Um well, in the last 2 years…we had another baby. Bradley Thomas joined us on May 17, 2016. Kids ADORE him! And yes, that’s all 3 boys born in May. It’s a fun, busy month!
We moved into a new house in October 2016. More space, yay!
Cubs won the World Series. Whoa.
We visited Wrigley after, so exciting!
Kids started a new school in October - Roosevelt Elementary in Park Ridge. They did great, but not without some hiccups. Thankfully Brett and Bailey are both smart, cute, likeable kids! So they actually had 2 firsts days of school...
Oriole park in Sept
Roosevelt
While transitioning to our new house, we had a week or two of either living at a hotel or living out a suitcase in the new house with no furniture. It was an interesting time...
Thankfully the hotel had a starbucks...and a bar :)
The previous owners bought the kids a baseball set and had it set up when we did the final walk through. It was very sweet and helpful when the kids needed something to do!
Rob tests out HIS spot on the couch...
Bailey's class made her a goodbye book....this one made us laugh.
"Mom isn't S-H-I-T a bad word?"
Thankfully the baby, at 5 months, was super flexible. He just fell asleep wherever, whenever he needed to:)
Kid Catch ups
Brett just finished the 3rd grade and turned 9! I really can’t believe he’s 9. It just doesn’t seem possible. I look at old pictures and feel like he was 2 yesterday! He has really enjoyed watching baseball this year. We typically let him finish watching Cubs’ night games in our room when the other littles go to bed. He started collecting baseball cards and plays some baseball game on his kindle any chance he can get. That and Madden Mobile (a football game). He’s constantly telling me what players he’s traded and who made a great play. I often have no idea who he’s talking about. For his birthday this year, Rob took him and 2 of his buddies to a Cubs game (on a school night!). Ironically Brett picked a friend from each school to join him. He said he knew they would all get along, he was right! Rob said they had a great time and didn’t want to leave their seats to miss a single play! Brett would run down to the edge of the field in between each inning trying to get a ball. Every time he would come back to the seats empty handed. After Anthony Rizzo got the 3rd out in one of the last innings, he ran back to the dugout and flipped the ball up into stands. Rob said Brett was deflated (and Rob annoyed) when a tall twenty-something guy grabbed it. Soon after, the young guy searched the stands for Brett and gave him the ball. Cubs lost the game, but Brett said it was the best time. Brett did wrestling and baseball again this year. He is really excited to do a football camp this summer and flag football in the fall.
Bailey is 7 and just completed 1st grade. I read in the last blog that she grew 3 inches in a year and we were all blown away. Well she did that 2 years in a row and then another 1-2 the next. She grows out of clothes so quickly! I’m currently buying her size 10! She is SO outgoing, sociable, caring, active and just honestly non-stop. Within 2 weeks in the new school she begged me to join the school’s talent show. I didn’t know who in the school to talk for her to be entered, I didn’t know any of the kids or parents that she was grouped with…but it didn’t matter. There was singing, dancing and performing involved; she was in! She continued her dance class. She goes to gymnastics once a week. Bailey started soccer this spring and LOVED it. She was devastated when her activities overlapped and she couldn’t go to everything! Or God forbid, Brett had a game or practice the same time she did and not everyone was available to watch her! This summer she has continued her hectic schedule. She has already completed a Cheerleading camp and a Hawkettes (dance group) camp, she is now doing a gymnastics camp and will be doing a performance camp at the end of summer.
I was so impressed how well she jumped into a new class this year and made friends so easily. She and Brett both tested to be placed in an accelerated math program for next year. Brett was sick this spring and missed close to a week of school. I would email his teacher and ask if anything needed to be done; they could send it home with Bailey. I later spoke with Brett’s teacher who commented how mature Bailey was, and how seriously she took her job to help Brett. See sometimes they get along.
Brayden is 4. He’s still crazy, hard to contain, adorable and loud. He loves Transformers, Power Rangers, Turtles and dinosaurs. He requires a dino shirt daily. He genuinely gets excited when I do laundry and we put his clothes away, so he can pick his favorites. We started speech therapy with Brayden this year. The kid talks non-stop but there are some sounds he is replacing/substituting. We discovered he has a little tongue-tie, preventing or making it difficult for him to say certain sounds. He actually does a great job trying to get you to understand if you are having a hard time. Brayden will say, “No you don’t understand me” and then he may use another word or describe it another way. We are also working on his quick to rage temper. The speech therapist was working with Brayden on his control of emotions, explaining that there are big problems, medium sized problems and little problems. The size of the problem requires different size of response. Apparently he told her, “Well all my problems are big”. The conversation continued when Brayden said he knew a great example of a big problem…like when he jumped off the hospital bed when mommy was in the hospital getting Bradley out of her belly and his head spilt open and he needed stitches. The therapist said “oh yeah that sounds awful, did that really happen?!” To which I said, “oh yes…” At least we had already had their pictures taken with the baby! It’s funny now to think about it. The room was crowded and the kids were getting restless, so grandma and grandpa were going to take the kids to lunch. Brayden goes to jump off the bed but his foot got caught in the handle of the pull-out, leaving him diving head first into the corner of the solid wood bassinet cart for the baby. Rob picks him up and blood is just everywhere. I waddle my 1 day after delivery body into the hallway and say we need a little help. Well maybe I should have clarified, because they thought something was wrong with the baby, calling some sort of alarm. Soon 7 or so hospital people are rushing into our room. One doctor with a briefcase looking thing said he was from “airways” asking if we needed him. I said no, it’s the toddler. After some packing of the wound, they put Brayden in Rob’s lap in a wheelchair and pushed them down to the Children’s emergency room where he was given around 20 stitches in his forehead. The subsequent nurses would ask how Brayden was doing before asking how I or the baby were doing… Welcome to the Harmans baby Bradley!! :)
Bradley is awesome. The kid has been going with the flow since he was born. There has been no set nap or food schedule. We have yet to child proof the house. The other 3 literally fight to be the first to hug him or talk to him in the morning or after school. He only says ‘dada’. For everything but especially for Rob. He is started to gesture for things but so far it’s just a yelling until you guess what he wants. He bites more than any of the others ones did. And typically just bites mommy. He bites when he’s mad, when he’s excited and when he’s He may have been the biggest baby (9lbs!) but he’s the smallest Harman toddler. Daddy says he will be tough even if he’s short!
