HE'S WALKING.....

It's official... Drew is a walking man. And with his new skill, he has already had a few injuries. Here is a picture of his first shiner. I kept thinking of Opie Taylor saying "Ain't it a bute, Pa?!" About a week ago he got brave and took a few steps without the help of any one or thing, and then all of a sudden he just started taking off. He is so cute toddling around. He's not very good yet, but he's getting there. I'll try to get some video of him walking soon.Well, despite the looming cloud of sickness that seems to be hanging permanently over our house, we have managed to get in the Christmas spirit a little. Here is our very first gumdrop Christmas tree. Raegan LOVES anything she can create or decorate, so this was a perfect (and pretty easy) project for her. She is so proud of her handy work.

We'll, since the babies are in bed, I'm off to tend to a sick husband. He now has the stomach bug that plagued me and Raegan for almost a solid week. We just can't seem to shake it. Please pray for us.

Winter has arrived

Well, we haven't seen snow like this in quite a while. I'm so excited to see such blustery conditions!!! This was the view from our front door this morning (where we spent lots of time watching all the snow) This was our back yard.

I braved the frigid 24 degree temps to take a quick measurement. This was the most level spot I could find, and as you can see we got over 7 inches.

This was the snow piled on one of the kids toys outside. This was later than I when I measured, so I'm pretty sure that there are at least 8 or more inches. Oh, how I wish we were all feeling better so we could bundle and romp in the snow!!!

So what do we do on these days when we can't get outside... Well, you read to the dogs of course. It was too cold to even send the dogs out, so they got to hang out in our kitchen this morning (a big treat for them) Raegan was reading them one of her favorite books, "Good ole Noah had and Ark"

Big girl bed (kinda)

My Type A personality daughter has never taken very well to change. She prefers things to remain constant, and doesn't like anything to be a surprise. Knowing this, any time we do anything different, we have to spend about a week to prepare her for it. Up until yesterday, she still slept in her crib bed. We had been talking about sleeping in a big girl bed, since she climbed in and out of her crib by herself. She would lay in there and shout "Mama, I'm awake. Come and get me" As soon as I would open the door, she would start climbing out. (At least she still waited on me) Anyway, since there was some fear about her getting hurt in this process, we decided to think about a big girl bed. Her crib turns into a toddler bed, so we felt that would be a good place to start. And for the first time yesterday (after lots of talking it up) I assembled her "new" bed and she slept for 2 1/2 hours for her nap and slept soundly throughout the night. I'm a little surprised that she took so well to it, but as you can tell from the pictures, it's not much different from her crib. She still sleeps with the baby bumper (she snuggles up to it at night) and still has her little aquarium. Hey, at least she doesn't have to climb in anymore. Baby steps :)

Here she is at about 8 months old in her crib... my how things have changed! She is very happy to just be able to jump in and not have to shimmy over the rail.

She and her baby posing for the camera.

Tony and I have joked that the little aquarium will have to go to college with her :) As you can see, it's not that dramatic of a change, but for Raegan it's a very big deal!

As you can see above, she is finally wearing a different dress, (Only because her Christmas tree dress was in the washer) She wore the cow dress for about 1 hour, and then took it off and sat beside the laundry room door. When asked what she was doing, she said "Waiting for my Christmas Dress to dry" And she did... she went around refusing to put anything on except her Christmas Dress. Her dress is now dry and she is a happy little girl again, in her favorite dress :)

Feeling better

Since this past weekend was full of snotty nosed, feverish, whining kids, and not much sleep (think 6 hours total in 2 nights) we are happy to go from this...

...to this. (These were actually taken on two different days, but the dress she is wearing in both pictures is her new favorite. She has worn it everyday since Nana gave it to her a few days ago. At the rate we are washing/wearing it, it doesn't stand a chance to last too long :) That was her happy face. This is her sad face, although she just looks angry to me.

This is her newest expression... surprise. It's her new favorite face to make. She is such a little ham, and feeling some better. She still has a gruffy voice, and isn't quite 100%, but we are in much better shape and actually sleeping again. YEAH!

The kids appetites have finally come back as well, so tonight we had a household favorite - Spaghetti! Drew has a new found love of food, so here he is trying it out. I'm not sure how much actually made it into his mouth, but he sure had fun eating and went straight to the tub afterwards.

No more shag

Our sweet baby boy is growing up so fast. I'm not sure why it's such a big deal to give a baby his/her first haircut, but there is some serious emotional attachment to that baby hair. Raegan never had any hair until she was almost 2, so the fact that I've already had to cut Drew's hair... well lets just say a few tears fell along with that baby hair. Here are the before and after pictures. I know, I know, he was starting to look like a shag carpet :) He REALLY needed a hair cut!

It hung so far over his ears. He was always messing with his ears, and I think his hair just tickled them :)

And here is the after. I'm not very good at cutting boys hair, and the front is still a little crooked. In my defense, however, he screamed the whole time we trimmed and has a horrible cow lick right in front that makes it look more crooked than it is. It took me two days and several different tries to get it all even (or pretty close to even :) Perfect or not, it definitely looks better!

He is such a handsome little boy.

Well, I'm off to tend to my feverish, snotty nose children. Yes, now they have the crud, so everyone is a little grouchy. It sure does make the days a little longer, but at least they like to sit still and snuggle more.

Something to be thankful for

In light of the way this election turned out, we needed some good news. So, I'm thankful that we now officially only have one child in diapers. Raegan has been interested in the potty for a while now, but she never really wanted to go in it all the time. After all, it's much more convenient to just pee in your diaper so you don't have to stop playing. I finally pushed the issue and after about a week of accidents and frustration, she is officially potty trained. She is so proud of her new status as a "Big girl" and refuses to even wear pull-ups. Although she does wear a "big girl sleepy time diaper" at night. I found that just dealing with a few accidents and putting her in real panties worked best for us. It only took about 6 days, and she steadily got the idea. We will see if it's going to be that easy with Drew :) The only thing now, is that since she is so slender, her pants don't want to stay up on her tiny little tail. :) Here is our sweet "big" girl. Here she is cooking away in her little playhouse.
She loves to walk around with her hands in her pockets. Too cute.

A Couple of Cuties

Okay, so I'm always behind... Here are the pictures of our festive Halloween weekend. I have to admit, my kids were the cutest kids ever. I know I'm a little biased being their mother and all, but they were REALLY cute. I had a hard time trying to get a cute picture of both of them together. Raegan was a pumpkin, and Drew was a cowboy. Drew didn't want to wear his hat, Raegan refused to put down her pumpkin bucket so you could actually see her costume, the sun was way to bright, and they were both ready to go... not a good combination for a picture. Here is the best we got. Raegan kept working furiously to keep Drew's hat on, and Drew worked equally as hard to take it off. Finally, without the pumpkin bucket. She insisted that this was a pretty princess pumpkin dress.

There goes the hat.

Still fighting over the hat.

Now he wants to wear the hat.

Tony and I got dressed up a little, too. I was a Virginia Tech football player (only because I already owned a football jersey and am too cheap to actually buy a costume), and Tony was Coach Beamer. I didn't even buy the kids costumes. We borrowed them from Macie and Brodie.

Nana has officially gone crazy1

Raegan loved playing this game. All you had to do was pick up a duck and you won a prize... I think there was supposed to be a duck with a star on it, but since it was forgotten, everyone won. Raegan getting a little love from her "Doot"

Our other family - Ellie, Raegan, Annie and Drew. This is too cute!