Raspberries on Daddy's Tummy

Just watch. It is so cute and funny!

Caught Up

I am finally caught up on blogging. I am planning on posting some pictures of our new place soon.

This next picture is of Harper's little plumber bum. I can't let her walk around in just a diaper anymore because she always tugs on it until it sags really low like this. (This picture is before we had our chouches moved in so the living room was bare.




When we lived in Idaho, we kept our garbage can in the pantry. Well, we don't have a pantry here and Harper has a new found love of throwing things away. I was getting ready to take the garbage out and I heard something vibrating...

She had thrown my phone away. Luckily it wasn't covered in garbage juice or anything.

Fun Times in Illinois

We had a lot of fun while we were staying in Illinois. I had my birthday while we were there and I decided that I wanted to go to the zoo for the day. It was a lot of fun! I will spare you all of the boring pictures that we took of the animals and just post the good ones of us.

Harper and I doing a puzzle with a zoo worker.

Harper as an elephant.

Harper's hand and a gorilla hand.

Harper and me in the monkey house.

Harper and Ryan in front of the lions.

These are just some funny pictures of some of Harper's crazy bed head. It was out of control this particular morning.

I was sitting at the table having breakfast and I looked over and saw this. Harper had climbed into her toy box and she looked quite proud of herself.

Harper had her first carousel ride at the Gurnee Mall in Illinois.

We of course had to go to a Cubs game while we were in Illinois. Actually, Ryan ended up going to three in one week. Harper and I went to two of those. (Thanks to Stub Hub, we got tickets for really cheap. For one game our tickets were only 50 cents.) They were so much fun! It is true what they say about Cubs games at Wrigley field. They are like no other.


Waiting to get on the L train.

The Wrigley Field sign.

Ryan and Harper down by the field.

Harper's adorable Cubs outfit.

Road Trip

***Scroll down. I did a few posts today.

When we moved, we made a road trip to Arkansas and dropped our stuff off in Arkansas and then we made our way up to Illinois. Harper was a gem during all of the driving.

Here she is wearing her cool sunglasses.

Leaving Idaho, entering Utah. :(

Some cool windmills I saw.

Last Night with The Allisons

While we lived in Rexburg we spent many a Sunday with the Allisons. Janis is Ryan's Dad's sister. Her husband and their children lived really close so we were able to spend a lot of time with them. Our time with them usually consisted of playing games and telling fun stories. It was good times. We will miss them!

These two pictures are of the last night we had with them. We played Apples to Apples.

Ryan's Graduation

As everyone knows, Ryan graduated at the end of July. Here are just a couple of pictures from the actual event.

I just want to say that I am so proud of Ryan and how well he did in school. He is such an amazing man. He worked the entire time he was in school. Most semesters he was working 40 hours and in school full time. The majority of that time he was in the bishopric in our ward as well. And he got awesome grades to boot! It all kept him very busy, but I never felt neglected or forgotten. And now he's doing great in work! Yay Ryan!!!

Harper's Birthday Pictures

There were a ton of pictures taken at Harper's birthday party, so instead of uploading all of them, I just uploaded a few that will be good highlights.

Here she is with all of her presents. Her friend Lexi had a birthday about a week and a half earlier so she was showing her how it was done. You'll see evidence of that through the pictures. It was so cute!

As you can see in this photo, she wasn't quite sure what to do with her cupcake.

She sure liked it!

One of the many pictures of her opening presents. She was spoiled!

Pretty much the cutest one-year-old EVER!!!

Silly Girl / Shots

Lately Harper has been obsessed with putting things that belong on her bottom on her head. If there is ever a pair of pants, shorts or a skirt lying around she'll bring them to us and put her head forward. She's pretty funny.



It always kills me whenever I have to take Harper to get shots. Here's a picture of her afterwards with the band-aids. She was a trooper.

Like a Glove

A little while ago I tried Harper's blessing dress on her again. It was pretty big on her when she was actually blessed but it fit a little better this time.

*My mom made the dress. Isn't it gorgeous?

Sad Goodbyes

When we left Rexburg we left behind some family and friends that we will miss a lot! Our friends the Henkels are some of the ones that we spent a lot of our time with. These pictures are of a fun date night that we had with them before we left. The night started with bowling, then Wendy's and then we went to Walmart where Ryan and Chad helped unload boxes so that we could take them and use for packing. It was a fun night!

We all got the same score in the first frame!

This is a picture from a game night. We usually had game night with the Henkels a minimum of twice a week and sometimes it was more. We will really miss those guys!

Dear Chad, Crystal, Ella and Jackson

MOVE TO ARKANSAS!

Love, Abby, Ryan and Harper

Symbolism of Arkansas flag

This is for Katie and Dad, and anyone else who was wondering.

The flag's elements have a complex symbolism. According to the 1987 state law defining the flag,[1] the diamond represents Arkansas' status as "the only diamond-bearing state in the Union". (Crater of Diamonds State Park was the only diamond mine in North America at the time, before more recent discoveries in Colorado and Montana.) The number (25) of white stars around the border of the diamond represents Arkansas's position as the 25th state to join the union. The blue star above "ARKANSAS" represents the Confederate States of America, which Arkansas joined in secession.
The three stars below "ARKANSAS" have three separate meanings[2]:
The three nations to which Arkansas has belonged (Spain, France, and the U.S.)
The Louisiana Purchase, which brought Arkansas into the U.S., was signed in 1803.
Arkansas was the third state (after Louisiana and Missouri) formed from the Louisiana Purchase.
The statute states that the two outer, upward-pointing stars of the three are considered "twin stars" representing the "twin states" of Arkansas and Michigan, which it claims were admitted together on June 15, 1836. However, that part of the statute contains two inaccuracies:
The three stars were in a single row in Hocker's original design; they weren't arranged in a triangle until later. Though one source indicates that the "twin states" symbolism was added by the 1924 Legislature[3], another states Hocker's "twin stars" are actually two of the 25 stars in the diamond, in the far left and right points[2]; the latter is more consistent with the original design, even though Michigan is actually the 26th state.
While both states' acts of admission were signed by President Andrew Jackson on that day and Arkansas became a state immediately, Michigan was offered admission only on condition of ceding the Toledo Strip to Ohio in exchange for the Upper Peninsula. Once that happened, it was finally admitted January 26, 1837.
Some believe that the flag bears a resemblance to the Confederate Battle Flag. Though the colors and star pattern are similar, the flag does not have the saltire pattern of the Confederate Flag. In addition, the history of the flag clearly shows that it was not considered to honor the Confederacy until the fourth star was added for that specific purpose in 1923.

**I got this info from Wikipedia.

Catch Up

Okay, so there are a lot of pictures on our camera that I want to share with everyone. I have gone through them and I'm going to share them in order. So the first posts will be of pictures an happenings from when we were still in Idaho, then Illinois and finally Arkansas. This post is just a few random pictures that we had.

Harper's hair was starting to get unruly and so I started doing her hair in a little side ponytail on the top of her head so that her hair wasn't always in her face. It's become the go to hair style now.

This is just a fun picture of her pushing her toy the wrong way.

Arkansans

No, I that's not a typo in the title of the post. That's what you call people who live in Arkansas. And that's what we are! Official Arkansans. And we're very happy about that.



We still only have our little netbook for now, so it might be a while before I post any pictures of us, but I thought I'd post a couple of pictures of things that I like about Arkansas:

This is the license plate. They have a diamond on them. How cool is that?

(This is the license plate but I'd say that about 75% of the license plates in this state have a Razorback on them)

Here's the state flag. I just really like how simple it is. It also shows that I'm back in the south!!!