Paigey's Model Status

So as most of you know I work for a company that does photography for many different clients to help them produce their corporate ads.  Recently we have increased our involvement with Scheel's.  SO Paige had an opportunity of modeling!!  I don't know how many more times I'll do this with her and it was a long morning for her and she almost missed a field trip.  She had her picture taken alone and with one of our Art Directors sons.  They were so entertaining together!  Now to get Henry in an ad, HA!

Here is her wonderful debut!! She ran in their black friday ad, which of course we didn't get in Ankeny.  So I was given some copies from the salesman at work.  They look so cute!!

Decorating for Christmas!

What does the Friday after Thanksgiving bring?  Decorating for Christmas of course!!  I don't do much Black Friday shopping, in fact I pretty much hate it LOL.  My mom and I did venture out to a couple places once the crowds were gone.  Then it was time to decorate for Christmas.  Paige was so into it this year.  She had a lot of one liners I wish I could remember all of them.  But they are entertaining.

Here is Rob and his nutcrackers we put up every year.

Well here is a picture of Paige decorating the tree.  I forgot to get a picture off of Rob's phone of her and I under the tree putting the tree skirt on.  She kept saying, "I hate this part!" I laughed since she's never helped me with it ever.

Of course here is Henry helping out

Paigey and I were discussing where to put the ornaments. 

This year we decided to put the little tree from my old college apartment downstairs.  Paige was excited to have her own little tree.

This little boy is getting so good with pictures.  I just said Hey Henry! and I get this.

Henry cracks me up in the johnny jump up, Rob squated to put the lights on and he just kept running into him and head butting him.

Grandma and Paige getting the ornaments ready!

All of our stockings!  So crazy to have 4 of them hanging this year.  So awesome to have our complete family.  It was so great to decorate with both my kids and for my Mom to be here to see where we put things and to be involved in it with Paigey.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Well Rob and I hosted my mom's side of the family again this year.  This year though there was not 24 people, so that was good.  We had a great lunch and spent a lot of time together.

I of course did a lot of pie baking.

This is Robby and I before the day even started.

So a great part of our Thanksgiving was my cousin Kate and her family came.  We got to meet Dutch!  Please keep in mind when you see this picture they are 16 days apart in age.  HA!  Henry is just a little big LOL!

After Thanksgiving at our house it was off to my Dad's for dinner.  Paige gave me a thumbs up on our way to Newton.

Henry kept yelling from his carseat so I turned around to get his paci and this is what I found.  I mean seriously he's the cutest.

Ok this next series of pictures takes a bit of explaining.  My Dad's best friends always comes home to Thanksgiving.  Mikey and I always do lunch and some shopping on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  Well he informed me he bought a fur coat.  So of course the whole family got in on trying this bad boy on at dinner on Thursday.

My nephew Derek

We hope all of you had an amazing Thanksgiving.  As you can see ours was busy as usual but we had an amazing time.  Paige and Henry did so great!  Henry survived his first Thanksgiving and now we're onto Christmas!

Turning 30

Well I did it...I officially turned 30.  Not that I had any choice in the matter.  I would like to say I turned 30 with style haha.  Saturday was one of the most fun days I've had in a long time!!  Our weekend started with Rob and I taking the kids to Newton (Thank you again Rick and Gail!).  We then went home and celebrated in our usual style.  We got Chinese food and watched a movie.  It was nice to be able to eat dinner together and not have to worry about Henry or if Paige is eating.

Saturday after getting to sleep until I wanted to sleep and taking my time getting up and getting ready.  Rob and I went and had breakfast at a fun restaurant downtown.  Then we were off to meet up with our friends.  Graham and I went shopping all day.  We had so much fun together getting to be out w/out our kids.  We then met up with the boys and went to check into our hotel.  At the hotel all of our friends met up and it was off for our night.  When I got to our room the Embassy Suites left me a present.  They left a bottle of wine and a cheese and cracker plate.  I was so excited!!

We had drinks with friends and played a card game before dinner.  Then we went to dinner at a restaurant downtown.  There were 19 of us celebrating my birthday.  I'm so lucky that 19 of us were able to get together just to celebrate my birthday.  We were treated amazing by the restaurant.  We had champagne for everyone, they brought me a cake and sang happy birthday, and then they paid for my meal.  So fun!  The night was then followed up with adventures to different drinking establishments all around our hotel.  We all learned we are not as young as we thought we were.

Thank you to my amazing husband for putting the whole day together.  He planned everything so well and I didn't have to worry about a thing.  It was amazing!!  Thank you to all of our friends for coming out to celebrate.  I couldn't have asked for a better group of people to spend my day with!

Here are some pictures from dinner.  The color is not good on them since the restaurant was so dark.

Robby and I

Graham and I

Kelly!!

This is the face of a 30 year old who learned the hard way she was no longer 21

My amazing friends Tom and Kelly made me a beer cake!

Once we picked the kids up I found out someone got really good at something over the weekend...WE HAVE A SITTER!!  He's not even 6 months old and is already sitting and playing so well.  Where did the time go?  He's also working on getting some teeth which is about 6 months sooner than his sister got them.  But it's causing cold after cold after cold.  Mom and Dad would like some sleep soon.

Finally Home For A Weekend

Well the Hartz's were finally home for an entire weekend!!  I honestly can't remember the last time we were home from Friday to Sunday.  It was so much fun!!  We got a lot of much needed things done. 

Friday nights have become our family movie night.  We watch whatever Paige wants to watch and we eat Little Cesar's Hot n' Ready pizzas.  It's so much fun and Paige is so excited every Friday when I pick her up.  She'll say, "IT'S FAMILY MOVIE NIGHT!" 

Paige wanted to hold Henry.  I don't think she was ready for how big that little boy is.

We officially got out the Johnny Jumper.  Henry LOVES this thing.  He sits in it forever just watching whatever is going on in the basement.  It's nice for him to have a place when we're all doing stuff down there.

I love this picture of my sweet girl.  3 has been a rough age for us, but also one of the most fun ages.  She is learning so much in preschool and to watch her new found likes and her personality adjust more is amazing!!

This is my favorite thing that happened this weekend.  Paige told us she was going downstairs to play.  This is a rare thing so Rob and I were like OK!  Rob went to check on her and she was at my craft table making cards.  Rob asked me if I thought we should move her desk from her room to the basement.  I went downstairs and asked her if this would be something that she would want.  She told me no and that she wanted my desk in her room.  I told her nice try!  So she said yes she would like to have her desk by mine.  I explained that this meant her play kitchen and everything that goes with it would then have to be put away.  She told me, "That's ok Mom, that's a little kid toy and I'm a big kid.  We can get it back out when Henry wants to play with it".  I sat there with tears in my eyes wondering where my little girl went.  So you can see by the picture we can now craft together and I LOVE IT!!  Rob told me he can see Paige and I spending a lot of time together down there.

I can't get over this face!  He's getting so much bigger.  He's officially just rolling all the time.  He is very talkative and has found his screaming voice.  He loves his Paige more than anything.  It's nice though that he's at the age he can play.  We are very close to sitting.  We just keep working on it.  I feel like I"m going to have a crawler before I realize it and a walker earlier then we are prepared for.

Here is Paige and I just having fun with my phone.  We were showing our mean faces.

We hope everyone is doing well.  We are getting ready for a lot of things around the house.  I turn 30 in about 9 days!!  Rob and my best friend Graham are hosting an amazing get together with our friends, I'm so excited!  Then we are hosting my mom's side of the family for Thanksgiving at our house again.  Then we'll be off and running for Christmas!  I can't believe this time of the year is here.  

An Owl and A Monkey...Must Be Halloween

I just realized that I'm behind on my blogs.  Here are my cute little kids on Halloween.  We lucked out on the weather here as they were predicting a TON of rain, possible snow, etc.  But it ended up being in the 50s and so nice outside.  Sorry for all of the blurry photos Paige was so excited I could barely get her to slow down so I could take a picture.

She had so much fun this year.  I think it was the first year she actually got the concept.  She walked up to all of the doors with Daddy and said, "Trick or Treat!" I was proud of her.  Henry road in his stroller loving every minute of it.  He got a lot of awww look at that baby while we were walking.  Some people mistook his size to mean he was old enough for snacks and then looked at me like I was crazy when I said he couldn't eat them yet.  I guess that's what happens when you have a 5 month old as big as a 1 year old.

Here is our little owl and our monkey!

I took this picture the next day when we were getting ready to leave the house.  Rob had a lap full of kids but they were all so cute.  Look how good Henry is sitting up!!

Henry and That Head of Hair

5 times I have cut this kid's hair.  I would like to put on the record he's not even 5 months old, and I didn't start cutting it till he was almost a month old.  He's just got a lot of hair and it grows fast.  He gets that from both of his parents.  But I mean look at that face!  I'm so thankful that he can sit in his bumbo seat now.  It made it a lot easier to cut tonight and it went a lot faster.

Yes, I use clippers on his head.  I'm aware he's still very young, but it's the easiest way and I go very gently.  I cut it with scissors the first couple times, but it took forever and he doesn't sit still.  

This baby loves a good hair cut and a bath LOL.  He just entertains me!