a rough patch

Every time I sit down to write something, or even begin to think about what to write, everything changes.

I've almost become scared to blog about anything having to do with Reagan because a.) I don't want to jinx a good thing we've got going, or b.) I am completely miserable because she is completely miserable. We haven't done anything major, haven't gone anywhere, or done anything really worth blogging about other than the fact that I've slept on her floor on more than one occasion to stop her 3am crying fits. We have our daily routine that we like to follow and we're just passing the days until the weather finally begins to cool off and we can go to the park and run errands without feeling we are melting.

For now, we play in the water in the backyard.

We work on piggy tails.

And we work on being a little more fearless.

untitled

Sometimes it is just to ridiculously hot to attempt going outside in the afternoon, but for the sake of grilling dinner, you just have to brave the onslaught of heat and make it work. The kids have decided it's a requirement for them to be outside any and all times that Keith goes out, so I tagged along this particular time with camera in hand.

Usually it's Reagan that lets me take pictures of her, but on this day she wanted nothing to do with the camera and since Luke was content rolling around in the grass playing with his cars, poor kid became the main target of the paparazzi.

I love how carefree he is in these pictures. Luke takes after my nervousness and anxiety about, oh, everything, so I love when I get to capture him completely relaxed and at peace. Reagan, being the polar opposite of Luke, is full of sass and spice. She was happy to show off how strong she's getting...

...waving adios...



...and telling me how old she is.

Luke just told me to be quiet.

The last picture cracks me up. Oh, he is his father's son. Love it.

i'm a big girl now

Well, as of Thursday, Reagan will be 18 months old, the same age Luke was when we transitioned him into a toddler bed. At the time, I was almost six months pregnant with Reagan so his transition was born out of necessity.

Luke did surprisingly well at the time, so Keith is convinced Reagan will do equally as well.





He is so confident, in fact, that he convinced me to switch up Reagan's crib at the same age. Luke was happy to help with the tools and I was begrudgingly ready with the camera. See, for some reason, I had no desire to switch it. There is a very real chance that Miss Reagan could be our last baby and I'm having a hard time coming to grips with not having a "baby" anymore.

She seems to like it so far. It's hard to not want to give this sweet girl everything that she wants when she grins up at me like that.

I guess its time to come to grips with the fact that no matter how hard I fight it, my babies will keep getting older. Is it weird that I completely understand where the lady from 19 Kids and Counting is coming from--sort of?

my sunshine

When I was little, I distinctly remember my dad singing "You Are My Sunshine" to me and that is one of my most favorite and treasured memories with him. After Reagan came along, I decided that I needed to implement something that was just for Luke and I, something that would always remind him how much I do treasure him.

Each night (and sometimes even more during the day), Luke asks for "Baby Luke." All this basically consists of is me cradling and rocking him and softly singing that same "You Are My Sunshine" to him. It's become a special time for the two of us and I dread the day he's too big for my to hold him like "Baby Luke." For now, I'll snuggle him and love him away and hope that he knows he is my sunshine.

You are my sunshine

My only sunshine

You make me happy

Everyday

You'll never know dear

How much I love you

Please don't take

My sunshine

Away



bink breakdown

So.

The debinkification process has encountered some bumps in our journey. We're still holding strong with bink at sleep times only, but every now and then, Reagan wants absolutely nothing to do with the new plan. This happened to be one of those days.

She knows right where the binks are hidden and makes a beeline straight for them when she feels the need arise. Which was *really* often at first.

This particular tantrum lasted a solid twenty minutes. There was screaming, crying, runny noses, thrashing, head shaking, running from me, and scaring the crap out of Luke. Keith and I made the mistake of commenting when Luke was about Reagan's age that we had never heard him scream.

Reagan has more than made up for that.

Luckily things are going better. She now waves bye-bye to her bink each morning and after nap time and as soon as I say "Night-night," she runs as fast as her chubby legs will carry her to get it. Much better.

memorial day 2011

So I know it's already been a few weeks since Memorial Day, but Keith and I had such a good, low-key time with the kids that I couldn't go without posting. I'll just prepare you ahead of time: there will be a lot of pictures and not a lot of words.



Reagan is in love with the tutu that her Aunt Beth made for her. She still asks (aka grunts) to wear it on an almost daily basis.

 
We started the afternoon with some drawing on the sidewalk.

The lovely folks who live behind us seems to enjoy shooting bee bees (sp?) into our yard so Luke spent some time hunting for them.



I love these two goofy kids.

Luke loves to convince Keith to race him and it tends to be a tight race. Luke is fast! Reagan and I love to be the cheerleaders.
 

Reagan was so enthralled with watching the birds fly overhead. I think she was secretly disappointed that they didn't wave back.

One of the sprinklers in the grass was acting up and Luke and Reagan were more than happy to help out.

Like I said earlier, we didn't do anything special, didn't attend any party, but just got to spend some quality time together. 



our very own disney princess

This was written while we were still at Disney. I wanted to make sure that Reagan knows years from now that this is what she did.

Last night we thought it would be fabulous for Luke to get a chance to see the fireworks show at Disney. He’s never really had the chance to see any fireworks before, not even the Independence Day ones. He’s just never been old enough. Our only hiccup to our plan was Reagan. She’d take such good naps in her stroller already that we thought it wouldn’t be an issue, and you know what? She was such a trooper through the fireworks. She really never even flinched through the entire show. I was so panicked about the whole thing and it worked out perfectly.

Until she woke up on our walk back out to our shuttle to the hotel. She had enough rest to be awake and perky, but when it came time to actually go to sleep for real, things went wrong. Very wrong. Screaming, kicking, wailing Reagan reared her ugly head until 2am. She wasn’t hungry. She wasn’t thirsty. She didn’t want to be held. She didn’t want to be on her own. She was over tired, worn out, over stimulated Reagan.

So now I sit here in the hotel room with her the next night as  she sleeps peacefully in her pack and play while Luke and Keith enjoy the fireworks show at California Adventures. I think this will be the best solution for everyone.

in living color

If you have a toddler and subscribe to the Disney Channel, you'll know exactly what I'm about to talk about: Jake and the Neverland Pirates.

Luke is completely obsessed. He wakes up asking about Jake and Captain Hook and continues to ask about them throughout the day. He's even started to memorize some of the songs associated with the show. First, I present to you one of the theme songs:

And now for one of the songs you see at the end of an episode. We have become big fans of Sharkey and Bones (the two dudes that sing each time).

I've tried teaching Luke his ABC's, Itsy Bitsy Spider, and all the other normal songs that a toddler would know and he refuses to repeat them or sing with me, yet he has managed to teach himself the songs from a cartoon. Does this seem wrong to you too?

debinkification

Yep. That's the technical term for what we are embarking on over in these parts.

Reagan is still not talking nearly as much as she should be, so our next step is to try to limit her bink usage to naps and night times only. Of course, this seriously hinders her coping mechanism to deal with all of Luke's craziness. When she's being tackled, squeezed, pushed, pinched, and generally tortured, that bink helps her take all of it like a champ and we hardly hear a peep out of her. Most times you even hear a muffled laugh out the side of her bink because she finds it hilarious. I just wish she felt the same when the bink wasn't there.

So, now that we've gotten potty training 98% under our belts, this is the next mountain we get to climb. Fingers crossed and binks out.

behind

Life has this funny way of sneaking up on you, sucking you in, and overwhelming you with the intensity of it. Or maybe it's just me. Either way you look at it, things have been like a roller coaster around here lately.

My other little blog, Sweet Rose Studio, has really started to take off. I have had more photo shoots and more amazing opportunities find me through my other slice of the Internet that I am in constant awe of what is happening. I mean, how many people's job involves baking a cake and writing about it?

Today I had the chance to photograph my first really intense staged shoot. It started as this sweet little idea that hatched in my head when I saw a pink spray-painted chandelier and now it's this:

The image that has been stuck in my brain for the past three months came to life today and I honestly loved every second of it.

My two sweet babies are growing by leaps and bounds right now. This is a good and a bad thing. Reagan still isn't saying too many words; she prefers the grunting and screaming method of getting her point across, so I've started teaching her the two basic signs that will really help all of us: more and all done. See, Reagan's entire life basically revolves around food, so the more we can help her communicate, the better.

Luke suffered through his first bout with a stomach bug this week and my track record of not having to deal with vomit came to a screeching end. It was so sad as he stood there in the bathroom, shaking like a leaf after it had happened, because the poor kid had no idea what had happened. And I stood there shaking like a leaf, trying not to lose it myself. I'm happy to report that we are both alive, so I'd consider it a success. And now for my newest Worst Mom of the Year moment: I took a picture of my baby hanging his head over the potty waiting for more to happen. Don't worry, I have absolutely no plans to share it here or anywhere for that matter, but I wanted proof down the road that I can survive those kind of situations.

With every storm cloud though, there's a silver lining. I get to spend each day with these two:

And I get to fall asleep next to and share my life with my wonderfully supportive husband. Life is good.