Happy Father's Day!

I love celebrating holidays and this one is a lot of fun! It was really great this year because Harrison was able to start helping with the process. We had a great day that involved presents, relaxing (for Jeff), a lot of food and music.
Harrison picked out this tie for Jeff.
And he decorated the wrapping paper for Jeff's other present.
I think he was surprised the we got him an IPod dock. We have been talking about it since before Christmas, so I bit the bullet and got it. We use it just about every day now.
We really love Bose!
We had waffles for breakfast and I made some sort of stuffed chicken that Jeff really wanted. But what I think we all enjoyed the most was this...
my first attempt at a German Chocolate cake. It was a lot of work but so good! We had a great Father's Day and loved spending the day together and going to church. Next year Harrison will get up and sing with the primary! Crazy! We really love Jeff and are grateful for all he does for our family. We are glad to have this day each year to remember and celebrate him! He is a great husband and great dad and I love having him!

We love our dad's too and were so happy to have them to talk to on Father's day and Harrison made them some cute cards. I have some wonderful men in my life!

Della Comes to Houston

My youngest sister made the trip from Chicago back to Houston with us. She stayed for 2 weeks, since my mom and other sister were headed to France for 2 weeks...Rough life!
Anyway, we had a good time while she was here. Of course it is hots so we spent time inside or at the pool. One morning Harrison really wanted to ride his bike and no one wanted to be outside, so we brought it in and he rode and got rides along our front entry. Della fit on it much better then Jeff or I!
We managed to get out to the beach for a day and it was a lot of fun. I thought it would be way to hot (it was still hot and Harrison wouldn't walk on the sand) but we had a great time in the water and the wet sand!




Harrison even had his first surfing experience.

When it came time for Della to leave (that alone took 3 tries with 2 cancelled flights), we were sad to see her go. Harrison tried to be as cute and nice as possible, but Della was ready to go home I think!


We spent a lot of time at the pool with Della too, but I am never good about bringing my camera and taking pictures at the pool. I guess that is what happens when you have a 2 year old who is learning to swim. But we had a great time with Della and love having family come visit us!

Chicago Trip

Although our Memorial Day weekend was the main highlight of our trip to Chicago, we managed to see and do a lot of other stuff too. I had 2 friends who had babies since Christmas when I was last home so I got to go see and hold some cute little babies.
The twins were almost 4 months old and the little guy just hit 2 weeks. Oh I miss these small little ones.
Mine looks HUGE next to them!
But then he likes to do the holding just like his mommy! Maybe the practice will come in handy someday.
Harrison was also in love with the special suitcase he got for the trip. He carried it around the airport and my parents house and any other place I would let him take it.
I was also able to have lunch with my awesome cousin who got married last December. And Harrison and I went over to another one of my friends house's for Chinese one night. Her 2 nieces were there. They are 4 and 6 and could not get enough of Harrison! I think he would have moved in if I let him. And I wanted to with all the help those 2 girls are!

Harrison also got to "ride" (aka move around the driveway) on Grandpa's motorcycle.
Safety first.
Practicing for the first time we let him ride or drive!
The neighbor across the street came to help with a dead tree stump and Harrison could not take his eyes of the "big tractor" so the lucky boy got a ride.
But still loves riding grandpa's tractor whenever he can.
We took Darci on a few walks.
And of course got picked on by family.
We were pretty exhausted every night!
But I think that is because someone...Harrison...loved to crawl in mommy's bed way to early. Is my kid the only one who gets all messed up when we travel and have to sleep in the same room! Oh well, we spent some early mornings laying here watching a show while I got the rest of my night's sleep.

We had a great trip and as usual can't wait to go back and visit family. Our next family trip is with Jeff's family to the beach...that one should be great!

Our Newest Addition

Welcome, Bubbles to the family! Harrison earned his very first pet (and our first family pet) after successfully potty training. We promised him the fish in January, when we first tried to potty train (unsuccessfully) and he never forgot.
So, last Monday we went to the pet store and picked out a nice blue Betta fish.
He loves his fishy, which now lives in his room. He loves feeding him and talks to him any time we are in his room. We always follow through on our promises so I'm glad in our haste to potty train, no other animals were mentioned!

Wisconsin Weekend

So I spent about 2 weeks up north visiting my family (more pictures and info on the rest of the trip later). The main reason for going right now is that my parent's were planning a trip to my Grandparent's cabin for Memorial Weekend and I really wanted to take Harrison up. I spent so much of my childhood summers up at the cabin and have so many good memories. It is an endless play place for kids (and sometimes a little stressful for parents!) but it was fun and I know Harrison had a great time. I just hope we get to go back again soon! We were there Friday evening and left Monday afternoon but in that time, we fit a lot in. My sister Destiny was also going up with her 4 boys (Harrison's only cousins on my side) so I knew we would be in for a fun weekend.

There was lots of sand...
Chance quickly decided that getting buried really deep was not all it was cracked up to be.
Harrison decided to play it safe and keep the arms out.
And how do you rinse off all the sand? You go to the water and quickly back out. The water was pretty cold still!
And fishing...or watching fish with Aunt Della.

And fishing later.
Grandma had much more luck catching fish with Harrison. They worked out quite the system and he caught 6 fish in a matter of minutes.

Talon and Harrison loved holding the fish and playing with the ones we caught in the bucket. Don't worry we let them all go!


And boating...
This was Harrison's face pretty much the whole time the boat was moving "super fast!"
The bigger kids liked tubing.
And my dad even found someone to drive the boat so he could get a little skiing in.
Picnics...
Campfires and of course, s'mores...
Grandpa showing them the right way.
But they just wanted to eat.




I think Gage won for messiest eater.
He gets it from his mom...
We even squeezed in a trip to my mom's favorite liquidation store up there, that after 30+ years is going out of business. Sad day but we found some good deals.
And these two had a blast together as long as no toys or sharing was involved. They loved running around together, climbing everything and just being rowdy boys.


And after a long weekend, as we were getting ready to go, Harrison was a mess and we already cleaned the bathroom, so enter bathing in the sink. He has certainly gotten a lot bigger since the last time I tried it! But he loved it and it was quick.
We had such a great weekend with family around. We were sad Jeff missed it, but we waited too long to try and get him a flight. I know he was sad to miss it too, but we brought back a lot of pictures and video to share with him. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Willerth too. We had a great time with everyone!