Saturday, December 8, 2012

Church Skating Party

Every year our church has a skating party around Christmas time. Raegan loved it so much last year that I marked it on our calendar as soon as I got the date last month. :)


Raegan's getting way more confident about skating by herself, but she is sooooo serious about it. She was having fun, I promise!

She was so excited to see so many people that she knows from church.

She tried the limbo (holding my hand) and really wanted to do the stretch game too. She wants to do everything that the big kids do!



Happy Birthday Zane!

Here's a couple pictures I took from Zane's birthday party. It's hard to believe that he's 14 now!





Friday, November 23, 2012

Funny sayings

I think one of the best things about preschool aged children is how they repeat things exactly how they hear them. Which is often totally different from how the word is actually said. Here's some of Raegan's latest phrases:

"framily" for "family"

Rihanna's song "Diamonds" has a phrase that goes "Shine bright like a diamond." Raegan loves this song, but she goes around singing "A wife and a diamond." :D

At her school they've been learning about cornucopias, and they put one together for the soup kitchen that the church runs. Raegan has been talking about it at home, but she calls it a "cornacokia". She goes around the house saying it all drawn out: corn-a-coke-ee-a.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Quick update

Raegan has adjusted very well to preschool. She was rather hesitant the first two weeks at drop off in the morning, but now we have no problems. We're starting to hear a variety of different songs that they sing there, and we're seeing that she is learning so much. She went in knowing almost every uppercase letter, and now we're seeing an explosion of learning lowercase letters too. She's picking up the sounds of the letters through the curriculum that they use, and is now counting to 20. She knows the days of the week and has the order of the months up to May. :) The last two weeks she's been on a rhyming word kick - she can come up with a rhyming word for any word you tell her. A lot of times her fallback sound is "h" - What rhymes with bat? "hat" What rhymes with cow? "how" and sometimes she'll even make up words to rhyme with what we say. Just another super important skill that sets the stage for her learning how to read.

The biggest thing that we are struggling with right now is getting her to dress herself in the morning. Raegan is NOT a morning person, and never really has been. On the weekends she is pretty happy, but that's because she gets to get up on her own time, which is usually at least an hour later than when I wake her up for school. I obviously am not expecting her to do everything perfectly yet, but I have the basic expectation that she can take her clothes off and put on her own underwear and pants and socks. Sometimes she needs help getting the shirt over her head. But honestly, you would think she had no arms the way she flails around like she can't do anything for herself. I refuse to give in though, so we've had some rough mornings for about two weeks now, but we are slowly getting there. Mommy just needs lots of prayers for patience. :)

Pumpkin Patch 2012

I wasn't sure if we were going to make it out to the Pumpkin Patch this year, because October was a veeeerrrrry busy month for us. We made it out the last weekend before Halloween, which actually wasn't so bad because it meant hardly anyone was there. It was kind of a cooler cloudy day, but we had a lot of fun.



Raegan was so brave about the huge slide on the hill. She just plowed right up the stairs.

A little nervous her first time down, but later on we ended going down it at least a dozen times more.







Going to look for a little pumpkin.

Come on Mama, let's go!

We found the perfect pumpkin!



Me and my best girl!

Raegan sang "Deep and Wide" the whole way home. She was tired, but so happy!

Sunday, September 9, 2012

First Day of Preschool

It just seems surreal that Raegan is in preschool. Like, wasn't it just yesterday that I was holding her for the first time? Granted, she is a very young preschooler, so it is a little sooner for her than for most children, but still.

Raegan has been talking about going to school for MONTHS now. And when Zane went back to school last month she was super bummed that it wasn't her turn yet. It seems like the closer the day came the more she asked about it. The week before school started she had orientation, which was her time to go into the classroom by herself and spend time with her teacher. Raegan was very excited to FINALLY get to wear her bookbag and go to her school, as you can see from the first picture. :)





Once we got there, she started getting a little nervous about the whole thing (as you can see from the second picture!) and as soon as we got downstairs her shoulder went up in front of her face (her classic "I'm feeling shy" move). Her teacher was really kind and got down on her level and gave her a couple minutes to warm up before she firmly (but still nicely) led her into the classroom. I didn't go in the classroom with her at all, which is a Montessori thing (it's all about the children and their learning experiences) but she did really well. And me not going in with her for orientation really helped on the first day of school because she kind of knew that Luke and I wouldn't be going any further than the hallway.

Ready to go on the first day of school



How did my baby turn into this grown up girl?










Hanging up her bookbag


Hug for her teacher

I think she kind of surprised herself with the hug, because she immediately got kind of stand-offish :)

Raegan lingered in the hallway/doorway to the classroom for a minute, until Ms. Sherry steered her in the direction of Ms. Molly. Luke and I hung out for another minute, before we decided we better GO while she was still thinking everything was okay. The north side of the classroom has a long wall of windows that face the sidewalk outside, so we stood out there and watched her for a few minutes. Raegan kind of stood there for awhile until Ms. Molly got her started on an activity, and she seemed happy, so off we went.

When I picked Raegan up, she said that she got to use TAPE AND SCISSORS!!! (said all in caps, btw) and that their garden has "pumpkin pies" growing in it. She was equally happy to go to school on Thursday and my mother in law said she just walked right in. Actually, Raegan was a little disappointed that she couldn't go on Friday, but once she realized she would get to spend more time at her daycare provider's she cheered up.

So far so good for an excellent start to school. :) 


Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Family Fun Night

Every year Raegan's daycare provider does a Family Fun Night where the families can come to eat and play. Raegan was pretty excited about it - last time she was too little to really understand what it was going to be.


Raegan's favorite part was the art table


Putting stickers on her paper with Daddy and Angie




Lots of fun toys to play with


Raegan and Carly


Always with her mouth hanging open.... :)





STICKERS!!!!

Raegan's Birthday Party

My baby turned 3 on Saturday. I'm still working on her birthday letter, but I'm having a really hard time with it this year (i.e. getting kind of weepy about it). So in the meantime, here's pictures from her party on Saturday.

Checking out presents as they pile up :)

Love these two!

Raegan's friend Greyson

Opening presents

A Barbie!!!

Raegan was so excited when her cousins showed up!

Clothes for her big baby

More, please!

Checking out the cake





Big Cheese and her cake

So happy to be with everybody



Mommy and her best girl!

Everyone liked the cake

Papa and Khloe

I'm not really sure what's happening here..... :)