The land made out of Legos...

Better known as Legoland California.  It did not disappoint!  As we were waiting to pay for parking they could see the park and the front gate, Harrison started to sing his own little song about Legos and the land made out of Legos.  Nothing melts my heart like happy kids, and nothing says happy like a 4 year old singing while his big brother is speechless and giggling with delight!  :)  

I can proudly say they both rode everything!!  Which is a pretty big deal!  This was right after our first roller coaster... and they LOVED it! :)

Reagan got to be the cheerleader!  :)  

Getting ready for some healthy competition!  ...They killed it!  :)

Cutest shark bait ever!  :)

The closest to New York City we've ever been!  :)  The miniatures were incredible!

Always the kid at heart!  Patrick wanted his own picture with Darth!  :)  (He was huge! Patrick is 6'6"!)

2 days of giggles and fun!  :)  We were nervous about how it would go!  We weren't even sure they would ride anything!  But it was SO worth it!  :)

The Ocean

For spring break (in March) we decided to head to sunny California for some family fun time!  We stayed in Oceanside for a couple of nights, right on the beach, and the boys couldn't get enough of the ocean!  Neither one of them had seen it before, so there were lots of giggles and excitement!  ....And, of course, they had to get in!  (Even though it was only in the 60s!) :)

PaTrIcK's DaY!

Ah, the green holiday!  Fun for lots of reasons.  We had green milk and another visit from a leprechaun, which included a search for lost gold coins.  They like anything that involves treasure!  :)  And we all got our green on...

This one deserves a shot from the back!  ;) 

Patrick got to enjoy the spoils of having his own holiday!  Package from the Chapman's and everything, he now owns his very own P-Swizzle t-shirt!  :) (I don't know why I don't have a picture, he wore it for days! haha.) I also managed to get a picture of his fro before we cut it all off!  If there was ever a question as to where Harrison gets his hair, this should clear it up! LOL!

We left for San Diego the next morning, so there is lots more to come! :) 

Patrick and the Rock

March started out a little rough!  We had an incident with a broken glass door:

Jennie's Version of events via FB:
I was startled by the sound of a rock shattering our back door... PATRICK said he wasn't trying to hit the door. He was mad and threw a rock and it bounced. He was MAD and he threw a ROCK! I honestly laughed.  Then I asked him if he knew how old he sounded.  haha.  I am SO proud! He then proceeded to tell the boys, who were witnesses, "This is why we don't throw rocks!". How profound! ...He is now installing a new door!

Patrick's Version of events via FB:
Listen up America! When you get mad at your dog for jumping on your kid, don't pick up a rock and throw it at the dog. You may miss the dog and the rock may take a bad bounce off the patio and shatter the glass in one of your back doors. $250, 2 hours, and a good scolding from my BEAUTIFUL & LOVING wife later, I got it replaced. But don't worry. I was able to take my boys, who witnessed the incident, and explain to them the importance of not losing your temper and not throwing rocks. Teach by example I always say.
Broken door:

New door:

I don't think I need to add much to that.  Although I love how he made it sound like it was some awesome teaching moment!  hahaha.  At best, I think we learned something, although there is still a debate as to what the something was!  ;)

February FuN!

Uncle Kenny came to visit for a few days, which is always fun!  And naturally I didn't take many pictures.  ;)  But I did get some of him and the boys in his rental car (he flew in/out of Phoenix)... which had them all drooling!  :)  (Harrison and his cool shades crack me up!)

And in true Arizona weirdness... school isn't out for Presidents Day.  Instead we have Rodeo Days!  :)  So while Jackson was out of school for that, Patrick actually took them to the Rodeo!  haha.  They loved it... it's sort of in their blood.  And they are the three most handsome cowboys ever!

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!