Happy Hall-o-weenie!

Procrastination finally paid off. I found Harper's Halloween costume on Friday morning during an unbelievable sale at Old Navy. All of their Halloween gear was on sale for $2 with an additional 50% off to the first 20 or so customers of the day. In other words, I bought her costume for the going price of ONE American dollar. Can we say niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice? I couldn't get mad when she all but trashed it at the party on Friday night, and I couldn't have been happier when it came clean so she could wear it again on Saturday. Game on!

We trick-or-treated around our neighborhood Saturday evening with a handful of Harper's boyfriends. Aside from the free candy, Harper also received her very first kiss from Carson! It was a bold move with her Dad standing by in the living room! We only stopped by a few houses until the novelty wore off, then it was home to watch the Longhorn game. Hook 'Em!

Here kitty, kitty!

Yabba dabba do! It's Barney...

...and Fred!

Harper and Carson aka the Meow-Monkey Mix!

Three dads and many babies.

Harper wants Carson's lollipop and won't take no for an answer.

Trick-or-treating at Nana and Poppa's house!

Poppa has a little heart to heart with Barney Rubble.

Harps watches a little Longhorn action with her dad. I promise they are watching a 60" screen...it just LOOKS tiny. ;)

Oh blog, how I miss thee, let me count the ways...

I'm sorry. This blog has been collecting dust for a few weeks now, and for that I apologize. I honestly didn't know I had any readers left until I started receiving death threats and thinly veiled "suggestions" that I might want to get back to it! My existence as a person formerly known as a blogger has not been for lack of trying nor for lack of material. Matter of fact, I've written many a blog post in my head lately. Some of my best stuff, I must say. And I'll be the judge of that! ;)

Basically, my excuse is mayhem. Mayhem in the form of Harper Elle Peel. You see, we had an arrangement. An arrangement centered around her doing certain things at certain times. Things like eating, sleeping, napping, and playing. Apparently, someone threw out the playbook and forgot to tell me! She has been nothing short of a hurricane these last few weeks. She naps at MDO, but rarely at home. She wakes up before I've had my chance to get settled in the mornings. She took two hours to go down to bed last night, despite reading to her the most utterly boring material I could find. She has been clingier than usual. She wants her momma, and she isn't afraid to voice her preference. Sometimes she wants her daddy, and no one else will do. Luckily, she does still play well by herself, but those minutes have become tiny nuggets of gold for me. Tiny nuggets of time that I must use to breathe, pay bills, e-mail, do school work, work on volunteer obligations, clean, etc. Sadly, blogging has fallen to the bottom of the list. One of those "if there is time" things, which there never seems to be! Honestly, there never was extra time, but my ability to squeeze out an extra minute or two from other obligations has fallen to the wayside.

Basically, Harper has been driving us bonkers. To be fair, she has also granted us plenty of memorable moments of late, too. If it weren't for those gems, we would probably have listed her for sale on Craigslist by now. ;) We'll get through this rough patch, I'm sure. Sleep will return, teeth will emerge, independence will continue to flourish, and our sanity* may return. Maybe!

Excerpt from a conversation with Jeff last night:

ME: I think she's trying to kill me.

JEFF: I think she's got it in for me, too.

ME: Then who will feed her?

JEFF: Apparently, she hasn't thought this through!

* Results not typical.

They call me Dr. Peelgood

Ok, that is a complete lie. Not one person has ever come close to calling me Dr. Peelgood, but you know how I love to incorporate lyrics into my post titles. Just go with it for a second.

I’ve had a handful of doctor appointments and lab tests over the past two months. It really should not have taken two months, but they moved a couple appointments which I then cancelled and rescheduled, and then I switched doctors. It all made for a long, drawn out process! I’ll save you the drama and we’ll go with the super abbreviated version: routine physical exam detected protein in my urine (that’s “pee pee” for you mommies out there). I donated an obscene amount of pee to the lab for testing (seriously, several Thor-sized jugs that required refrigerator storage during the collection period! Eww!), and an ultrasound of my kidneys for kicks. You know, because I really enjoy sitting in a waiting room, topless underneath my hospital gown, while befriending an eighty-year old lady who asked me if she needed to keep her panties on and if I was pregnant. Yes and no? No and no? I really didn’t want to picture that lady in her panties—thanks!

Could have been this, could have been that, but lucky for me, it turned out to be nothing. Nothing = orthostatic proteinuria, which happens to be benign. It’s also rare in people my age as it is more commonly found in adolescents. I look young, right? My doctor, who I love and wish that he works on more than just kidneys, wants me to have a yearly urine check just to be safe.

Ok, so now that I know that I’m fine and will live to skydive yet again, I can tell you my short story about the annoying nurse who checked me in to my final appointment on Wednesday. You know how a nurse-type person typically checks your vitals and stats (Jenny, am I using the right terms? Help an NSC out!) before the doctor sees you for your appointment? Well, said lovely nurse-type person asked me to step on the scale, which I hate. As a former fat/chubby/drank way too much beer in college kinda gal, I despise weighing myself unless I’m on my home scale, nekkid. We’re talking about the girl who wore nearly the same, identical outfit to each of my maternity appointments so as not to skew the actual weight increase each week! Anyhoo, I step on the scale and sigh. Nurse lady skips the bottom measurement over to 150. As if I weigh more than 150! She scoffed when she realized that her first guess was wrong, and moved the bottom bar over to 100. Then she slid the top bar over to far right side thinking that if I’m not 150 I must be quickly approaching it. (Jerk!) She literally appeared pissed off when the scale measurements evenly lined up at my actual weight. Normally, I would not divulge that number, but for the sake of this story, I weighed/weigh 120 even. Really? Really? Did she think I had thirty pound weights slipped into my boots? Thanks for the boost of confidence, lady.

On that note, have I mentioned that I am a newfound lover of Zumba! You’ve got to move it, move it…

Who needs a birthday when you can celebrate all week?

[Editor's note: I am too tired to proofread this post, so continue at your own risk. Lara, put away your red pen!]

In the timeliest possible fashion, I will now share with you some pictures from Harper's weeklong birthday bonanza. I won't bore you with the details of events that have kept me from posting these within a reasonable amount of time, so just go ahead and thank me now.

We didn't do much birthday-wise on her actual birthday. Unfortunately, her big day fell on a Tuesday. Tuesday, terrible Tuesday, is my San Marcos day, which means I barely even saw Harper at all that day. My attitude (who me, an attitude?!) was not entirely pleasant in class that night, I must admit. I hate the fact that I have to drive 120 miles to sit in a class that I don't want to be in, and missing my daughter's first birthday bothered me just a tad. Anyhoo!

Harper celebrated her birthday with friends at a playgroup birthday brunch at our house. That was on Wednesday. Remember what I told you about Tuesdays? Picture me driving back from Austin at 5am on Wednesday morning, baking, cleaning, decorating (Loosely put. I decorated the table.), getting Harper ready for the day, bathing myself... let's just say that I was still in the nude not ten minutes before our first guests arrived. (Don't picture that. It's not pretty!) Regardless, fun was had by all. Right, all? Harper is blessed to already have so many wonderful friends in her life!

And now for the main course:

Her Haute Baby cupcake dress. Cute, cute!


Harper and Cambell playing with the "laptop."

Sweet girls! Piper, Makenzie and Blaire. (Sorry, Blaire, for all the times I've left off your "-e.")

Reaching out for the cupcakes!

Birthday? What's that?

Happy birthday to me...

Asking for permission to dive in...

Apparently, she eats cupcakes as if they were apples. Interesting technique!

Harper & Mom. No longer nekkid, thank goodness!

Harper partied with these kiddos all the way to lunchtime. Par-tay!

Harper, Cambell and Piper. We missed Kylee!

We celebrated with family that Saturday at Nana and Poppa Peel's house. They have the best backyard. Waaaaay better than our backyard. I mean, it's hard to compete with an Asian rain forest and four plastic Adirondack chairs, but somehow they beat us in the backyard makeover department. But I digress...

Harper and her cousin, Audrey, before the party.

Harper and Nana! And the Geico caveman? Niiiiice!

Oh, I just love this girl.

Mikelle took some pretty neat shots with her new camera!

Ain't no tutu gonna slow her down, oh no, she has to keep on movin.'

The cupcake cake...better in theory than real life. The cake itself was delish, I will say!

Umm, yeah. What to say?

Harper wants to thank everyone who helped her celebrate her first birthday! She also wants to know why tutus are not part of our everyday attire? I'm wondering that myself! (And all you Facebookers out there know that I expanded her tutu and then proceeded to wear it out in celebration of Lara's 30th birthday. Hey-O!)

P.S. Thanks to Deanna and Mikelle for sharing their pictures with me! Love y'all!