Christmas, 09

Christmas with little ones is so much fun! Leading up, we went to see Santa as he traveled through downtown Olive Branch. Reese had his list and read the entire letter to Santa. Santa kept it so he could remember it. Raygan-Elise wasn't as thrilled with Santa. She screamed! Santa tried real hard to win her over. He walked around and talked to her and whispered secrets in her ear. She warmed up a little...and by that I mean she didn't scream when he stood beside us but she didn't crack a smile either. Then, we went to the Hernando Christmas parade. Reese was more thrilled with trying to catch candy than the bands and floats passing by him. He just kept saying do you think they'll throw candy. Raygan-Elise smiled and clapped some. None of the very loud tractors, 18 wheeler (the front part), banks, or even firetrucks scared her. She just walked around my chair and stared at all of it!!

We started off this week in Clarksdale on Sunday. We opened presents at Ruru's first then SL that night. Raygan-Elise loved tearing the paper. And Reese was just super excited! I think Raygan-Elise's favorite gifts were her Magna-Doodle from Anna and her baby doll, from Hammie. Reese loves his Barakagun DS game from Anna. He said he can't eat anymore because the game changed his life!! Raygan-Elise got a rocking horse from Ruru and a grocery basket from Mamaw. Reese got a Spongebob game from Ruru and a hot wheels track from Mamaw. All the kids (except RE) got a marshmallow gun from Aunt Billie. That was a big hit with the cousins!! Reese loves his! That night we went to SL where they got a lot more gifts. The children had so much fun. We usually do Christmas in Clarksdale on Christmas Eve night and although I complained I feel blessed we did it early, as Ruru passed away Christmas Eve morning. She will be missed so much but as she said, "I'm ready to go home!"

Today, Santa came and of course tons more gifts!! Reese was SO excited yesterday! He set many traps to catch Santa but then changed them all. He took a nap to try and stay up late last night, but he still fell asleep. We called Norad Santa tracking all day and tracked Santa around the World on the computer. Brian said he has never seen him so excited! This morning he was thrilled with all his video games, guitar, and microscope plus everything else. Raygan-Elise was excited to see all the presents. She walked straight to her balls and then to her corn popper walker toy. She smiled each time her furreal pet cat made noises! She has been very very happy today! I think the tubes and meds from earlier in the week are definitely helping!

Then, we opened our presents. Reese's school had a fundraiser where the kids got to shop for their family. Reese got Raygan-Elise a book, me a heart necklace and earring set, and Brian a lighted key chain! Then they opened our presents to them. After the 3rd Mickey gift, Reese said hmmm, I'm getting a lot of these this year. Then, the big finale came! He opened the box and stared. When it finally sunk in, he grinned from ear to ear. Brian and I both got teary eyed!! Then, the big news-- Reese, I wonder when we can go....what about tomorrow! "YES!!!," he yelled, "MERRY CHRISTMAS!" and his arms flew up in the air. We are so excited and have been packing the car all day! It will be a fun-filled Mickey Week!! We leave tomorrow around lunch! Reese says his Favorite part of Christmas is all the toys and I think Raygan-Elise's is the food (she's gotten so good at using baby sign for more, all done and eat.) She even says ma sometimes when she signs more.

MERRY CHRISTMAS to everyone!!! From our family!!!

My Funny Children!

Personalities!! I tell you. Sometimes they are like night and day. Reese-the ever talkative, happy, smiling, question asking, curious boy and Raygan-Elise- the vocal (yet with no words), strong-willed, demanding, although yes curious girl!

I think the older a child gets in school, maybe the less time during the day they have to talk and be social...too many worksheets and tests that must be accomplished. Now, I'm not saying this is the teacher's fault; its just school now. We love Reese's teacher, Mrs. Samsel. We've known her since we moved to OB. Her daughter, Jorja, was in my class with Reese for 2 yrs. and they've been in the same class until this year! Now, back to my point...talking. So, sometimes Reese comes home and he just has so much built up that he wants to talk about to me...So, we got in the car and without stopping to breathe or pause here is his story from last week on our drive to get Raygan-Elise from her school:

"Mom, I can't wait till I'm like 16 and can drive a car and I will say-mom I'm driving to a friends house and if u let me u will say ok but be home by midnight and I will say ok but I'll come home at 1 and then get grounded so that's not good (and without taking a breath) who are the people on the side of the road that pick up stuff. Are they just environmentally friendly or what? And if u r a passenger looking outside the more restaurants you see you get hungry then if its not a restaurant just a store with windows then u can see the food and get even hungrier. I'm a really good drummer. I remember that day when we had that party and we were trying to figure out who was coming at the right time and then u said Zoe coming at 1 and Clayton coming at 2 and Olivia coming at 3 and really our Christmas tradition should really be breaking something. Wanna know what made me think of that. It was that bent tree right there."
And there was actually another story bt the driving and people on side of road but I was typing yet at that time. We love his funny off the wall stories. Brian says he's just like his Poppa!


Now, Raygan-Elise is 18 months old. She is saying bye, mama, and sometimes baba. She was assessed through Simple Strokes and First Steps and does have an expressive and receptive language delay, which we've discovered (after a failed hearing test and a visit to an ent)is probably due to fluid buildup in ear. We've had 3 speech sessions and it does seem to help. Mrs. Angela gave us a little game of saying specific sounds to "name" specific objects. Some nights Raygan-Elise tries, sometimes not. But she is only 18 months! Her personality is really starting to show! She loves dancing and shaking head to any music. She even started blowing kisses last week! She has also gotten better at shaking her head yes and no but often gives us the wrong answer that she is trying to give. She had ear tube surgery last Tuesday (weighed 22 lbs 0 oz the morning of surgery) and the ENT said her ears were awful and bled a lot due to fluid build up damage. We are hoping this helps her a lot with both her frustrations and language. Early this week her ears were still looking bad (with the tubes you can see the infection, which is gross but helpful in knowing to go to doc) so back to the ent we went. More antibiotics and antibiotic drops and they cultured it! Hopefully this will be it for a while!

As they grow, I will miss-

* All the funny things Reese says. Recent quotes from Reese:
--After he was relaying messages for a while b/t Brian and I, he grabbed my cell phone, pushed some buttons, and said, "I'm done and clocking out for the day." Then he walked upstairs without saying another word.
--While trying to feed the very big catfish at Lake Tiak-O'Khata, he said, "the ducks are getting into our territory!"
--"I ate so much Thanksgiving food, I think I put on a few pounds." (yes, that was from Reese not me!)
* Reese's baby teeth! He has also lost 2 more teeth- another on bottom and his first on the top. I pulled the bottom one, and he pulled his top one while at school. First time for him to pull one!
* Reese rushing to say, "Good night, sweet dreams, don't let the beg bugs bite, love you more! I beat you!!"

I will miss Raygan-Elise:
* Grabbing and holding the collars of shirts or sleeves with her little hands and even her own collar if needed
* Her running to me and falling into my lap
* Her dancing and wiggling from side to side(which she loves to do now, especially to Chicken Elmo and Country Elmo that are hand-me downs from John Aedon!)
* Her calling me and Brian- mama!!
* Her signing more and eat.
* waving bye upside down. (more like we would use our hands to say come here).
* her soothie/pacifier- everyone says she reminds them of the baby on the Simpsons b/c she smacks on her soothie and really makes that same sound as on the show!

Halloween, 2009

We did many activities leading up to Halloween night.

To start, we went to the annual Zoo Boo! This is our 4th year to go and we had a blast. We went with several friends this year- Bethany, Shane and Jack and Melissa and Aaron. Reese and Aaron both got picked to go on stage to help with a trick. That was so exciting for them! Reese decided to go through each line 2 times in a row by going through the line, then going to the end of the long line and going through again...He called it his sneak attack! Baby Jack and Raygan-Elise both decided to need a big time diaper change while having at least 3 layers of clothes on their little bodies! We had both talked to them about this prior to the event, but of course they didn't listen. The Hay Ride was a hit! Reese rode the spinning ride with a complete stranger! He's such a big boy! Raygan-Elise and Jack (and us mommies) had a fun time on the fast carousel! and I think Reese and Raygan-Elise's favorite was the dracula disco! They danced and danced! Although I think the cutest part of the evening was when we tried to take pics of Jack and Raygan-Elise together. I got some cute pics of Raygan-Elise while they situated Jack. By the time Jack was ready, Raygan-Elise decided to get up and walk around. But then she walked over to him and they just looked at each other, tapped each other, smiled and eventually shook hands (see pic!!).







We also enjoyed the OBHS Halloween Carnival! Reese played all the games and even went down a haunted hall (although he only made it half-way...brian went to and said it was scary!!). We got to see lots of friends--Vince, Valerie, JT, Abby, Jorja, Jack and many more!Raygan-Elise played the pick a duck game! Her first game!! and won 2 pieces of candy!




Raygan-Elise had her first class party and pajama day! I was able to go thanks to a good friend, Stacey, for watching my class! Raygan-Elise loves to eat, so of course this was right up her ally!! We signed up for treat bags so I made clear bags of cheetos look like pumpkins. She quickly ate her cupcake and use her baby sign to sign she wanted more. Mrs. Deborah gave her another cupcake! They had juice boxes which was hilarious to watch them try and figure them out. She enjoyed playing with her straw, although she did drink about half of it. She tried her strawberry, grapes, cookie, and cheetos too! I enjoyed just sitting back and watching her and her friends! We took Reese's teachers and her teachers cakes! yum, yum. Reese's class couldn't have a party, but they did each take a treat for their friends. He took Halloween shaped marshmallows with a pencil attached to the bag.






Then we went to downtown OB the afternoon of Halloween! We trick-or-treated in each store! I think Raygan-Elise liked the Ballroom Dancing Studio the best. She has really gotten into "dancing" lately and I must say it is SO funny to watch. She makes her hips/waist go front and back! Too cute!







Halloween night-- We went on a Trick or Treating Hay ride with our neighbors! Reese was so excited (since he missed it last year being sick). Reese was his blue phantom and Raygan-Elise was a pink poodle (she loves her pink poodle webkinz! It is the first thing she ever became attached to). Many of the houses had great decorations! One even had a haunted maze. Brian went through it with the kids first then I did. Reese kept telling look mom there is someone behind that tree about to scare you! Mark (our neighbor) finally said Reese stop telling her. :) Raygan-Elise loved the ride. She loves it outside!!! When we stopped, the kids and dads would go to first of 4 or 5 houses and Raygan-Elise and I would walk to the 3rd one. In our neighborhood, the driveways are long and in some parts of it-very long. Raygan-Elise and I would walk and walk and about half way to the house she'd turn around and walk back. She was very cute and excited to be out and about! I think maybe we made it all the way up to 3 houses! After we got home, I wanted to get a picture of Raygan-Elis smiling. So Reese jumped around and acted silly! She loves laughing at him! Then, she truly got tickled with me pulling her paci out of her mouth using my teeth (because I was holding her and the camera.) She was laughing so hard which made Reese and I both crack up! It was a great time!

Reese's Character Day Costume

Reese wanted to have blue hair for character day at school. His first idea was a rock star book, then Monsters VS Aliens(he would be BOB). After not finding either book, he decided to write his own book. He wrote a story about a blue haired phantom attacking the USA. At this point, I decided Mrs. Samsel wouldn't care and that it was just fine to write his own book. Then, he completed the book report form using his book. Here is the story he wrote and a pic of him on book character day (in the picture, you can also see the "pumpkin-stien" he made all by himself for his spotlight/gifted pumpkin project):

The world was a peacefle place until. A meardor hit the earth.
It openend phantoms came out. They had blue hair and a black robe. They rampageed .
They had a gun, connon, torpedow, and a laser. They distored the woods, river, and the sity. So the U.S.A. gets sords, shields, and tanks. The U.S.A won. They selbrated with a feast.
Then it rained. The phantoms came back alive and distored Cina and avry thing in it . The U.S.A. air force came and beat them again. They were tierd and rested. And the genrel was proud. THE END

Update on Raygan-Elise

Raygan-Elise had a busy month in October(and end of sept):
We decided that Disney Live was the calm before the storm because 2 days later she started running fever. Took her to the doctor (not our usual doc since he was out) on Sept 29 and she had a double ear infection. I also showed him the "white stuff" I noticed inside her mouth and he said that was normal and possibly irritation from molars appearing. We started an antibiotic. On October 6, I went with Reese's class to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Reese sat by Titus and loved the movie. Then Reese and I took Raygan-Elise to her Speech Eval. After the eval, they determined she was 6-9 months delayed in expressive and receptive language and were going to write up a report for the doctor. After some investigating, I discovered that our insurance doesn't pay for speech therapy for a language delay so I contacted first steps who scheduled their own eval date. Raygan-Elise was irritable and fussy more than usual and it continued all day long! She did however start babbling in syllables (baba, bo, mamama) and started waving bye-bye and sometimes even saying bye! On October 22, I took her back to the doctor, and this time we got into our doc!! He said both her ears were still infected and the stuff in her mouth was thrush. He gave us both med and did a CBC test. One number on the CBC was a little off so he sent us for lab work for 3 tests. Getting blood taken out of a 17 month olds veins is awfully sad! After the blood was taken, I took it upon myself to look it up on the internet what they were testing for--gluetin allergies. For 3 days, I didn't care and then for the 4 following days I looked and read and fully convince myself she had it. BUT she didn't!! YAY! and since taking the medicine for thrush she has been a much different child. Now she is still demanding and cries more than Reese ever did, but it isn't as constant. AND she smiles and laughes when that use to rarely happen. We are thrilled and really wonder how long she had this thrush infection! She was even excited every day last week when I picked her up from daycare. She would run up to me smiling. She has not done that one time since August (Everyday she would just start screaming when she saw me). On Oct. 26, she had her speech eval through First Steps. They determined her expressive and receptive language were on a 12 month level, and she will start having a special instructor come once a week for up to 60 min. I believe this will help with the crying also because it may help with language frustrations. All other areas of development were at the 18 month old level! YAY!!

Teton Trek

What a busy month! The kids and I started off this month by going to the members preview of the new teton Trek at the Zoo. Reese was so amazed. He's gone to the zoo so much that some visits the thrill isn't there anymore. But the zoo out did themselves again and this is the best exhibit yet. Reese loved the wolves and even howled and got them to come over. Raygan-Elise loved walking around and mashing her face to see the bears splashing in the water. But the biggest hit had to be the geyser water outside the exhibit! They both loved getting wet and walking on the large rocks!

Best Day for Raygan-Elise!

So anyone who is around Raygan-Elise for extended periods of time knows that she isn't the happiest baby. She get very upset at things, cries a lot, and tends to get overstimulated easily. We went to Elmo a few weeks back, and she wasn't happy to be on Sesame Street. So I was a bit concerned when Anna offered to give me her 3rd ticket she had to Playhouse Disney in Tupelo. But I decided to take Raygan-Elise and see how it went. She was wonderful! I had her in her "wrap/sling" the whole time of the show and she sat, she smiled and laughed. She leaned back and hugged me! She ate the cotton candy Anna bought during intermission (instead of throwing it and fussing like at Elmo). It was amazing! Then, we went to mall and she was playful and fun. Laughing, smiling, and being silly. Anna even said that she was a pleasure to be around. We still aren't sure what happened and at times during the day I was grinning and happy from ear to ear and other times I wondered if it was "the quiet before the storm". But it was great! I teared up at the end of the day because it was so fun. I'm not sure if she was just in a really really good mood or if she was on a sugar rush from the cotton candy and sweet tea but I'll take it either way! THANKS Anna for invited us! We really enjoyed it!! I'll post pics when I get them from Anna!

Zoo Trip- August 30th

We took another family zoo trip on August 30th. This time we were joined by Anna, John Aedon, and Brian. Reese's favorite part was the birds again. He will be sad when that exhibit leaves. He likes to try and beat his goal of how many birds he can get on his stick. Raygan-Elise didn't point as much on this trip, but she had fun! John Aedon enjoyed seeing all the animals also. Here are some pics of our fun outing!