Swim Day at La Leighs on June 2!!

We took Raygan-Elise swimming for first time at La Leigh's in Cdale with all the cousins there. She loves the water. I even let go of her several times. She didn't swim like I've heard babies do but she didn't sink either! Kind of in-between. One time she flipped over!! We had a great fun day!! As you can tell, by the end, she was exhausted!

Lots of firsts---

Catching up on a lot of first that have happened to Raygan-Elise! She is growing up SO fast--

First time eating with spoon- June 14th-





1st time Painted toes and fingers- purple for her purple/pink party


First Time eating in high chair- Bday present from Mommy and Daddy



First Time outdoor water play, May 30th!!
Raygan-Elise LOVES THE water!!!

Summer is passing quick. Reese has finally finished this season of baseball. He always looked like he enjoyed the games, but he says he still doesn't like it really. He says he likes football and soccer best! We have been swimming at the ymca. Reese loves it and is a fish! Everyone is impressed with how good Raygan-Elise is while there. She plays and splashes. She can even "swim" while holding on to a swim ring. She holds on and swim like a tadpole! Everyone comments on her tan and reese says she might have "tan-e-litus".
Reese did a week of football camp last week at center hill high. He loved it. He was sweaty every day but had a blast. While we were there on wednesday, june 24, raygan-elise took 2 steps with one foot-her left. Then Saturday (while on a shopping trip with noelle, collin, john aedon, me, and raygan-elise) she took 7 steps at burlington coat factory!! Now she tries everyday and has taken about 10 at most! She still loves to eat-likes blueberries, oranges, cheese, and turkey. Still babbling and occasionally gets out bye or bubba or ma but we still aren't sure if she means to do it. She also is funny crawling on hands and feet (not hands and knees).
Reese will be on the cowboys this year for football! We bought his shoulder pads! He is very excited! He also loves talking!! His new thing is to say what if... For example- "mommy what if we called this store and hammie worked there and she answered the phone but we didn't know she worked there and we were like what? We didn't know you worked here. Mom what if that happened?" New pictures coming soon!

What are Raygan-Elise and Reese up to now??

Reese is 7 and loves his DS handheld game. He is into Zelda right now and talks about it ALL the time. He got his first call from a friend today. It was Lake (I work with his mom). Not sure what all they talked about b/c when I asked Reese said "nothing really." He got out for the very first time tonight in baseball and cried. He is a very sensitive child but is also very competitive. . He is very excited to play football in the fall, which makes Brian excited! I'm nervous b/c it is tackle, but the coaches say it sounds worse than it is at this age. He has started randomly singing these army chants. Pretty funny! He mastered his multiplication facts this year! He is a thinker and likes to know the order of things. He asked SL this past week- "So we have 2 more stores, then lunch, then swimming?" He has finally started sleeping in till 8:00 or 8:30 am! Yay!

Raygan-Elise is now 1!! Baby food didn't last long. Maybe 3 wks. She likes food. Real food and lots of it. At about 10 months she ate a roast beef sandwich. Everyone comments on what all she will eat. It is very raw that anything is spit back out. She ate a whole huge strawberry the other night. Hammie gave her cabbage. She loves mexican and fruit. Basically she likes to eat. She has said bye about 3 times, but isn't consistent with it yet. When she is mad she will say mamamamama but not sure if she is really meaning me yet. She loves the water! She has gone swimming and I finally let go of a baby in the water. She didn't really swim like I've heard they instinctively do, but she didn't sink either. We practiced it a lot. She never cried. She really wants to walk and is starting to stand up for about 5 sec on own. She likes walking behind things- her push stroller and her new pink car. She loves putting things in and out of anything. She is a drama queen and loves throwing her head down when she's mad. She likes "making a bridge" with her body and looking at you through her legs upside down (hard to explain, but so funny). She loves singing Itsy Bitsy Spider (hammie taught her) and she does motion at the right time when you say down came the rain. She still loves her soothie (pacifier). At her one yr. visit she was 18 lbs. 10 oz and was in the 10-20%. Doc says her top 2 teeth are right under her gums and should pop through soon. Iron was great. Go back at 15 months for shots.

I wish life would slow down. They are growing so fast. I love each new step but it seems to come and go too quickly.

BIRTHDAYS!!

We survived our first year of having 2 birthday within one week! Yes, Reese is now 7 and Raygan-Elise is one!

This year Reese wanted a spend the night party. Together :) we decided on having a rockstar party. He invited 5 friends and 3 were able to come-- Robert, Aaron, and Bryant. I took them home after school on Friday and their parents picked them up at Mcdonald's on Saturday. Reese wanted a white oreo rockstar ice cream cake! I think we found him one he liked! :) We ordered pizza and he wanted to eat it right from the box. He picked out everything he wanted at Walmart for the party-- Mountain Dew and Root beer (as he put it -- the mostest caffeine and the 2nd mostest of all caffeine), popcorn, 2 huge bags of candy (so they could drink and eat sugar and stay up all night he said), and a pancake breakfast bar (syrup, whip cream, chocolate syrup, sprinkles). We ate, open presents (2 friends gave him barakagons, 1 a gift card and we got him the DS with Zelda that he had wanted for a while), ate cake, and tie-dyed tshirts. They did stay up pretty late but when I went upstairs at 3:30 am they were asleep...well robert was awake. The next day we ate breakfast and got "rockstar ready" for McDonalds! It was a lot of fun and I think he really enjoyed it. Although he did tell me later that they ate the candy at the wrong time. Reese is excited about the summer and about going into 2nd grade. He still loves to draw and make things. Now he is creating a Zelda game that he has named, created big bosses for, etc that he is going to mail to the DS people so they can contact him about really creating it (or so he says). His new thing is to grunt when he is mad and I hate it! I take something away every time he does it and hope it stops soon!

On Raygan-Elise's real bday we went to eat at the Mexican restaurant and let her play in her 1st smash cake! She loved getting her hands on the cake and then clapped the icing all on the table and her hands!! The waiters sang happy birthday to her! This past Saturday, Raygan-Elise had her 1st birthday party- a pink and purple party. She really had a great time. We had it at our house and everything was pink and purple. She enjoyed her 2nd smash cake and playing with all her new toys. I was very sad to have this day come and go. She was great at the party...with her we are always nervous because you never know! But she played and took pics. She hated the hat that I took my time to make. She kept her bow on most of the time and wore her tutu until I took it off! She enjoyed opening presents and pulled out the tissue paper and smiled at each new toy. After the party, she fell asleep on my shoulder as I was changing the channel on the TV and she slept for 3 hours. She was exhausted!

Both birthdays were wonderful. I cannot believe this past year has already gone by! Our family is so special and I am blessed to be a part of it!!!

The next day...Sick Princess Baby

Catching up on the blog...March for babies was great, and then came Sunday night. Raygan-Elise fell asleep. After about an hour, I noticed she was breathing heavier and felt her...She was burning up. 30 min later, her temp was 103 (without adding any degree). We called Mamaw, cooled her down, gave tylenol, and hoped it was ear infection. The next morning, I got an appt. at 10:00 am. When I got there, her temp was just above 99. They said ears and throat looked great and did blood work. White count was really high so they suspected urinary infection. Tried to bag for urine. After 1.5 hrs., they said needed to go to leBounher ER for a cath. So, Raygan-Elise and I by ourselves drive to the ER. WOW! They were packed. I signed in and waited for my name. It was called pretty quick but just to fill out more paper work. BUT when they took her temp it was 104.9 and quickly they got her stripped down and moved up quickly to top of stack for an ER room. That day was awful. Both of us, by ourselves in ER room. They tried to cath her 10 times and did some other procedure where they stick needle through stomach into bladder. Didn't get any urine. They did blood work, chest xrays, and a bladder ultrasound. Late that evening, we were assigned a room. Brian and SL came that night. SL spent the night. Most of days are kind of blurry. Her blood culture started to grow something so they put on antibiotic. Urine was fine. Later we learned she had a live germ called strep pnemo in her blood stream. They did a spinal tap, changed antibiotics, she had a red-man reaction to one antibiotic- very scary, started iron bc very anemic. She cried anytime doc or nurse walked in the room. By Wed, she was better, then Thursday ran fever again and feeling worse. Disease control people in and out of room. Changed IV from arm to foot. Finally Saturday we were better and ready to go home. We appreciate so much the docs and nurses at Lebouhner and especially Dr. Barrett at our clinic who sent us there. This was so very serious but could have been worse had it not been caught and diagnosed appropriately! While in the hospital Raygan-Elise passed the time by watching Baby Einstein, sleeping, and even learned how to "feed the baby" by using a pretend baby bottle toy mom bought her. I enjoyed ordering for us off their cafeteria menu which was really nice!! Raygan-Elise is now well and doing great.

The next day, my mom was also put into hospital and had the same thing in her lungs and blood. They've discovered a blood disease as well as a enlarged spleen. She is now doing many follow-up appts. to get more information.

Posting pics of Raygan-Elise in her hospital gown/bed. They are in mixed up order. Not date order...and yes, I took pics of her when she was sick. Bad mommy! It wasn't a comfortable week with us both sleeping in the hospital crib. The week after we got out I would wake up having flash backs of being in those crib bars and scared she would fall on concrete hospital floor! What a crazy couple of weeks...I'm still recovering from it all!

March for Babies 09

Lots and lots going on and I'm trying to catch back up on blogging! First, we had a great time at our first March for Babies event on Saturday, April 25! Our family team-- Me, Raygan-Elise, Bethany, her son, Jack, Anna, Mary Ann, and Shaun Leigh-- raised $1000 for March of Dimes! I must admit that although excited about the day, I was nervous I wouldn't make the whole 4 miles. But, I did and she did and so did everyone else! The night before we stayed at a hotel and went out to eat. Raygan-Elise had a grand time! The big even was bigger than I ever thought. Cars were backed up trying to get to parking. It was wild!! Bethany's mom made Jack and Raygan-Elise cute outfits and I think our shirts (Designed by Andrea Dancy! THANKS!!) were the best there!! Lots of fun, lots of sweat, lots of babies, lots of laughs! Can't wait till next year!

Easter 2009

Easter started off pretty scary...On Saturday, Reese, Raygan-Elise and I took off to go to the Snowden egg hunt (we go each year). They started the hunt a little early about 5 till 11:00 and Reese took off. This egg hunt is huge and I couldn't get Raygan-Elise stroller over into egg area. With all the people, Reese got lost! Never before have I lost him, but it happened. For about 15 minutes, I was desperatlely looking. Finally found him. He had been looking for us, was scared, had no eggs, had crossed the (blocked off) road to the play area, but then came back to egg hunt area where I was! So so scary. He was mad that he didn't get eggs. So, I promised after he played on playground and bounce houses we would go buy any eggs he wanted at Target and make our own egg hunt. We also discovered how much Raygan-Elise likes ice cream while eating at McDonalds. Boy, she screamed loud if we weren't shoveling it into her mouth.


Easter morning was pretty interesting now that Raygan-Elise is crawling and cruising everywhere. Although the Easter Bunny was generous to both of them, she really wanted Reese's toys and candy! And Reese was not happy about it. Usually he loves and loves her, but he wanted his stuff! Reese is also started to "learn" some of the language from church masses. Here's what he thinks it is: "Osama on high" and "When the bow breaks, take away- the things of the lord, have mercy on us, mercy on us."

Raygan-Elise 9 month PT Dismissal!

Raygan-Elise is now 9 months old. We went for her physical therapy session today, and she has now caught up to her birth age in her physical goals (instead of her corrected age b/c of prematurity). This means that she is 9 months old and physically can do 9 month old skills--crawling and pulling up, etc. So, she was dismissed from PT today! We will miss Ms. Jodie! She was so wonderful and gave us lots of tips throughout the past months.

Although she was dismissed from PT, Ms. Jodie does a developmental check of things that do not relate to PT. For social development and fine motor development, she was between 6 months and 7 months and for language/speech, she was 6 months, which is a little behind. This is close to her corrected age. We were told what goals to watch for over the next 2 months. If she hasn't mastered them, we have to call another doc at the same Rehab place and set up an appt.

Overall, Great news and a Great day! Raygan-Elise came to school with me after appt. and the kids loved on her! Reese created his usual signs/stories and hung them up everywhere around the building! He has another loose tooth (noticed it about 2 weeks ago), but he says it was a mistake and he's trying to keep this one in! HA!