She's great!

Harper is doing so well!  She can lift her head for long periods of time and can now grasp toys and grab at your fingers to pull them to her mouth.  On Friday, we have her 2 month appointment (even though she will almost be 11 weeks old by then).  I'll post another update on her progress after her appointment on Friday!

Thanksgiving

 Our awesome Thanksgiving family photo.

I have been meaning to add actual text to this post for a long time, because it was definitely a Thanksgiving to remember!

We all had a great time at Q's parents house for Christmas.  The best part was that Jenny and Matt were able to be there!  Harper loves Auntie Jenny and Uncle Matt.  Both of them were so careful and loving with her!  They are going to be very important people in her life.  I think they will be the cool relatives that she will call upon when her parents just don't understand, or when we are too embarrassing to be seen with in public.

The day after Thanksgiving, Brandon drove down to Austin with Victoria, Branden, his new girfriend Brianna (weird and creepy name situation, but she is pretty nice ;) ) and her daughter Marilyn.  Everyone had a great time at the Madruga's house.  It was a good thing Grandpa Quini brought all those old toys down to Texas because they kept the kids well entertained!

We finished off the weekend with some Call of Duty MW3 and lots of leftovers.  It was a wonderful first Thanksgiving with our little girl :) 

2 Months

We celebrated Harper's 2 month birthday at Five Guys on Friday night!  This is a great restaurant for babies because it's full of contrasting colors: everything is black, white, and red.  Harper was having a sleepy day (we all need them sometimes), so we brought her already in her jammies.  In all of these pictures, she was still hatching.  She's like her mom when it comes to her hatching time.


Harper now plays with her play mat on her own and bats at the toys, smiles, will stick her tongue out to imitate you when you stick your tongue out, and sleeps very regularly 6-7 hours in a row at night.  She also giggled for the first time this week! She loves getting all the attention from Mommy, Daddy, Uncle Kyle, and Grammie and Grandpa Madruga. 

This month it hit me how fast time goes by!  These 2 months have flown by and every day she learns something new.  Before we know it, she'll be graduating.  I'm so proud of her and I'm enjoying watching her grow up, even if it is a bit too quick. :)

First laugh

First legit giggle happened today! This video was taken right after the big moment :) I didn't catch the first laugh, but you can hear the noise I'm making that triggered the first giggle.

8 weeks old

Today our little girl is 8 weeks old!  She had a big first today...SANTA!  She was sound asleep the whole time and has "old grandma" face in the picture, but I think she liked it.  I am so excited for Christmas this year.  All the decorating I've done in past years has been practice for this year, preparing me for my baby's first Christmas!

Last night our family slept better than we have in, well, 8 weeks.  We put her in her crib at 8:30pm and she didn't wake up to eat until 5am!  That is 8 1/2 hours!  Quinito and I even got some "date night" tv watching in before we went to sleep.  It's been a good weekend. :)

Harper has been in mommy play boot camp.  We play with the play mat A LOT.  You can practically see her brain developing as you play with her, AMAZING!


Here are some pics from this week.
 
On Friday, Harper will be 2 months old.  I think she wants cupcakes for her 2 month birthday party. :)

Learning to play!

Harper played with her play mat for the first time!! 

This is so much fun. :)

Milestone

As I write this, Harper is in her crib by herself!  Not sleeping yet, just in her crib putting herself to sleep!  This is the 3rd day that she has put herself to sleep without being fed or rocked to sleep.  I'm so proud of her.  :) 

She is becoming more and more "human" everyday.  Interacting more, smiling when we talk to her, and looking for her favorite objects when she enters a room (mainly the fan and the white crayon picture in the nursery).  She LOVES when you sing to her, songs from musicals are her favorites (Annie, Wild Party, Miss Saigon with me and Man of La Mancha and The Sound of Music from Grammie Yo)  She also LOVES when Quinito comes home to play with her.  He is louder and more exciting than I am, and she appreciates the change in pace. 

Here are some new pics, including one I took tonight of in her crib, self soothing to sleep.  :)

The blue shirt she is wearing is the t-shirt that Quinito wore home from the hospital as a baby.  She rocked this vintage tee with some stretchy pants and silver shoes. 

Halloween

 At the pumpkin patch!  Yes, she sat in the pumpkins all by herself.  Mommy was nervous, but it was fine and the picture was worth it!

 Couldn't resist. :)

It's Harper's first Halloween!
We went to the pumpkin patch, had our annual pumpkin carving contest (with plenty of trash talk), walked around the neighborhood in her costume, and gave out candy to lots of Trick or Treaters.  Normally our pumpkins are either car or politic-themed, but this year it was all about Harper.  Quinito even carved her face into his pumpkin (naturally, he had to win the contest). Harper wore her pink skeleton costume while we worked on the pumpkins.  On Halloween night she was Fernando Alonso.  Best first costume ever.