Mother's Night Out

I am very blessed to have met a great group of mom's. I was taking Harper to The Little Gym, when I met a mom, who asked me to join her play group. I joined and I have gone to play groups to the pool, mall, and I have done mother's night outs to restaurants, etc. It has been great meeting other moms and their kids too. Last night was fun, one of the mom's, Karen, the birthday girl, organized a make over at Chanel in Saks at the Galleria for 15 of us! After our make overs we then went and ate dinner at Phillippes. Dinner and drinks were great! I had a great time while Brian and Harper had a fun daddy/daughter day out.

Cake, cake, and more cake!!!

Yesterday was Brian's 29th birthday! It's so fun to have a family of Leo's and celebrate everyone's birthday in one month.... NOT! All we have done is eaten cake and gone out to dinner. For Brian's birthday since it was a week day I made him goat cheese stuffed chicken breast with a sun dried tomato sauce and pesto and pine nut spaghetti squash. And creme brûlée cheesecake for dessert. Yummy!!! And this Friday we're going out to eat to Americas with his parents. Food, food, and more food!!!

For our birthday gifts to each other this year we bought toys and we're going to bring them to Texas Children's hospital. We are so blessed to have a beautiful healthy daughter and that's the biggest gift of all and the least we can do is give back.

You Are My Sunshine, My Only Sunshine....

Ahhhh!!!! I can't believe Harper is actually one!!!!!! It is so crazy! Her birthday party was fabulous and it actually fell on her real birthday, July 28th. We had about 60 guests, friends, family, co-workers- it was quite a success. It was obviously a "You are my sunshine" theme, and we had it from 10:30-12:30, so we served brunch food. Unfortunately, her daddy was sick, and we just found out Monday he has mono. But luckily, last week Harper and I kept our distance from him, so we didn't get sick. But other than Daddy being sick, the party couldn't have been any better. The guests were amazing, the food was delicious, and Harper got the CUTEST gifts! (Thanks You!!) Thanks to everyone who made Harper's birthday so special! Also, a special thanks to little Jackson who sang to Harper, "You are my sunshine!" It was so cute and sweet! Here is a link to my shutter fly to see the pictures, Just copy and paste: http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/welcome.sfly?fid=46c96a1b08b339dac7e45aad1e0cdff4&s

Random Misc. Pics

Since it's been FOREVER since I've posted, I thought I would just put a few latest pics of Harper.

What a year!!

We've had an amazing year with lots of ups and downs! I haven't posted in a while because I've been overwhelmed working and being a mommy. But now that I'm home for the summer hopefully I can catch everyone up!

I can't believe that Harper is almost one! We've had trouble all year with chronic back to back ear infections. It all started when Harper was around 5 months old we were having trouble with her trying to sit up. So we started going to physical therapy. Physical therapy was going great, every time we went, her therapist was so impressed with how she was improving. She eventually learned how to sit. After a while when Harper was around 8-9 months old, we noticed she was behind on crawling, we continued with the physical therapy and we changed pediatrician's. When we met our new pediatrician she was also concerned with Harper, so she had suggested that she get a chromosomal test done to make sure she had all of her chromosomes and she wasn't missing one or she didn't have an extra one. That was very hard news for us to hear, and it was the longest three weeks of my life to find out the results. Thank God, everything came back negative and normal. We are so blessed. We continued with the physical therapy and by then it was summer time so Harper joined "mommy's boot camp," just kidding, but I seriously had that girl working the moment she would wake up until she went to bed to try and strengthen her muscles to crawl. I also had her in everything possible, gymnastics, swimming lessons, and I constantly tried to keep her active and moving. Well while all of this was going on, like I said, she has had chronic back to back double ear infections. Finally, last Monday at the pediatrician I asked if I could please see an ENT doctor. So they referred me to an ENT and I got spot for this past Friday. When I went in to the appt they did a hearing test on Harper and they said he had had mild hearing loss (which can be recovered with tubes.) I was so upset, but then met with the doctor who said that Harper needed to get tubes in and he needed to get her adenoids removed. I was happy to hear that there might finally be an answer to all of my prayers and that my daughter will start to feel better. I asked the ENT doctor when my pediatrician should have referred me to him and they said after 3 ear infections and my daughter has had more than 9, I lost count! I'm so upset that both pediatrician's did not refer me and because of this she has had mild hearing loss. They said everything Harper hears is as if she was under water. Poor baby! And to top it off the fact my latest Pedi went the route of a chromosome test and not to see an ENT doctor??? Anyways... We had Harper's surgery yesterday and it went very smoothly, the hardest part was watching her come out of her anesthesia. She was kicking, screaming, and flailing her arms. But once she arrived home she recognized her surroundings and she recovered well. And wouldn't you know it, today, the DAY after her surgery my sweet Harper started crawling. Not just once, but all day, all over the house. I'm so happy and I've thanked God repeatedly!

It's been a wonderful year, and we are so blessed to have a beautiful, healthy, sweet daughter. I'm looking forward to what's ahead and I can't wait for many more memories with Harper.

Charleston, South Carolina

Our little summer vacay this year we decided to go and visit one of my bestest friends, Nicole. (Yes, from The Bachelor) :) haha Harper was a great traveler, with this being her third time on a plane, I think she really enjoys it. We had a great time, Thursday night we went out to dinner with Nicole and Morgan and we asked them to be Harper's Godparents. We gave Nicole a pandora bracelet with the faith, hop, love charm. It was really cute! We also have her an Morgan a framed picture of Harper, even though she already had Harper in frames around in her house. And we gave Morgan the Godfather DVD, haha, we thought that was funny. They were very sweet and said they would LOVE to be Harper's Godparents, even though Nicole was a little confused of a Godparents "responsibilities," but we explained them to her an she was very excited. On Friday we went for a run over the bridge together, then we hung out until our other guests arrived. Danielle and Joe arrived mid afternoon and then Kristen and Matt shortly after. We had hired a sitter for the night to watch Harper and Walker while we went to dinner then for some after dinner drinks. We had a blast, and we cheered on the gamecocks baseball team and watched them win! Woo! Go Cocks! Saturday was a blast, we went to the beach, Harper loved it! It became so hot so the girls went back to Nicole's house and put the kids down for a nap while we layed out in her back yard. When the boys returned we just relaxed and had a BBQ in the back yard an played a ridiculously interesting game, 50 questions for insane conversations. It was fun! The. On Sunday our trip came to an end and we had to go back home. It was a very relaxing vacation. Miss my girls and I can't wait for our next get together!

Harper @ 9 months

Wow, oh, Wow, does time fly by! I can not believe that Harper is already 9 months old. Of course, I've been planning her 1st bday party since she was 6 months old. I already have it all planned out. It will be a "You are My Sunshine" theme with hot pink, orange, and yellow colors. This month has been a great month for us as a family. We had Harper dedicated this mother's day weekend. She recieved her first little bible and a DVD of the dedication. Harper also met my mom for the first time on Saturday. It was a great experience and my mom was in real good spirits. :) My brother had his senior prom this weekend, I can't believe he is 18 and went to prom! Brian, Harper, and I went to Sugar Land to take pictures. It was such a good looking group. There were 40 of them and they went on a party bus, that was the size of an RV and had a dance floor on it. :) Oh those were the days, I can still rememeber my prom, we had a theme at our beach house "under the sea." We were so lame. haha We've really just been hanging out with the family lately and praising God for our health and our gratefulness for our family. We have so much to be thankful for and sometimes we take advantage of the little things.