Visiting Uncle Emmanuel

When Madsen and I come up to visit my parents, we always go at least once to eat lunch at school with Emmanuel. Madsen LOVES his uncle and especially to visit his uncle at school. We have to pack them the same exact lunch, because if not neither boy is happy. Emmanuel loves showing off his nephew to all his classmates. It's really cute to see him so proud to be an uncle. Well, the only bad part is when we have to say goodbye after lunch is over. However, Emmanuel has the sweetest teacher this year, Mrs. Hankerson. She loves to have Madsen come visit and today when lunch was over she invited Madsen to join the class for recess. Lets just say Madsen along with the whole class were overjoyed and had a fun time. All of Emmanuel's classmates chased Madsen around and were his bodyguards when the other classes came outside. None of them wanted to see Madsen get hurt, especially the girls :) Madsen was definitely tired once recess was over yet he still didn't want to leave, he wanted to go to class with Emmanuel and all the kids, as he put it. Maybe when it's time to try potty training we can bribe him to go on the potty, so he can go to school. :)

We love Costco :)

I will say one of the things that I've missed since moving to Chattanooga is Costco. The great prices, the baby wipes, and the PIZZA! When I know I'm coming to visit my parents I always wait to get certain things and make a trip to Costco while I'm here. Madsen and I went yesterday and the whole time we were shopping and browsing the aisles he kept asking me if it was time to go get pizza yet. Finally we made it to the food court and he was so excited about his pizza. He has been able to eat a whole slice of Costco pizza since about 18 months. Every time people around us are surprised to see this little boy devour his pizza. He's a boy after my own heart, we both LOVE pizza :) The good news is that Costco recently announced that they're building a Costco in Fort Ogelthorpe which is only about 25 minutes away from our house!

Happy Birthday Papi!

Madsen and I made the trip up to Virginia this week for my dad's birthday. It has been so nice to be able to make it home for special events. I made a homemade cheesecake for my papi, which is his favorite. We love you Papi and we're so happy to be able to share your special day with you!

Happy Birthday Papi!

Another successful cheesecake. Yeah!

Here are some pictures of the seeds we started last week.

Everything is growing well, but we're still waiting for some progress from the peppers.

Yay for lots of lettuce and sugar snap peas!

Gardening Time!

After enjoying our garden so much last year, we're super excited to have our own yard and try our luck at an even bigger garden. I started some seeds last week, and they're doing fantastic! I'm so surprised that they're doing so well already. Our whole family enjoys gardening, and it's so fun to get started on our family project. I had doctor's appointment on Tuesday, which went super well, and we had a 4d ultrasound done. I wasn't anticipating it, and then to find out my doctor did it for free was such a nice surprise. I think Pierson looks so much like Madsen did as a newborn. Afterwards Madsen and I headed to walmart to pick up some stuff for Josh, and Madsen found this adorable wheelbarrow. I broke down and let him get it since it was an outside only toy, and he has loved pushing it around and talking about using it to help daddy in the garden :)

Madsen loving his wheelbarrow

Our cute little Pierson. (that's his hand up next to his face)

Spring is almost here!

So since we've gotten to Tennessee, everyone has been telling me that it has been an unseasonably cold winter. Honestly, after living in Utah/Wyoming are for the last 7 years, I don't find it that cold. But I will say I am ready for warm weather once again, and it has come, sort of. We had some wonderful warm days this last week, with highs in the 60's! On Monday, Madsen and I headed out for a day of errands. First we took our puppy, Moij (which means white in marshallese), who we've had for almost 2 months now to go get a hair cut. I'm still not used to his haircut, but hair grows back is what I always say. :) Madsen and I had a picnic lunch at Heritage Park, while waiting for Moij to get done, and it was so much fun! It was so beautiful and warm and we loved spending the afternoon outside. In fact, we went home and worked on outdoor activities and chores. And for FHE we met Josh at the park close to the office and spent the rest of the night walking along the riverwalk trail and playing at imagination park. Then we had a pizza picnic dinner at home. It was so nice to spend the day outside. It's now been rainy for the last couple days, but rain = flowers, which equals spring so we cant complain.

I'm back!

So after 2 1/2 months of no internet, my blogging has truly suffered. But my loving husband caved in before I did, and got me the internet at home. He said it wasn't fair that I was cut off from the outside world. So here I am, wondering why I didn't cave in sooner. :) So the month of February is already over. I can't believe it! Madsen and I were able to visit my family for a week and half, and Josh joined us for a weekend. We got there right after the crazy blizzards of 2010. I couldn't believe how much snow they had. I hadn't seen that much snow in Virginia since the blizzard of 1991. Madsen loved the snow and especially loved playing outside with his Tio Cesar and Emmanuel. My brothers had built an igloo and it was funny to see all three of the boys trying to fit in, plus the dog, Champ, thought he could fit too. Josh's little brother, Travis, sent us a Flat Stanley and this stanley was particularly lucky to visit not only Chattanooga, but also DC. It was fun to walk around in the snow. All the boys and I went, and they had the genius idea of walking on the pond at the mall, since it was frozen over. Well what they hadn't predicted was that at the other end, the ice all around the edges had melted. So lets just say my Dad, Cesar, and Emmanuel, all went wading in the ice cold, nasty duck pond water. I didn't see my dad fall in, but I did see Emmanuel and Cesar. I realized later, I should have taken a picture but I was just too busy laughing my head off at the moment. Josh and Madsen were lucky to find a safe place to get off the ice after everybody else had fallen in. Time is flying by so quickly I can't believe it. I had a doctor's appointment last week, and little Pierson is weighing in at 2 lbs 4 oz. I'm in my third trimester and I can't believe that we're here already. I'm so grateful for another low stress, normal pregnancy, let's just hope it stays this way. :)

Inside the igloo!

Walking out on the ice

An overdue tummy picture. This is me at 26 weeks. 2 weeks ago.

I did it!

So I will be the first to admit that I can cook, in fact I feel confident enough in my cooking skills that I'm not afraid to try new recipes, no matter how complicated. Baking, however, is a whole different story. Baking is definitely not my forte. I grew up cooking, not baking. My mother in law however is an amazing baker, and is always making yummy absolutely delicious desserts, and I'm afraid to try baking sometimes because I know Josh will compare it to all the good stuff his mom makes. Well, we had a Valentines dinner with the Cuthbertsons and I was asked to bring dessert and I knew that something extra good was expected. So I decided to try something new and not my safe cookie recipes. So for the first time ever, I baked a cheesecake from scratch. It turned out delicious! I was so proud of myself. I still can't believe I pulled it off. It was a perfect end to a delicious dinner(thanks Jessica) and a fun night with friends. So here are some pics of my work of art, and cute little Kellen enjoying dessert. I forgot to pull out the camera earlier during dinner :/

My masterpiece!

I made chocolate covered strawberries to go with the cheesecake.

Kellen LOVED the strawberries, he even tried eating the core.

He didn't want to waste any of the strawberry :)

Overdue baby update.

So this is an overdue update. I know that this isn't going to be new news to some of you, but we're having another little boy! We've finally picked a name, Pierson Gerald Harmon. We let Madsen make the final decision on the first name from a couple names and he picked Pierson, which was my favorite one anyway :) Gerald is the english version of Gerardo, so we'll be naming him after my Grandpa, who was a great man that I unfortunately didn't get the chance to really get to know. I feel like we can finally start getting ready for our little guy now that we know his name. I'm so excited for him to come and for Madsen to finally have a little playmate. Madsen is very excited about his baby brother. I finally found a new doctor here and he does routine ultrasound checkups, which I'm excited about, more opportunities to see my little guy. Madsen was so excited to hear his little brother's heartbeat and see him on the screen. Today he rediscovered my old baby doll, and he insisted that we get him dressed and put shoes on him. Luckily I had some baby clothes at easy access, and we got the baby all dressed up to go outside. Madsen has loved carrying that doll around. He's going to be my little helper that I'm going to be so proud of.

My little Harmon :)

The Harmon Family LOVES food. I think a big part of that being is because their family is so big, food is a big part of any get togethers. Madsen has definitely inherited this love for food. He has always been a big eater, I mean ALWAYS. When he was a baby I had so much milk that it would hurt sometimes and I learned how it might feel to be a cow. He hasn't ever really been picky, now that he's getting older he does try and decide what he feels like eating at the moment, but thankfully I've never really had to worry if he is not getting enough to eat. Part of this Harmon passion for food is that it is relaxing to them. Madsen feels the same way. If he is the least bit tired before a meal, you can be sure that he will probably start falling asleep while eating. Well, he barely made it through dinner tonight and the only reason he stayed up for dessert was because it was one of his favorites, chocolate donuts. It was so hard for him to stay awake while eating his precious donut, but he did it until he took that last bite and then he was a goner. So we finally got it on video, sorry if its kind of long but I promise it'll make you laugh. The combination of nodding off and getting super cute and affectionate make me laugh and love this boy so much. I'm so grateful for all the fun and loving moments I get to have with him.

Jumping

While my family was here we went to check out the Hamilton Place Mall, which only 20 minutes from our house and is currently the biggest mall in Tennessee. It was big! There was a cool bungee jumping stand, and Emmanuel and Madsen were really excited to try it out. Both boys were a little nervous at first, but they loved it! Madsen laughed so hard practically the entire time that he got the hiccups. After he got off he begged to have another turn. I would have let him since it was actually pretty inexpensive, but there was a long line and we didn't feel like waiting in it. But we do intend to go back someday and see if they're still there. :)