Big Girl!

Good grief, I am so behind!  I wish there was a good excuse, but there isn't.  I have just been busy with life... and that hasn't left much time to record it!  :)  But we have been busy, so I am going to play catch-up... again.  Hold on to your pants, there is about to be an overload of pictures of some very cute kids! :)

First up, Reagan.  She has been the main reason for so much of our business lately (both because she is all over the place and because of her schedule!).  She is working with 4 therapists right now:  Physical, Occupational/Feeding, Speech and Development.  They are all wonderful and I am constantly grateful for all of the help and teaching they do!  (Because truthfully, they are teaching me too so that I can in turn work with and teach her.)  And as usual, the hard work is paying off!  Toward the end of January, Reagan decided to start pulling herself up to furniture!  :)  She started out easy, with things she could really hold on to, like her crib.  And is now pulling up to everything!  Pretty darn exciting!  She is usually so proud of herself that she'll do all the work to sit back down just so she can give herself a nice round of applause!  hahaha.  She is a funny little duck! 

She has also developed a serious love of books!  Pulling them off the self, throwing them, and even sometimes actually turning the pages.  ;)  She likes to squawk (It's a sound we usually compare to a dinosaur.) while she "reads", it's pretty funny... and loud! :)  She spends a lot of her time in this corner.

She is getting so big and independent!  It's pretty fantastic!  I get asked a lot lately "how old she really is?".  Well folks, she's 2.  hahaha.  But I know what is being asked is her developmental age.  The answer to that is she is 2 years going on about 10-11 months.  And going strong!  :)  Now that's physical development, if we're talking about attitude, she's 2 going on 15!  In typical girl style!  :)  We don't have any underachievers in this family!  hahaha. 

The Party!

Her birthday was on Sunday so the partying didn't start until after church.  But these are from before!

She had a lot of fun (and a lot of help) opening her presents!  :)

She was spoiled!

And then after dinner we had some cake!  Her first real birthday cake! And she loved it!  :) 

She is so stinking funny!

We were very low-key about it all, she seems to like things that way for the most part. I love my little family!  And I love this little girl!  :)

Reaganator is 2!!!

What the?  It has been the craziest, best, roller coaster 2 years ever!  And I still can't believe it's come and gone this fast!  This year for the kids birthdays I thought it would be fun to do 12 things about them in 2012.  So here are some juicy tid-bits about Miss Reagan: 

1.  She is a lover!!!  So affectionate with kisses and hugs (real ones with squeezing and everything!) to give out all day long!  I have to say this was not something we knew she would do.  In fact affection isn't even something you can always teach.  And one of the most painful things about learning her diagnosis was the thought of my baby girl not being able to understand or show me love.  It's such a simple little thing, to have your kids hug or kiss you.  But when she grabs my face or squeezes my neck I know two things for sure, she loves me and she knows she is loved!  I'm not sure there's anything else she could learn that will ever be as important to me as those two things!  

2. I don't know if anyone noticed, but she has some hair!  ;)  And while it's also on my dis-like list, it is pretty stinking funny sometimes to see it like this:

She also looks pretty dang cute and grown up with it combed all pretty!  :)

3. She likes to grow things with extras to spare!  hahaha.  There was the toe.  #6 on her left foot.
RIP Little Piggy
Jan. 15, 2010 - July 28, 2011.

There is also an extra tooth.  Front bottom, she has 5 teeth between her canines (or whatever they are called).  It's pretty awesome.  Hey, if you're going to grow extras, toes and teeth are the way to go. 

4.  She has the funniest laugh ever!  It is contagious... and we LOVE it!  So naturally we are always trying to make her laugh! 

5.  She thinks almost everything is funny!  hahaha.  This makes for easy entertainment.  But I don't think she understands the serious disservice she is doing her brothers!  Those 2 think everything they do is hilarious!  hahaha.

6.  She is CRAWLING!  I probably should have posted about this sooner, but my blogging has been hit and miss lately.  She started in the middle of October 2011.  Within a couple of days she was all over the place.  Pretty much how I remember her brothers being!  :)  (Although the kitchen floor posed a slippery challenge, so for a few extra weeks my kitchen was safe.)  She also quickly figured out how much more she could get to with her new skill.  (The pantry and the bathroom are her favorite places.)  Messes followed.  And so did my first ever child-proofing (cupboards).   

7.  She is learning to communicate!  I really wish there was a way to express how extremely exciting this is!  Making actual consonant sounds and trying to repeat sounds!  Watching and trying to repeat facial expressions and hand movements (yep, sign language included.).  She is a very vocal kid, and fortunately she's opinionated, so she's not short on motivation!  hahaha.  She is now even saying "mama" and "dada".  Speech is a complete unknown with her.  But she is understanding and associating words that we say to her, like "go" "eat" "more" "no".  And whether or not she ever builds a sentence or holds a conversation with us seems very unimportant compared to us being able to understand each other!  Although hearing her say "mama" pretty much made my year!  :)  

8.  She hates sunshine.  hahaha.  And we live in the sunniest place on earth!  :)  It makes for interesting outings.  And usually some interesting looks from people.  Don't be deceived by that sweet squishy face, this girl can throw a fit!  And if you ever want to see it, just stand in the sun with her for a minute!  hahaha.

9.  She has about 15 different smiles.  Almost half of them look more like trouble than sweetness! hahaha They all swallow her face!  She smiled within minutes of birth and it sort of set a standard for her.  She has a big cheesy toothy grin.  She has a shy one.  She has a "I'm so cute, I'm just going to ignore you telling me NO and keep doing what I'm doing" smirk. She even smiles at me in the morning when I go in to wake her up and she hasn't even opened her eyes yet!  We love them all!

10.   She has more friends than anyone I know!  hahaha. I'm not kidding, people LOVE her, and she LOVES people!  She makes the little old people down here just giddy because she practically jumps out of the grocery cart at the store to have them hold or hug her!  She will climb over as many pews at church as she has to to get to anyone willing to take her!  It takes us 20 minutes to get out of church because she is people hopping, she has to get everyone in before we can leave!  And if you walk by looking even slightly willing, she's your newest friend!  hahaha.  It's sort of fantastic!  I love being able to watch her with other people.  I love that they get that little taste of what our everyday is like. 

11.  She loves attention!  Loves is actually an understatement.  She lives for it!  hahaha.  And just being held isn't always enough! You need to make eye contact and tickle and play and talk!  She will grab your face and make you look at her when she is feeling ignored.  She gets all sorts of upset when you get up and leave the room without her!  Like the world just might end if Reagan doesn't come along! (And forget that she can actually follow you! That would be like begging, and why beg when you can sob! hahaha.)  But on the up side of that, she loves Nursery!  A confined space where no one can leave, food, music, toys and lots of people!  I think it might be her heaven!  hahaha. 

12.  She IS our blessing!  People like to say to us "You'll be so blessed having her in your family" or "She will bless your lives so much".  I think they usually say it because they are trying to be reassuring or supportive or they just don't know what else to say.  But they always say it like it hasn't happened yet.  Like it's going to be so hard, but eventually we'll be blessed for our efforts.  What they don't seem to understand, is that when I reply "We know", We really do know!  We get those magnificent hugs and kisses at our house.  Those smiles and giggles. We get exited over and appreciate tiny little things. We have had our testimonies strengthened and our family bonded.  We are learning the real definition of perfect.  We get to witness miracles on almost a daily basis.  We are blessed every-single-day because she is ours!    

We love you Baby Girl!  Happy #2! 

Big Boy Bike - Update!

The training wheels didn't even last a day, this kid was serious about it being a big boy bike!  hahaha.  He said to Patrick "Training wheels!?!? I don't need training wheels Dad. Just give me my big boy bike that Santa gave me so I can ride it".  And so, that's exactly what he did.  :)

He is such a big boy! We're proud of you buddy! 

Very Merry Christmas!

I have to start by saying that I was really grateful for the chance to go to church first thing Christmas morning!  I hadn't been too excited about the idea of getting up at 6 am and getting everyone ready and leaving with kids crying about leaving their presents.  But it didn't really go as I had expected.  It was so much better!  We had to wake our kids up... they aren't early risers by choice... it's genetic.  Got everyone dressed so nice, with smiles on their faces!  They did peek in the living room to make sure Santa had come, but there wasn't much whining as we left for church.  We got to sit and listen and sing, and spend the first part of our day thinking about and celebrating the reason for the season, Jesus Christ.  It was wonderful!  Nothing melts this moms' heart like her kids singing about the Savior!  And they looked so stinking cute!  

And then when we got home, the Santa fun began!  :)  They were very excited about everything they got!  (And they got A LOT, mostly due to all the presents we received from family and friends!)  They were so funny to watch, even though I am pretty sure I was more excited than they were! haha. (Kids totally make holidays SO much more fun!) 

More noisy toys that I love so much!  Yeah! ;) Truthfully, it's pretty stinkin cool that she's actually playing with stuff like this!  She got an enormous round of applause as she started banging away!  We are so proud!  :)

These boys love stuffed animals!  Jackson is more of a collector, he likes the Webkinz.  His polar bear he named Pole, he's endangered, so naturally he has to sleep with Jackson for extra protection!  haha.

Harrison likes BIG!  And Sharks!  So that's what he got... a shark the size of him!  haha.  He also sleeps with him, he's the perfect toothy body pillow.  :)

Probably the only little girl I know who got balls for Christmas!  haha.  She loves them!

First big boy bike EVER!

And of course we had to try it out... in the house!

He has been begging for Mario Kart!  He was VERY excited!  :)

Reagan found the best gift of all... the garbage!  :)

Within minutes it looked like this...

Patrick and I have a bad habit of liking to spoil the other one for Christmas, even though we sent a budget amount every year... every year we ignore it!  He is so good to me!  :) 

Yep, folks, that's a Kindle Fire!  Which explains my absence from the world since Christmas!  hahaha. I'm pretty sure he regretted buying it within hours of me opening it! (And I realize I look exhausted, I really really was! :)

The rest of the day went like this: play, eat, sleep, play, sleep, play, eat...  hahaha.  There was at least one person sleeping at our house all day long between 11 am and 6 pm.  It was a wonderful relaxing Christmas! 

I think I can speak for our whole family when I say that this year the spirit of Christmas was very close to our hearts!  It was all around us in the amazing kindness of others and service to those who needed it.  I learned so much this year about the gift of giving.  And I became especially aware of my gratitude for our Savior, for His life and His sacrifice!  And for the gift of eternal families!  We are so blessed to be together, to have each other, and to feel so much love at this amazing time of year!  We hope you all felt it too!  :) 

Merry, Merry Christmas!  

Christmas Eve

Well, nothing says "Merry Christmas" like pummeling someone in the face with a ball!  Right?!  hahahaha.  Some fantastic friends in our ward organized a dinner for Christmas Eve and we were lucky enough to get an invite!  It was wonderful... with SO much good food!  They also organized a Dodge Ball game.  :)  We met up with several families at the nearby high school... and the violence ensued!  ...Ok, so it wasn't that violent.  There were a lot of kids, so for the most part it stayed pretty mellow.  Competitive... but mellow.  :)  We had SO much fun! And I was laughing pretty stinking hard most of the time too!  Hilarious!

Then afterwards, we went back to our friends' house for dessert and chimes.  I just want to note that it should be ok to eat your weight in food on Christmas, it just should!! Because I'm pretty sure that I did!  hahaha.  But the chimes... were very cool!  They played about 8 or so Christmas songs.  I loved the looks on their faces, the level of concentration was very high... and serious!  hahaha.

We finished with the Christmas story out of the scriptures, and then we cleaned up and headed home.  It was so much fun for us to get to be apart of their fun night, especially since we usually celebrate without our families! 

We got home and hurried to put out the reindeer food. 

Then we hurried to get kids to bed, it was about 10:00 pm when we got home and we had early church in the morning. (We have to get up at 6am for church around here.) They were so warn out, they actually wanted to go to bed!  :) 

I don't think we've had a Christmas Eve this fun since we moved away!  It will definitely be one we remember for a long time!  Thanks to all of you who made it so special for us!  And to our families and friends far away, who made us feel very loved!

Merry Eve of Christmas!