Harrison and Daddy

Harrison and I spend a lot of time together. Since I'm his food source, he is never far from his mom, particularly since he doesn't care to take a bottle. He's my little buddy and we have a lot of fun together. But, he definitely sees me as his caretaker and Mark as his playmate.

The highlight of our day is when Mark comes home from work. We are always waiting in the living room playing, and as soon as the door opens the fun starts. Mark will say, "Hi Harrison" on his way in the door, and Harrison's head will swivel around looking for Mark. Once he sees Mark's face, he just lights up. It is the BEST thing to watch, because he is just so incredibly happy to see his Daddy.

After that, Harrison loves to ride around in the Baby Bjorn with Mark in the evenings. Mark straps Harrison onto his chest and they walk around the house, look out the windows, talk to the baby in the mirror, and Harrison is all smiles.

To end the evening, Mark gives Harrison his bath, and boy does he love it. He has a big grin on his face as he is splashing in the water and doesn't even care when water runs down his face and gets into his eyes.

One of Harrison's favorite things to do with Mark is to play with his head. He really likes to touch Mark's face and slobber all over the top of his head, and it makes him laugh. To get a really good laugh out of Harrison, Mark kisses his neck really fast and it just makes Harrison cackle.

Watching the two of them together is so much fun, and I have a feeling it will be for years to come.

Here are some of my favorite pictures of the two of them together.

Photo Shoot

Last week we took advantage of an opportunity for a free sitting at the Picture People at the mall. I wasn't expecting much, just hoping for a few good shots.

The overall experience wasn't too bad, but it's all about churning as many people through as quickly as possible and you definitely feel that.

I do think we got some good ones, so that was a great surprise. Here are a few of our favorites...can't do anything about the copyright watermark on there, but hopefully it won't impact your viewing pleasure!

24 Weeks Old Today!

Can you believe it?

Since Harrison was born on a Tuesday, I take a picture of him each Tuesday so that we can have a record of his first year. Today when we were taking our pictures he made this face...priceless! He has a lot of expressions that involve his eyebrows and this one just sums it all up.

My friend Julia is letting me borrow a baby scale. I have had fun weighing Harrison each week to see how he's growing. I used to weigh him twice a week, but that became a bit too obsessive, so now we only weigh on Tuesdays. Today he weighed in at 15.50 lbs, and has finally doubled his birth weight.

Over the weekend Harrison had his first minor illness. He had a fever all weekend and was just not himself. He really just wanted to be held, wasn't too jovial, and slept and ate more than normal. After visiting the doctor yesterday he was diagnosed with Roseola. He is done with the fever part and now just has the rash. Hopefully that will be gone soon too because his poor little face has the tiny red rash all over it.

The newest fun and entertaining trick Harrison has learned is SCREAMing. And I do mean SCREAM!! He likes to let loose as loudly as he can with this shrill, high-pitched screech. It is really painful to listen to if you are anywhere near him. He enjoys doing it randomly throughout the day, sometimes screaming until he turns bright red. Then he just laughs and does it again. He had a great time screaming yesterday during our trip to Costco and thankfully most of the other customers realized that there was nothing I could do about it and just laughed.

Here are some more pictures from today:

A few of my favorite things

We have more good baby news to start off with! My friend Nikki gave birth to twin boys on Wednesday. She and her husband Kay moved to London earlier this year with their two-year old son Henrik, so it might be awhile before Harrison gets to meet his two newest friends. So many little boys...if anyone has a little girl she'll certainly have her pick of dates!

What do we do all day? We have lots of fun around here, that's for sure. During playtime Harrison enjoys all sorts of things...right now our living room looks like the circus came to town!



















The Johnny Jumper













The "Carnival in a Box" (more commonly known as an exersaucer)














The Baby Einstein playmat









Story Time
















Hanging out in my high chair...haven't started eating food yet, but I will soon!

Roly Poly

Harrison celebrated his five-month birthday by rolling over from his stomach to his back. He's been rolling from his back to his stomach for almost two months now. But, he had only rolled back the other way once. Guess he finally remembered how to do it.

Now Harrison is mobile!

The only catch is that he so far only rolls in one direction, to his right. So, he just rolls across the floor until he hits something and has to stop. Then we pick him back up, move him over and start again. It's quite entertaining...at least to him!














Here he is on his playmat

July

We celebrated the Fourth of July with Aunt Allison (Richard's wife) joining us from London. Grandma and Grandpa also came down from Waxahachie to visit, so we had a full house!















Here's Harrison with his Aunt Allison















And here he is with his Grandpa

June

We got more baby news to start off June. Our friends Brent and Robyn had a baby boy named Carter…one more new playmate for Harrison!

On June 11 Harrison had his four-month doctor's visit. He checked out just fine, and weighed in at 14lbs 2oz and was 25 inches long.


The second week of June we headed to Rosemary Beach, Florida, for Harrison’s first vacation. This is the third year we have spent a week there with my mom and my sister’s family. Harrison had a great time watching his cousins play in the pool and checking out the town from his stroller.

On the way to the beach we stopped over in Baton Rouge for the night, and Harrison got to meet my Uncle David and Aunt Margarita. It was great to be able to introduce him to two more members of his extended family!




















Heading to the pool in his stroller




















Harrison's first trip to the swimming pool...he wasn't quite sure what to think of it!





















Cruising Rosemary Beach in his stroller


It was quite hot this year at the beach, so Harrison spent a lot of time inside our beach house. He didn't seem to mind playing with Mr. Dragon and hanging out with the family.



















One thing he didn’t exactly love was the car ride. We split the trip up into two days going there, but coming home he got to spend 14.5 hours in the car. Not his idea of a great day! Thankfully he has already forgotten about that.

We arrived back home and celebrated our first Father's Day with Harrison. We went to breakfast at a our favorite local diner. After that Harrison took a nice long nap because he was exhausted from his long travel day the day before.


The weekend after we got back from the beach Harrison got to meet his Uncle Richard, who came to visit from London.

May

We celebrated our first Mother’s Day by taking Harrison to breakfast at a local diner. He seemed to enjoy himself, and then took a nice long nap when we got home. What a good Mother's Day gift!

Later that week Mark went out of town for his annual golf trip, and once again Nonny came to help out. We love her for that!

On May 20 Harrison rolled over from his back to his stomach. He had been working on doing this for the past couple of weeks, trying his hardest to make it happen. We looked at the monitor in the middle of the night and voila! He was fully swaddled and happily sleeping on his stomach.

For the next few weeks we dealt with Harrison's latest obsession...rolling over. Anytime we put him down anywhere awake, he wanted to roll from his back to his stomach. He wasn't always happy about it, but as he got stronger he became more pleased with himself.
















Harrison on his stomach playing on his mat


To finish out the month of May, Harrison got to meet his Aunt Amy, Uncle Steve and cousin Clarisse when they came down from Chicago to visit for Memorial Day Weekend. Grandma and Grandpa also came for the weekend.

April

Harrison at Two Months














Harrison had his two-month doctor's visit on Friday, April 10. He weighed 11lbs 3oz and was 22.75 inches long. Both measurements are in the 45% percentile on the growth chart. He had to get his first round of shots and did NOT like those at all. He cried pretty hard and then crashed for the rest of the afternoon.

We celebrated Easter by taking Harrison on his first big outing. He went to church and did great! He looked all around, took everything in, and then fell sound asleep despite the loud music. We even stopped for lunch afterwards and he was happy as a little clam. He also enjoyed watching The Masters with Daddy on TV that afternoon.

Later that day we got some great news. Our friends Antoine and Kristin gave birth to their baby boy Hunter on Easter Sunday. He was born a month early, but aside from being a little guy he is doing great. We are excited to have another friend for Harrison!

Here we are on Easter:
















































Grandma and Grandpa came to visit later in the month. They hadn’t seen Harrison since he was just a few weeks old and he had grown a lot since then!















At the end of the month Daddy went out of town, so Nonny came to help out, thankfully! We had a good time playing and reading stories, and it was very nice to have someone here to help.

March

March started off with exciting news—our friends Ben and Karen welcomed their son Shane Patrick to the world on March 3. We are so excited that Harrison already has a new friend for life!


Harrison got to take his first real bath on March 9. He didn't hate it...or love it. He generally tolerated it. But, at least he didn't scream!






































Harrison got to take his first trip to Costco in March. He did great! There was so much to look at and take in that he ended up falling asleep in the cart. Thankfully there was still room for our groceries.














During March Harrison also got to meet his Aunt Susie and his cousins Jeffrey and Charlie. They were very excited to see him and he enjoyed watching them play.


Here he is smiling at Jeffrey















And here he is with Nonny and his cousins

The rest of February

February came and went very quickly! After arriving home from the hospital we spent the rest of the month getting to know Harrison and working on getting him back to his birth weight. By his two-week check up he was back to 7lbs 10oz after leaving the hospital at 6lbs 15oz.

He is a very easygoing baby and doesn't seem to cry unless he is tired, hungry or dirty. So far so good!

He likes to be swaddled to sleep and Daddy has quickly become the swaddling expert.



















Thankfully both Nonny and Grandma and Grandpa spent time visiting Harrison and helping out at the house.

Harrison's Birthday

Harrison was due on February 1…which came and went without him making an appearance. So did the next week!

Finally on February 10, we induced. We started the process at about 8am…checked in, got our room and started the drugs. Things went well, and by 5:45pm we were ready to push.

At 6:32pm Harrison Andrew Tater entered the world. What an amazing experience!

Finally getting started!

Well here we are, five months after Harrison’s arrival and finally getting the blog up and running. Who knew it would be harder to blog from home with a baby than it was to blog our way across Europe!

To bring everyone up to date, I’ve included some highlights from the first five months. I promise to update more frequently from now on!