christmas day

On Christmas morning, we woke the kids up at 8am to see what Santa had brought. We've started the tradition since the kids have been born that we invite our families over Christmas morning to open gifts with us and then we share a yummy breakfast. This year did not disappoint. It may be chaos on Christmas morning, but we love the we get to share the joy of the holiday with our families. In the afternoon, we headed over to my cousin Kate's home for our traditional family get-together.

The phone is for you.

Just before the family showed up, we hear this crazy knocking on our door and ringing of our doorbell. Andi and Andrew had stopped by to see us on Christmas! I was so excited they came by because they're heading out to visit Andrew's family in Wisconsin, so we won't get a chance to see them for the next few days. Reagan sat still for the picture, but Luke couldn't be bothered. He was showing them all the goodness of the new kitchen and play food.

The phone is still for you.

 

Get it open Daddy! Faster!

Reagan loves a baby...

...but not opening more gifts. She's done and this is three gifts in.

Keith was obviously not super thrilled to be putting Reagan's stroller together.

Reagan is super excited to walk along with her stroller though. She gets so happy as she's pushing it along.

Pop Pop (while he's still awake) and Luke

Parker get s a turn.

Aunt Beth and Reagan (please notice the now-sleeping Pop Pop. He snores loud!)

A little sibling love.

christmas eve

***Disclaimer: I took an obscene amount of photos over the course of Christmas and Christmas Eve. Because I'd like to post about the past two days before sometime next year, I'm not going to edit them to what I normally would. I apologize in advance!***

Our Christmas Eve started at a packed Christmas Mass. I love a good full Mass (especially when we're able to get seats!), especially when it means we get to celebrate the birth of our Savior! From there we headed over to my grandparent's house for our traditional Christmas Even dinner and presents. I've been going there on Christmas Eve for as long as I can remember and I feel so blessed that I'm now able to share that with my own little family.

 little cousins: Luke and Killian

 big cousins: Ricci and Randy

 Pretty Park-Park

 Reagan and Grandma-Grandma

Okay...funny story about the cheesecake. I never liked cheesecake growing up; despised it, in fact. And then I got pregnant with Luke and now I'm slightly obsessed with the stuff. My grandparents' friend Judy has made this cheesecake in the past, but I was bummed last year when it didn't make its appearance at dinner. Its been a joke in our family now about how I was upset Judy didn't make the cheesecake. When we showed up last night, my first stop was to casually check to see if the cheesecake was on the dessert table. It wasn't and I wasn't going to say anything about it. Who was I to bring up the cheesecake two years in a row?

After dinner was finished and cleaned up and I was getting ready to put my camera away, Judy pulls out THE cheesecake. I was so excited that I took a picture (actually a took a few more than 1, but I'm only posting 1). It was as good as ever and there is even an extra piece that is sitting in my refrigerator calling my name right now.

The Waltemeyer Family

Christmas 2010



seeing santa

Keith and I are slacker parents. Until this year, Luke had never gone to sit on Santa's lap. Horrible, I know. For his first Christmas, I didn't want to traumatize him with the whole process. By last year, I felt bad we hadn't gone the previous year, so we made a day of taking him. Or tried to at least. Reagan tried to make her early entrance a few days before our planned outing, so last year's attempt was a no-go as well. And now this year. After researching the mall Santa and realizing that they charge $16.99 for ONE 5x7, Keith and I decided that wasn't quite the direction we wanted to go. We made a trip to Bass Pro Shop to get a free picture with Santa there, but with line being almost two hours long, we weren't about to make it there.

Lucky for us, Andi and Big Luke wanted to have me take pictures of them with a Santa as a gift for their parents. Andrew was the lucky one who got to dress up as Santa. It actually worked out well. No lines, no crazy screaming kids, and a Santa that they were familiar with.

And just for fun: Luke's strong face.

to you and yours

I wanted to take a moment to wish everyone a very Merry and Blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year.

(If we would have sent out Christmas cards, this is what they would have looked like. Enjoy!)

a double dose: 10 and 11

It's amazing how life can just speed right by with two kids and the holiday season. By the time I realized that Reagan's ten month post had been skipped, it was almost time to write out her eleven month post. My solution? I'll just combine the two into one giant post. Okay?

Here's Reagan's required chair picture for 11 months:

Sad side note: There is no 10 month picture. Horrible mother, I know. When I went to take the picture, the strap of my camera caught on the knob of the changing table as I was walking away carrying Reagan. As it caught and pulled me back, I had the choice to either drop Reagan or the camera. Luckily, I chose Reagan and she was safe. Not so luckily, the lens on my camera broke in two separate pieces. I was devastated, crying my eyes out, and totally forgot to go back and take the picture.

If we thought Reagan had a budding personality before, it has just blossomed over the past two months. She still has this hilarious laugh that sounds almost like a machine gun. Reagan is a firecracker who knows how to get her way and knows exactly what she wants. She can pull a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde on you so fast it'll make your head spin. Reagan will be smiling and screaming and back to smiling again in no time flat. She isn't afraid of much and has even gotten better being around people she's never met before.

Reagan is now a master crawler. She can get around like no body's business and pulls up onto everything. It almost seems like she's running around the edges of the couch now. She'll stand independently, but still hasn't taken any steps...and I am absolutely okay with that. The longer it takes for her to walk, the better. ;) When she gets really excited, she'll even start to clap for herself now. So cute.

I've always considered Reagan a Momma's girl; really she basically refused Keith for the first six-ish months of her life. That is no more. As soon as she hears Keith walk through the door, she books it to find him. And if we're in the playroom, she gets very angry that she can't get to him fast enough. I know you're surprised (snort), but Reagan does not possess the ability to have a lot of patience. 

Reagan has really become interested in toys; Luke's toys more specifically. She has already figured out how to push cars around and I swear she she's trying to make the engine sounds as she's doing it sometimes. For some reason, Reagan loves playing with socks and unless her shoes are on, her socks are typically taken right off. She thinks its so silly when I put her socks on her hands. Reagan also has quite the affinity for stuffed animals. She loves to cuddle and snuggle with them whether she's trying to nap or just out and about playing around.

Reagan's blanket is now the fifth member of our family. My sister made both Luke and Reagan their baby blankets and they both love to sleep with them. I thought Luke was super attached to his, but Reagan has brought the attachment to a whole new level. Reagan won't even go to the gym without it. She likes to have it with her when she's nursing, when she's playing, when we're going out. I don't necessarily always give it to her during all of those times, but she really does do remarkably better for an extended amount of time when she has it. Her favorite part of the blanket has to be the silky binding that lines it. She will rub that part to high heaven and even like to rub it on her face when she's especially frustrated.

I think we've finally found a cup that we can call a winner. Reagan is no good with a straw and she also doesn't like the hard spout found on most cups. This one seems to have satisfied all of her criteria for a cup: soft spout, handles, and no straw to be found. Its really funny to watch her drink out of it though. She'll grip one handle and toss her head all the way back to drink out of it.

Remember Reagan's fight she had with our tile floor? Here is the aftermath (Look at the right side of her forehead). It actually doesn't look nearly as bad in the picture as it did in person.  It ended up being a bump about the size of a quarter and pretty purple.

I love this crazy, sassy, sweet, silly, loveable girl and I am so glad to call her mine.

welcome to the family

Well, it was a long time coming, but we finally had Reagan baptized Sunday, November 21. 

For some crazy reason, I had it stuck in my head that I really wanted her baptized in the new church. This plan was all great and dandy when the original opening of the church was supposed to happen late June, early July. At that point, she'd be about 5 months old. Not as soon as I would've liked, but acceptable. But as typical construction jobs go, the open date was continuously pushed back and delayed. After it finally opened, coordinating schedules was the next hurdle. Finally, finally, on her 10 month birthday we were able to have her baptized.

Because we have two priests in our family, they have typically always performed the baptisms. In this case, schedules just didn't coordinate, so we took part in the group baptism that St. Mary Magdalene offers one weekend a month. Reagan was lucky enough to be baptized with about 10 other children. It was neat to celebrate the sacrament of baptism with so many other people.

This is one of the only good pictures that we have of Reagan with her Godparents, Eric and Jill. I'm on a mission to get a better picture of her with them and write up a separate post about them. Please don't think we've forgotten about you guys!

told you so

So my last post was written at 2:50pm today and I just returned (about 9:45pm) from an urgent care trip with Miss Reagan. There is a long story that goes with it involving Rosco, but to keep things brief, Keith accidentally dropped Reagan forehead first onto our tile. She now has her first goose egg and bruise to match, but no concussion. I am completely certain that Keith feels 100 times worse than Reagan does; guilt can be more painful sometimes.

And don't worry. I'll be taking a picture tomorrow morning as soon as there is good light to document the damage.

leaky noses and leaky diapers

Not that I am superstitious by any means, but every time I've sat down to type out this post over the course of the past month, the sickness that I think has finally left our home comes back in some new and more intense form. I feel like I might be chancing fate right now, but I need to keep on keepin' on with this blog. Fingers crossed this doesn't come back to haunt me.

About a month ago, Reagan randomly started having some serious nasal congestion, boogers that were colors I never knew boogers could be, a low-grade fever, and some more-awesome-than-normal crabbiness. We chalked it up to teething and after suffering through almost a week of it, she seemed to have shaken it off. Apparently that was not the case and it came back for another week, this time including Luke in the party.

When Luke gets sick, he will happily lounge on the couch watching movies or cartoons all day and take it easy and as long as I manage to keep in comfortable, he typically does pretty good. That is, unless Reagan gets sick at the same time. See, when Reagan gets sick, the world as we know comes to a screeching halt. Literally screeching. And screaming. And crying. This all makes for one unhappy Luke as well. If the combination of my two sick kids is any indication what I might be in for when they really start getting on each others' nerves, I'm in trouble.

After two weeks of incessant runny noses, I was positive we were mended and back to 100% (this was one of those times I sat down to blog). 

Then Reagan started having tummy troubles. Serious tummy troubles. She went for a week straight of having completely liquid poo. I think at that point, I wouldn't even categroize it as poo; more like brown/green/yellow water. It was absolutely disgusting. It leaked out the side of her diaper every few hours and would wake her up multiple time during the night. It was almost like clockwork: she eats and everything comes back out two hours later. It was really sad to watch. Her pediatrician recommended we start her on the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast + yogurt). Is anything with Reagan ever easy? Nope. She refuses applesauce and rice, so all she's eating now is bananas, yogurt, and whatever carbs we can get her to eat and keep in her body. And when even those didn't firm things up, we have now been directed to add Metamucil to her bananas. Poor girl.

I swear I'll kick myself for saying this, but we seem to have figured out a way to keep her peaceful now, even if her belly isn't back to 100%. She's back to a sort-of schedule which has helped her sleeping and overall demeanor. Let's hope things keep going in this direction...

anatomy of a meltdown

Reagan has become a much more smiley girl...but she can still flip on you in a matter of seconds. Think terrific to tantrum in the blink of an eye.

This face signals the beginning of the end for the happy times.

And the true crying and screaming begins. Now, I know that I probably should have comforted her and put down the camera. In my defense, most people that see her for a brief time probably think that I am dramatizing her princess behavior. I wanted to have proof that I do not lie.

These pictures were taken over the course of about 5 minutes. Luckily, I was able to calm her right down once I put down the camera and picked her up. The girls loves her momma. The camera? Not so much.