Mispronunciations

Some super cute things Raegan has been saying lately:

Calling ticks "tick-tocks" (I think this might be my very favorite!)

"Polo" for pillow (still!)

"Girl" comes out more like "geeel"

School and cool both come out kind of over pronounced, like "skewwwl".

Funny words

Mispronounciations that Raegan makes right now that I just love:

Macaroni = "Rockaroni"

Pillow = "Polo"

Burrito is slowly evolving. It used to be "bayboo", which is why one of my nicknames for Raegan now is "Bay Boo Girl". Now it's "beeto" which always makes me chuckle.

Sophie (a little girl from church that Raegan adores and talks about all the time) = "Snuffy" This is by far my favorite mispronounciation. For the longest time I couldn't figure out who she was talking about when she mentioned Snuffy, but one Sunday morning it finally dawned on me. If I say, "You mean Sophie?" Raegan will reply, "Yeah, Snophie." :)

New words

Sorry Mom, no pictures in this post! (But I am giving you a short video, so that's good for something, right?) This is just a quick update about new things that Raegan is saying, so that I can remember how funny she is now in the years to come. :)

Something new Raegan has started saying this week that I absolutely LOVE is "sure". More times than not, when you ask her a question, her answer is "sure." "Do you want some more banana?" "Sure." "Do you need to sit on the potty?" "Sure Mommy." I love it! :) Another fun thing that she has learned is Mommy and Daddy's actual names. Every now and then she will randomly call us Luke and Shannon, and it cracks me up! And just today I asked her what Mommy's name was, and what Daddy's name was, and she was able to answer. Now I'm trying to teach her to say her first and last name. My girl is getting so big and smart!

Tonight when I was rocking Raegan before bed, I told her it was time to fold her hands to say her prayers. She folded her hands and said, "God is great, God is good, Thank you goldfish." lolololol (At daycare they do the "God is great, God is good" prayer before lunch each day. I love that most nights when we do prayers we say thank you for a lot of her favorite foods. She's definitely my girl!

Raegan also loves to pretend to talk on the phone right now - either one of our cell phones or one of her play phones. She always follows the same script: "Hello. Yes. No. Bye!"

Over and Under

What a silly girl I have! :)

Update on milestones

I keep forgetting to write a post updating all of the new things that Raegan is doing now. It seems like as soon as August hit, she just took off and made leaps and bounds in a lot of new skills. You especially can hear it in her speech. She's using three and even some four word sentences quite often now. When Luke and Raegan dropped by my school on Friday to bring me a pop (awesome husband!), he handed over the pop to me and Raegan said, "I want my wa-wa." Smartest girlie ever! :) She's also getting a lot clearer in some of the longer words that she says. Yesterday she said "hamburger" and it came out perfectly. She's not dropping syllables (which is still perfectly normal for her age) nearly as often as she used to, so it's getting easier to understand her. For a couple months there, we had the problem that Raegan's vocabulary is huge, but her actual speech abilities hadn't matured enough to catch up with the vocab, and sometimes she could be a little hard to understand. Now, we're golden about 95% of the time! :)

Raegan's also becoming more independent, and she really WANTS that independence. She is able to put on her flip flops by herself now (almost always on the right feet!) and she's working so hard at pulling up her pants by herself. Anytime she's trying to get dressed or undressed and you offer help, she very emphatically tells you, "No!" :) Potty training hasn't really gone anywhere, but seeing as she hasn't even turned two yet, I'm not too concerned. I wanted to give her some time to get readjusted to being in daycare (and to check with our daycare provider about what all she's willing to do to help) before we went guns blazing into potty training. Raegan still tells you when she's wet, pretty much as soon as it happens. She calls it all "poopy" whether she's wet or poopy, but she will tell you the difference if you specifically ask her "wet or poopy?"

Another fun skill that Raegan has picked up is "reading". We still read probably 10-20 books a day, and she's started "reading" her favorite ones also. When she reads Baby Bear Baby Bear (which is similar to Brown Bear, Brown Bear) she says, "Bay-boo bay-boo, uh uh see" (Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What do you see?) and then turns to the page with the fox and says, "Red fox, Red fox, uh uh see." I've been trying to catch it on video, because it's just too adorable.

Raegan's big love this summer has been Elmo. The theme for her birthday party next weekend is going to be Elmo, and I think she'll be really excited about the Elmo cake! As a treat, sometimes I let her watch Sesame Street on the television in our room. It's fun to lay on our bed with her and watch. Sesame Street is really quite funny, and I like watching it with her. Now that I'm back to work, we'll have to get videos from the library. Raegan has also started to really like Abby and Zoe, and gets pretty excited when she sees them on Sesame Street too.

I'm sure there is plenty more that she's been doing lately, but that's all I can think of at the moment. I can't believe she's going to be two in a couple weeks! My baby is most definitely not a baby anymore!

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.

Update on my smarties!

Whew! Another busy week over. Between that and no internet (or cable) from Wednesday through Friday (ugh!) I haven't had a chance to blog. Lots of updates though.

Zane finished his math state assesments this week. He did the reading ones about a month ago, and got an exemplary (highest category you can get) on those! We should find out his math score pretty soon. This week in band, his teacher told him that he had the potential to be the best trumpet player in the class. There are 11 trumpets in the sixth grade band, so that's a pretty high compliment. Zane took this to mean that he doesn't need to practice as much anymore (ha!) Teenagers and their logic sometimes....

Zane's science fair is on Tuesday. He and one of his classmates made an air cannon. They aren't allowed to actually shoot it off at the science fair (thank God!) so we have to videotape Zane and Ajay shooting it at home and then load it to YouTube so that they can play it on a laptop at their display table. I'll post the video once we take it.

Raegan still doesn't care to watch cartoons on television (which is just fine with me!) but she was absolutely fascinated when I was watching a little bit of Dancing with the Stars last Monday. She said "Whoa!" and stopped to watch, then started twirling around in circles. Twinkle, Twinkle has been replaced by Itsy Bitsy Spider as her favorite song. She does these hugely exaggerated movements for "down came the rain" and it's adorable. She also loves playing Ring Around the Rosy, especially if the whole family will join in with her.

Raegan knows many body parts now. She names eye, nose, mouth, teeth, and knee, and she can point to all of those, plus ear, hair, neck, hand, arm, foot, leg, and belly. She loves showing her belly! :) She knows the noises that a horse, bear, lion, bird, dog, cat and sheep make, and she loves reading any book that has animals or babies in it. Raegan's big obsession right now is babies. A six month old girl started at daycare a couple weeks back, and Raegan is CRAZY about her. Raegan already says her name, and Angela said that she likes to give her pats on the back and always wants to give Angela the diaper when she needs to change the baby. Yesterday when we went grocery shopping, Raegan kept asking "Baby?" and looking around every aisle we went down. We only saw one baby in the whole store, but she sure was looking.

Pictures and videos to come.....

Goodbye and good riddance!

What a week. I am glad to say goodbye to last week, and even more glad that I'll never see it again. :) Reed's funeral was Monday, and that was pretty draining. Then Thursday we had to drive to Sabetha for Luke's grandpa's funeral. I had only met Luke's grandpa a handful of times, so obviously that funeral wasn't as emotional for me, but it was still a funeral and I still needed to be there for emotional support for Luke and his family. My grandpa has been put back in the hospital because he was super dehydrated from a couple infections that he is (so please keep him in your prayers in the coming days). Then Saturday, Raegan woke up and was super fussy all morning. She hardly ate any lunch and was in her super!clingy! mode. We decided to go to Orchelin's to check out their baby chicks, and right after we got there, she projectile vomited all over Luke and herself. So we spent last night and the majority of today snuggled up on the couch. I hate it when my baby is sick, but I do have to say that I love how she just wants to sit next to me on the couch and play with her toys snuggled up against me.

So all in all, not one of my favorite weeks, that's for sure. So that this doesn't turn into a super depressing post, I'm going to change gears and tell you about the wonderful new things Raegan has been doing lately.

Some of her newest words include book (she says it like "boop"), rock (for rocking before bed), blankie (but it comes out sounding just like "baby") and water (wa-wa). Raegan is starting to put two words together a LOT now. Some examples are "bye bubba" or "bye Zane" in the morning when we drop him off for school, "Daisy wa-wa" when she hands me Daisy's water and food bowl, and "Wu dat" (what's that?). She points to many body parts (eyes, ears, nose, mouth, tongue, hair, legs, feet, hands, belly) and makes the correct noise for lion, chicks/bird, dog, cat, and bear. Her favorite song is "Twinkle twinkle" and she asks for it every night before bed. She opens and closes her hand in the twinkle twinkle position and says "Up above" like she's singing that part of the song. The absolute cuteness of it slays me every time! Also, the other day she pulled this snail toy that sings the ABC song off her shelf and sang "A Dee Dee Dee" with the same tune as ABCs right before she pushed the button. I always say, "Could she be any cuter?! :)

Raegan's also starting to let us know sometimes when she is wet, and she's almost able to pull down her pants all by herself. At her 18 month well check a couple weeks back, her pediatrician said that since "she is obviously advanced" (actual quote from the ped, btw!!), we can start introducing potty training anytime, but Luke and I both feel like she's a little young still. And really, she needs to be able to pull her pants up and down before it's really even a doable feat, so for now we're just encouraging her to let us know when she's wet and working on her self-help skills. Really, when parents potty train so young it's more about the parents being potty trained than the kid because they are the ones having to run the child to the bathroom every 20 minutes. No thanks.

And last but not least, a little video of Raegan rocking in this old carseat that we have upstairs while we figure out what to do with it.

Snow Day!

To my surprise at 5:50 this morning, I got a call from my supervisor saying that school had been called off for the day. With not a whole lot of snow in the forecast (and plenty of advanced notice for the City to get out and prepare the roads) I really figured we would have school today. I guess the thought was that the superintendent didn't want to have to deal with the possibility of a lot of snow and having to call off school in the middle of the day (which is a nightmare to deal with, with so many kids in the district who walk to and from school). So I turned off Zane's alarm and told him to go back to sleep (the cat had woke him up) and then went back to sleep myself. Raegan being the beautiful angel that she is let me sleep until 8:30. I am so thankful for a child that usually likes to sleep in!

The three of us spent the morning lounging around (Zane and I watched Madagascar 2 while Raegan played) and after I shoveled the driveway we went to lunch at IHOP. It's kind of a tradition for us, because every time we've had a snow day or a no school day when Luke still has to work, Zane and I almost always go to IHOP. Raegan devoured an entire pancake, and Zane ate his share of pancakes, omlette, and ham. After Raegan's nap, we went to go pick up Zane's cousin Keenan, and while they played with their Halo toys, Raegan and I made a short trip outside. (Zane had already gotten his fill of being outside during Raegan's nap, when he played/shoveled the other half of the driveway.)

The following videos are from our brief time on the back porch. I'm not really sure that Raegan was all that crazy about it. She made some happy noises, but there was also a good amount of whining in there too. It must not have been too awful and torturous though, because she asked to go outside several times after we came back in.


Raegan was kind of bothered by the fact that there was snow on her gloves. She kept flapping them a lot.



In this one, Raegan mimics me saying snow several times, and she does the sign for "all done" at the end. I love when I can catch her milestones on video, so it's not like, "Oh, she's just making that up that her toddler can do all of those things." lol

Raegan's newest accomplishments

Boots with The Fur :)

You guys, Raegan is amazing. I swear I'm not just a doting first-time mother. She is just that smart, and sometimes I'm in awe of her. :) She has the boots that I have pictured on the right. Yesterday she put them on completely by herself, with no coaxing or help from anyone. I was at the gym, and Luke said he looked down and she had her boots on all of a sudden. I know that putting them on the right feet by herself was just a fluke, but putting them on unassisted? Pretty dang smart. It's a skill you want a 3 year old to have mastered, but 2 year olds can do it if you work with them.

Raegan is also starting to put two words together, which some 18 month olds will do, but is considered closer to a 2 year old skill. She says "No Daisy" (no Day-ee)  and "Hi Bubba" a lot, and she will say "all done" sometimes after eating. Her vocabulary is huge, and growing every day. She's starting to say "thanks" and "thank you" (tank and tanka) unprompted (I model it for her every time I give her more food or do something for her, and she signs please unprompted whenever she wants more food or us to read a book to her or help her with something. Her new words lately (besides all done and thanks) have been cracker (cra-uh), fish (shish and does the sign for it), and teeth (tee). She points to her ears, nose, mouth, hair, belly, feet, and hands, and sometimes she will grab her tongue when you say tongue. She does the sign for all done, more, milk, please, fish, and she's really trying to do the sign for cracker, but she taps her wrist instead of her elbow.

Raegan's also very helpful right now, and LOVES to put away her coat at daycare and home, and put her dirty clothes in her basket. She wants to help me put away her laundry, but usually just throws wads of clothes into her drawer that I then have to refold. :) At daycare she puts her own cup in the dishwasher after meals and walks out to the van by herself when they go places.

Alright, I'm off to go look at gifted programs for my toddler. lol Just kidding. I'm not a big fan of pushing your child just because they are smart (i.e. Your Baby Can Read program). She's getting all of this just from being talked to and read to and loved every day. I tell the parents of my students all the time that it's not hard to raise a smart kid. You just have to put some time into it, and you don't have to do anything crazy like flashcards or drilling them. Make it fun and meaningful and they'll learn. :)

Christmas Eve

As usual, I took waaaaaaay too many pictures this Christmas. So this post is just from our own family's Christmas Eve last night. We ended up going to look at Christmas lights, eating sub sandwiches, watching A Garfield Christmas, and then Despicable Me after Raegan went to bed. Zane's mom brought him back a little before 6:00 last night, so he was able to do everything with us, which was really nice.

Zane enjoying a little sub sandwich goodness

Being silly with Dada

More sillytimes!

Raegan was wound UP last night!

Showing off one of the movies we were watching

A Garfield Christmas! (The networks took it off TV years ago, and it's my favorite from my childhood, so I bought it on Amazon or somewhere like that a couple years back)

Raegan still doesn't ACTUALLY watch television (which is really just fine by me!)

And finally, I leave you with a video of Raegan showing off some more of her increasing language skills. We taught her to say "ho ho ho" when we got out the stuffed Santa the night we decorated the tree. And for whatever reason, this is the week that she decided that signing is AWESOME and WONDERFUL. She is so stinkin' proud of her ability to sign and get what she wants. She also does milk, which isn't shown in the video.

 

More pictures to come, but right now I need to go cut summer sausage and cheese and make apple salad for Christmas with my folks tomorrow. I hope you all had as wonderful and memorable of a holiday as our family did. 

Update

I am fairly confident in saying that sickness has finally left our household. *knocks on wood* I hope I didn't say that too prematurely, but after a week and a half, it's about dang time!

Today was really the first day that Raegan was 100% herself. She ended up staying home from daycare on Thursday because she had some diahrrea (again!) Wednesday night, but going back to Angie's on Friday. She was generally clingy and whiny all day Friday, and ended up having another loose stool at child care. And getting Angie and two other kids sick. Not cool. Yesterday was a lay-around day, with lots of snuggling and reading books, although we did make a trip to Target to get Raegan's gift from us and her gift from Santa. The most exciting thing is that Raegan is eating fairly normally again, although she's being a bit picky about some things (like the macaroni and cheese that she LOVED two weeks ago that she wouldn't even touch tonight). But thank God she's eating and drinking again.

Raegan's got four molars in now, one on each side. They look so huge compared to her other teeth, which would explain some of the sleeping problems she was having earlier this month. At her doctor's appointment on December 3rd she was 22 lbs, 5 ounces, putting her at the 40% for weight, and 32 inches, putting her in the 89% for height. If she's going to be tall, it's definitely not coming from me! She's starting to use signs a little more now, and is quite proud of herself when she does the sign for all done and more. Her vocabulary is amazing, and she's imitating so much of what we say. She's starting to string two words together, but usually only when she's yelling or scolding (i.e. "No Daisy!" or "Hey, Dada!"). Her favorite toys right now are her shape sorter ball and her cell phone. She adores her animal board book and wants to read it with us over and over and over.

Zane has two more days before the end of the second quarter and the start of Christmas Break. He was sick so he wasn't able to be at his band concert last week, but at least his instructor let him make up the points by playing all the songs for him a few days later. Right now in English he's working on a paper about why he disagrees with Salina's ban on pit bulls. I'm so proud of him for picking a more "deep" topic to write about. It's weird for me to read his rough draft though, because he's still young enough that he doesn't have to have professional sources yet, so he's using websites. My brain is obviously still in grad school and I keep wanting to tell him that he needs to find sources that can back up their claims. hahaha

Anyone have any good recipes they can link me to? We're having a potluck at work on Wednesday and I need to bring something. I'm thinking about making this cherry delight cake/coffee cake type thing, but I may bring something else also. I also need to start thinking about my plates of Christmas cookies for the neighbors. Time is getting away from me - I can't believe that we are only a few days away from Christmas!

Update

I'm being a bad blogger lately. It seems like we've just been going, going, going every weekend for awhile now, and when I do have down time I would rather curl up with a book and a glass of wine than do anything else. :) No pictures for this post, just an update of what all we are up to.

Raegan:

Raegan is fully weaned now. Three weekends ago I just started telling her no and giving her a cup of milk before brushing teeth and bed. The first couple nights were rough, and she was PISSED. :) But after the first few nights she adjusted to it very well. We have a pretty good routine now: bath, jammies, cup (usually with water now)/snuggle/book (if she'll let us), brush teeth and bed. Sometimes if she's still a little riled up we'll let her walk around and play for a few minutes, but no crazy times with Zane.

Raegan's vocabulary is expanding every day. I'll try to list it all here but I'm sure I'm nowhere close to remembering all of them. Right now she's saying: hi, hello, bye bye, ni-ni (night night), drink, nak (snack), baba (cup), up, no, Mama, Dada, kitty, Daisy (sometimes just Daiz), bubba, uh oh, ow. I'm sure there's more! Raegan also shakes her head yes and no, very accurately to tell you what she wants. If she wants a drink she'll go to the refrigerator and stand by and start going "eh eh eh" (it's a very specific sound that she uses just then). If she's hungry she'll go to her high chair and try to climb up in it. When we tell her it's time for a bath she'll walk to the bathroom herself, and when we tell her it's time to get dressed she'll go to her changing table. She'll also go to the door when we say "time to go bye bye".

One of Raegan's favorite things to do right now is buckle the straps on her changing table. She's done it several times now. She also likes to put the shapes in her shape sorter - she's not to the point where she can match them on her own, but if you put the right hole facing up she can get the shapes in pretty smoothly. She has this ladybug toy with shapes you push into the ladybug, and she will push them all in then hit the top of the bug to make them all pop out again. She also loves rocking in her rocking chair and talking on her cellphone. She'll hold it up to her ear (sometimes her neck) and say "hello". It's too stinkin' cute! One of Raegan's other favorite things to do still is peek-a-boo. It's so fun to hear her crazy laugh when you get going with that game.

Zane:

Zane turned 12 yesterday! Where does the time go? He's still doing very well in sixth grade. He's doing much better at not talking as much during art class, and his high A reflects that. :) His biggest challenge right now is remembering to turn in his practice sheets for band (and his B, as opposed to the over 100% he had last quarter, reflects that). It's a lot harder without me reminding him every week. His first middle school band concert is next month. I'm excited to hear how much the band has improved since last year.

Zane's really into Greek and Roman history and mythology right now. If you ever have a question about either of these subjects, let me know. I'm sure Zane knows the answer! lol

Hmmmm, what else? It's hard to find as much to write about Zane, because he's older and he doesn't change nearly as quickly as Raegan does. Which is good, because I don't think I could keep up with the both of them if they both developed so quickly!

More milestones

I think I could probably blog every day about the new things Raegan does, and still not totally keep up with it all. This is such a fabulous age! I could do without the tantrums though.... :)

Raegan talks all the time now. She has so many words! Let's see how many I can remember: hi, bye, kitty, Daisy, up, hey, no, mama, dada, bubba, nana (banana) ni-ni (night-night), deen (drink). She also shakes her head yes or no to questions (and usually means yes or no, and isn't just doing it for fun anymore!). These are the words she says consistently, but she also repeats a LOT of what we say. She lifts her arms up when she wants up, and often says "up" along with lifting her arms. She's getting really good at pointng or going after something when she wants it. Just this morning she was getitng fussy, so I said, "Do you want a snack?" and she nodded her head yes, then took off into the kitchen, stopped at her high chair, and started patting it. Also, along the lines of receptive language, she also can pat or point to her belly and her nose when you ask her where one is, although sometimes she pats more of her mouth than her nose.

I would say that Raegan is about two steps away from taking off and running. One day I let the dog out, and Raegan was in the kitchen, and she almost started running to try to get to the back door to get outside. Man, does that child looooooooove going outside! We spent almost an hour outside this afternoon. She walked around the backyard and climbed up and down the steps to the deck and played with leaves and sticks in her waterless water table.

Raegan also is really into carrying things right now. She has this carboard box that has some cardboard nestling blocks inside of it that her daycare provider gave her for her birthday. It has a rope handle on it. This weekend she's been carrying that thing everywhere, slung over her shoulder. She'll carry it around for a couple minutes, then put it down and try to stand or sit on it. Luke got this bag out of her closet that we got a while back as a gift and filled it up with a few of her books and showed Raegan how to put it over her shoulder. She LOVED that!

Raegan also loves to help dress herself. She lifts up her feet when you hold her socks and shoes up, and she's learning how to pull her socks off once we loosen them off her heel. Now that we've switched from a finger brush to a real toddler toothbrush, she does a much better job of letting us brush her teeth. Raegan also really likes to pick up her toys. She puts all of her bath toys into the basket after bath every night, and will also put her wooden blocks back in their sack and her toys back in the tubs on her toyshelf. She likes to help me put her laundry away, which always ends up being more unhelpful than anything.But good for a laugh. She'll grab a piece of clothing out of the basket and wad it up then smush it into her drawer. I always ask her if she's learned how to put away laundry from her brother! :)

Oh, and two of her back teeth (what are those, molars) on the right side have come through. Which would probably explain her fussiness in the middle of the night last week. Raegan has slept through the night the last two nights, although with the time change she was up at 6:00 this morning. I wish kids could tell time!

New things every day.

First up, I just want to mention that these cookies that I blogged about baking a couple days ago are not that good. They're adorable, but the cookie is a little bland. I think they would be a lot better if I made the cookies from scratch instead of a cake mix. Just felt like I had to point this out, so that no one made them on my recommendation. lol

Alright, on to Raegan. Her language is just expanding by leaps and bounds. She now says "uh oh" (but it still comes out more of a "uh uh" when she drops things, or does something that needs an "uh oh". She has said "tee tee" when she's seen Radar several times now, and my mom swears she said something that sounded like "dayz" when she saw Daisy today. Mom, we are working on "Granny", I promise! :) Raegan loves to go to the top of the stairs when Luke is downstairs and yell, "Hey! Dada!" down until he yells back up at her. She doesn't do this hardly at all for Zane and I, but almost every time Luke goes downstairs. I'm hoping that she either learns the sign for more or learns to say more soon, because the whining for food is increasing quite a bit.

Speaking of which, it seems like Raegan eats constantly! She's still a very healthy eater, preferring fruits and veggies to meat. I told my mom today I thought maybe that's why she needs to eat so frequently - she doesn't eat foods that are very filling. Refried beans and cheese on a tortilla are still her number one favorite food, closely followed by ANY fruit. People are always so surprised when I tell them Raegan likes foods like olives and beans and salsa. Yay for a non-picky eater!

Raegan is walking a lot - she can do up to 9 or 10 steps at a time now. She's even turned and headed a different direction in mid walk before. She'll still drop down to the ground if it's taking her too long to get where she wants, but she's not falling down nearly as much.

As for Zane, he finished his fall soccer season today. It seems like that season went by really quickly, but it was 6 weeks just like they've always been. We weren't too impressed with his soccer coach, and we're thinking about going to Salina Soccer Club in the spring so that Zane doesn't end up with her again. Salina Soccer Club is a lot more of a financial investment though, so we'll see. He's decided he doesn't want to play basketball, and just focus on soccer now. I would say that soccer is where his talent is much more so than basketball, so I think this was a good choice.

Zane's parent teacher conference is this Thursday. We pretty much already know what we're going to hear, because we can check his grades online.(As of last Monday he was sitting at 5 A's and 3 B's, unless something changed significantly last week. He has over a 100% in band thanks to getting points for not using his hall passes. Up until a week ago, he had over a 100% in science too. How awesome is that?!) It will be good to talk to one of his teachers though (in middle school we only talk to one teacher instead of all 8 of them, thank goodness!) and find out how he's doing on organization and behavior. This will be the first conference Zane has attended, so that should be interesting with his mom there too.

Tomorrow we're headed to Sunny Side Pumpkin Patch. I'm excited to take Raegan for the first time, so I hope it's not too busy!

This week in Raeganland

No pictures this post. Just updating some of the things that Raegan is up to these days.

Speech:
-Raegan says "uh oh" now, but only copying when someone else says it. She's not connecting it to something that has happened on her own yet, but it sure is darn cute to hear her say "uh oh" over and over after you say it. :)

-One of her favorite things to do when Daddy and Zane are downstairs is to crawl over to the baby gate at the top of the stairs and yell "Hey!" downstairs.

Walking:
-Raegan is starting to walk a LOT more. She's also doing a great job of standing independently and staying steady while standing for a good 5 or 6 seconds now. She's most motivated to walk when she can walk to someone, but sometimes we'll see her do it when she's walking circles around the coffee table. She still giggles when she walks more than 4 steps, like it's just so awesome that she can do this now.

Personality:
-Raegan loves going outside, to the point where it's almost over the top. Most evenings when we let Daisy out Raegan is right at the door hollering at us if we don't let her out on the deck also. I *did* say I wanted a child that liked being outside....

-Raegan is curious about everything right now. She wants to know how everything works and she is getting into everything! I can only imagine when she's walking even better.

-She is bound and determined that we will nurse forever, I think. I have a three day weekend coming up in a couple weeks, and that's when we're going to start getting rid of the morning nursing. My goal was to have her weaned by Thanksgiving, so I guess I better get on that pretty soon. :)