Baby “sprinkle” for Harper

I really could go on & on about how lucky I am to have the best group of friends that a girl could ask for. We have so much fun together & I know that I could count on any of them for anything I may need. Brittany, Hillary, Jessie & Sheree planned a super special get together last night with my other really close friends to celebrate Harper’s upcoming arrival. Lots of fun little touches- beautiful invitations, cupcakes with pearls, monogrammed cookies, etc. And they all brought the cutest & sweetest little girl gifts. We had dinner at The Warehouse & just got to visit & laugh for a couple of hours. So much fun!

Valentines Day

Eric & I typically don’t really celebrate Valentines Day very much, but this year he went all out. First, he made dinner reservations & lined up a babysitter a couple of weeks in advance but I didn’t know until the last minute. He just told me what time to be ready & what type of attire I needed to wear. We headed to Monroe & ended up at Genusa’s. It was a fantastic meal & a super atmosphere! Here we are before we headed out to dinner.

Not only had he planned our date, but he took my car to get an oil change, car wash & filled it up with gas! And then cleaned the house & left me flowers. Wow! What a day! I’m very blessed with a man who loves & cares for us each & every day!

Baby sister

Baby sister does have a name… I’m not sure why I have failed to announce it on the blog. Probably because my attempt at blogging lately has been pretty pitiful.

We struggled for a while with names. We really wanted to use another H name, but there just were not a lot of H names that we felt fit our baby girl & our family. We decided on Harper & then the struggle for a middle name ensued. We narrowed it down to Harper Lee & Harper Frances pretty quickly. Lee is my middle name, my grandmothers middle name,  (On my Dad’s side.) and also the middle name of the lady I called Grandmother as a child. She was very special to my family & since I did not have living grandparents, she filled that role. Although I love the name Lee & liked how it sounded with Harper, it bothered me that Harper Lee is the name of the To Kill a Mockingbird author… And also, I just really wanted to use something from my Mom’s side of the family. We used Charles as Hudson’s middle name which is from Eric’s family. Frances is my mom’s first name, her mother’s first name & her great grandmother’s name as well. So our Harper Frances will be the fourth carrying on the Frances name. My mom does not go by Frances & dropped it when she married, but it is still her name & therefore special to me.

I had my growth ultrasound about 2 weeks ago & baby girl is doing great! They approximated her weight at 4 lbs 13 oz when I was just 31 weeks & 4 days… Big girl! I was just so glad to see that everything looked great & she was healthy. (And that she was still a girl since we have a pink room!) My blood pressure has been pretty good this pregnancy. Dr Lebleu just keeps saying that she is watching me for any sign of a problem due to my history, but this time it’s not spiked out of control. Today I went for my 34 week check up & to everyone’s surprise, my blood pressure was the BEST that it has been this ENTIRE pregnancy! I was so pumped & Dr LeBleu was pretty thrilled, too! Yippee! It’s kind of nice to be a “normal” ob patient & go back in 2 weeks for my 36 weeks check up… With Hudson, I started going once & twice weekly at this point… We don’t have an official scheduled c-section date with the hospital yet, but if things keep going well, it will likely be on Friday, March 23 when I am 39 weeks. That is only FIVE weeks from tomorrow! I can’t believe it!

Hudson

My sweet Hudson is changing so much every day. It is so wonderful to see him learning new things & seeing the way he is putting things together, but it is bittersweet because WHERE DID MY BABY GO! I promise ya’ll, he is 2 1/2 going on 4 or 5. It amazes us every day what he remembers & how he connects the dots on so many things that you would just think were above him.

Eric was out of town this weekend &  while we missed him tremendously, I’ve really enjoyed spending a lot of one on one time with Hudson. We have had so much fun playing. I know as a Mom (and a working Mom & a going to school Mom  especially) it is sometimes hard to find a balance between giving him my undivided attention versus cooking, cleaning, etc. But this weekend, I really tried hard to stop whatever unimportant thing I was doing & actually play with him. Whatever he asked me to play, I played. It was SO nice & SO much fun! We laughed together, played on the floor, tickled, etc.. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t deprive him of Mommy time all the time, but you know what I mean. There is usually a lot of “just a minute, hold on one second, in a few minutes I will, etc.” But not this weekend. It’s been so nice to just focus on good quality time with him. Made my heart happy! And I could tell he really enjoyed Mommy time, too. We did not have ANY of the normal two year old fits, no crying, whining, etc. Just a super duper fun, pleasant weekend.

Tonight we made cupcakes together. He was so excited to poor in the mix, the water & turn on the mixer! He watched the mixer work & told me when it was done! And of course he enjoyed licking the bowl & partaking in an iced cupcake  once they were done.

A few funny things that Hudson is saying/doing right now…

If I am in another room & holler to check on him, I’ll ask him, “Hudson, whatcha doin?” His response, “Ummm…. Just hangin out!” Hilarious! Although I’ve noticed that is usually his response when he is doing something he maybe shouldn’t be doing!! Like this morning that was his response while sitting underneath the kitchen table digging through his backpack looking for a sucker…. (He found two of them & had them both in his mouth when I came out of my bedroom from getting dressed.)

He is really into fire trucks, ambulances & police cars right now… He gets SO excited if he sees one & if they have the sirens & lights going… Oh my word, you don’t even know. Well, tonight as we were leaving Super 1, 2 fire trucks went by with their lights & sirens. After screaming in excitement for me to look, he asked me where they were going. I told him that they were probably going to help somebody that needed them. He asked where & I said that I wasn’t sure. He asked why & I said that someone must have called them &  needed help so they were hurrying to get there to help them. He thought about that for a few minutes while I was putting the groceries in the car. I get in & crank up the car & he says, “Mommy, I need help.” I turn around to see what he means & he just says it again. “I need help.” After realizing that he, in fact, did not need help at that moment, he thought that if he “needed help,” a fire truck might come to his rescue….

Last funny for now… He is Mr. Independent if you haven’t been around him lately. EVERY single time we park somewhere to get out, before I can even get out of the car & go around to get him out, he says, “Don’t hold my hand.” To which I reply, “Yes, we are in a parking lot & there are cars, so I must hold your hand.” Yet, even though we repeat this multiple times every day, he still insists on giving me the instruction of no hand holding!!!

Oh, and ya’ll…… Today is day 4 of big boy underwear! He is doing SO GREAT!!!! We’ve had 1 or 2 teetee accidents each day, but that is it! No #2 accidents thank heavens and he has had NO accidents during nap time or at night…. Every single teetee accident has been in the midst of some heavy playing when he just either doesn’t remember to stop & go or doesn’t want to stop & go… Fortunately, every single accident has been at home or at my parents. Last night we went to the Lady Techster game & I was a little scared… But he did great!!!! So proud!