Saturday, July 30, 2011

New haircut!

I got a new haircut! I pretty much have just let it grow since my bob last spring, only getting trims to keep it from looking crazy. I finally got tired of all the time I spent blow drying and straightening it, so I went in for a cut. It was so long! Now I have a nice shoulder length-ish cut. Kind of a longer bob, where it's shorter in the back and longer in the front. I love it! And hollah for all my own natural color for the first time since I got it highlighted when I was 18. :D

Lunch with Heather

Yesterday I had the opportunity to go to Hutchinson to visit my college roommate Heather. Heather just had an adorable baby boy named Felix in the end of April. He's getting to that really fun stage where he's interacting a lot more. I got some big smiles and coos from the handsome fellah while I was there. Heather's husband is also a teacher (Heather and I were in the same major in college) so he watched Felix while Heather and I enjoyed some delicious Chinese buffet (with sushi for me!) and a trip to the teacher supply store in town. I realized yesterday that I have managed to see all three of my oldest friends within the last three weeks: this week, lunch with Heather; last weekend, the zoo with Kayley; and the weekend before that, lunch and HARRY POTTER! with Mary. It's been a fantastic summer! I'm sad to see it coming to an end.

ABCs

One of Raegan's favorite songs to sing right now is ABC's. Luke sings it to her a lot when they rock before she goes to bed, so she's really picked it up. This video doesn't show it, but she'll blather along after H, then sing "Now I no no ABC" for "Now I know my ABCs" at the end. I love it! :) 

Monday, July 25, 2011

Mom's Surprise Party!

On Sunday I threw a surprise party for my mom's 50th birthday. I had been thinking about doing this for months, but it all really just came together in the last couple weeks. My sister and her husband weren't able to come, but my brother and his family came, along with some of my mom's close friends (and my family of course!) My dad and I managed to keep it a complete secret from her, and Mom was shocked when she came downstairs and everyone yelled, "Surprise!" It was a perfect day!

Everyone waiting for the guest of honor to arrive!


Raegan entertaining herself quite nicely


It's kind of blurry, but can you tell that she's completely shocked?!!






I decided I had enough to do getting the house and other food ready, so I let Walmart take care of the cake this time. It was yummmmmy!


Koen was really waiting on that cake!




Make a wish!










Raegan took over Khloe's shoes for awhile!




Goofy girls



Saturday, July 23, 2011

Zoo trip with friends!

This morning Raegan and I went to Rolling Hills with my longtime friend Kayley, her husband, 1 year old daughter Layla, and Kayley's mom. We got there a little after 8:00 in the hopes that we could avoid the extreme heat. It wasn't too bad, because there was a breeze, and the zoo had these lovely water misters set up at decent intervals. It was Layla's first trip to the zoo, and Raegan loves the zoo, so we all had a good time. It was nice to catch up with Kayley. I don't think we've seen each other since Christmas, and we're both so busy with work and our families that we don't even catch up by phone very often anymore.

Kayley, Brad and Layla


This tiger had the right idea! He just kept sinking further and further down into the water!


Layla was just fascinated by every animal :)








Layla and Raegan really liked the bunnies





And of course, Raegan was super excited about the chickens. She loves any kind of bird!


Posing in the museum


What a great morning!

McPherson water park

Wednesday we made the drive with my mom to McPherson to eat lunch and visit their water park. My mom had really recommended this Mediterranean cafe to me, but the prices were a bit steep. So mom and I ordered the sandwiches we wanted to go, then took the kids over to McDonalds. :) Rude? Perhaps, but they were so blasted busy that I don't think they ever noticed.

We made it to the water park right at 1:00 when they opened, and were able to snag a nice shaded chair to put our stuff. I didn't really take too many pictures, because water parks are for getting wet, and you can't really do that with a camera, you know?



Raegan ended up hating the bulldog slide, because she landed on her butt in the water and it was deep enough that it went over her head! :(

More gymnastics!

We've been super busy in the Jones household over the last week! I haven't really had a lot of time this week to put pictures up, so I guess today will be my catch up day.

Raegan is really enjoy her "gymnastics class" quite a bit. She wasn't too sure about the bars, which was the theme for this last week, but she loves all of the running around!





Saturday, July 16, 2011

Gymnastics!

Raegan is taking gymnastics, which consists of us running around a gym and playing for a half hour. It's a lot of fun! I signed her up for it because I know how much she likes to crawl and tumble, and I thought it would be a fun, air conditioned thing to do this summer. Don't worry - I'm not a crazy, overscheduling mom! lol


Trying to do a somersault


A slide! She thought this was fantastic!


Mini trampoline


Raegan rather liked the streamers. I know this picture is kind of blurry, but I thought it looked cool.


Taking a break....

Lake fun!

Today was the first day that Raegan and I went out on the boat this year. Raegan was super excited about the lake when we drove up ("Wa wa? Wa wa!!!!") but she was a little iffy about the boat at first. I think she wanted to be in the water, not in the boat! We anchored and walked over to one of the beaches so that she could have some fun (and Mommy could not worry constantly about how deep the water was). At first, Raegan was all Miss Priss about the waves (just like last year) but Luke did some handstands underwater and snuck up on her to entertain her. Luke and I sat on the edge of the water for awhile and Raegan discovered that one of her favorite outdoor toys is also at the lake: rocks! THEN she was nothing but sunshine and smiles.

We drove around in the boat for awhile longer (which Raegan enjoyed much better this time around - we even heard a couple "wheeeee!"'s from her) then dropped anchor and ate lunch. It was pretty hot out and very sunny, so we decided to call it a day, because at that point we had been out for about two hours. I think because we put towels up to provide some shade, Raegan didn't end up burnt. My legs were pretty red, and my chest, which is ODD, because I put on sunscreen. My guess is that the breeze kind of blew it away while I was spraying it on. Who knows? I'm just glad she didn't get burnt. I'm slathering on lotion and aloe like a crazy person right now so that I don't peel. I hate peeling.

Here's The Big Cheese on the way to the lake. Love this girl so much!

Chilling out on the boat.


As soon as I pulled out the camera a second time, she started saying "Cheese! Cheese!"


Hot and tired, but having so much fun!

Cleaning and organizing!

Lately I've really been in the mood to organize and clean. I finally got around to cleaning out under Raegan's bed, and either putting toys away downstairs or getting rid of ones that we don't want to keep. I've been avoiding her closet forever, because it had kind of become a storage place for a lot of things. But it was on my summer list (and my summer is sadly almost over!) so I knew I finally had to get crackin' on it.

I still have a huge pile of clothing that I need to sort through into give away and keep piles, but other than that Raegan's room is completely done! One of the things that I finally got rid of: hangers. Why I have felt the need to save what is apparently every.single.hanger. off of clothing I have purchased over the last two years, I have no idea.

Pretty bad, huh? :)

Thursday, July 14, 2011

300th post, and milestones update

This post marks my 300th post! I have quite a lot to say, huh? :)

I realized that I haven't updated lately with Raegan's milestones, so I figured I should do that while I'm thinking of it.

More and more every day it seems like Raegan is more of a little girl and less of a baby. Weekly, and sometimes even daily, she is doing new things. I'm always in awe of how very smart she is. I know every parent thinks that their child is so smart, but I don't think it's just me being her mom. She can count to ten, you guys! TEN. For the longest time, she would start at 2 and count to 10, but this week she's started counting with the number one. Sometimes she will point at objects and count, but she doesn't always use one number for one object, and when she's doing that she usually trails off around five or six. I love the way she says five, with a "sh" sound on the end instead of a "v". Raegan is also starting to use color words, although she's not correctly naming any colors yet. She mostly says that things are blue or yellow. She has an Elmo alphabet book that she has pretty much memorized, and in certain parts of the book she can tell you what letter is coming next. As soon as you start reading the page that says "Iguana starts with I" she will immediately say J. She points to words and letters and calls them all E. :) These are all awesome skills that I look for in the 3 year olds I teach, so I'm pretty pumped that she's starting to show some literacy skills before the age of 2. She still loves to read, and we start off every day with book after book after book. :)

Raegan's nervousness about going to the pool has pretty much disappeared. She's still not a fan of deep water where she can't touch, but she loves going to the baby pool! One of her recent new words is "swimsuit." She's also so fearless when it comes to climbing and playing at the park. She loves the slides and the climbing structures. She had no fear of going through any of the play places at Silver Dollar City. I'm glad that she doesn't have the paralyzing fear of heights that I did as a child.

Her vocabulary is expanding daily. She's starting to use three word sentences/phrases more frequently. She knows the names for about every animal under the sun, and can do the noises for just as many. :) One of Raegan's favorite things to say right now is "What's that?" If we go somewhere new, she immediately asks about our new surroundings and wants to figure everything out. When we say prayers before bed, she has suggestions for what we should pray about now, usually involving saying thank you for all of her friends from daycare. She has three in particular that she names off multiple times.

Hopefully this weekend we're going to break out the toddler bed and start transitioning her to that. She tends to have a hard time sleeping in new beds (see: blogs about our vacation!) so we're starting now with the hopes that she'll be settled in by the time I go back to work and not too tired in the mornings. She still wants to sit on the potty before bath, and randomly throughout the day, but she's not really going in it yet. She will tell you the instant she is wet or poopy (she calls it all "poopy") but she's not quite there yet in letting us know beforehand. I kind of want to get the bed transition taken care of before we start focusing on potty training more intensely.

I can't believe that Raegan is almost two! It seems like just yesterday she was my brand new baby.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Branson Vacation, Day Three

Raegan slept much better Thursday night. I figured out when she started the party in the middle of the night again that she couldn't settle down with someone in the bed with her. So I moved to the floor, and she went right to sleep. I had to do it twice, but for more sleep, it was worth it. I did discover when I woke up at 6:00 in the morning to crawl back in bed that I'm not as young as I used to be. :)

We enjoyed another delicious hot breakfast and checked out of our motel a little after 10:00. Our first stop was the Branson Auto Museum, which Luke was really wanting to go to.

I thought this quote was pretty funny!


The actual car from Men in Black.




This was one of my favorites. I think I would feel very elegant tootling around town in this!


Zane with the Batmobile.


What a cute little piano!


My cuties!

Our final stop before we left Branson was at a putt putt place with a dinosaur theme.

Raegan's first game of putt putt golf!



A little lesson from Daddy.


It was a very pretty place!


I ended up winning, and made 3 hole in ones. Woo hoo!






The volcano there actual spit out fire at random intervals. You could feel the heat from it!


Zane is a smidge taller than me now. Yikes!


Kind of got Raegan in the picture


Do I like this dinosaur?


Beautiful girl!


On our way home we stopped in the afternoon for gas and snacks. Raegan loooooooves cheese crackers!