harrison is nine months old!

 harrison is nine months old and incredibly charming.

everyday he grows more and more handsome and sweet and also increasingly more mobile and determined. he can crawl now, he started last week. and he can also pull himself up to standing on anything. he is always on the move, always getting into things and always putting things in his mouth. very often he is smiley and giggly and he has started to babble a lot and yell and sing and say "mamma" and "dad dada". he is sleeping in alice's room now and last night he woke up alice with his crying and so alice started to yell "we are all alone! we are all alone!" until i came in and saved them. 

since it is spring and we are out in the sun most days he has acquired quite the tan lines between his chubby arm rolls. we have tried and tried to get pictures of it but it doesn't ever turn out. he is turning browner than any of us, he is the only one who was blessed with more olive skin. 

harrison loves his sister and also loves any toy she is playing with. he is really strong and can grab things out of her hands or anyone else's hands and he pinches so hard! 

he is growing up so fast i can hardly believe it!

harrison on the couch, playing "airplane" with alice. i don't know why a couch piled with toys makes it an airplane and this picture was taken before harrison could crawl so he wasn't in too much danger of diving off the couch.

harrison and uncle greg

harrison in a box

hipster harrison

harrison relaxing on the boat at lake powell

playing in the sand at lake powell. harrison loves to pick up rocks and look at them. he is so observant and loves to study things, toys keep him entertained for a long time but rocks and dirt are even better. he even stopped putting the lake rocks in his mouth after i told him "no no" a few times.

harrison looking concerned. this was at a little farm/petting zoo and we were in with the goats. harrison didn't like the goats, they would jump up on the fence to get food and he would jump and grab on tight to me. he actually isn't a big fan of any big animal up close. he loves gertie though.

harrison playing in the corn

tiny toes in the corn

reading with alice (tan harrison)

standing up

this face!

he is so big!

alice pushing harrison

what a cute nine month old!!

Lake Powell!

our friends aaron and kayti (and baby roe) invited us to come along with them to lake powell a few weekends ago. it turned out to be a dream weekend vacation. alice and harrison loved it! they were happy and tons of fun and slept really well because they were so worn out by the end of the day. alice asks to go back to lake powell every other day now, she loved fishing on the boat with aaron's dad (grandpa don) and looking at the carp swimming around the houseboat, she loved wearing a lifejacket, and she loved playing on all the beaches. harrison loved the boat and would pretty much fall asleep within the first five minutes of it and he loved playing with the rocks and sand and water. here are a few pictures.

playing on the sandstone

waking up in the houseboat (alice slept in until 830 the first night we got there! this has never ever happened before. we might have to move to lake powell)

good morning

alice, aaron, and roe driving the boat

making a silly face on the boat

harrison on the boat. he wasn't a huge fan of the lifejacket but it did save his life once, not because he fell in the water but because he got dropped when we landed on a slippery beach and his lifejacket prevented him from face planting on the rocks. its really a better story when aaron tells it...

sleeping on the boat

alice driving

alice and mom paddling around the docks. i love paddling little boats. alice does not, she said the water was too deep.

pirate harrison playing at the beach next to the docks

floating

alice and her 12 year old mom

playing with a ladybug on the roof of the houseboat

yay for lake powell

alice and her fish

alice and don

this was such a fun trip!

yay for lake powell!

and thank you to aaron and kayti for inviting us along!

cuties

we take so many pictures!

harrison and remy being twins

alice at gurus

this is the face she makes when you say "smile"

harrison attacking a baby

smile!

eating a bagel

alice trapped in a net

playing in feed corn at a farm

alice swinging on a horse tire swing

easter

we got back from our trip to pittsburgh the day before easter, we were tired and we hadn't dyed eggs. but we are very lucky because our wonderful neighbor ann had made us (minus jon) easter clothes (you wish she was your neighbor! #takinghertopittsburghwithus)! and alice had dyed eggs with grandma jane during the week so we didn't have to worry about it. 

all dressed up for easter

luckily we had already filled the easter baskets. alice was very excited for her basket and everything that was in it. harrison was very excited about the paper grass in his basket and it was constantly in his mouth for the next few days.

easter baskets

easter clothes (alice was being less than cooperative but look at the scallop hem on her dress!)

funny kids

cute harrison

alice unwrapping a surprise carrot that grandma jane made for her

we were also very lucky to be included in an awesome easter egg hunt (no candy! just toys and hair clips and stickers!) alice had a lot of fun. to make it even every kid had a list of the certain eggs they could find, it was pretty detailed (2 iridescent eggs, one easter themed egg, two glitter eggs, one camo egg...). so every time alice found an egg she would ask "is that on your list?" before picking it up and putting it in the basket.

"is that on your list?"

inspecting the loot afterwards

then we cracked eggs filled with glitter and confetti over each other's heads. this was the only part that i really contributed to and it was a lot of fun (although we learned not to use free range organic eggs for this because their shells are too hard and thick (i.e. healthy) next time we will use scary and cheap walmart eggs)

alice's glitter head

harrison watching all the fun

happy easter!