The Preamble

When Aunt Julie and Uncle Chuck visited us two years ago in DC we took them to Philly and New York for some site seeing. While visiting the Liberty Bell I found a great book called "We the Kids." It's a book with colorful illustrations of the Preamble of the Constitution. It also explains all the lines of the Preamble in simpler words at the beginning of the book. Whether Reagan loved the colors of the pictures or she's just a little history buff in the making she has always enjoyed reading this book. Labor Day weekend Reagan began randomly reciting the Preamble. We had no idea she had memorized it! This weekend using Grammy's camera we were able to catch it and the Lord's Prayer (see below) on film. I sure love to hear those big words from both the Lord's Prayer and the Preamble with her sweet voice. It is so precious. lol :)

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Sorry the videos are sideways. I know that's kind of annoying to watch, but since I'm not use to taping things on Grammy's camera I didn't realize I had done it incorrectly until it was on here. Like most little kids Reagan isn't real keen on performing so I didn't think I should press my luck and try to get her to do it again. As it is, the only reason I could get her to recite them for the camera this morning was by suggesting Ariel and Prince Eric (gifts from Grammy from our shopping trip yesterday) hadn't heard them yet. lol :)

On the history buff note I have to tell a Reagan story that cracked me up this week. She has a set of President books that she loves. I would think they would be way over a two year old's head but she loves them! She also likes finding pictures of the presidents on the internet. If she sees me on the computer, she nearly always comes up and asks if she can see a picture of George Washington. Then she requests to see pictures of Thomas Jefferson, John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan and Obama. Those are sometimes followed by FDR, Theodore Roosevelt and Andrew Jackson. That's about as many as she knows though. Anyway, she was looking at the book we have on Reagan the other night when she asked me "Is this a picture of Nancy?" It really cracked me up. As it turned out it was a picture of Jane Wyman (Reagan's first wife) so we worked on finding all the pictures of Nancy in the book. It's amazing what little kids pick up. While we have read the book and it does discuss Nancy Reagan I was still amazed that she paid enough attention to realize that a woman standing next to Ronald Reagan should logically be Nancy. So cute and so funny! lol :)

The Lord's Prayer

We always pray before nap and bedtime with Reagan (meals too of course). About 6-8 weeks ago I decided to start saying the Lord's Prayer when Reagan went down for her nap instead of our regular bedtime prayer. Reagan surprised us over Labor Day by reciting the Lord's Prayer from memory. She really has an amazing memory! At that point we had only been saying the Lord's Prayer once a day for a couple of weeks. I'd never asked her to repeat it and neiter Tim nor I had any idea she had memorized it. Sorry I taped this one vertically too without realizing what I was doing!

Labor Day Weekend

Doing my darndest to catch up here! Figured I better get these pics posted from Labor Day before Grammy and Pa visit again this weekend. I still need to get pictures from Wisconsin and Illinois posted from this summer but I'm going to do my level best to be caught up before we leave on our cruise in two weeks. Wish me luck!!! :)

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Pa came up on Saturday of Labor Day weekend to visit and help me select my new camera. On Sunday morning we had sticky buns and Reagan decided she wanted to dunk hers in coffee just like Pa.

After Daddy and Pa finished putting together our nightstands the girls enjoyed playing in the boxes. Actually we still have these two enormous boxes upstairs. While the girls do have fun in them I'm kind of ready for them to go. But how do you remove boxes this size without Reagan noticing??? lol :) Anyhoo... here the girls are reading books and having fun with Pa in their new boxes.

Grammy came from Wisconsin where she had spent the week with Great Grandma Sunday night. Aunt Pat sent a bunch of veggies with her as well as some delicious raspberry jam. Here are Kennedy and Reagan enjoying some fresh corn from Aunt Pat's garden.

Aunt Arla sent a firepit back with Grammy for us so we decided to try it out by making brats and smores Grammy brought the fixings for. Yummy! This was also Reagan's first attempt at roasting marshmellows. While she enjoyed the experience her marshmellows ended up in the ash enough that she opted for eating the marshmellows Grammy fixed instead. :)

Helping Pa dig holes for our new flowers

Playing in the neighbor's sprinklers

Kennedy enjoying the beautiful weather and new flowers

Reagan helping Grammy water the newly planted mums

Reagan watering herself - I belive she was actually have a discussion on how it would help her to grow too :)

Ready to dig some more holes!

Reagan enjoys rolling down the small hill in front of our house

My cute 2 year old girl

Climbing in the wagon from Grandma and Grandpa

Mendelssohn getting some good love

Reagan helping Pa again

Kennedy checking out the new mulch

Thanks to Grammy for bringing us the cute overalls from Wisconsinn (Reagan had been wanting some and I hadn't found any her size). Thanks to Aunt Pat for all the awesome veggies that we're just now finishing up. Thanks to Aunt Arla for the great fire pit (can't wait to use it with you at Thanksgiving!) Thanks to Pa for helping with our furniture and helping me select a new camera. And a super super big thanks to Grammy and Pa for helping us get so many flowers planted and flower gardens mulched!

Duck Costume

Let me first say, I love this duck or chicken or whatever it is costume! I think it has got to be the cutest Halloween costume ever made! :) I've been trying to decide what the girls should be this year (especially because there are some contests on the cruise we're going on) and so I decided to try Reagan's costume from last year on her. As you may recall she loved wearing this costume last year. She loved it this year too. As a matter of fact she kept wearing it all day! So cute and so funny! lol :)
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Nap time

Dinner time (note her interesting way to eat a hamburger - bun in one hand and burger in the other)

Even though it still fit Reagan I was curious to see if it would fit Kennedy. While it was a little big it fit pretty well and I don't know which of my girls is cuter in this costume. What can I say? It just makes me smile and I love it!!! :)

Playdough

Last week Reagan and I made playdough together. We threw all ours away when we moved and I kept forgetting to make any new playdough. Every time we visit Heidi's house Reagan loves her playdough so I knew it was time to make some for our house again. Since Reagan was so awesome about helping with Tim's birthday cake I decided to let her help make the playdough for the first time too. She did an excellent job and helped with everything except for the stove (that still makes me nervous). Even though she had been talking about orange playdough at the last minute she decided on green. Of course as soon as we had the green food coloring in she decided she wanted blue... lol :) Luckily she wasn't too upset and has been very happy to have her green playdough to play with over the course of the last week.

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Measuring flower using the fun Mickey Mouse measuring cups Aunt Marta gave Reagan for Christmas

Measuring the salt

Mixing with the matching Mickey Mouse spatula
Adding the food coloring

Mixing up the green playdough before heating it on the stove

Ready to play!

Using her new number cookie cutters from Aunt Arla

I didn't really expect Kennedy to "play" with the playdough but I thought she would have fun feeling the texture of it and squishing it. Boy was I wrong! I think it confused her that I had given her something in her highchair that I didn't want her to eat. As for feeling the texture, it just made her mad!

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Do you people see what a poor, unfortunate baby I am?

Alright, maybe life isn't so bad...

Maybe this playdough stuff is mildly interesting

Nope, I hate it! What are you people doing to me???? Get me out of here!

Resigned to my fate and my mother who wants me to experience new things. What a life...

Thanks to Grammy for looking up her playdough recipe for us. :)

Shoes

Reagan has started enjoying wearing my shoes. A couple of times both she and Kennedy have had a good time pulling all the shoes out of my closet. For this particular photo shoot Reagan was playing with a couple pairs of my shoes that happened to be downstairs. Later on she discovered Daddy's shoes make good toys too. :)

Kennedy thinks playing with shoes is pretty fun too

Then Kennedy decided to combine playing with shoes with one of her other favorite games. She loves to sit on the small indoor trampoline Grammy gave Reagan and drop things off the edge. She then leans over scoops the object(s) back up, looks at it/them for a minute, and drops it/them over the edge again. I'm not sure what is so entertaining about dropping and retrieving objects but at least Kennedy can play this game on her own when she's on the trampoline. :)

Reagan decided to join Kennedy on the trampoline along with some of her favorite toys in Daddy's shoes. :)

Kennedy watching her big sister, actually I think Reagan was explaining what she was doing to Kennedy.

Then Reagan decided it was time for Daddy's shoes and the Backyardigans to move on. It was not an easy task picking up both of Daddy's big shoes and the toys at the same time but Reagan was pretty determined. :)