Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Check Ups and Firsts

Today we had Reagan's 2 year appointment and Kennedy's 4 month appointment (I know Kennedy is 5 months but because of the incredible amount of shots and minor controversy around them I don't mind letting the appointments slide a bit - besides we've been a little busy this last month! lol :). The doctor was happy with both the girl's development. He asked me if Reagan talks yet and I said yes, he then asked if she spoke in sentences yet and I said yes. Reagan then proceeded to tell him about our bumble bee (BTW do the big bumblebees sting?) experience at the park yesterday. Her story (lately all Reagan's stories start out with her asking the question "What happenned?" and then she proceeds to answer her own question) goes something like this:
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"What happenned? Bumble bee. Bumble bee flew into Reagan's goldfish bag. Bumble bee mad and grumpy. Be careful. Be quiet."
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The pediatrician said Reagan was pretty impressive and he didn't need to ask any more developmental questions. lol :)
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Here are the girl's stats:
Reagan is in the 75th-90th percentile for height and weight. Her head circumferance is in the 90th percentile. At 15lbs 13ozs Kennedy is in the 50th-75th percentile for weight which is also where she is for height. Her head circumferance is in the 50th percentile.
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I don't have doctor pics but I do have a couple Kennedy milestone pictures from Sunday, April 26. Kennedy had her first cereal and first bath. As you can see from the pictures below she is enjoying both! :)

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Helping Daddy get the spoon and more importantly the food into the mouth - faster Daddy!




Bathtime is fun!






Kennedy has been loving her feet and toes the last couple weeks. While in the bathtub on Sunday she was absolutely fascinated by her knee. Go figure...

All cleaned up (as Reagan would say) and super smiley!

Thank you to Aunt Kim for Kennedy's purple Winnie the Pooh outfit. Thank you to Grammy for Kennedy's lamb baby towel. I also want to send a delinquent thank you to Grandma Karen for the outfit Kennedy is wearing in her 5 month "duck" picture.

Kisses

Chocolate kisses that is... Reagan and Kennedy received an Easter package from Aunt Arla last week. One of the items in the package were Hershey's Chocolate Kisses. Grammy helped Reagan open the bag so she could have one or two...

or maybe a few? Did Grammy seriously think a two year old was only going to eat one or two and leave the rest in the bag if left to her own devices??? lol :)

Thank you for all the treats Aunt Arla!

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Watch Me Grow - Kennedy - 5 Mon

Kennedy is still a super sweet and happy baby. :) She rolls and scoots everywhere now. She certainly does not stay where you put her for very long! I have a feeling she will be crawling in no time at all as she is working hard to get her knees up and under herself.
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She's not quite sitting up but I'm sure she will be before too long. She can partially balance herself for a few seconds before tipping over.
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Kennedy has become quite coordinated and is able to reach for toys and "play" with them a bit more. During the past week she has become coordinated enough to get her paci back into her mouth on her own (not consistently but she has done it several times). She discovered her toes last weekend and loves to play with them too (both reaching for and chewing on them).
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Kennedy is quite good at sitting (as long as someone is holding her that is - she isn't big on entertaining herself) while we read stories to Reagan. We're hoping that is an earlier indicator that she is going to have the same love of books the rest of us have!
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While I see no physical evidence of it, Kennedy seems to be working super hard on getting some teeth. She chews and chews and chews on everything. She handles Baby Orajel much better than Reagan ever did and she also truly enjoys her teething rings. She especially likes the type that is a circle made up of numerous small circles. Those smaller circles fit perfectly in her mouth. She has had a couple of rough days where she seems truly uncomfortable so I sure hope that tooth (or teeth) pop through soon and give her some relief!
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As we've mentioned before Kennedy is such a little wiggle worm! Well we may have passed the wiggle worm stage and moved on to Baby Houdini (nickname coined by Grandma Karen). Kennedy loves to swing (inside and out) but we're having to be super careful with the indoor swing because she managed to get herself completely out of it in all her wiggling this month! I found her on the floor underneath the swing even though the buckles were still completely buckled a couple of weeks ago. How on earth did she do that???
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I don't think I've ever done this before but I decided to use 3 duck pictures today. I couldn't decide which to use. Kennedy is so wiggly and she was either throwing herself forward or backward everytime I sat her down. You can see in the last picture she was cracking herself up. lol :)
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5 Mon - April 2009




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4 Mon - March 2009

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1 Week - November 2008

Thursday Pictures :)

We had a surprise visit from Uncle Barry and Katie Thursday morning. As you can see Kennedy was very excited to see them! :) Thank you for breakfast and we're looking forward to seeing you all again soon! :)

Afterwards we went outside to play and Reagan was being a little nut. In this picture she's saying "Mommy's so silly!" I have no idea why she thought I was being the silly one. lol :)

Pa installed this wheel and telescope for us last weekend. So she was standing there saying "Pa fixed this" repeatedly. Later in the day she told me "Pa is fantastic!"

Swinging together

Kennedy's first outdoor nap

While Reagan can't be quite as wild and crazy on the swing as she is on the slide she still has a lot of fun swinging. Speaking of sliding, today after I caught Reagan at the bottom of the slide she exclaimed "Oh Mommy! I so proud of you Mommy!"



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Here are some cute pictures Itook of the girls during/after Kennedy's duck photo shoot

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Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Happy 2nd Birthday Missy Reagan!

April 18, 2009 ~ Reagan's 2nd Birthday Party ~ Reagan just sparkles with those big bright eyes and beautiful grin ~ We love you girl!!!
April 19, 2008 ~ Reagan's 1st Birthday Party ~ Reagan has always been so expressive and she had a million different faces at 1 ~ As you can see she was super excited about her birthday cake ~ What a cutie pie! :)

April 21, 2007 ~ 7 hrs old ~ What a precious baby girl!

Our little Missy Reagan turned 2 on Tuesday, April 21. We simply can not believe she can already be 2! She is so much fun and entertains us all the time. She is so expressive and can be so sweet. Today she was laying next to Kennedy and said "I love you Kennedy. I love you sooo much!" She sure knows how to melt my heart!
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Reagan is the queen of hugs!!! She is a little hugging machine! While she has a funny leaning sort of hug she also knows how to give the best bear hugs ever! She practically throws herself into your arms and wraps her arms as tightly around your neck as she can. She has recently started enjoying big family hugs as well - we especially enjoy these when Daddy comes home from work in the evening. She'll pretty much give anyone a hug anytime but you do have to know how to ask. You don't ask her if you can have a hug you have to ask her if she has a hug. What a little nut and we sure love her!!! :)
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Reagan's favorite activity is reading. Books have been her favorite thing to play with right from the beginning. Her current favorite is her new book from Uncle Andrew and Aunt Jen "There is a Monster at the End of This Book." She enjoys pretty much anything, however, and continuously amazes us with her attention span.
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Speaking of reading, Reagan can read and recognize between 2 and 3 dozen words. These include small words like cat, dog, toes, nose as well as larger words like mouth, gorilla, and elephant. She's not reading any books on her own yet (although she does have a couple nearly memorized) but I'm sure it won't be too long before she's working on that. For those of you who haven't seen it you should check out YourBabyCanRead.com. Reagan loves the books, videos and sliding cards and it has amazed us how easily she's learning to read since we started using the program the end of January.
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Reagan has also been able to recognize all her letters since she was about 18 months old and started recognizing her numbers 0-10 a couple of months after that. While she was nearly counting to 20 back at Christmas she spends more time counting backwards from 5 now. She will also count to 10 in Spanish even though she won't in English. Go figure...
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While Reagan enjoys the typical toddler toys and characters (Mickey Mouse, Thomas, Backyardigans, Little Einstiens, Crayons & Coloring books, stuffed animals etc.) the only items she consistently can't live without are her ladybug paci and her pink and purple blankets.
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Reagan is quite creative and has a wonderful imagination. We can pretend just about anything with her. She is great at producing whatever we might need out of thin air. You can ask her for something or she'll think of something she needs and reach up in front of her and pluck it out of the air. It is so cute and so much fun! I hope we can continue to encourage her creativity and zest for life! :)
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Reagan is a such an expressive (telling us things like it's a FIASCO!!! or Disaster! when something goes wrong or telling us she can run super fast!), focused (or stubborn ~ if she's interested in something there is no distracting her but if she's not interested you can forget it), passionate (she goes at life full blast ~ just look at those slide pictures I posted last week ~ there is no holding her back! lol) and loving (all those hugs for everyone) little girl. We are so blessed to have her in our lives! We love you Missy Reagan and wish you a very happy 2nd birthday and year!

Chuck E Cheese's

Last weekend we celebrated Reagan's 2nd birthday at Chuck E Cheese's. That's where Reagan's cousin, Heidi, had her second birthday in February. Reagan had so much fun and it was so easy we decided to do the same for her. Grammy, Pa, Grandma Pat, Kelly, Charlie, Chaz, Anna, Uncle Dan, Aunt Dorothy and Heidi were able to join Tim, Kennedy and me to help Reagan celebrate her special day. Thanks to everyone for coming!
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Pa and Daddy carrying Reagan's caterpillar birthday cake into Chuck E Cheese's

Reagan riding with Chuck E Cheese

Chaz powering a helicopter ride (with a bit of help from Dad)

Chaz "cheezing" with Chuck E Cheese

Reagan hugging Barney - this was her very favorite ride in February. While she branched out a lot more this time she still loved Barney. I missed it but apparently Daddy or one of the Grandma's tried to sit Kennedy on Barney's arm for a photo op with Reagan and Reagan thought that was an exceedingly bad idea telling Kennedy to get off. I guess after they removed Kennedy Reagan gave Barney a high five. She's such a little stinker sometimes... lol :)

Uncle Dan, Heidi and Aunt Dorothy

Kennedy discovered her toes on Saturday and has been loving playing with them ever since

I thought this was such a cute picture of little Miss Anna

Chaz and Anna dancing on TV

Heidi taking a ride on the clock

Reagan was very excited about her cheese pizza

In the last month or two Reagan has really gotten into praying. If for some reason we don't pray or we forget to pray, she always reminds us. So yes, even here at Chuck E Cheese Reagan was ready to pray before we ate. :)

Enjoying that pizza!

Heidi thought it was pretty good too! :)

Reagan showing Daddy her birthday medal

Reagan sitting on Chuck E Cheese's lap

Blowing out the candles

Loving that Caterpillar cake! :)

Anna sharing her cake with Daddy

Grandma Pat used three different types of cake to construct the caterpillar. Chaz doesn't like sprinkles and was quite concerned he would select a piece which had some. We assurred him he could keep picking until he got a nonsprinkled piece should he be so unlucky as to receive one in the first place. You can see from the smile in the picture below Chaz was quite happy to discover he had chosen chocolate cake. lol :)

Reagan loving her ice cream
Pa enjoying his yellow caterpillar cake
Chaz and Heidi hugging - aren't kids funny and cute?
Kennedy having a great time with Daddy, Grandma and Reagan's birthday balloons
Reagan had a great time on this race horse. She had no idea how to play the game (you were actually supposed to control the horse on a TV screen in front of you) but she had a wonderful time being wild and crazy.
Anna on the clock ferris wheel
Then it was Chaz's turn
Heidi enjoying a turn with Barney
Reagan really getting into the horse ride with Grandma's help
One last quick picture before we left with Grandma and "baby Chuck E Cheese"