Our Weekend

Raegan got a wooden "ghoul bus" kit from school that her and Daddy put together Friday evening. She gets to use a hammer sometimes at school and she did quite well with it for this project too.

 

 

As seen on my walk on Saturday afternoon. I just love fall so much!

 

 

A very early Sunday morning art project. Because Daylight Savings Time means nothing to a four year old.

 

 

Sunday afternoon trip to the library. I've been trying to get back in the habit of taking Raegan again weekly and our weekends have been slow enough lately that we've been managing. We've found some fantastic new books to read (including "The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog" and "Into the Castle") and Raegan gets to play with some different toys. She did this alphabetic order puzzle completely by herself. Which really doesn't surprise me, since she was able to do alphabetic order last year in preschool. But it's always nice to see the results of preschool, you know? :)

 

And while I'm talking about Raegan's learning, she's really starting to take off with reading and sounding out words. Yesterday while we were reading a book before supper, she sounded out and read "bed", "hug" and "bag", all of which were words that I had never had her try to sound out before. And she didn't even struggle - it was just a smooth sound out then she said the word. And last week she brought home a sheet where she had written numbers 11-19 and has shown us how she can count by 10s. Sometimes she just blows me away!

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!

Weekend in Olathe

Last weekend was my brother's birthday, so Raegan and I hitched a ride with my parents to Olathe to join in the celebration. Raegan had a lot of fun with her cousins, and the grownups all had a great time playing board games.

Raegan did a fairly good job of entertaining herself for the 3 hour car ride.

Raegan and Granny headed to the bathroom as soon as we got there, and Ryan went and started peeking under the door for his Granny. It was pretty funny.

Little man

Such cuties!

Ryan and Granny

My dorky brother

Playing Cranium

Me and my little cutie boo

Swimming after supper with the kids

Love my baby brother!

More family fun

Had another family get together last weekend. This time we were getting together because Zac, Deeanna and the kids will be moving to Kansas City this coming weekend. It was another lovely evening of food, fellowship and PERFECT weather. 

This weekend's menu was tacos - yum!

Love this baby boy so much!

Snuck my mom in a picture! :)

I MADE THIS! It was a slow patient process, but isn't it pretty?!

Mmmm, cake!

As always, the trampoline was a big hit with the kids



Mothers Day

Yesterday I decided that what I really wanted for Mothers Day this year was to go DO something with my family for the day. Zane's mom hadn't mentioned wanting to pick him up for the day, so I figured we could just make plans and if she wanted him for the day we would just go ahead without him. I told Luke I really wanted to go to the zoo in Wichita and go out to lunch at Panera Bread.

As it turned out, Zane was able to go with us. His mom is picking him up this Wednesday evening, so she said she would rather just wait until then. Funny how that works out - first year we make plans with or without him, and he's able to come. :) We didn't get out of the house quite as early as I wanted this morning, but the extra sleep was definitely nice.

It was a PERFECT day for the zoo. I couldn't have asked for better weather. The zoo was busy, but not ridiculously so. And it only cost us $15 for all 4 of us to get in, thanks to moms getting in free today combined with the half off discount we get for having the membership at our local zoo. (That membership has paid for itself at least double at this point!) The animals must have also been enjoying the nice weather today, because most of them were very alert and interactive. I think our favorite was probably the chimpanzees - they were so expressive and fun to watch. There was a baby, and he had gathered up all these little treat balls and was playing a game with them. He would kick and throw them around, then throw his arms up in the air and make a face like he was laughing. It was adorable! Raegan kept squealing when we were at the penguin exhibit - definitely her favorite thanks to Jolly (her stuffed penguin, a.k.a the love of her life!)

Raegan was a rockstar today - no nap and she did great! We did have one meltdown during dinner tonight, but she spent a couple minutes in her room and calmed herself down just fine. She didn't make a peep when I put her down for bed tonight, and she typically talks to herself for awhile before she goes to sleep. I think between all the walking at the zoo, no nap, and playing on the trampoline with Zane forever tonight, she was wiped out.

Raegan was captivated by the baby chimp!

We just thought this little guy was super cute

"That's Jolly!!!!!" she said :)

Raegan was so happy to see the penguins

Annual picture with the lion statue

Here's the comparison picture from October 2011

And this one from October 2010. Look at that little chunk!!! :)

Raking leaves

Our yard waste cart was getting kind of full when Zane was helping me with the yard the other day, so he had the idea to put Raegan in the cart to have her stomp down the leaves a little bit. She had a blast! (Other than the little bits of leaves going down her diaper - that she didn't like so much!)

She's being a really big "help" here!

Cuties

Parade of Lights

This was the first year that I decided to take Raegan to the Parade of Lights downtown. It's always really cold out, and I just felt like she was too little the past two years. Raegan has just recently realized that parades are made of awesomeness, so I felt like she would be able to enjoy it even if she were kind of cold.

Kind of cold is a bit of an understatement. It was freeeeeezing. We actually didn't stay for the whole thing, because about 40 minutes into it I realized that my fingers were starting to get numb inside my gloves, and I felt like that was enough for Raegan. She really did enjoy herself though. While we were waiting for it to start (because Salina parades never start on time - truefax) she wasn't very smiley, but she got pretty excited as soon as the floats started going by. She's got the concept of CANDY! at a parade down, but I've been working really hard on making sure she says thank you to people who directly hand her candy. We were standing next to an older couple who didn't want any candy, and they kept passing candy that landed in their direction over to Raegan. I had both coat pockets stuffed full by the time we left. So Zane will be enjoying a good bit of the spoils from this parade! :)

Looking a little sad waiting for the parade to start

Twirlers with fire batons - very cool looking!

When I took this picture she was saying, "I got more candy, Mama!" Very exciting!

I wish the Christmas lights would show up better in my pictures

Raegan did a pretty good job of staying behind the tape, except for if there was candy laying out there. I had to snap her back a couple times.

Raegan loves parades!