Valentine's Day Celebration & A visit from the Pooles!

Meredith, aka, Martha Stewart, put together a beautiful Valentine's Day party for all the kiddies.  They decorated valentines and we had a delicious brunch.  Amazingly, we were able to get a few pictures of the kids, although I have to owe their cooperation to all of the lollipops that we bribed them with!
Here is a picture of the boys relaxing in their recliners...

Maddy was loving the camera and posing, while saying "Cheese!!!"

Here are the ladies posing for a picture of their own (Maddy, Reese, & Mary)

Here are all the kids, lined up for a picture, holding their Valentine's Day cards!  (Reese, Mary, Robert, Maddy, Tucker & Harrison)

 

We had a special surprise that night when "my best friend Teresa" came in town to buy a car.  We met up at Oriental Express for a fun Hibatchi dinner.  Madeline & Harrison had fun holding hands and walking around the restaurant.

Harrison's 2nd Christmas

I am definitely a little late in updating my posts, but I wanted to get caught up with my pictures.  We had a nice holiday despite Oakley eating an entire bag of Lindt dark chocolate truffles on Christmas Eve!  Thank goodness for Dr. Ruth Ann and her advise! 
Our gift to Harrison this year was a train table and I would say it was a hit!  Harrison has learned a lot about trains from his big cousins, Jack & Trey, so he was very excited to have a train set of his own.  We had it set up in the family room and let him discover it on his own when he came down stairs in the morning.  I think he was in shock at first, but it slowly started to hit him and he played with his table all morning, continuously pointing to his trains saying "choo choo!, choo choo!".

 

  

 

Once we were able to pull Harrison away from his choo choos for 5 minutes, we had Harrison open his stocking.  He didn't quite understand what to do, but as you can see, he was pretty excited about his cars & trains!

Harrison also got to open his presents from Jack & Trey...how did they know he was wanting more Thomas the Trains & train track??

 

While Grandmommy & Granddaddy Koeppe weren't able to be here this Christmas, they sent Harrison his x-mas gifts, and boy was he excited!  He got a suped-up Radio Flyer wagon and he climbed all around it for about 30 minutes!

We spent Christmas night having dinner and opening presents at grandma & granddaddy Randolph's house.  The whole crowd was there and we had such a nice evening.  Harrison came down with a fever that night, but he was able to hang in there despite not feeling so good!

 

The Seeses also joined us this year in our Christmas celebration!

1st step to becoming a "big boy"!

Thanks to our video monitor, I saw Harrison trying to climb out of his crib yesterday, and getting pretty close to actually doing it!  Then at about 4 am this morning, I saw him do it again, so I decided that meant it was officially time to move to his toddler bed!  Today's nap was his first time to try it out.  At first all he wanted to do was jump off the bed onto the floor, but after my super-nanny-learned parenting skills, I was able to get him to settle down and fall asleep.  He was adamant about keeping one "limb" hanging over the edge of the bed, and he actually fell asleeep like this...

Cookie Decorating Party

Our friend Kiera had the great idea to have a cookie decorating party for the kiddies.  It was fun, although I think the adults had to do more decorating than the kids.  I am also still mortified that Harrison decided to end the party by throwing up all over Kiera's house!  Thankfully it was a short-lived bug, but overall, it was a fun morning!  Too bad I didn't get any pictures of the kids actually decorating the cookies!

 

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree...

We went to pick out our Christmas tree this week, of course supporting our favorite Home Depot and Harrison had so much fun.  Harrison brought his jingle bells with him and ran around singing the song (Jingle Bells) while we were looking at trees.  I'm not sure that he really understood what we were doing, but he had a lot of fun helping his daddy.

Here is Harrison smelling the trees...gotta make sure we get the best smelling Christmas tree!  Isn't that the whole point?? 

Here is the little man running and singing his song...

Thanks to Harrison's Handy Manny tool set, he was able to help Lance get the tree in the tree stand.  Such a big helper!  It just never gets old watching him spending time with his daddy!

Next up was decorating.  Lance is the king of Christmas lights - he is very meticulous with making sure you can see our tree from 10 miles away.  Once the lights were up, Harrison of course wanted to help Lance with the string of gold beads. 

This is the first year Harrison has been able to help decorate the tree and he was so cute.  He had 3 favorite ornaments that he would go between, pointing them out in his most excited voice. Here he is helping me put on his "Baby's First Christmas" ornament.

A Cincinnati Thanksgiving

This year was our turn to spend Thanksgiving in Cincinnati.  We had so much fun in my parent's packed-out house.  Both of my sisters were there and Harrison had so much fun playing with his cousins.  Here are the boys having fun watching cartoons.  Harrison got jealous of Trey & Jack's super-cool sleeping bags, so I pulled out my dad's so he could be just like his buddies.

Harrison chilling in the bay window watching the birdies outside...

Lance & Jenny helping Trey play his new game Kerplunk.  I used to LOVE that game!

Of course its never as much fun to play unless you dump all the toys you can find on the ground...

Are you ready for some football!!  We had an Alabama party to watch the UofA vs Auburn game.  We had a great time, but it was a lot more stressful than any of us realized!

Julie & Daddy hangin in the kitchen...

Julie, Me & Teresa...I can't even remember the last time we were all in Cincy together!

Harrison knows when he sees a shaker to yell "roll tide"...it is the cutest!

Jack & Harrison got bored of the game, so they hovered over the dvd player watching choo-choos

Next up was the dance party, starring Georgia!  "My name is Georgia, I like to dance, I like to dance, dance, dance, dance,dance, dance, dance, dance, dance!"

We saved the best for last...we took the boys to see the trains downtown on Saturday and they had a blast.  Here are a few pics.

Harrison and his Daddy

Harrison has been having a lot of fun with his daddy lately.  He went through a phase of boycotting Lance a few weeks ago, so I know Lance is loving every minute of this! 
Here is a picture of Lance giving Harrison his first Iphone tutorial...

Here is Harrison saying "Cheese" to the camera...he just learned that!

On Saturday we decided to stay low-key and watch the Alabama vs. Miss St game at home.  Grandma and Grandddaddy Randolph came over to help us cheer on the Tide, but we were all cracking up when Harrison decided to pull up 2 of his chairs and a box of diapers right in front of the tv to get some front row seating. 

Harrison saying "cheese" again...

Tonight we had movie night and I just couldn't resist the cuteness of Harrison cuddled up to his daddy.