Our week

The girls and I have had a fun week. Poor Craig has not! He was training to serve banquets at Widmer and put in 4 shifts this week, yuck! The banquets will be a good thing though, good money and he will only be doing a few a month in addition to his Mon Tues shifts. I think Craig and I are both hoping that sometime in the future he can drop the floor shifts (sorry for the restaurant lingo) and just work a handful of banquets each month. That would depend on a promotion at Dow though, but Craig feels good about that potential. After all, he is amazingly awesome and smart and his bosses know it!

I got the grocery shopping over on Monday so that the rest of the week could be spent on fun outings. Tuesday found us at OMSI, Wednesday at the community center's
"open gym," and Thursday and Friday we went to McCoy park. Reagan has been taking her morning nap most of the days this week which is great. She is still teething and has a touch of a cold so she has been cranky!

Here is a funny picture of her sucking on the Motrin bottle (which I gave her to get the last little bit).

And this cute shot exemplifies how she's been feeling.

Luckily no matter how sad she is, girlfriend loves her bath time! I love this picture, it really shows off those beautiful brown eyes (yes, I have conceded and call them brown now:0))

Here is Katya enjoying the park: It is so hard to get a real clear photo of this kid...she is always on the move! Still cute.

Being silly. I was trying to get a better shot of her holding her 1 year photo but of course I should have took it out of the glass. And Miss Katya does not always want to cooperate with my silly ideas.


We have had so much going on the last few weekends, we are looking forward to a quite few days. We might try and plant tomatoes and I definitely want to change the oil in the Jeep. Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! Love, Brenda

OMSI

We had a great time at OMSI on Tuesday. Reagan loved playing in the water and crawling around. Katya played in the infant area for quite a while which was nice for Reagan. Katya LOVES to watch herself on the videos I have shot. She kept saying, "let me see please!" like she does on the ABC video. She think she's so funny:0) Here is a short one from OMSI, not real interesting but what the heck. And speaking of broccoli (which is in the video), the other night I told Katya that she had broccoli breath and she said, "No, I'm a person."

Reagan's new 'trick'

Reagan is not napping well again and took only one nap most days this week. Her favorite trick to get out of naps is stand up in her crib and scream until I come get her. This is because she doesn't know how to lower herself down yet and she gets scared. She often will not sleep (just talks and cries) through her am nap but is then exhausted by 11. It is hard because now I have NO time were both kids are down (I use to get about an hour). And on Sterling days we don't have a chance to go to the park. Sterling is still taking 2 naps and he has been sleeping real well for me lately. Reagan has been going down for the night as early as 5 pm because of her one early nap. It could be another phase since she is so obsessed with her increased mobility. She is pulling her self up on everything and is now offically crawling on hands and knees!

It seems a little mean but I could not resist snapping a few pictures when I went to Reagan the other day:0)


She looks a little crazy-eyed in this one but I love how you can see the color in her beautiful eyes!

PS...

Don't forget to click on the pictures to get a better veiw! I am messing with the format, as you can see. I am not sure how to make the pictures bigger on the blog page. Might need to give my big sis a call!

Nikon D90

Our new camera arrived today! I did not have a ton of time to play with it but got the basic functions and snapped some pictures of the girls. I have a ton to learn but I realize that it is going to be a process so this is just the beginning. So far it seems pretty user friendly. The quality of the pictures looks great....but if only it would get my 2yr old to stay still for half a second!



Katya tends to be pretty camera shy, though it depends on her mood. I think she was a little annoyed with me this afternoon. She's going to have to get use to it! Poor kid.



Luckily the little sister doesn't mind it so much (at least now, she's too young to know any better)! But Reagan went to bed at 5pm tonight (poor naps today) and she was really cranky so I only got a few of her. The lighting is not so great in the last one but it is cute of Reagan so I kept it.

New Toy!

After refinancing our house and selling some Exilixis stock we had quite a surplus of funds this month. We talked about paying off the Jeep, paying down the mortgage, putting it all in savings, ect. We decided to put most of it in savings and spend some on ourselves! This is a big deal for us, Craig and I don't spend money on unnecessary stuff very often; especially on something this extravagant. We decided to buy a new camera (which we having been wanting for a while). But no, not just a nice point-and-shoot....we are going big! I have done quite a bit of research and we have decided on a Nikon D90 which is a very nice DSLR (digital single-lens reflex, a professional type camera).

I got a good feel for the cost and did some bidding on Ebay (A Ryan Flood suggestion, thanks Ryan!). I lost 2 but then last night we won! Like my dad suggested, we put in our maximum bid that we wanted to pay and let it ride. We got it for 10$ less then our maximum. Someone did try a last second bid, at the price we ended up paying, but our max was set higher so we won! And it is the cheapest I have seen any of the Nikon D90s go for so I feel good about it. Ebay is weird too me though, and it makes me a little nervous. Where do people get all this stuff that they are selling? I would hate to be purchasing a stolen product. I steered clear of any listings that gave me a bad feeling and I will be happy when we get the camera and the transaction is over. Here is a picture of our camera from it's ebay listing!



I am going to take a photography class, hopefully this summer and I am excited to learn to take better pictures. It is amazing the difference in quality a good camera can make. I can't believe we spent so much money on a camera, yikes! But I think it will be well worth it. Our camera sucks and our kids are growing up before our eyes. We got out Craig's Canon Rebel which is a nice SLR camera but is film. I enjoyed shooting with it today...it is so different then a point-and-shoot, so much more fun! We all but forgot about the Canon because film is so expensive to buy and develop.

Look out! I might turn into the family photographer at our family events!

Happy Birthday Grant!!!

I can't believe I missed Grant's birthday!!! It was yesterday, so this birthday post is a day late. Darn it! My nephew Granty is 2 years old! Woo-hoo! And did you know Grant, that Apollo 13 landed safely on April 17th in 1970? A miracle just like you are a miracle! [By the way, this beautiful picture of him, I believe was his 1yr photo]

I have had a lot on my mind this week, with Grandpa's heart attack, our "Fancy Dessert Party" last night, and our search for a really nice new camera. Grandpa came home from the hospital yesterday, yeah! He had to go back to the doctors yesterday because one of his IV sites got infected but he is doing well. We are hoping to go visit him soon. Words cannot say how grateful we are that he is still with us. It makes me tear up just thinking about it.

Last night we had some friends over for a dessert party. It was really fun and the perfect group of friends. Melanie, Rich, Angie, Ralph, Suzanne (Rich's sister) and boyfriend Nate, Jen and Ben (next door)and Cory, Craig's friend from Legacy that watched our house/dogs over Christmas. We had amazing desserts, wine, beer and played games. Very fun.

The camera stuff I decided to save for another post. Love to all, especially to Grant!!!!

Pictures!!

Here are Reagan's first birthday pics from Yuen Lui, they turned out pretty cute! I love that we get the digital copies. You are welcome to copy and paste these pics from here to your own computer. We do have a 5x7 print for the Grandparents and a 3x5 for aunts, uncles and great-grandparents. E-mail me which pose you want! If the grandparents pick the same pose we will figure something out. Love, Brenda

1 year old!!!!

Happy Birthday to my darling Reagan! Words can't say what this little one means to us. It has been quite a year, lots of stress and bumps but I can truely say that I enjoyed Reagan's first year to the fullest. I love what a snuggler she is! She will even go to sleep with me if she is having a rough night, something Katya would NEVER do at her age. Here is some 12 month Reagan facts:

* Starting to crawl on hands and knees
* Climbing stairs, pulling self up, starting to 'cruise.'
* Saw a picture of me (when I was not around) and said, "mama."
* Signs milk, light and dog.
* 2 naps
* Bedtime 6:30pm and up 7-7:30am
* Gave up sucking thumb
* Gets frustrated easily, wants what she wants!
* Loves bath time
* Loves 'lift the flap' books
* Has 4 teeth, bottom two and top two.
* Getting more picky about foods; drinking cold milk from sippy cup

I am so glad that Reagan's attempt to drop her morning nap was just a phase! I have adjusted her schedule a little bit, the 9am 1pm nap times were not working quite right. She now does a 9am nap and a 2pm nap and goes to bed at 6:30pm. She has been taking 1.5 hr naps lately and is really well rested. When I put her down to sleep she rolls onto her belly, snuggles up to the mattress and does a little laugh, "Haaa Haha." So cute! Girlfreind likes her sleep.

We are looking forward to celebrating our Reagan with some family. Wish all the family could be here! I guess that's what I get for moving away from where I grew up. But wait, if I hadn't there would be no Reagan!!! Love and prayers to all, Brenda

12 month check

Reagan's 12 month well child check was yesterday. She measured 29 inches long, about the 70th percentile and weighed 19lbs 1oz, just under the 25th percentile. Her weight curve isn't as uniform as it could be, she has really slowed down in weight gain, but I am sure it is just fine. The doc (a sub since our pediatrician is out on maternity leave) wasn't overly concerned but mentioned it and said that it will be nice to see where she falls at 15 months. She did say that it is a fine weight for how long she is. I was not crazy about this pediatrician who is new to the practice. It made me appreciate our regular doc that much more! Dr Oller (our doc) is always so through in her physical exam and I like her philosophy on stuff. I was happy to hear she will be back in June and Reagan's 15 month well child check is scheduled with her.

Everything else was fine. She is doing all the right things and of course is just the cutest. Here are a few pictures of our toothy girl! Love to all, Brenda

Happy Birthday Aunt Rena!

As Candace said in her blog this morning, Rena's birthday kicks off a month full of birthday celebrations. Next of course is my baby's 1st!! Then Grant, Addison and Nathan. So fun to celebrate life and these wonderful people.

Pulling herself up!

Our little Reagan has started pulling herself up this week! She is also climbing the stairs without help, but with a parent right with her of course. I got some cute pictures of her playing on one of the little chairs. She is so happy with herself! She has also been taking some 'steps' of hands and knees crawling. Yesterday she took several in a row.


She stops to clap for herself a lot! If I say "Good job Reagan" or "Yeah!," she starts clapping.

A bit of the scrunchy face here. It is so funny how so many babies do "the scrunchy face." Sterling does, Katya did and Shannan said Payton did too. It is hilarious!





No, she did not fall off!

Miss Reagan has been sick this week but she is doing much better now. I took her to the docs yesterday, even though I should have called and cancelled because she woke up feeling good. The one interesting thing from the visit is her weight, which had not been officially taken since her 6 mo check. She is 19lbs 3oz!