Thanksgiving 2012

For thanksgiving weekend we had quite a few visitors. A good friend of mine from Chicago who also was a roommate in college came to visit and Jeff's parents came in. We had a great thanksgiving meal and did a little black Friday shopping. We spent the bulk of Friday downtown at discovery green and the car show. Saturday was Jeff's birthday and then everyone was gone. It was a great time all weekend. We love having visitors and can't wait to have more!

11 months

Can't believe we are on our way to celebrating a 1 year birthday.  But to capture 11 months...this little girl continues to light up our lives.  She is such a blessing and has quite a personality.  She continues to crawl and boy can she move.  Especially if she hears the bath water turn on...watch out!  She can get from the toy room to the bathroom in just a few seconds.  Raegan still has no teeth and no real signs of teeth either.  She is not a picky eater, but loves to feed herself.  If we put it on her tray, she will eat just about anything.  If we put it on a spoon and try to stick it in her mouth, she will often turn away.  She is a great night time sleeper (almost 13 hours each night) with 2 small naps (usually around an hour each) during the day.  She loves to laugh and tries to do things to make us laugh at her (rocking back and forth, clapping and playing).  She loves to play pick a boo, clap, blow kisses, wave, sign "more", "all done" and "come".  She will bounce whenever there is music or someone is singing.  She takes a toy and to keep it away from her brother or others, will  pivot around on her bottom 360 degrees.  I'm surprised she hasn't worn holes in her bottoms.  She loves her teddy bear, her blanket and her family.  She loves to be outside and does not mind getting dirty.  She walks along furniture now and will let go of things and stand but has yet to take her first steps.  We love our little RaeRae and love watching her grow. 

ANNOYED!!

That only nicely states how I am really feeling about blogger right now.  For several years I have been using blogger to not only keep a kind of family journal but also to let friends and family near and far know just how we are getting along.
Well, blogger has decided to make some changes and apparently I (and just about everyone I talk to) have exceeded my picture storage limit.  Now, I have to pay to upload pictures!  Crazy.  Well I try to find a way around this or see what is going on, pictures might be limited.  I think I might just create another gmail account just to add another author to my blog.  But even that would only be a temporary solution.  Maybe I will be putting more pictures on Facebook!
So, sorry in advance for the decrease in pictures coming.  I'm working on it and I will see what the best option is to move forward.

October Fun

Some fun from October.  Harrison went to the local fire dept. for a preschool field trip.  He had a good time and asked some good questions.  I think we both learned a lot about fire safety.

Raegan is eating more and more table foods and this was a favorite.  Sweet potatoes and black beans. She loves just about anything she can feed herself though.

Helping with the laundry.

Another fun time after preschool exploring on a bus outside school with some friends.

Happy to be home and playing.  This girl loves to be down exploring and has the most freedom to do that at home.

Enjoying snacks in her stoller

while her brother gets some riding time.  He is getting so much better and loving his bike.  I can't wait until we can get rid of the training wheels!

Hollywood!

And I was messing around with Instagram the other day and just caught a few fun faces from my kids...

I love these two and they make my days so exhausting, exciting and adventurous!

Camping

A bunch of friends decided to organize a camping trip last weekend.  We decided to get in on the fun and do some group camping.  We left Thursday afternoon with a fully loaded van...

We picked up dinner on the way and got there in time to set up our tent, explore a little before dark and eat s'mores.  We stayed all day Friday and camped again Friday night.  We left first thing Saturday morning.

The first night was pretty rough.  It started out really warm and we went to bed sweating.  Then it rained and cooled off and we all woke up cold.
This about sums up night #1...

But it got much better!  It rained on and off throughout the day, but we managed to hang out by the fire and eat some good camping food (including tin foil dinners and more s'mores).  We also did some fishing with the kids, bike riding and we did some exploring.  Harrison was in heaven the whole time!

Just some of the many kids who where there with us.

Raegan tolerated the whole experience.  It was hard for her to not be down and exploring everything, but she did well and yes, I am letting her chew on a stick here.

Over all it was a lot of fun and left us already thinking about our next camping trip. 

Happy Halloween 2012

Halloween started for us the Saturday before Halloween with our church Trunk or Treat.  The kids dressed up as Charlie Brown and Snoopy and I was later told by many different people that they would have won an award had they been noticed earlier.  Whether or not they won, I thought they were are pretty good pair!

 Why I even took any pictures inside, I don't know.  But they did a lot better outside for me.

 Harrison makes a great Charlie Brown and even learned to walk around saying "Don't you know sarcasm when you hear it!"  And Raegan just looks cute so it works!

Then Halloween started out with a play group at the park and lunch (with candy already!)

Then after some rest time, we were ready to get into costume for the main event.  I chose their costumes for the trunk or treat, but let Harrison decide for trick or treating.  He wanted to be Jake again and loved carrying around his sword.

Raegan was a non-scary mummy.  Tutus can we worn by mummies right?

We made it to quite a few houses and visited with some neighbors.  Then we came home, put Raegan to bed and I think Harrison had the most fun sorting his candy and passing out candy to all the trick or treaters who came to our house.  It was a fun day/night!  Now, we just need to get rid of all the candy in the house!

Pumpkin Patch and Carving

 We went to a "Pumpkin Patch" up in Kingwood, TX this year.  We have been before and since pumpkin patches are hard to come by, this one is a lot of fun.  They have quite a set up and pumpkins on palettes to chose from.
Raegan was excited.

 Harrison had fun hammering golf tees into a pumpkin.

 They also had a lot of good decorations and a little maze as well.

 We picked out some good pumpkins and then wheeled the kids around in the wagon for a while.  Raegan did not look at me once while in the wagon.  She was so surprised by all the new stuff going on.  At least Harrison heard me trying to get them to smile.

 Then it took us another week before we carved our pumpkins, but that was a fun time as well.

 This is the only time he stuck his hand in.  As soon as he realized how gooey it was in there, he was done.  I ended up helping him clean out and carve the rest, but he loved scooping it out with a spoon.

 Enjoying the atmosphere.

 The finished products.  From left to right: mine, Jeff's, Harrison's

And as a side note, I tried spraying the inside with bleach water (a tip from pinterest) to keep them from molding.  It didn't really work.  I guess Houston humidity and warmth is no match for even bleach!