seems to be showing more and more each day.

Last Saturday we took Harrison, Parker, and Jordan to the movie and afterwards we went to the mall to buy Harrison a new pair of shoes. Every pair that I picked out he hated for some reason. I think I have fairly good taste and I KNOW I wasn't picking out ugly shoes but for some reason he did not like anything I picked. I finally told him to show me what he wanted and of course he picked the UGLIEST shoes ever. I flat out told him that I didn't like them and that only made things worse and after that he shut down and wouldn't even talk to me but I was not going to give up so we went to try the UGLY shoes on. Secretly I was praying that they wouldn't have his size and much to my relief they didn't. Well the dang salesman who was so efficient and willing to make a sale showed Harrison another pair of even UGLIER shoes and of course he loved them.

So I decided to give in and let him buy the shoes (after Jeff reminded me that I wasn't going to be the one wearing the shoes) but my mind was quickly changed when he told us that the price was $120. I told Harrison that I was willing to pay $60 and he could pay the rest.

He sat there for a minute and after some thought he said, "Well I don't have that kind of money and even if I did I wouldn't spend it on a pair of shoes." Wow...I guess we taught him right after all. So after looking around a little bit more we settled on a pair of Addidas that are nice looking and they only cost $60.

I would have posted a picture of the shoes but unfortunately they weren't in stock so we had to have them delivered to our house and they haven't come yet.

Pieper's "23"

Last night Parker and Pieper put together a puppet show for us and while they were practicing their parts I was listening in and it was the funniest thing to listen to. It's amazing how big of an imagination Parker has and how involved he gets when he does storytelling or some sort of a show. He definitely loves to perform in front of people. Anyway...they had decided to put on the puppet show of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Parker was given the responsibility of being the papa bear and he said, "Oh no someone's been sitting in my chair...I'm going to go get my 22 (which is a gun for those of you who aren't fluent in gun talk...not that I am but I do know what a 22 is)" Pieper, who was playing the part of the baby bear said, "I'm going to go get my 23." She obviously had no idea what Parker was talking about but she just went with what she knew and 23 definitely comes after 22. I could not stop laughing.

Smarty Pants

Madison just recently learned her ABCs and it's the cutest thing ever. She has said it perfect a couple times but she usually gets stuck when it comes to Q,R,S because she says Q,R,X...and then goes on to say Y and Z. But if I correct her and say S she can keep going to the end. She has also learned how to count to ten in English and Spanish. Unfortunately, I can not take credit for this because it has been my mom that has taught it to her. Madison usually tags along with Pieper to preschool at my mom's house and she is such a parrot that she is picking up on everything. It is so fun to watch her improvement and listen to her repeat everything and anything that is said. She reminds me a lot of Harrison because he was so smart at such a young age. Much like Madison, he was speaking in full sentences at 18 months and he spoke so well that people often thought he was three years old. Madison speaks very well and she is pretty tall so she seems to be a lot older. I have to remind myself at times that she's not as old as she seems (at times I am reminded of how young she is and it's usually when she's throwing a tantrum on the floor).

Week Long Birthday

I have never...in my whole life...been more excited to be done with a birthday than I was this week. Pieper had her birthday on Monday and she definitely took full advantage of being the "BIRTHDAY GIRL." In the morning Parker bumped her in the hall while he was walking past and she was so upset because he bumped her on her birthday. She made comments all day like "I don't have to do that because I'm the birthday girl" or "I don't have to be nice because I'm the birthday girl." We went to visit my Grandma that night and the first thing Pieper said when she walked in the door to Grandma was, "So today is my birthday." This makes her sound like a brat but she usually is very sweet but for some reason she got the idea that on your birthday everybody has to bow down to you and you get to rule the roost. She knew that her birthday was after Christmas so the day after she woke up and thought it was her birthday and that continued on everyday until it really was her birthday. For her birthday she gave me some ideas of what she wanted and some of the items were things like her own Maceys grocery store with a big sign out front, her own house with a bed so she could play house in it with her friends, and a car to play with in the backyard. Unfortunately she didn't get any of those presents but I think she ended up having a good day besides all the "terrible" things that happened to her and she loved the presents she got. For her birthday party she wanted to invite all her cousins (which is about 25 people) and they were going to go to Circus Circus and then Disneyland and they were going to eat cotton candy. As you can see she had big dreams for her birthday and she had definitely thought about what she wanted and how she was going to celebrate it.

Jeff the Comedian

Jeff played a pretty good practical joke on me on Christmas Day. I need to give a little background so it will make sense. We have a 1999 Expedition that isn't the prettiest thing but it still runs and it gets us where we need to go. It's got a lot of miles on it and Jeff is worried that it's going to give out on us any day now. So for the past couple of months he's been talking about getting a new car, which I would love but I don't love the idea of having a car payment again so I keep telling him that we need to wait. So two days before Christmas Jeff went to pick up my present and he said, "I've got to go get your new car" and then he just laughed. So on Christmas morning when the kids got up Parker went straight to the garage and opened up the door. Jeff told Parker to shut the door so we could go open up our presents. Parker was all ancy and kept telling me that I needed to open up a particular present from Jeff. Finally Jeff gave in and he told me to open it. When I opened up the box there was a piece of paper in it that had a picture of a Denali and it had information about 0% interest for 72 months. I just sat there because I didn't know what to think. Then I noticed that it said to go and look in the garage. Then it clicked why Parker had gone to look in the garage...he was excited about my present. I just looked at Jeff and said, "Are you serious?" He just shrugged his shoulders and told me to go look. Parker was so excited he was bouncing off the walls. I was stunned, shocked, and speechless. I didn't think Jeff would really get me a new car but I knew that he had really been researching different types and so I thought maybe he had gone ahead and done it. So when we get upstairs and I start to get excited about having a new car and I open up the garage and there sits our old Expedition with a sign that says...."just kidding." I fell for it. After that Jeff felt a little (eency weency tiny bit) sorry because I really believed it but he still thought it was pretty funny.

Jeff's New Job

Jeff reminded me of a funny thing that happened to him a few weeks ago and I had write it down so I wouldn't forget it. Jeff was driving down the road in our bobtail dump truck and our new neighbor, that lives a couple houses down from us, ran out to the road and began waving at Jeff so he stopped the truck and rolled down the window. The guy jumped up on the truck and said, "Hey you forgot to get my garbage." Jeff just sat there for a minute because he was a little confused and then he realized that the guy thought he was the garbage man. Jeff patiently told him that he wasn't the garbage man and that he wasn't driving a garbage truck. The guy just sat there with a distant look on his face so Jeff continued to explain that we have a landscaping business and that he was actually driving a dump truck, which hauls things like rocks and mulch not garbage. After a few minutes he must have caught on and said, "Sorry dude!" I couldn't stop laughing when he told me. I guess if landscaping slows down we can always resort to garbage collection:)

Once There Was a Snowman

Madison's favorite song right now is "Once There Was a Snowman." She knows all the words to the song and will not sing it without doing the actions. Once we start singing it we usually end up singing it at least five or six times because she won't let us quit. When she wants me to sing it she'll say, "Mom, snowman" (it's not a question it's a demand). She also likes "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do you See." She knows all the animals in the song and their colors but her favorite animals are the brown bear and purple cat.