The Harris Place

Sunday, January 9, 2011

A New Year

2011...Here we go! Our goal for this year is to survive :) Throughout 2011 I will have a lot of school and clinical hours with not very many days off and Jake will have a lot of long hours with the kids. We know that this year will bring a lot of learning, pushing ourselves, pain (for Jake) and finding joy in all of the little things that we can. One nice thing is that at the end of 2011 I will be down to one semester left in Radiation Therapy school :)

Actually we've decided that being in school isn't all that bad. I'm gone random hours and home random hours and even though I have to study some at home I do get to see the kids more now than I will when I have a full-time job. So we know that we need to enjoy these years and make the best of them. We try to plan a lot of family fun time (FHE, Friday night movie parties, game nights, park outings, etc) so that we all have something to look forward to every week when life starts to feel overwhelming.

Before 2011 really gets going I thought I'd share how we celebrated kicking it off.
My sister-in-law Cat hooked us up with the public library's Noon-Year's Eve Party. It included some pirate time, treasure chest prize choosing, snack time and some really fun dance party time. Dal loves dancing and has quite the dance moves (he liked to watch So You Think You Can Dance with us) I only captured a couple of his moves with this video clip but here you go...

Braelyn liked to join in with the dancing time too

B-Rae and her Aunt Gabby (who brings a lot of fun to any party)

They even gave the kids noise makers and we got to pop balloons with confetti

Dal and his Aunt Sara-They had so much fun together!

This picture sums up the two of them :)

Gabby planned some fun games for New Year's Eve- like Bingo with prizes and a candy bowl game. They were so fun!

The bingo prizes were glow in the dark bracelets, headbands, glasses...whatever you wanted to make yours in to. So here we are showing off our glow stuff...

Now a photo in the dark, to get more of the effect. Then we had a dance party in the dark with our glow stuff. It was so much fun!

Happy 2011!!!

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Happy 5th Birthday Dal!!!

On December 29th Dal turned 5. I can't believe he is 5! I can't believe he starts Kindergarten next year! We just love that kid so much and are so grateful to have him in our lives. A few things that we love about Dal...

Dal is such a fun, energetic, sweet and thoughtful kid.
He loves to play with blocks and toys and is so creative and imaginative.
He is a real thinker.
Some of the questions he comes up with about life and some of the connections he makes just amaze us.
He can remember scripture stories and share them with amazing detail (and we thought a whole lot probably wasn't getting absorbed during family scripture time :)
He loves to tell others about our church. Like the other day he met a little girl at the park-first he asked her name, her age, they played together a bit and then he asked her if she goes to church. She said no and then he told her "I go to the church of Jesus Christ!" He also asked his grandma if she goes to the church that has all of the truth. He seemed happy and relieved when he found out that she went to our church too. He will be quite the missionary :)
He is a wonderful big brother- We love how he can find ways to make Braelyn laugh and come up with little things to play with her.
We love how he gets so excited about all the little joys in life...like a Friday night family movie party, macaroni and cheese for dinner, going to the park, etc.
When we drop him off at school he likes to give us a hug, a kiss, and a nuzzle (rub noses)
We love how he is such a blessing in our lives!

For Dal's birthday we went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (we got in for free). We had a lot of fun checking out all of the cool exhibits. Dal especially liked the dinosaur exhibit. It does blow your mind how they were so huge!

Then that evening we sang Happy Birthday, opened presents and had ice cream.

We finished off the night with a fun movie with Aunts and cousins. We watched "How to Train Your Dragon"

Another fun birthday for Dal with lots of family around!

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Christmastime Fun

I have a few weeks off of school so we headed to Colorado for Christmas. Jake has 7 siblings and all of them were going to be in town at the same time so we had a lot of fun people to play with. The kids had tons of fun with cousins, aunts & uncles, we played a lot of fun games and ate a lot of good food.

I thought this pic sums up nicely Dal's feelings about Christmas. He was so happy, excited and content :)

It was also fun for the kids to have a little grandpa & grandma time

Grandma made the kids some really cute coats. Here she is trying Braelyn's on her.

Here they are modeling their cute coats

Both kids enjoyed opening presents. Braelyn seemed more enthralled with the actual unwrapping than with the seeing what was inside :) And Braelyn was our wrapping paper clean- up girl. After someone would unwrap a present she would make sure she picked up every little piece of paper and take it over to the trash bag. It was pretty funny and she was really quick about it :)

Our new hats

Dal had some quality Aunt time. They were so sweet and spent hours and hours playing with him.

The kids also had a lot of fun cousin time

We had some fun park time too

A really special thing was that we got to attend two of our nieces baptisms-
Sabrina...

...& Emily
We were so glad that we were able to be there!

Mason & Braelyn holding hands. They were so cute together!

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Family Photo Shoot

A few months ago my sister-in-law Ashlie (who is a very talented photographer) did a little family photo shoot with us. We loved the pics she took so we thought we'd share some of them...

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Happy 2nd Birthday Braelyn Rachel!

On December 1st Braelyn turned 2! I can't believe my baby is already 2. I guess that's what everyone says, but it just goes by so fast. We celebrated by getting some yummy Papa Murphy's pizza and then because we aren't really into cake we had cinnastix for her dessert. We still had her blow out a candle in her cinnastix. We all really enjoyed her birthday dinner and dessert :)

When it came time to open her present she wasn't sure what to do with it. She looked at it for a little bit and then she decided to sit on it :) Then her big brother stepped in to show her how it was done.

When she realized she was supposed to tear the paper off she had fun doing that.

She loves her new baby. Anytime we are out anywhere and see a baby (real or doll) she starts yelling "Baby, Baby!" so when she saw her baby she was soooo excited. In this pic Dal decided that he would pretend like he was the dad and she was the mom and they were taking care of their little baby :)

We are all so grateful to have our little B-Rae in the family. There are so many things we love about her...I'll list just a few....

We love how she gets the most amazing bedhead (until we have to brush her hair :) She seriously gets some amazing volume. I don't know if she moves her head back and forth a lot while she sleeps or what but I have included a few pics of her hair after she woke up from a nap.

We love how she is so sweet and thoughtful. If any of us ever hurt ourselves she'll come up and kiss our owie. She also takes good care of us and her baby.
We love how she loves to help. Like today, after their baths she wanted to help put lotion on Dal's legs and so she did :) Also if she ever spills anything she goes and gets a towel to wipe it up. She also likes to carry her cereal bowl over to the counter (which can be a little scary depending how much is left in it). A couple times she has dumped some milk on herself trying to reach it up to the counter :)

We love how she loves the moon. Every time day or night that we go outside she looks for the moon and if she can't find it she walks around searching and searching for it.
We love how every night when we have family scripture time she always requests to sing: Popcorn popping, I love to see the temple, The wise man and the foolish man, Wheels on the bus, I lived in heaven and I am a child of God.
We love how much she loves and admires her big brother Dal. When we go pick him up from school she runs to him and gives him the biggest hug. She loves to play with him, she loves to wrestle him, and she loves to do everything he does. She is quite the little mimic.
We love how much she loves to go to Nursery. She can hardly wait to get through Sacrament meeting so that she can get over to the Nursery :)
We love how she is so energetic and cute
We love how she always wants to help Daddy cook
We love how she is full of surprises...like when we went to the park and she starting reading off all of the letters off of a big word game (and we didn't realize she knew any letters) Apparently she was paying closer attention to Super Why then we realized :)
We love how she gives the best little hugs
We love how she is full so full of life and personality

Happy Birthday Braelyn. We love you!

Some Dalyn Cute Moments

Dalyn says and does the cutest and funniest things sometimes so I thought I would make a running list to remember some of those moments...

~We had eaten at a buffet and Dal loved it. He said "If I'm ever really hungry again just take me to that place where you pay for the first food and then get the rest of the food after that for free." That's a good way to look at a buffet :) (10/2012)

~Dal was doing something and being impatient and I said "Dal, you just need to be patient." He said "Mom, being patient is such a waste of my time." I understand how he feels :) (10/2012)

~Jake was having a bad day and was in a lot of pain. Dal said "I'm going to say a prayer for you daddy." Then he said "Dear Heavenly Father, this is important, my daddy doesn't feel good. Can you please help him feel a little better. Please. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen" It was the sweetest, most sincere prayer I have ever heard and it touched my heart. (6/2012)

~Dal's kindergarten teacher's birthday is coming up and I asked him if he wanted to make her a birthday card. He got really excited about it and these are some of the things that he was thinking about writing..."Happy Birthday Mrs. Bryan! You are now older than the old number you were before your birthday. Birthdays are a special celebration. Birthdays are special because you are older and bigger." (9/2011)

~ On our way to church today Dal told us that he asked his friend Sadie from school what church she goes to. She told him that she goes to the Kid Church. Dal told her ..."I go to the church of the Son of God" :) (4/2011)

~Dal has decided that when he grows up he is going to have 4 kids- 3 boys and 1 girl. Their names are going to be: Junior, McQueen, & Robin (as in Batman & Robin) for the boys and Sally for the girl :) (4/2011)

~On our way to church today Dal was talking about his friend Cash and said "Cash says he doesn't like church so he doesn't go. But I want to invite him to come to church with me and help him understand how important it is to go to church. Then I will tell him that he came from heaven and that I came from heaven too." Dal is just the cutest little missionary! (2/2011)

~Dal is so creative and imaginative. He has bigger sized lego blocks and he makes those into any toy or character imaginable and then sets up his room as whatever world or place that fits with the theme of his creations. It's so fun to watch and play with him in his toy world. (9/2010)

~Dal came home from preschool and told us he had a new girlfriend. So we started asking him questions and found out that they hadn't really played together or even talked for that matter he just said "She just looked so beautiful." So I guess because of that he decided that she was his girlfriend :) (9/2010)

~The other night when I was putting Dal to bed he said "Mommy. The Holy Ghost is so cool. I'm going to listen to the Holy Ghost and I am not going to listen to Satan!" I thought that sounded like a great plan. :) (3/2010)

~So Dal came home from preschool and told us that "Conner made a bad choice and squirted my girlfriend." We asked him about his girlfriend and he told us that a girl at preschool told him she wanted to be his girlfriend. We asked him what he said and he told us he said "Ok, but not really." Then we were asking him more and he said "Um, never mind. I don't want to talk about it anymore." On no, barely four years old and it already begins! :) (1-25-10)

~When I take Dal to preschool they always practice writing their names when they get there. Today he wrote his name really fast and crazy like and his teacher said "Well maybe you will be a doctor when you grow up", and Dal said "No, I'm going to be a prophet." That's what he has decided he wants to be when we grows up :) (12-16-09)

~I heard Dal saying his bedtime prayers and part way through he said "Heavenly Father, I love transformers. I know they are expensive so please help us to have more money so that we can buy transformers because they are really fun." (11-20-09)

~The wisdom of a three year old: Dal and I were hitting some of the community trick or treating events and when we got to the last one I told him that after this we were going home. He said "Good. I'm tired. All of this walking around getting candy makes a little kid like me tired." (10-31-09)

~We were reading the scriptures and trying to teach Dal about the second coming, when Jesus would come again. Dal's response: "When he gets here, I'll show him my Batman toy."

~Dal was building a tower with legos and I asked him to do get his shoes on so we could go somewhere. He said "Mom, you're sweet, but here's the thing, I am building a tower of power."

~Dal has a little friend that lives close and comes over to our house often. They play together almost every day. About two days had passed and they hadn't seen each other and then Zach came over and Dal opened the door and excitedly said "You came, you came!! Zach, I was so worried about you!"

~Dal has been on a super hero kick lately, so sometimes when he's at the playground and other kids ask him what his name is he says "My name is Super Duper Super Hero!" It's pretty funny. The other night I also heard him praying that he could be a super hero like Larry Boy. (6/09)

~We were reading out of Dal's picture scriptures and we read about Elizabeth and Zacharias who prayed to be able to have a baby and then she got pregnant with John. Dal asked "Did you pray to have baby sister?" I told him we did and then he said "So I can pray to have lots of baby brothers and lots of baby sisters!" I thought it was funny but thought that it was only a passing thought for him, not that he would really take it to heart:) Then a couple nights later when he was saying his bedtime prayers he said "Dear Heavenly Father, I pray that I can have lots of baby brothers and lots of baby sisters!..." It was pretty cute...but then I thought, uh-oh...hmmm, let's define the meaning of "lots":)

~Out of the blue Dal asked me "Mommy, do you have a puppy in your tummy?" I told him that I didn't and explained that I only carry babies like baby sister in my tummy and that mommy dogs carry baby puppies in their tummmies. I asked him why he asked and he said he asked because he wanted a dog and was wondering if I was going to have one. (He has enjoyed having his baby sister so much and knew that that's where she came from, so I guess he assumed that if he wanted a baby puppy that I would have to have it too. :) (5-13-09)

~In an effort to help Dalyn say his prayers at night I told him that when he prays and thanks Heavenly Father for things he has or got to do that day then it makes Heavenly Father happy. So last night after he said his prayer he jumped up and with both arms in the arm he shouted with glee "Now Heavenly Father is so happy! Heavenly Father is so happy!" I'm sure he was :) 4/12/09

~Dal was in the bath tub and he got out and I asked him what he was doing. He said "I just have to see if I'm so cute." He then pushed the stool up to the mirror so he could see himself, took one look and said "Yep, I'm so cute." Then he got off the stool and got back into the bath tub and continued playing with his toys in the tub. I got a good laugh out of that one. (2-19-09)

~When Dalyn found out that I was taking Braelyn to the Dr for her first check-up Dalyn yelled in a panic-stricken voice "No don't take her back! I want to keep her!" It was pretty cute. I reassured him that we would not be taking her back and that we would get to keep her forever. He was quite relieved. He loves his baby sister.

~Once when Dalyn was holding Braelyn she started rooting around and found his hand and stuck her tongue out. Dal laughed and said "She's trying to lick me!" He then thought that they were playing a game where she was trying to lick him. He just kept laughing and laughing.

~When Dalyn first saw Braelyn he just stared at her and said "She is so small. Her hands are so small. She doesn't have any teeth" He was pretty observant.

~We went to the school playground on Saturday to play and Dal found a jump rope that had been left on the ground and he was trying to swing it and he wanted me to jump. I told him that I couldn't jump very good with baby sister in my tummy. So then he wanted me to climb the little rock wall with him to get to the slide and he said "It's okay mommy, baby sister will hold on tight." It was so funny and so well thought out, and yes I did climb the little wall with him. (11-1-08)

~Dal was busy playing cars with his daddy and they were each in character having the cars talk to each other and I had to tell Jake something so I was talking to him. Dalyn repeatedly kept telling me "Mommy, don't talk to daddy anymore!" (I was distracting Jake and Dalyn wanted his full attention while they were playing.) After telling me to stop and I didn't Dalyn then came and took my hands and said "Mommy you go to sit in time out" and he led me over to the chair and had me sit down. I thought it was really funny so I sat there for a minute to humor him.

~I stubbed my toe on the door and said "Ouch" and Dalyn looked at me really concerned and said "Mommy?" So then I told him that I hurt my toe. He said "Okay. I'll come kiss it better." Then he came over to me and got down and kissed my toe. (It was so cute!) After that he said "Are you okay mommy?" And of course I told him that I was now. Even though my toe still hurt there is something about getting a kiss better that just makes it all okay. Amid his craziness he is such a thoughtful kid.

~When someone is at our house and he doesn't want them to leave he'll go and block the door and say something like "It's too hot out there" "You can't go out there" "The door is locked and you don't have key" "You don't have your shoes"...or something of the sort. He's good at coming up with good reasons for people not to go. He just loves to be around people.

~Along those same lines, Dalyn used to get really creative to keep other kids from taking toys away from him that he was playing with. When a kid would come up to him and try to get his toy he would say "It's hot!" in an effort to get the other kid not to touch it and to back away. It was pretty funny.

~Dalyn and I were playing and then he stopped and got this cute look on his face, rubbed my head and said "Sweetheart, I love you." It was just too cute.

~The other day for some reason Dalyn was sure it was his birthday. He sang himself the birthday song, he found something at the dollar store and told me it was his birthday present, etc. Then when we went to check the mail we got a little blue box with a fake ribbon on it and Dalyn excitedly yelled "My birthday present!" When we got in the house he couldn't wait to open it...It was some free sample tampons from Walmart! He was so excited and yelled "A blue one!" "A green one!" and they became swords, laser shooters, rocket ships and anything else he could think of. He had so much fun with his "birthday presents". It was pretty hilarious.

~Dalyn is always looking out for others. Any time I give him a popsicle or something and he sees his daddy (or whoever else is around) he'll say "Where's daddy's popsicle?" He wants to make sure others get in on the good stuff.

~Speaking of popsicles, sometimes Dalyn gets a little creative in how he can get more than one...I gave him a blue popsicle (his favorite) and he said "Daddy wants a blue one too" so I gave him another blue one to give to daddy and then he walks in the room where his daddy is, looks at his two blue popsicles and then comes back in the kitchen and says "Daddy wants orange popsicle".

~We were sitting in church on Sunday and Dalyn unintentionally burped and then looked around him and said "What's that noise?" It was pretty funny!

Some Braelyn Cute Moments

~Braelyn likes to think that she speaks Spanish. She has learned some Spanish words and is excited to practice them. Sometimes she will come up to us or other people and say something and they have no idea what she is saying. Then she informs them that she is speaking Spanish :) (10/2012)

~Braelyn gives the sweetest hugs and kisses. I love it when she says "I love you mommy (or daddy)! You're my best friend!" (5/2012)

~We were at Wal-mart the other day and Braelyn saw a baby sittting in a shopping and she was so excited to go talk to the baby and turned to me and "Mom! I want one of these at my house!" (3/2012)

~Braelyn absolutely adores babies. Anytime we see a baby she wants to go see it and talk to it. She always says "Awww, a baby!" and "Baby's so cute!" in a cute little voice. She is so sweet with the babies too. She will be such a good mommy some day :) (9/2011)

~Braely Rae is starting to talk a lot and she says some funny things. Sometimes when she does something or asks someone to help her with something she'll look and say "Oh, perfect!" She also loves to play ball and is good at saying "play ball". The other day I was leaving for school and I gave her a hug and kiss and then she said "nuzzle!" and she rubbed her little nose on mine. She also likes me to do her hair and then when we are done doing her hair she'll run to Jake to show him and she says "Daddy, pretty hair!" (4/2011)

~During sacrament meeting Braelyn kept turning to me and holding her finger to her mouth saying "Shhh" and then she's say "Remember Jesus." It was really cute :) (4/2011)

~B-Rae can be so cute and thoughtful. The other day I sneezed and she looked at me, reached up with her little hand to touch my face and then said "Bless you mommy." (2/2011)

~Braelyn loves baby dolls. She has a baby beans doll (which used to be my doll when I was her age) and she carries it around and gives her lots of kisses and tries to give her drinks of water too. (9/2010)

~ Sometimes we think B is a WWF girl in the making. When anyone is laying on the floor (especially her daddy) she loves to go up to him and do a double jump move and then a body slam. She can even pin Dal to the floor with her amazing wrestling moves and we have to go rescue him :) (9/2010)

~Today at church B-rae kept putting her hand up to her ear like she was talking on the phone and she would say "Hello, Hello" and then "Bye-bye, bye-bye" (9/2010)

~Braely loves babies. Every time we see a baby she gets really excited and says "Hi baby! Hi baby! Hi baby!" It's so cute. (9/2010)

~B loves to go outside. If it were up to her she would be outside all day long, either on a walk in the stroller, walking around exploring or going down the slides at the playground by our house. It doesn't matter how cold it is (and Logan is always cold! Well half the year at least) she always wants to go outside. She frequently brings us her shoes and our shoes to take her outside! :) (4/2010)

~B-Rae gives the best hugs. She loves to give hugs. She loves hugging Dal. And she also loves other little kids and sometimes she will try to give a hug to some random little kid she sees in the grocery store. It's pretty cute. She also wanted to give her baby cousin Landon lots of hugs last time she saw him. :) (3/2010)

~Braely Bug tries to say some words really cute...words like orange, shoes, outside, banana, etc. and one that she says really well is "All done". It's funny because whenever we eat dinner she eats her food in her high chair for a little while and then she says "All done" and wants out. Then right when I get her done she runs over to Jake and wants to sit on his lap and have him give her bites of some of his food. She is always sure he's holding out on her and has something better on his plate :)

~B and I have a book that we read together and part of it says "I'll tuck in your blanket and give you a kiss" and its so cute because she knows it says that somewhere in the book so whenever we start reading that book she turns up toward me and sticks out her little lips to give me a kiss--it's the cutest thing!

~B loves her big brother. She loves to chase him around the house, knock down his block creations and then try to help rebuild them, hide under the blanket with him and have us find them and much more. Dal is so cute with her too. He finds fun ways to play with her and he just loves her so much!

~B-Rae loves to eat. Let's face it. She's like her mother and she loves food. One of her favs is cottage cheese. She likes to feed it to herself. It is fun to watch her grab little handfuls and stuff them in her mouth. Cute Cute!

~After a nap or in the morning B loves to grab hold of the side of her crib and rock it back and forth as hard as she can. That girl is amazingly strong and I think she just might break her crib one of these days. (12-3-09)

~Some of Braelyn's Favorite Things: Hold our fingers while she walks around, watch Dalyn jump and dance (it makes her laugh and laugh), crawl up the stairs, eat anything that she can pick up on her tray and feed herself, look at herself in the mirror, be outside, sit in the grass, go on stroller rides, do the sway dance to music...etc.

~B is quite the little crawler. She loves to explore and loves to try to manuever over whatever barricade we put to the stair case. She loves to go up those stairs.

~B Rae is quite the little raspberry spitter. She must love that noise and feeling because she spits and spits and then smiles and smiles. (6-2-09)

~Braely Rae has gotten down the rolling from her back to her tummy but can't figure out how to get back on her back...so when I put her down for a nap a couple minutes later I often hear her crying because she has rolled onto her tummy and feels "stuck" so then I come to the rescue. (5-30-09)

~Braely and a baby about her age were sitting next to each other and they were both squealing, socializing, flapping their arms and laughing. It was so cute and funny! We've already a social butterfly on our hands :) (5-14-09)

~We were at church and I was walking down the hall holding Braelyn. Jake came up behind us and started talking to Braelyn telling her about his day and she just started laughing and laughing as though he had told her something really funny. It was too cute. Baby laughter is one of the best things ever! 4/12/09

~Every morning when I hear Braelyn wake up and I go to get her out of her crib I say "Good morning Princess" and she gets the biggest smile on her face and starts kicking with excitement. She's probably thinking how much she missed me after sleeping the whole night through :)

The Harris Place

Sunday, January 9, 2011

A New Year

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Happy 5th Birthday Dal!!!

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Christmastime Fun

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Family Photo Shoot

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Happy 2nd Birthday Braelyn Rachel!

Madelily 10 months

Kids 2014

Kids 2014

Family 2014

Madelyn's Blessing Day

Family Pic 2012

Blogger Family & Friends

My Talented Sisters-in-Law!

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Dal

Braelyn

Our Two Cutie Pies!

The Fam

Us in 2006

Sweet Siblings

Dal

Braely Rae

Bed Head

Sweet Kisses from Big Brother

Dalyn Jacob

Braelyn Rachel

Braelyn in her Blessing Dress

Some Dalyn Cute Moments

Some Braelyn Cute Moments