Happy Valentine's Day

We had a wonderful, busy Valentine's Day. I had to work, so that made our day a little busy. When I finished work, I went to pick up Sophie and she was still taking a nap, so I came home and made Honeymoon Mousse. By the time I finished making the mousse Sophie had woken up from her nap, so I went back to Shannon's to pick up Sophie. We came home and I made sausage manicotti for dinner. I really wanted to go to Target to get something else for Jon, but there just wasn't enough time. I decided that it was more important to get dinner ready. We've only gone out to dinner on Valentine's Day once since we've been married and the one time we went out, we had to wait in line for two hours, because the restaurant didn't take reservations. I prefer having a quiet dinner at home anyway. Once Sophie went to bed, Jon and I relaxed on the couch and watched Maid in Manhattan. We hope all of you had a wonderful Valentine's Day too.

I made this sign and intended on emailing it to the grandparents, but having to work and being so busy when I came home from work, I never got the chance to email it. Grandma and Grandpa, we hope you had a wonderful Valentine's. Here is your Valentine from Sophie.
Grandma Reed gave Sophie this cute Valentine shirt. I wanted to get some pictures of her in her Valentine shirt, but she didn't want to cooperate. The first two pictures I took she had her eyes closed, but I thought this picture was so cute.

As I said, she didn't want to cooperate and smile for me, so here's another funny picture of my cute Valentine.

My two favorite Valentines. We bought Sophie a balloon and some balls for her Valentine gift. She needed something fun to play with.

Our fancy dinner setting. We had sparkling cider, the other cup has the mousse in it and Rita made heart shaped eclairs for us. I gave Rita and her family some of the mousse since it made more than we needed to eat. The eclairs were amazing!

Jon surprised me with these beautiful tulips and the BBC movie Little Dorrit. When I came home from work, I found the flowers and movie sitting on the kitchen counter. Jon told me that Sophie decided that she wanted to get me something, so they bought me flowers. I love tulips, so they were the perfect gift. Jon also gave me the BBC movie Bleak House both movies are originally books by Charles Dickens. I highly recommend the movies if you like old English movies. I gave Jon a game that he ordered for himself, Forbidden Island, and I bought him another card expansion to Killer Bunnies, the Chocolate Bunny set and his favorite heart shaped Reese's Peanut Butter cups.

Update

Life has been a little busy around here. Starting the end of January (Jan 31st -Feb. 14th) I got to work for two weeks at the pain center. My co-worker, Mary went on vacation for two weeks to Arizona. I told her months ago, that I would be willing to cover, but as the time drew near, I was dreading having to work. My biggest concern was how Sophie would do for Rita, my friend who offered to watch Sophie during the two weeks. Rita has a baby, Elsie, who is exactly two weeks younger than Sophie, so I knew Rita would have her hands full. She is amazing and was able to get both babies on the same nap schedule, so at least she had a little break throughout the day. Elsie and Sophie had a great time together, entertaining one another, which made life a little easier for Rita. Sophie is very needy in that she loves to have you right there playing with her, whereas Elsie is content to play on her own. They are such cute girls and they truly had a lot of fun together. Thanks Rita for all of your help. You truly were a lifesaver.

We survived me working everyday for two weeks. We've come to realize how truly blessed we are that I am able to stay home with Sophie. I love being a stay at home mom. It is the best job in the world. I truly feel for those moms who have to work outside the home. I can't imagine having to leave Sophie everday, knowing I had no other choice. This week has been much nicer, now that I'm done working and able to be home again. Jon has been sick the past few weeks, in fact he's been sick since December. We think he might have mono, but we need to wait for test results. While I was working he got a cold which turned into a sinus infection, so I took him to the clinic and the PA put him on amoxicillin. On the tenth day he broke out in a terrible rash. He still has the rash, but it is slowly going away. Once the rash is gone, he will be able to go in and have his blood drawn. They probably won't be able to do much for him, if it is a virus, but at least we will know. It comes and goes, but he gets fevers for several days and is very fatigued. As I said, this has been going on since December. Hopefully we are getting to the end of it and he will be back to his normal healthy self once again. We've had a fairly relaxing weekend. He's been able to rest and I've been taking care of Jon and Sophie. It's wonderful to spend so much time with my two favorite people. I love you Jon and Sophie! Here are some pictures of Sophie from the past several weeks. Enjoy!

Sophie hiding under her blanket.

Beautiful blue eyes!

The doctor I work for, his wife gave us this cute outfit for Sophie. His wife is my GI doctor and a very kind lady. This outfit is one of my favorites. I love the hat!

Sophie has three cute jackets that we got from Old Navy and they all have little ears. She looks like a little teddy bear when she wears them. The pink one with hearts, she got from Grandma Reed for Christmas.

This was the first jacket she got, I just couldn't keep myself from buying it. It is so soft and it was on sale, half off.

I got this one on clearance after Christmas, with matching fleece pants.

Sophie and Elsie, best friends! They really do get along well and play well together. Such cute babies.

Sophie in her hippie outfit, pulling all the diapers out of the diaper carrier. Love that little tongue sticking out!

After waking up from her nap, I went up to get her and found her like this. She had pulled the bumper off of her crib. Silly girl!

Sophie in her new jumperoo. This was her Christmas gift from mom and dad.

My Beautiful Sophie

I can't believe my baby is 7 months old. She is growing and changing so much and she is so much fun. She keeps us on our toes and brings so much joy into our lives. We plan to bless her and have her sealed to us in March, so I wanted to have some pictures taken of her in her blessing dress. Our friend Wes Taylor takes beautiful pictures, so we asked him if he would do the honors. He said he would be more than happy to. We went over Sunday evening after Sophie's nap and Wes took lots of pictures of Sophie, but we didn't get any of her in her blessing dress. Wes is currently taking a photography class at MSU and needed some "artistic" pictures for one of his projects, so he took some really funky pictures of Sophie first, and then we did the normal pictures. We had to give Sophie a little break in between, so he took these pictures of her without any clothes. They turned out so cute! We tried to get pictures of her in her blessing dress, but she was finished, she just cried, so we called it quits. We are going to set up another photo shoot with the dress. Thanks Wes for the beautiful pictures of Sophie!

This is one of my favorites, I love the two little teeth!

Truthfully, I love all the pictures!

What a beautiful smile!

Cute little tongue!

My sweet girl!

She looks so sweet!

She looks like she's ready to pray.

She was trying to roll over and he caught this image.

Abuelita

Thursday, December 30, 2010 my Abuelita passed away. My mom called Thursday morning to let me know that her mother had passed away, but unfortunately I was at work, so Jon was the one who gave me the sad news. I was able to talk to my mom while she and my dad were on their way to Logan and she said that she was doing okay. My mom has been so strong through all of this and I'm sure it hasn't been easy on her. I am going to miss my grandmother, even though I haven't been able to see her very often since we moved from Utah, but she was a wonderful lady. She lived with us when my brother was born and because of her, I learned to speak Spanish. She was always so giving and loving to me. She was friendly and loved people. She loved to crochet and she made beautiful baby afghans and baby booties. She made Sophie a baby afghan and booties and we will cherish them forever. We were fortunate enough to visit her this past summer and she got to hold Sophie. In October when she got very ill, Sophie and I got the chance to go to Utah and I was able to say good-bye to my grandmother at that time. I am so grateful for her and the influence she has had on my life. We love you and miss you! I'm truly grateful for the gospel and the knowledge I have knowing that I will see her again someday. She is now reunited with her husband, whom she has been parted from for 33 years. I love you Abuelita!

The four generation picture we took this past summer with Abuelita.

Irene Oscanoa, 81 years old, of Logan Utah, died Thursday December 30, 2010 in Logan. She was born in Lima, Peru on May 9, 1929. She had four children Guillermo (Edi) Vidal, Edmundo (Irene) Oscanoa, Rosa (Randy) Reed, and Noemi (Luis) Salcedo. She leaves behind ten grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her husband, Alejandro. Irene was a very sociable person. She loved to travel, to dance, and she enjoyed life to the fullest. She was a faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, attending the Spanish branch in Logan. She loved living in Logan, and was grateful that she lived in the United States. She loved the wonderful American people, and she had a wonderful time living and working in this country.

It's FINALIZED!

We went to court on Wednesday, December 29th and finalized the adoption. Sophie is now officially ours! We were so excited to finally have it done, but it was actually a little anticlimactic. We had to rearrange our flights to Utah, which meant less time with family during Christmas break, so that we could go to court and it took all of 3 minutes with the judge. The attorney prepared some questions to ask us, but the judge didn't want her to ask the questions, he looked over our paperwork and then signed the papers. That was it! He was gracious enough to let us take a picture with him, and as you can see he was very excited about it, he didn't even have the decency to get out of his chair. We were both a little disappointed about how things turned out, we looked at each other and said "we came home early for 3 minutes, they couldn't have squeezed us in before we left?" Oh well, the important thing is that Sophie is officially ours and that is the most wonderful thing in the world. Now we are looking forward to taking Sophie to the temple and having her sealed to us in March.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! We had a wonderful Christmas this year. We got to celebrate our first Christmas with our sweet baby girl, and it was the best. Sophie was so happy all day; Jon said it was as though she knew it was a special day, because she was laughing and talking while Jon got her bottle ready Christmas morning. She woke us up at 6:45 to start the day. Jon and I thoroughly enjoyed our first Christmas watching Sophie and all the fun she had.

We spent Christmas Eve with Jon's family. We had dinner and a fun program, singing Christmas carols, reading Christmas stories and the best part was the nativity put on by the nieces and nephews.
The 12 Harper grandkids

Ashtyn, Aunt Ashley, Avery and Uncle Nick

We went back to grandma and grandpa Reed's to spend the night Christmas Eve. Aunt Nicole and Uncle Scott were there and Uncle Nick and Aunt Ashley came with the girls.

Aunt Nicole with her three nieces; Avery, Sophie and Ashtyn.

Christmas Eve in our pajamas

Sophie had the most fun playing with the wrapping paper. Why do we bother buying toys?

Sophie with all of her Christmas gifts. She sure is loved!

Sophie in her Christmas outfit. Her shirt says I Love Santa and she has a reindeer on her bottom. Grandma Reed tied the ribbon in her hair while we were at the Pitt's house.

Sophie in her Christmas dress. She looked so beautiful! The dress had glitter all over it and we ended up with glitter all over us and Sophie.

My beautiful Christmas baby!

Christmas in Utah

We had a fun time with our families in Utah. We spent the first week with Jon's parents. We relaxed a lot and played lots of games. I caught a cold while we were gone, so our nights were a little restless. I had a hard time sleeping, and I was worried that I would keep Jon awake. To make matters worse, Sophie decided that she needed to wake up at 6:30 every morning. Jon was sweet and got up with her so that I could get some rest and not get worse, but he didn't get enough sleep so he got run down and feverish. At my parent's house, Jon and I slept in separate beds and both of us slept much better. Other than getting sick and getting little sleep, we had a great time. We were sad to leave, but it was good to get home and sleep in our own beds. Traveling is fun, but it can be a little hard on all of us.

This picture was actually taken at our house. Sophie learned how to roll and her favorite place to roll was under the Christmas tree. She loved to play with the ornaments, branches and lights, but also the Santa on the tree skirt.

This was taken at Grandma Harper's. Sophie got to try her first cracker, it was actually a chocolate animal cracker. She loved it!

Sophie playing RAGE with mommy. We played lots of games with family while in Utah. Sophie loves to get in on everything that is going on. She loved spending time with her cousins and grandparents.

Aunt Heather, Jon's sister gave Sophie these cute Santa slippers.

The present behind Sophie is Jon's, and he kept telling Sophie to open his present early so that he could see what was inside. She actually did get to the present and ripped the wrapping paper. Jon was very pleased, but he didn't peak inside.

Grandma Reed put this cute bow on Sophie's head just for fun, but she looked so cute.

Playing under Grandma and Grandpa Reed's Christmas tree. Their tree had ornaments with glitter and ribbon with glitter, so most of the time we were at my parent's house Sophie had glitter on her head. She sparkled!

Our Santa baby!

Sophie was in the recliner watching White Christmas with Grandpa Reed and mommy.

She was so tired, that she fell asleep during the movie.

My cute baby! I was being silly and I put Sophie's pants on her head. She looks like a little puppy.