This is why I get up every morning....

Valentine's Day and such....

It's time to really get caught up on blogging. Valentine's Day ended up being.... okay. I delivered those candy bouquets for a YW fundraiser for 2 1/2 hours, put in some hours for the open house, went grocery shopping, and watched our friend's baby so they could go to the Sweetheart's Ball (we got the good end of the deal on that one. :) Just kidding Sarah!) Anyways, when the kids got up we gave them some goodies and had pink, heart shaped, waffles for breakfast. Yummy! 

We had playgroup as always, a WIC appointment, and on Thursday afternoon my dad was in town for a meeting he had the next day. It was fun to play with him. We just hung out for a bit, hit up Target, and then went out to dinner to Olive Garden. It is always a special treat to have Grandpa in town! Andi learned how to say Grandpa and we heard it all the next day as she was looking for Grandpa. 

On Saturday we went to the library literacy day. It was awesome! It said it was geared for 0-5 year olds, but was really more for 4-7 or so, but my kids still loved it. They had a puppet show, live kids music, face painting, and tons of tables of crafts. At the end they gave every kid a new book. We met up with Carolyn and her kids and enjoyed ourselves all morning.

On Saturday night we had our friends Cavan and Sarah over to watch the UFC fight night. Once the fights were over we played the Wii and talked some trash while bowling. And of course there is always a little food involved when you're at the Harmon's!

The kids loved making the crowns so much at the library that we decided to make them at playgroup today. 

We be buggin'

I was tagged by my SIL to list 10 things that bug me:

1. Being late. I hate it when others are late because I think it is disrespectful of my time, but I hate being late myself even more. I totally go into anxiety mode if it looks like we're going to be late.... to anything.

2. Open cabinets. Drives me crazy. Just close them already!

3. When people assume that because I am tall I play, love, and am good at basketball, I don't, I don't, and I'm not. I am good at a lot of other things though!

4. That Carter won't go #2 in the potty.

5. Indian meal moths.

6. Lights being left on.

7. Portland drivers in "snow" or the clinking of studs on bone dry pavement... dumb dumbs.

8. Neighbors who drink outside their apartments at 10 am (that's in the morning folks, I kid you not!)

9. Smoking. It is disgusting, stinky, and kills everyone around it, or at least decreases their quality of life. 

10. The smell of ketchup when I'm not eating it (or other stinky things my husband eats). 

TAG: Favorite Kitchen Appliance

So, this really isn't an "appliance" per say, but I could not live without my pampered chef pizza cutter. I got it about two weeks ago and cut EVERYTHING with it. Quesadillas, sandwiches, cinnamon roll dough... the one thing I have left to cut with it is pizza! 

Mommy Moment: I'm the Queen

Carter, Andi and I were sitting in the living room today and Carter turns to Andi and says, "Andi, you're a princess and I'm a prince." And then I told Carter, "And I'm the Queen." To which Carter replied, "Yeah, you're Lightning McQueen!".... I'll take it.

Busy bees

So much for staying low this week. We have all had some colds going around so I thought this would be a good week to lay low and maybe rest and relax a little. Oh no, that did not happen. It's been a very busy, but good week. Keeping busy was actually probably easier than trying to stay home all day ever day and entertain two toddlers- they suck the life out of you! 

It all started with the YW president taking off out of town very last minute, so lucky me, our last minute Valentine's day candy bouquet camp fundraiser landed in my lap. That meant getting people to sign up, breaking down how many supplies we needed, and picking up those supplies (with the help of Diana too). Then we got to assemble them on Wednesday night, which meant I got to be the task master and I get to deliver 35 of them on Saturday morning (well, at least half of them anyways. Thankfully our secretary volunteered to do a portion of them too... thanks Sarah!!!), not to mention tote them around in my car until then. That was task numero uno that I got to do. Second is New Beginnings. Yes, our YW are "supposed" to be in charge, but that just means more work for me... checking in on them, making sure they are on task, checking in on them again, and then finally doing everything because nobody followed through with their assignments. So I get to print off our script for our "skit", make a program, find the mission impossible theme song and download that and burn onto a cd, and make a dessert. That's all before next Wednesday.

In the meantime, my property manager failed to mention to me that she was planning an open house for our property this weekend, Friday & Saturday, until it came up just in passing on Tuesday. How do you forget to tell the person who has to be in charge about an open house?! Honestly. So, I have been frantically getting three units ready (which they still aren't and the open house has already started), buying refreshments, ordering balloons, printing off flyers, posting open house ads online, and then finally setting everything up. Not to mention that the open house is not during my normal business hours. My property manager is awesome!

In between all this we had our playgroup V-day party on Monday, held our own "open gym" with Rachel and her triplets on Wednesday, had Ben and Sharon over for dinner last night (sorry about the bumps on your boys!), and filed our taxes today. That was a definite bright spot in our week!! Yay for being poor, but still making a little money, having a student, and two kids!! BONUS!

There have been a few stressful moments, but all in all the week flew by and I'll be super grateful when all those candy bouquets are delivered tomorrow and the open house is over. *sigh*

At our own little open gym. Carter and Andi took turns pushing each other on the bike. It made mom's job a lot easier!

Carter got a little confused at nap time and ended up in Andi's purple heart pajamas:

The kids at dinner last night. They look like an AT&T commercial, "more bars in more places":

Pregnancy post

There are a few things that I want to remember about this first trimester that I haven't blogged about since we hadn't announced our pregnancy until last week.

-I loved orange juice for a week or two. That was pretty much the only thing that sounded good and it sounded good ALL the time.

-We first heard baby #3's heartbeat at our first ultrasound on January 9th.

-Though I was a little nauseous for the first 8-10 weeks, I never threw up- lucky, huh?!

-I am just now starting to pooch a teeny tiny bit. Probably not super noticeable unless you know me really really well.... like Jefferson; he noticed last night.

-I mostly have felt so great that I have to remind myself every once in a while that I really am pregnant.

-I only have 6 more months of pregnancy!! Probably sounds like a lot to outsiders, but I think of everything that needs to get done and be decided upon before now and baby #3's birth, and that's awfully soon!!

Playgroup Valentine's Party

Today was our playgroup Valentine's party. We love our friends at playgroup; they have been such a great way to start our week! Today we played, ate lunch, exchanged Valentine's and then frosted and decorated heart sugar cookies. We had a great time!

Mommy Moment: My kids are awesome:

Carter's newest thing is dressing Daddy Bear in his pajamas every night and sleeping on the floor:

Rough night?

The single pony tail... so cute!

Party time!

Saturday night was a fun night out celebrating our friend Ryan's birthday. There were a total of 14 adults and 4 kids at our table. It was great fun and great food. 

Carter kept busy with the stickers:

Chili and Ty were even good sports and played along:

Ryan playing his "maracas" while the servers sang the birthday song:

Whenever the guys get together there is always a lot of adjusting going on:

Me and Moo (courtesy of Hayley):

Baby on the brain...

And in my belly!! That's right, Harmon baby #3 is on his/her way! We are 12 1/2 weeks along, due in the middle of August. We had our second ultrasound today and everything looks great. Our little baby is just busy swimming away in there. It was amazing to see how much the baby was moving inside of me when I can't feel a thing. 

I asked the ultrasound tech if they ever look and try to guess the sex of the baby this early along. She said that all babies at this stage in development have the same "piece" down there, but some claim whether it looks like it's lying down or sticking up will  determine if it's male or female. The ultrasound tech and I decided to take look and cast our votes... but I'm not telling what we saw!! You can cast your own vote to the right. :)

We found out at the beginning of December that we were pregnant (check out post below) and I have been feeling great! A bit nauseous for the first number of weeks and tired, but other than that, fabulous. Carter will randomly walk up to me and say, "There's a baby in your belly." I'm not sure how much he actually understands, but it's still sweet. Andi is clueless, but gets excited whenever she hears the word "baby" so I am sure she will be in love with her new little sibling. We are so excited to have another little one join our family.

Here is a cute little profile picture of baby:

Baby showing off a little leg:

You can't really see a lot in this picture, but where the arrow is pointing you can count out five fingers. (the bright white lines)

Announcement, announcement, announcement

Dear Harmon Baby #3,

It feels like we have waited a long time for you. Knowing the struggles others have had to get pregnant, I realize we are very blessed that it has only taken us 7 months. I didn't think I was pregnant this time around either. I took a pregnancy test on Monday, the first day of my missed period, and it came back negative. I was disappointed, thinking that maybe my body was just playing a cruel joke on me and would get my hopes up and then just start my period late. 

I waited all Tuesday to start my period, but nothing. This morning I woke up and first thing, took a pregnancy test. It was negative. I hopped in the shower planning my next move. Do I go buy a really nice pregnancy test to see if that helps? Maybe I should purchase ovulation kits for next month to make sure I'm ovulating and to see when I'm ovulating. Maybe I am pregnant and my hormone levels just aren't high enough, I can try in a few days. 

Feeling a little frustrated I hopped out of the shower and picked up the pregnancy test to throw away, and there, showing ever so lightly was a little pink line in the "test" line: I AM PREGNANT!!! I literally let out a little scream and then started laughing and crying. I keep going back to look at the test to make sure I wasn't just seeing things.

I thought that maybe with each pregnancy I would be a little more subdued since I have done it all before, twice. But that is not the case. I feel just as excited about you as I have about Carter and Andi. I immediately went and calculated my due date and you are due around August 18th, 2009. I then proceeded to look up everything about where you are developmentally... not very far at only 4 weeks, but still a beautiful little entity of dividing cells. :)

Your dad doesn't know yet. I am going to wait until he comes home from school so he doesn't accidentally blurt it out to his friends. I'll have him give us a blessing so that hopefully all will go well with this pregnancy. Your brother and sister are going to be so excited. Andi has really been wanting a little baby around. You are going to be so loved.

I love you so much already and cannot wait to meet you in just eight short months! Grow strong little one.

Love, Mom

Post date: 12/10/08    time: 8:11am

Our FUN weekend

We had such a fun weekend! Saturday night we got to go to the Blazers vs. Jazz game. It was our first time leaving our kids with a babysitter who had to put them to bed. Luckily we have an awesome girl who did a great job with them. Jefferson and I had a blast at the game and the Blazers won- by a lot! It's so nice for the two of us to get out on dates. 

Then today was a Super Bowl "Party" at our house. So, it was just us and one of our favorite friend couples, Ryan and Hayley and their son Logan. We had plenty of great food and had a ton of fun. Our kids were pretty content playing in the background and watching a movie in our room. Andi and Logan shared plenty of hugs, kisses, and snacks. We were disappointed the Cardinals didn't win (we love the underdogs), but was glad it turned out to be a good game. 

Carter story

I don't think I have posted this story before and I just remembered it today and had to share it.

During the Christmas season my parents got Andi this really adorable stuffed snowman angel ornament. It had a little halo and cute feathery wings coming off the back of it. I showed it to Carter and asked him, "Do you know what this is Carter?"

Carter: "Ummm... a bat?"

Close enough. :)