This post is long overdue, so I will try to catch you up on what has been happening in the Harris household. Since I last blogged I think we were picking apples. Since that time we have had lots of family come and visit. It first started with Shelly and Billy, then Jana, Monica and the kids, Andy, and again Shelly and Billy. it has been a lot of fun having everyone come into town and sadly now the house is empty of visitors.

October was Bayley's birthday. She is now 6. Her birthday was pretty low key this year, but she was a pretty good sport about it. Lately she has been spending her time mostly reading and playing school with Isaac, right after she gets home from school (I guess she really likes school). She just discovered yesterday that her bottom tooth is loose. She was so excited she made a huge list of people that she need to call and tell.

November was Glenn's birthday and our Anniversary. We have now been married 9 years (where does all the time go). It has been nice to look back on the last 9 years and reflect on all the many memories we have made together and as a family. I am so grateful to have Glenn in my life. He his is a wonderful husband and father and I love him very much.

In the last couple months we have gone to the pumpkin patch,a WI football game, the Chicago Shed Aquarium, and the children's museum. Time seems to be going so fast, I can't believe Christmas will be here soon.

I'm posting a ton of pictures, but I think they ended up in random order.

This weekend was our annual apple picking excursion. The whole family looks forward to this ever year. It is the one tradition that we have made here that has stuck.

Andy and Tricia were able to take a pit stop in Wisconsin on their way too long road trip back west. It was so much fun being able to hang out with them this past week. Here are a few pics from the week.

Deep Thoughts

Here's a list of random thoughts by Bayley Isaac and Noah: Let me make a disclaimer before you read the following. At the time all of these quotes were pretty darn funny but I do realize that the majority of them should end with 'you had to be there'.

Bayley:
"Mom, you're beautiful, ON THE INSIDE."
(pretty soon she will be telling me I'm a sweet spirit!)

At the end of the first week of school I sat down with Bayley to talk about her day, which I had done the previous 4 days. I started to ask her what she did at school and how her day was when she stopped me abruptly and said, "I think we should make some rules, how about you can only ask me if anything new happened at school, because I think it's getting pretty boring telling you the same things over and over." I told her that was a good idea but I wanted to add that she could also tell me something good that happened and something bad. Then she said "Well there was something really bad that happened (of course as a mother my mind started going crazy anticipating what she was going to say), a boy in my class threw up."

"Mom, you're pretty, for a 29 year old."

"I wish our hands were glued together so we could go everywhere together."

"If you're good to me then I'll be good to you."



Isaac:

Bayley was excited for dinner so when she walked into the kitchen she said she thought this was the yummiest dinner ever. Isaac of course wanted to say the opposite so he said, "this is the YUCKEST dinner ever."

Isaac and Bayley took all the blankets and pillows from the entire house and put them in my closet. They then preceded to ask Glenn is they could have a sleepover in there. Glenn said yes, but only if the promised to go right to sleep. 45 minutes later I was about to fling open the closet doors and send them right to their rooms for not trying to go to sleep, but luckily I decided to stop and listen first. Isaac was sitting on his knees saying a prayer with Bayley. Isaac doesn't really like to pray out loud that much so I was shocked when he went on and on. He said a pretty lengthy prayer, but the best part was when he said, "Thank you so much for the privilege to be able to sleep in mommy's closet. Please help us to be able to go to sleep really fast." Needless to say I just walked away and gave them a second chance to fall asleep.

Isaac dancing around the house singing part of a Hannah Montana song over and over again, "Nobody's perfect, I gotta work it." Very funny.

Noah:

Noah walks around the house with the wii remotes yelling "Galaxy" (I think we play Mario Galaxy a little bit too much.

The many faces of Noah

Noah is quite a charactor. He takes after Glenn so much. He will be walking along and out of nowhere will look up at you with the silliest look. If only he could talk better, I'm sure there would be some witty one liner to follow the look.

Bayley started Kindergarten this week. She is such a funny little girl, she was so excited but tried to stay completely composed. I did pretty good and managed to hold back my tears as I said good bye to her. The first day went by slowly and by the time school was over we were all so excited to see her. When Isaac first saw her he ran up and buried his head in her chest and gave her a huge bear hug. I finally had to make him let go after a few minutes. Even though it will be an adjustment to have her gone all day I'm glad to see that she is really liking it.

So I've been asked by too many people if I've quit blogging and my answer is no, I was just taking a hiatus for the past 2 or 3 months. I wish I could say it was because I was so busy, but I think it has more to do with laziness. But now I'm back and really far behind...

I'll start with our trip to Florida in June. It was a blast. You might think we were crazy for going to Florida in the summer- but actually it started out as a business trip for Glenn and the rest of us decided it would be fun to tag along (sorry for the terrible sentence). It just so happened that it was where Andy and Trisha, and Billy and Shelly were living for the summer. Thanks to everyone who put up with us for 10 days in a not so baby proof apartments. The heat was crazy but luckily we were able to go to the pool everyday (which helped Bayley and Isaac learn to swim so much better). As for Noah, he was crazy!! He would run and jump into the pool whether there was anyone there or not and he loved being dunked. We didn't do much there but I think that was exactly what we all needed-- to relax. Thanks to Trica (who took the role of photographer) we have some really great pictures.

Well, the big day came -- Saturday Glenn and I ran our first half marathon. It was quite an experience. We definitely have been bit by the running bug and are planning our next race. I absolutely loved the whole exprience and to make it even better it was pretty sweet to be able to do it with Glenn. We both did better than we expected, especially Glenn considering Friday night he played in a softball game and pulled his hamstring. When he came home limping I thought it was a joke but he really pulled it. He was a real trooper through. He went thinking he would try it but thought he wouldn't make it very far with his leg and he finished in 1:55. I was able to finish pretty close to my goal in 1:45. I ended up ranking 13 overall for the woman and 4th in my age division. I was actually shocked but totally excited.

Glenn and I right before the race. It was pretty fun being about to do the race together even if we are both pretty competitive :) In the background you can see Lake Geneva. It was a beautiful course to run.
Here's a picture of Heather at the very end of the race.Here's a picture of Glenn and he is crossing the finish line.
My parents brought the kids and waited at the finish line. It was such an awesome feeling to see them cheering us on. Katelyn and Mary came to cheer us on too. One of the best parts was having our family and friends waiting for us at the end.

It was so much fun to be there with everyone and see them come running through at the finish. Dave Junge, Margie and her dad all ran it too. Margie and I were able to train together and help motivate each other through the whole process. I am so sad that she is moving soon, I'll definitely miss my running partner. My long runs will be a lot quieter without Margie since Glenn just blasts his ipod the whole time and nods his head every once in a while to pretend like he is listening to everything I'm saying.

Here's a picture of Noah caught red handed. Of course he didn't just get into regular mascara, it had to be waterproof. I think it's a sign of his intelligence, he knew at some point today he would cry, so he went for the waterproof stuff to avoid any running or smearing.

Glenn had to take a "business" trip last week to Utah. Something like a few hours of business and 3 days of golf: These pictures are taken from a golf course down in Mesquite, I think (Glenn should really be writing this entry). He went down with Andy and a few friends. He's already planning where he wants his next "business" trip to be.
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I love these next two pictures. I'm not sure who found this shirt but I think almost everyone ended up wearing it at some point during the day. I can't remember exactly what your score had to be to wear the shirt, but it had to be pretty bad. LOL