Happy 4th birthday to our sweet Harper girl!!
Harper is such a joy to be around and we are so thankful for her. Sometimes I get blown away when I catch her acting so grown up and realize she is far from our little baby anymore. She is funny and goofy, always wanting to help or take care of someone, and so kind. She takes things to heart when we talk about ways to be nice to people and always puts them into action. She's a sensitive little soul and definitely a people pleaser so hates when she ends up in any sort of trouble. Generally a warning is all it takes to straighten her up :)
Her best friends are Emma Kate and Clairebear and she loves to hold her 'sweet baby girl' (Caroline). Harper acts as my protector of Caroline at times. If I ever need to leave the room with all 3 girls in it I remind the big girls not to touch Caroline and ask Harper to yell for me if EK is getting a little handsy with her ;) EK and H have a typical sibling relationship where they play great together and then 2 seconds later they are yelling and fighting with each other. Harper loves to boss Emma Kate around and try to talk her into an activity of Harper's choosing and often EK will disagree for no reason other than to disagree with her. While EK ends up doing the yelling, Harper often is very sneakily pushing EK's buttons. There is certainly no shortage of drama around our house ;)
Harper still loves horses, enough so that she asked for another horse party which was so much fun this year! We had a bunch of family and friends out and I think Harper was in heaven getting to ride Snowball again. She is also very into superheroes so ended up with quite a few new capes for her bday. Daily her and EK are running around 'saving the day'. Each morning they start into new crafts which results in endless pieces of art for me to 'take to my work friends' :)
Her vocabulary cracks me up - yesterday she was telling me how it would be a 'catastrophe' if I didn't cut her snowflake in a circle first. Frequently her and EK pretend that they are 'predators and prey' and honestly I have no idea where she learned that from. And watch out, if you don't win the concert (contest) then you will be eliminator (eliminated) :)
Harper loves gymnastics and really does a great job with it. She's also super excited for soccer this fall with her friend Piper and having Andy coach her. She has decided she's done with dance - she never really fought about going but wasn't ever super excited so said that she would rather just do gymnastics and soccer for now. She also loves, loves going to the pool and we do our best to get out there as much as we can. She and EK have helped Andy plant the garden and are finally reaping the benefits! They go out there almost nightly to see whatever they can pick. The girls' favorites are the tomatoes of course and they eat them off the plant basically as soon as they are ripe.
She is a funny little eater - for her bday she requested soup with chicken, carrots and broccoli..... I was like how about some pizza or mac and cheese ;) Eventually she settled on steak, broccoli and mac and cheese but only after a little encouragement :) She does love macaroni, hamburgers, all fruit but strawberries are probably her favorite right now. She eats most vegetables pretty well, especially if we remind her that she grew it in the garden! Her favorites are probably carrots and tomatoes - the tomatoes she eats just like an apple.
She loves special time with Dad - she was asking me when will I work overnight again so she can have a sleepover with Dad ha! But typically if Andy is going out on an errand and invites the big girls, Harper chooses to stay home with Mama and baby Caroline. EK though is Andy's big helper and has made many trips to lowe's and the farm.
They really enjoy going out to the farm - as long as the grass isn't too long and pokes into their legs! ha. And don't get them started on bugs... they are not fans. They go nuts stomping bugs to the point that Andy says people are going to judge us for creating these little bug murderers :( We got a big playset for out at the farm, primarily just trying to give the girls some fun activities we can do there besides roasting marshmallows ;) We also have done a movie night which they loved! On our way home from the movie night, Harper saw a shooting star (aka, exhaust from a plane but whatev) and made her wish for 'the best farm ever' then immediately said, 'awesome it came true!' On a sidenote the farm is seriously a major undertaking and could be an unending money pit but we hope that it's worth all the fun memories we'll have.
We recently went to the beach and had probably my most favorite vacation ever. The place we went was beautiful, weather was gorgeous, kids slept well - all in all could not have asked for a better trip. Harper asks all the time to go back to the beach :) And to Disney world, ha. She lives a charmed little life. I tried to explain to her how I didn't go to the beach til I was 16, Disney til I was 18... walked uphill in the snow both ways to school... blah blah blah. lol. She didn't seem to care too much ;)
When Harper grows up and reads all the blogs I've written about her (b/c I'm sure she will ;) haha ;)) I hope she knows just how much we love her exactly the way she is. She is hard on herself at times and Andy and I can be too hard on her sometimes too. Parenting is tough stuff and I know that these are probably the easiest years in the grand scheme but we're always trying to find that perfect balance of gentleness and tough love. It is my greatest joy to be her mom (and EK's and Caroline's) and everyday I pray that we are doing a 'good enough' job of raising strong, smart, confident, kind little girls :)
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