Christmas, Episode Two - The Franz Family and the Muppets: A Christmas Together

The week after Christmas we headed up to Howards Grove for Christmas with the Franz family. After everybody but Alex trickled in on New Years Eve, we opened up Christmas presents. Harrison was quite fond of the bow he got to wear in his hair.


Harrison was also quite fond of the cardboard box Liz gave him. The box was filled with bath toys, but at that moment Harrison cared only about the box. In the time since, Harrison has completely given up on the box and has grown quite attached to his bath toys.

One of the highlights at Franz family Christmas is Grandpa Pete's Potato Pancakes. Kind of sounds like a brand name, doesn't it? Pete shreds up massive quantities of potatoes, fries them up and serves them with apple sauce, sour cream, sugar and ketchup. It's one of Craig's favorite meals of the whole year.





One of Harrison's favorite things now is posing for pictures. He points at the camera and goes "ugh, ugh, ugh," until we pick it up and take a picture. One of his latest quirks is smiling without showing his teeth, like above. Must've picked it up at daycare.


Harrison is still completely and totally obsessed with books. As soon as he gets out of his crib after bed or naps, the first thing he does is grab a book off his pile and bring it out to the living room. This is done without fail, and our house is completely littered with books. Harrison not only enjoys carrying books around, he also loves it when Craig and Laura read to him. Like really, really likes it.

Bonus video of Harrison playing with the barn he got for Christmas

Christmas, Episode One

For Christmas Craig and Laura got a new camera, so we have a ton of Christmas photos to get through. Without further ado...


We kicked off Christmas a few days early in our house when Santa made an unexpected early visit in advance of the snow/ice/sleet/rain storm that hit our area. Harrison really took to opening presents. At his birthday only a few months ago he was indifferent to unwrapping presents, but two months seemed to have totally changed his attitude towards the task.




Harrison got a sports coupe from Santa that he could hardly wait to roll around in. It was pretty difficult to assemble with Harrison constantly trying to hop in and assist in other ways that were not very helpful. On a side note, we spent a good chunk of after dinner playtime in that coupe earlier this evening. Craig used to the opportunity to further indoctrinate Harrison on the goodness of roundabouts and set up a mini-roundabout in the basement. Gotta start 'em young on roundabouts (which by the way are awesome because they're safer and move traffic more efficiently than standard intersections).


We headed up to Green Bay a day early to avoid the onslaught from Mother Nature and Craig's sister Jessica did the same. Jessica let Harrison ride her rocking horse after initially resisting the idea of sharing.


One of Harrison's favorite Christmas presents was the radio flyer wagon he got from Grandma and Grandpa (they bought it months ago and have been letting him ride in it for a long time, but finally gifted it to a grateful Harrison). Grandma's family came over Christmas eve and Harrison had a blast riding in the wagon with Craig's cousin Carrie's kids, Sarah and Alyson.


Christmas day was spent with Grandpa's family at Great-Grandma Corsten's place. Harrison was showered with a fine selection of gifts, but not unexpectedly, a cardboard tube presented to him by his Great-Uncle Pete stole the show.


We also took the opportunity to get a nice family photo of the all grandkids/great-grandkids. We're a photogenic bunch, no?


With the snow still falling the day after Christmas, grandma went and bought a sled and we took turns pulling Harrison around the driveway while he laughed merrily. Definitely got to get him out on a sled more often.


Harrison got to open one last gift before we left, since our friends Chris and Nicole sent over a late birthday gift. Harrison got a dump truck from them, which he loved and began pushing it around making truck noises before it was even out of the box.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all!

SNOW!

Harrison had his first snow day from daycare last week when we got a major dumping of snow. It was too cold for him to go outside, but Harrison loved standing by the patio door and watching the snow pile up.




With the weather finally turning cold we broke out Harrison's winter jacket he got from Grandma Corsten. It's comically large on him, but he doesn't seem to mind wearing it.

The big news with Harrison is that he's a walker now. He's almost entirely abandoned crawling and walks all over the house. The bad news is, he took a face first digger into the wall and gave himself a nice shiner earlier today. Normally that's no biggie, but tomorrow is picture day at daycare. That'll make for a cute photo...we guess.



Finally, Harrison has a cup of yogurt and cheerios for breakfast every morning (variety is the spice of life!). Normally we feed it to him, but the other morning he insisted on feeding himself. Took forever for him to eat it, but progress is slowly being made.

No more hippie hair-do

After weeks of putting it off, we decided to have Harrison's beautiful mane of blond hair clipped. Harrison was not pleased with the prospect of getting a haircut, as he had put lots of time and hard work into his mane.


We were visiting Craig's parents in Green Bay, so we found a nice kiddie barber. We expected a complete and total meltdown on Harrision's part, but no such meltdown occurred.


Harrison sat nicely in a train engine and got to watch Blue's Clues and/or The Jungle Book while the barber clipped his hair in record time. We kid you not, we were in and out in five minutes. And not a peep from Harrison. For being nothing short of an angel Harrison was rewarded with his favorite treat of frozen custard. He LOVES frozen custard.

Harrison, post haircut

Harrison, as shown in the above photo and video, has two favorite toys at Grandma and Grandpa Corsten's house - a spaghetti spoon and a Fleet Farm shopping cart. Harrison spent the weekend piling toys into the cart, stirring them with his spaghetti spoon and them pushing the cart around the house and laughing maniacally.


We got back home Sunday just in time for the Packers game. Harrison was all decked out in his green and gold best and pushed around his football rider, but still isn't showing much interest in watching the game. Guessing that'll come with time. He did clap at a touchdown, but we think he was just imitating Craig.

Cheesy grin

A broken ankle and first steps

About a week after Harrison's big first birthday Laura broke her ankle while taking out the recyclables. Long story short, Laura had a two-night stay in the hospital and is on crutches until the first week of December. Things are kind of hectic at home since Laura is on the DL, but so far everyone is hanging in there.

Harrison dressed up for Halloween for the first time this year, going a vicious bear of undetermined breed. His daycare had a Halloween party for the whole family, so we attended with Laura limping around on crutches. Harrison enjoyed a delicious cookie with his buddy Eli, and there were games and art projects.


Otis has been staying with Craig's parents while Laura is on the DL, but before he left Harrison decided Otis would make a nice stool. To Otis' credit, he didn't mind it too much and got up and walked away when he had enough. Harrison really got a kick out of it.


Harrison has also fallen in love with another hand-me-down toy. This one is a bouncing zebra. He really gets into it to the point where we're a bit concerned about whiplash.


This past weekend we went to the Great Wolf in Wisconsin Dells with aunt Liz and her kids, aunt Carol and some friends. Harrison had a great time playing in the water - as usual. He didn't like our hotel room though...and he woke up early and crabby both nights. We still had a great time though, but Harrison must've come across as a real crab ass to everyone. Especially since our friend Ron and Barb's kid, Ian, hardly made a peep all weekend.


Harrison also had some fun playing in the water with Carol, who took Harrison long enough for Craig to go down the giant toilet slide a few times.


Finally, for the pièce de résistance (impressive use of french, no?) we present Harrison and his new found walking skills. Craig picked up Harrison at daycare last week and his teacher was talking about how Harrison took four steps...which was news to Craig and Laura since they'd never even seen him stand on his own. Sure enough, Harrison cans stand on his own and take a few steps before falling down laughing. We practice every evening and he gets better and better each day. It's really fun to watch!

Harrison is 1

Harrison is one now, having hit the landmark birthday last Friday. To celebrate we had a small birthday party for him with family. Harrison didn't really like his cake. He just kind of smeared it all over. But everyone else enjoyed cake, chili and a wide assortment of snacks. Below is a nice selection of photos from his birthday.







Harrison's aunt Lizzie also brought a nice variety of hand-me-down toys for Harrison. He really loved the slide and figured it our quite quickly.

To celebrate Harrison turning one...and just because new photos were in order, Laura asked a friend from work to take some family photos. Those are below and they turned out very nice.