Bentley's One!

Bentley is one year old. I can't believe it's already been a year and yet I find myself wishing that more time had passed. It has been a rough year and even days up until her birthday I wasn't sure she was going to make it to a year! I do feel like we have finally turned a corner with her. Just as I thought that, she cut her first tooth yesterday on her birthday! With her increase in drinking and eating more table foods and mobility, she has definitely been a happier baby. It's funny to see her drag herself all over the house. The kids have realized that nothing is safe on the floor anymore. Bentley really is a cute baby. She is usually pretty easy to get smile and laugh, which is definitely one of her redeeming qualities. She is such a mama's girl, which can be both very endearing and aggravating all at the same time. She sleeps a solid 12 hours at night and takes about 3-4 hours of naps a day. She is great at putting herself to sleep and just snuggles into her blanket. She is super petite and people mistake her for a much younger baby all the time. We do love this child, even with all her feist and fits and attitude. The best is when she is "crawling" around looking for me and I pop out unexpectedly and she gives me the biggest, happiest smile. That makes it all worth it.
At one Bentley likes:
-taking baths. She loves splashing and kicking in the water.
-Table food. Anything that we're eating. In fact, Bentley will usually eat some baby food, but only after she's fed herself something from her tray. She will immediately start screaming if you try to feed her first when sitting down to a meal.
-Mom. Like I said, she's a major mama's girl and knows how to milk it. Read: screams whenever I walk by, put her down, or leave her side.
-Army crawling. She loves being able to get to where she wants to go. We have much longer periods of contentment on the floor now.
-Hanging upside down. She giggles and giggles whenever we swing her upside down.
-her blanket. Makes nap times so easy.
-Her binky. She loves it. And I love it.
-"Talking." She is a major babbler. She will just chat and chat and chat.
-Sticking her tongue out.

At one she does not like:
-Baby food
-Milk (yet)
-Being left alone
-Her car seat
-Getting dressed

For her birthday we had some family over for cake and ice cream. Nothing fancy, but it was fun.
She loved her cake after daintily picking at it for quite some time. She took her pointer and thumb and just kept pinching at the frosting. Then she finally got into it. She probably did more playing than eating, but she was a happy camper there in her high chair for a very long time.The cousins in attendance:
Her favorite place to be:

Update

All my kids are doing great and I just need to record a few things.

Taytum started speech therapy a couple weeks ago and was already growing by leaps and bounds on her own, but is now stringing together so many more words. Just a couple days ago at breakfast she said, "Thanks Mom, for cooking breakfast." She was the first one to say it so she wasn't just mimicing someone. Which reminds me, she has the best manners. She is the first one to tell me thanks for her meal at almost every meal. She is just as funny as ever and makes every day happier just by being in it.

Bentley has started OT and PT, but before that happened, she started army crawling about a week and a half ago and now is getting around pretty well in her belly crawl. She is much happier and content to be on the ground. I love it! As does she. We still have about one day a week where I still think she may not make it to her first birthday (which is in one week, by the way). But all in all, things are going much better with her.

We went to see a physical therapist who specializes in oral therapy and she did some exercises with Bentley and she is now drinking through a straw! Her hyoid, which is a bone in your neck, basically, was really far back, which puts strain on her tongue and kind of feels like it's choking you when you swallow. Since liquids are harder to swallow than solids, Bentley wasn't loving liquids because it felt like it was going to choke her and go down the wrong tube. Our therapist gave us some exercises to do at home and it's bringing her hyoid out and Bentley loves her some water now. Poor girl gets so thirsty at meals and she'll just chug a whole cup of water. It's such a relief. I can't wait to see her weigh in in a couple of weeks!

Looking for a City...

A couple weekends ago we went up to McCall with three of our good friend couples. A friend of our friends owns a couple of cabins just past McCall. We parked at the trail head early Thursday morning and then had to snowmobile in 25 miles to get to the cabin. It was such a gorgeous, sunny, albeit cold weekend. When we got up around 7:30am it was a cool -20. We spent both days snowmobiling and rode about five miles to a hot spring. It felt so good on our cold, sore muscles.

The evenings were spent eating delicious food(Jefferson ate that whole steak... I felt like we were on The Great Outdoors)

and playing some fun games. Not to brag, but Jefferson and I won the newly wed game. We also stayed up way too late both nights watching movies and eating treats.
Saturday we ate breakfast, cleaned up a bit, packed and headed back down the mountain. It was so cold on the ride back that my goggles iced over on the inside. I had to stop a couple of times to scrape them off.We had such a great time! We flew Jefferson's mom in to tend the kids. She just adores her grandkids and she was the perfect baby sitter. Our kids were all alive and happy when we got home and immediately asked when we were going to go away again so that Gramitchy could stay with them. We couldn't have done it without her, so major kudos to Teri. Thanks! I wish we had some pictures from their weekend together. The kids made it to school okay both days. Friday afternoon they met Ashlee and her kids at Just Kidin' Around and then went back to Ashlee's for pizza, donuts, and a sleepover. I think it's safe to assume that they had fun.

Mommy Moments:

A few sweet moments from my kiddos the past few days:

*Andi came home from her unbirthday party at preschool on Monday and brought out a sucker for both Carter and Taytum that she had saved for them.

*Carter saved and brought home some of his chocolate milk from snack time at school to give to Andi.

*Taytum has been having trouble staying in her bed at night and we warned her that if she got out again we were going to move her to the pack and play. We heard her get out of bed just a few minutes later and we went upstairs to follow through with her consequence and Andi said, "Please don't move her, she was just following my example." Andi had gotten up to get a tissue to blow her nose and Taytum followed her to the bathroom. It was really sweet.

*I came back downstairs after breakfast the other morning to find Bentley's baby food and oatmeal spilled all over the floor and wall. I asked Carter what happened and he said he didn't know. I then called up the stairs for Andi and Taytum to come down to solve the problem and Carter just whispered, "I did it." He knew I wasn't happy and it was tender to see him process the situation and choose to be honest. I was really proud of him. It was just an accident and I wasn't mad at him. I hope he stays that way!

Mo Bo-Bo

Do I need a reason?

TTHR

"Take the High Road" has been the Stewart family motto for as long as I can remember. My parents would call out "TTHR!" to us as we left the house growing up. When we would ask what we should do in certain situations my parents would simply say, "TTHR." It can be applied to almost every situation or confrontation we may find ourselves in. We have yet to make up our own Harmon family motto, and am not sure we can think of a better one. I still keep this motto in mind and try to apply it in my life. I think I have used it more in this past month than at any other time in my life. It can be kind of hard to do some times. :)

Alex + Abbbey

We drove down to Utah last weekend for the whirlwind wedding of Jefferson's sister Abbey to Alex. She is the last sister to be married off (in 6 months all three of them got married). We stayed with Sam and Nikki and were able to hang out with them and Summer and Josh and their girls the first night we got in. We wish we got to see them all more, but duty called.
Abbey and Alex were married in the Jordan River temple. It was a surprisingly beautiful day for a January day in Utah and so pictures weren't so bad outside. Abbey and Alex looked beautiful and so happy. We absolutely adore Alex and they truly are a perfect couple. After the ceremony we grabbed a bite to eat, changed and freshened up and headed to the reception.
The reception was beautiful. Abbey's colors were creams and golds. She made all her nieces matching headbands that were absolutely adorable! I wish I had a picture of all of them together! My brother came and took some pictures for them and it was fun to spend a few more minutes with him. Here's a few shots from the reception. I didn't bring my camera, so I don't have any candid ones of my family or anything.

Happy Beginnings Abbey and Alex!!! We love you!

Abbey's side:
Tay and her cousin Kaleeya (Kaleeya is just a couple weeks older than Taytum):
Abbey + Alex and all their nieces and nephews (all from just me and Ashlee):
The plethora of bridesmaids:
Harmon side women:Wedding ring shot:

Update

We recently had Bentley and Taytum evaluated by some therapists for various reasons. Bentley for her size, lack of gross motor skills, and some screaming issues that accompany eating. Taytum for her speech, or lack thereof.

They both qualify for therapy and I am feeling very relieved about it. We should be starting up in the next week or two.

My friend is a speech therapist and gave me some exercises to do with Taytum and she has grown a ton in her vocabulary and annunciation over the past couple of weeks. It is fun to hear her more and more.

In other news, Taytum was counting these big beads on one of our baby toys tonight all by herself (I was pointing at each bead) and she counted all the way to 11 by herself! I was really proud of her. I have never heard her count before. She also wore underwear tonight for about 4 hours and went in the potty once and had one little accident. I can't quite decide if I want to commit to potty training yet. We have a couple of trips in January. Maybe February?

Blogger Problems

I have a whole slew of posts waiting for pictures to be posted but I cannot get blogger to upload my pictures normally! They are all streaky and discolored. I have been trying for a week now to get a picture to load normally. It is driving me crazy!!! Anyone else having problems? Grrrrr.