Christmas!

We had a fabulous Christmas just like we have every year, but this year we were blessed to spend it with our precious baby. She wasn't as excited to open the presents as I thought she would, especially given her fascination with paper, but once the presents were open, she loved it! We spend Christmas eve with my parents and Christmas day with Jason's parents. Reegan recieved the "necessities" such as sippy cups, clothes, baby einstein movie, cart/high chair cover, bath towels, and then some non-necessities.

A soccer ball, from my dad who still plays in a soccer league every week!

This hooks up to the tv and becomes a learning activity as well! She loves playing with it!

A new bike for the Summer

Her very own chair for our living room!

Videos

These videos have been needed to be posted for a while now, as they are no longer new. Awhile ago we posted videos of Reegan doing her version of a crawl and soon after we posted those, she started actually crawling. Here she is! She's been doing this for a while now, so she is very quick...she has been following me from room to room as I move about the house!

Reegan started taking her first steps on Wed, Dec 8, this video was taken that weekend so it is still pretty rough. We'll have to post an updated video, because she is getting so much better! For some reason this night she kept putting her hands over her head and leaning back, not sure what she was doing, but it was so funny and made walking very difficult.

Updates

Well, it has been a long time since we have last updated. The ironic part is that I am done with school for a short break, so now I actually have more time to post pictures, but instead I have been finding many other things to occupy my time...Reegan!

I have enjoyed being able to spend so much time with her, but I think it is going to be even tougher going back to school on Jan 3. The past few months I kept telling myself that I just had to get to Christmas break in order to have a couple of weeks to myself. To relax, do the things around the house that I have been neglecting and spend quality time with my family without being distracted by the fact that I have so much homework and studying to do. Now that break is half over, I keep think about the fact that my next break with no studying is not until August when I am done with school and hopefully have found a job.

This week has been an eventful one already. Reegan is rapidly growing out of clothes (I am so excited about this, but also so sad, because I want this time to slow down...long gone are my days of a quiet, cuddly baby). She has figured out how to get all of her winter hats off including the one that ties under her neck. So, we figured we would try this one out. It is still a little big, but it looks so cute!




My sister Ashley came home from school this weekend (Butler University) and the family dropped by on Sunday to see the little one. Reegan didn't miss a beat, she seemed very excited to see Ashley.




Jason turned on some home movies we have taken of Reegan walking and crawling (correctly on hands and knees) to show her off a little. I think Reegan was just as excited to see them as we were! There are some really cute videos, so we will try to post them soon.


Tuesday night, we went to the Sprint center to watch the KSU basketball team, here is a shot of our good friends Allison and Lauren. Jason and the guys, Chris and Tyler, we sitting behind us but were too stressed during the game to take a pic :)
Wednesday afternoon, my family went out to Boulevard Brewing Company to take a tour. Wow, it was pretty interesting, I had no idea what it took to make beer.

Wednesday night we went to my Aunt's house to celebrate Christmas with my cousin Dalton before he left for California. Before we left I tried to get a quick load of laundry done and, of course, Reegan wanted to help/make it more difficult for me!

After opening presents, Reegan needed to rest for a while, so my Dad played baby whisperer and got her to sleep in a matter of seconds.
We have many more exciting plans for the Holiday weekend and will post them soon! Merry Christmas to you all!

10 Months Old

This past Saturday Reegan officially turned 10 months old! She is growing up so fast it's unbelievable. Saturday was a busy day for us...Reegan went to meet Santa Claus for the first time and then we attended a Christmas party at the French's house (more on that in another post...this one is all about the girl :).

We headed over to the Great Mall on Saturday afternoon to see good ole Santa. Reegan did fairly well. We were able to get pictures taken without any tears, but she was really unsure about what was going on. She did cry a little bit after we had already gotten our pics snapped, but it was short-lived. She looked absolutely adorable in her Christmas dress!


We also got a couple pics of each of us with our baby girl. Here's mom and daughter. Aren't they beautiful?!


And then me and my little sweetheart! Jess was able to get her to smile for my picture...I was not successful for hers. Oh well.


After we got home, it was photo shoot time! Reegan was ready to go...


Wait...what are doing again? Is this a trick to get me to sit still mom??


Okay, we're good. I can give you a little smile. :)


Dad, you are hilarious! Do that peek-a-boo thing again!


Alright, who put these socks on my feet? They're really starting to bother me...


Seriously, how do I get these things off?!


Nevermind, I'll just cruise around the ottoman now. :)


Reegan is getting more and more brave every day. She will try to dive off of your lap to get something on the floor and she is pretty fearless when it comes to wandering around a room. She almost always wants to be standing these days and will crawl to whatever she can find to pull up on. Sometimes, she has even been brave enough to let go and stand on her own. AND, we've even witnessed 2-3 steps!!! It's so exciting to watch her try to figure everything out and we are so proud of our little girl! We just love, love, love her!

Cruisin' to the Bahamas

So, we've back from our cruise for a couple days now, and we're finally getting around to loading up our pics and sharing with everyone. Warning - this post might be kinda long, so feel free to just scroll thru the pictures if you want...

We headed out bright and early last Thursday morning for the airport. And when I say early, I mean we left the house at 4:30 AM!! Our flight left at 7, and we arrived in Fort Lauderdale, FL around 11:00 EST. After a quick bus ride to Miami we boarded the ship! Our room wasn't quite ready for us yet, so we grabbed some lunch at the buffet before we did anything else. That's what you do on cruises right? Around 1:00 our room was ready for us...

So this cruise was one that Jess actually WON back in August at a T-Bones baseball game. We did have to pay a small amount to go, but compared to the normal cost to cruise it was extrememly cheap! The rooms were supposed to be assigned to all passengers based on when they registered (everyone on the cruise had won the trip...), but a few weeks prior to the trip we were given the chance to upgrade our room. So I did! We got a Junior Suite, which was fantastic! We had so much room to lounge around and relax, and our balcony was equipped with nice big lounge chairs. :)

Here's the view from our balcony as we waited to depart - this is looking down towards South Beach.

The ship finally headed off around 5:00 on Thursday night and as we were leaving the port we floated past a bunch of enormous homes and yachts. They're hard to see in the picture, but they were really amazing.

We were aboard the Liberty of the Seas for this trip (part of Royal Caribbean's fleet) which is the same size as the ship we were on last year. One of the things we never got around to last time was trying our hand at the Flowrider - an onboard surfing wave! I wanted to try this really bad and got to do it several times. It was SO MUCH FUN! It was kind of like snowboarding as far as how you moved around on the wave. Not as easy as it looks either...





Jess even gave it a shot too! She did so good! I was very proud of her. :)

Look at that form! She looks just like a pro surfer!!!

On Friday, we were in Nassau and visited Paradise Island. The main attraction there is definitely the Atlantis Hotel. It is enormous! They have some really amazing sculptures around the hotel.





We found this huge chair that everyone was taking pictures in, so we decided to follow the trend.

Just to give you an idea of how large this resort/hotel is, the building on the right is the "original" Atlantis Hotel, which is basically the size of any of the larger hotels in Las Vegas. The two buildings on the left are ALSO part of the hotel. They were Phase II. It really was an amazing place.

The Atlantis has lots to do...a huge water park, a walk-through aquarium, beach area, and lots more. However, they want lots of money to do/see all of these things! So instead of doing that, we just walked thru whatever areas we could for free and then hit the beach nearby. :) It was super relaxing! Plus the 80-degree weather was a pretty nice change from the freezing temps in KC.

Here's a picture of the ships in the Nassau port. We were on the one on the right...did I mention this cruise included both of these ships!! The Freedom of the Seas (left) was sailing right along with us...also carrying cruise winners!

We had taken a ferry from the port to Paradise Island and along the way we went past this place - the Yoga Retreat. Jess wants to go back there for our next vacation. :)

On Saturday, we were taken to Coco Cay, which is a small private island in the Bahamas that is owned by Royal Caribbean. In the morning, ESPN was there to film an episode of Sports Nation.

Most of the afternoon was pretty calm and relaxing. We just hung out on the beach. And I went out in the water a little to see the fish! :)

Later in the day, there was a huge concert right on the beach! It was a lot of fun too. The headline act was Nelly - not exactly our normal music selection, but he was actually really entertaining, and it was just really neat to be at a concert ON THE BEACH! :)

Finally, here's a decent shot of both ships achored near Coco Cay.

And our home, the Liberty of the Seas. We had such a great time!! We can't wait to cruise again...