2010 Christmas Card

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Family photos!

First real set of good family photos!  The last ones we tried to take didn't turn out so well, but that's a different story... anyways, we have over 200 photos from the shoot, I'll just share a couple of my favorites!

Bonfire date!

Our church hosted a bonfire and hayride evening for adults in small groups that we went to.  Above are a couple of pictures from the evening.  Iron Starr BBQ catered the event and we even roasted marshmallows and made smores!  The sticks were too short for how hot the fire was though, I felt like my eyebrows were going to burn off!  There was a live band playing and I even was able to talk Philip into two-stepping with me for approximately 45 seconds, lol! Not many other people were dancing and he was embarrassed... Anyways, it was good to get away and have some couple time out in the country!

BOWS!

"Bow" is one of Raegan's favorite words, on the rare occasions that we get in the car without one, she will pat her had and say "bow" "bow" as in Mom you forgot my bow how dare you, I can't go to school without one! = )
http://www.fiveblessedbows.com/Gallery.htm

Click on link above for great bows for your little girl!  The ladies who run this business are SO nice.

Family Time

Sunday we went and had lunch in Bricktown at Zios and then took a to-go box of bread and sat and fed the ducks on the riverwalk.  Raegan had so much fun throwing the bread in the river for the ducks.  The bread never made it very far so the ducks had to come really close to her to get the bread and sometimes she would squeal out of excitement and they'd get scared and swim away.  Philip and I were both super worried about her jumping in the river, but lucky she was smart enough not to!

It was a wonderful way to spend the day as a family!

OU vs. Tech 11-13-2010

Since Chick-fil-A is a sponsor of the Big 12 and we are lucky, Philip won 2 tickets to the OU vs. Tech game, but since he had to sell CFA sandwiches during the game and because he's a sweetie, he gave them to me! (sorry I know that was a run-on sentence) I was fortunate enough to find a sitter for Raegan (well technically it was my neighbor's sitter and we shared).  I invited my friend Sarah to the game.  Our seats were on the goal line of the South endzone and her husband bought a ticket from a donor on the 50 yard line.  So we sat in our seats until the end of the 3rd quarter and then moved to the ones in the pic below...

Our view for the first 3 quarters of the game...

Sarah and I with Boomer!

19 month update

Just realized I didn't share a post about Raegan's 19 month update. Raegan turned 19 months old on October 24th...

Some new words:
outside
two
ten
help
apple sauce
thank you
papa

This past month marked the first time Raegan lied to me...  She's pretty good at telling me when she is going or when she needs her diaper changed (that was the cleanest way I could word that)... anyways, she was sitting in her highchair eating yogurt and I could tell she needed her diaper changed, I asked her a couple of different ways and each time she'd pause and then tell me "uhhh, uhhh" not a no, but definitely not a yes.  Philip says it won't be the last time she lies to me... I hope she and I can have an open relationship and be able to trust each other.  I've had lots of friends who often lied to their parents about what they were doing or who they were with, but I usually felt comfortable telling my parents everything, sometimes I probably shared too much ; )

I've visited Raegan's class a couple times recently and sat in there with her for awhile.  She plays so well with her friends in class.  Its so amazing to see 8 little people interacting together and talking to each other in their own little language.  They play house and the girls carry around babies; they pull their own chairs up to the table when its time to eat and sit around the table eating and laughing together as if they were at a dinner party and when they are done eating they pick up their plate and carry it to the trash and then use their napkin to clean the spot at the table where they were sitting. 

Raegan can throw a ball pretty well and is working on learning how to kick it.  When she hurts herself she usually doesn't cry just comes to me with her head sticking forward or hand out (or whatever body part she hurt) and says "muah" which means "mommy kiss it."

She used to loves Gerber yogurt melts and would stick five of them in her mouth at a time, but the other day after church while we were in the car I offered them to her and she said "no, thats for babies" I looked at Philip and was like "did you just hear that!"  Yep we both heard it, she hasn't touched or asked for any more since...

Here's a pic of our little wild woman!

Get out there and volunteer!

I believe I have been blessed beyond measure and one thing that helps me to remember that and keep a grounded perspective is volunteering.  It makes me feel good -- that's not why I volunteer but definitely a nice benefit. Earlier this week while I was reading to 1st and 2nd graders at Positive Tomorrows, a school here in OKC for homeless children, a little girl held her arms out real big and said, "I want a hug." So of course I gave the precious little one a big hug, probably the most meaningful work I did all day!
 
Some places/organizations I have volunteered at/for are:
Midland Memorial Hospital
Midland Police Department
Midland Teen Court
Southwest Children's Museum
Keep Midland Beautiful
City of Midland Aquatics
Fellowship Community Church
United Way
March of Dimes
Talitha Koum
Steppin' Out
Highland Baptist Church
Positive Tomorrows
Junior Achievement
Journey Church
Meadow Run HOA

You can search for places to volunteer using google or you may want to check out this website:
http://www.volunteermatch.org/

You won't regret it!

Pictures of OKC downtown from helicopter

Just some pics I took while Philip and I were flying in the OKC Police Helicopter above the city Friday afternoon...

Babies

Raegan has an obsession with babies, or as she says "bebes." Raegan wakes up in the middle of the night screaming for her "bebe," she carries them around with her, puts them nightnight, feeds them cheerios, rocks them in her bouncer, and pushes them down her slide.  (such a good little mommy she is)

(PS- the contact solution bottle is one Raegan confiscated from my bathroom counter and decided to use as a baby bottle)

In other news, it is finally cold enough to wear warm fuzzy coats, adorable striped baby legs, and boots!

yea!

Oh and Philip and I are taking a helicopter ride tomorrow! Pics to come!

A day off

I took today off, dropped Raegan off at daycare, ran a couple errands and did some laundry then went to get a mani and pedi at the Ihloff Salon (wanted a massage but they currently dont have a massage therpist and are looking for one)... anyways, I love this Aveda Salon and the scents, cucumber ice water, and great people there; however, everytime I go it gives me a great excuse to go to Francesca's http://www.francescascollections.com/home.do which is right next door.  Francesa's is such a cute store, These may be two of my FAVORITE places, how convenient for me that they are right next door to each other ; )

Baylor Bowlcoming!

Friday 10-22-2010

This past weekend we celebrated Baylor Homecoming in Waco.  Since the forecast showed it would be raining we decided to reschedule our family photo shoot and head down to Waco Friday morning instead of Saturday as originally planned.  Friday night we got to Waco around 4 and stopped by Robinson Tower to say "hi" to some of my former co-workers.  Lots of people were already gone since it was late Friday afternoon on homecoming weekend, but it was still good to see some people.  Lots of new faces, but it didn't look like much else had changed since I worked there ~4 years ago.  After that we found our hotel and as we booked it on the phone without even looking online to see pictures, etc... we were pleasantly surprised at how nice it was.  They had chocolate chip cookies waiting on us and the place was decked out in green and gold!

We quickly checked in, ate our cookies, and changed into our swimsuits to enjoy the heated indoor pool and hottub for a little while.  After swimming, which Raegan loved, we showered and got ready for dinner.  We ate dinner with the Roye's (Jake Roye is the Chick-fil-A Operator in Waco that Philip used to work for).  We ate at El Tamitactios; Raegan made a new friend, Shelby.  She is in 2nd grade and when she tried to pick up Raegan for a picture they tumbled over! Luckily no one was hurt; they just both laughed about it. =) 

After dinner we headed to campus for the Business School Alumni reception.  We got to see our former professors and show off Miss Raegan who was peacefully sleeping in her stroller (thank goodness).  From there we headed out to tour the Student Union Building (SUB) for the homecoming tour and then passed by "our swing," a couple of other memorable places on campus, the huge stage, farriswheels, and funnelcake stand to find a seat and watch the fireworks and bonfire.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrY3WSYM2BI

After the bonfire, we headed over and grabbed some frozen coffee from Common Grounds before heading back to the hotel.

Saturday 10-23-2010

We got up early, ate breakfast, checked out of our hotel (after saying hi to Casey who was working at the front desk (he used to work at CFA with Philip), and headed to the Spirit Shop to get some new Baylor gear!  We were their first customers of the day, we changed into our new clothes in the car and went and got THE BEST parking spot to watch the parade from.  The back of our SUV was facing 4th street, so when it was sprinkling and windy before the parade started we just sat in the back of the car with the back door up, worked out perfect.  Raegan enjoyed the parade, but enjoyed the dogs that people brought with them to the parade more.  She ate 3 suckers that morning and we brought home a sack full of candy (and Halloween is this next weekend)! After the parade we went to Rosa's for lunch, mmmm how I have missed that place.  I got my favorite Combination Nachos! I could eat those EVERY day! After a delicious lunch at Rosa's we headed over and got an awesome parking spot right across from HEB, we found some friends at a couple of different tailgates to say hi to and cheered at the "March of the Bears" (a first for us as it is a new tradition at Baylor this year to cheer for the team as they arrive at the stadium and get off of buses).  We found the kiddie area and let Raegan play in one of the bouncies for a lil while. She loved flying in the air as the big kids (3-8 year olds) jumped around.  All the other parents and children were pointing at her and saying things like, "look at the little baby."  Raegan must not have heard them, she doesn't seem to realize she is younger than them, she begged to go through the inflatable obstacle course, which is for older kids/adults, but I wouldn't let her because I was afraid she'd get stuck in there and I'd have to crawl in to get her. 

We found our seats and watched the bears play 3 downs, and then the refs decided to delay the game "30 minutes" because lighting was spotted 6 miles away.  Although it had been sprinkling off and on all day, it wasn't raining at that time and the crowd was mad about the "30 minute" delay.  The football teams and band left the field/stands and the announcer asked the fans to multiple times, until it no longer became a suggestion, but a warning.  The lines to go down under the stands were long, but once it started raining pretty hard, we got out of our seats and tried to find a place under the stands.  Raegan was sleeping across my arms and her 'dead weight' felt like at least 50 lbs for the 2 hours I ended up holding her like that... a hail storm and possibly tornado blew through and we all got rained on and the delay ended up being at least 2 hours.  When we got back in the stands it would sprinkle periodically and then the sun came out, and then a cold front blew through, which caused the ~70 degree temps to drop almost instantly.  I walked out to our car and got our jackets and Raegan a pair of dry clothes to change into.  The rest of the game was great, except for a few borderline/horrible calls (like the first down signal being excessive celebration, please!).  So Baylor won the game against Kansas State and for the first time in like 15 years is bowl elegible! So the students rushed the field and we stayed and watched the whole ordeal and to sing 'That Good Ol' Baylor Line' with everyone.  We headed up to Hillsboro after the game, grabbed some dinner, and passed out in our hotel, right after I asked Philip if we could sleep in, in the morning.

Sunday 10-24-2010

Philip woke me up and the first thing I did was look over at the clock.  Eight o'clock ok I guess that counts as sleeping in, I thought.  My sweet husband had already gotten up and gone downstairs and brought up breakfast for us; such a good man!  We took our time coming home on Sunday and even stopped at a nice mall in FortWorth, as well as a Dairy Queen, yum!  Philip loves their dipped cones.

Sorry this post is so overdue, Blogger has been giving me trouble uploading pics and videos... I'll try to add more sometime (if I remember ; )