Christmas!

I think this was the best Christmas that I have ever had.  There is something that makes it so special seeing it through your child's eyes.  While Reagan may have not exactly "understood" what was happening around her, watching her bright eyes take everything in was my favorite part of the holiday season!

Reagan did great with all of the company and commotion!!  Even through teething, we have been blessed with a very happy, easy going, little girl!  Once again, my necklace was a hot commodity - can you see Reagan's two bottom teeth in the picture below?!?

My talented mother-in-law (who made the Thing 1 & 2 hats) made two baby Santa hats for Reagan and Jackson, as well as an adult sized one to match!!  They were oh so cute, and we were all pleasantly surprised on how well the babies left them alone and didn't try to yank them off!

The weekend leading up to Christmas my dad and step-mom came to town, as well as my sister and her family.  We had a little get together at our house and had a really fun couple of days with my dad and Joy before they headed back home.

Then on Christmas Eve, Chris, Reagan, and I went to a candlelight church service at a church right down the road from us.  Reagan had a brand new Christmas dress and it was fun getting all dressed up and going to celebrate what the season is really about!!

When we got home from church, we got in our comfy clothes and opened some presents.  We left a couple of presents to open up Christmas morning, but decided to split it up a little bit this year so we could slow down and enjoy it a little bit more!  It was so fun watching Reagan open up the presents.  Her favorite part was definitely pulling off the bows - which then promptly went in her mouth!!

She was also really great at ripping off the wrapping paper, which again went straight in her mouth!!!

We tried not to go too overboard on her first Christmas and instead focused on putting money in her college fund and buying her books, but we had to get her some toys!!  She seemed pretty excited by this particular one! :)

Christmas morning we ate a yummy breakfast casserole that we had put together the night before, and opened our remaining presents at our house.  Reagan had quite the stash of bows when we had finished opening up all of the presents at our house!!

Then we drove to Lawrence and went out to my in-laws house to get together with Chris's side of the family for Christmas.  Reagan was the center of attention and loved collecting even more bows! (Isn't that usually the case - the kids enjoy the wrapping more than what is inside!?!)

Once we finished up at my in-laws, we headed into town and met my sister and her family at my mom's house to continue the Christmas celebrations.  It was so much fun having two babies celebrating their first Christmas there!  We opened up all of the babies presents first while they were awake and happy and they just sat next to each other so nicely while we were helping them open their presents.  One of the favorites for the teething babies was the Sophie the Giraffe toy that my mom gave them.  (For those who don't know, you can read more about the toy here.)

Reagan gave Jackson a Thomas the train toy that moved around by itself and she seemed to love it just as much as he did!

What a great Christmas it was celebrating with all of our families!!  I have such wonderful memories of Christmas growing up because we had so many fun traditions with our grandma, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  It was so neat to start creating these traditions with my own baby, and hopefully she will love getting to play with her cousins on Christmas as much as I did with mine!!

Hope everyone else had a wonderful Christmas as well!!!  And a Happy New Year's to all of you as well!!  I don't know how 2013 could possibly be any better or more exciting than 2012, but we are excited to ring in the New Year with our sweet baby girl this year!

-Ellie

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, from our family to yours.  Hope you all have a wonderful holiday!

-Ellie

6 Months

Happy half birthday to our sweet baby Reagan!!  I can't believe that 6 months has gone by so quickly!! Here are some of our major milestones from this month...

Reagan got her first tooth a couple of days before her 6 month birthday (and the second tooth followed a couple of days later.)  We were lucky that she wasn't particularly fussy while teething, but she did love the "momsicles" that I would give her (frozen breast milk that I put into a feeder bag for her to chew on - see picture below for example)  She absolutely loves to chew on those while she is sitting at the dinner table with us!!!

Reagan is also rolling from back to front now all of the time and sits up by herself so well!!  Just the other night she was laying on the floor with a bunch of toys around her and she was scooching around in a circle to play with all of the toys.  I have no doubt that she will be crawling around like crazy in no time at all!!  I don't know if we are ready for it yet, but I guess we are going to have to start baby-proofing the house soon!

When Reagan hit the 6 month mark, we started feeding her solid foods.  I decided to make her baby food and have been having a lot of fun doing so (and it is really easy!!).  The first food we tried were carrots, and she loved them!  She opened up her mouth like a little bird the moment we started feeding her - she knew exactly what to do!  She is such a good little eater already!

Since introducing carrots, we have also tried green beans and pears and she loved them both!!  It is such a fun, new phase to be feeding her real food and seeing how much she enjoys it!  

Reagan has been saying "mama" a lot these days, although I don't know if I would necessarily classify it as her first word yet.  She mostly says it when she wants to be picked up and not so much in reference to me, but I still love hearing it!!  Chris has been trying to encourage "dada" a lot these days but so far no luck!!  Even though she is saying "mama", she sure does love her daddy!!

We are all ready for Christmas here at the Heath house.  Chris and I both caught a 24-hour bug last week (I am so thankful that Reagan never got it!) so I was a little worried that we were going to be sick for Christmas.  Thankfully it was a quick moving bug and we both feel so much better now!!!  Our family is going to start arriving today and so it is going to be busy next few days, and I am so excited!!  I had a cute little elf to help me go Christmas shopping and wrap gifts this year. :)

I know she isn't going to "get" Christmas this year, but I have a feeling she is going to like tearing up the wrapping paper!  She reached over and grabbed one of her presents while we were taking pictures and was trying to rip it open.  Not till Christmas, baby girl!!!

We took Reagan to go see Santa this year at Crown Center and she did not seem to mind the big guy.  In fact, she seemed rather unimpressed by it all, but still managed to look cute in her picture with Santa!

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

-Ellie

Thing 1 & Thing 2

I just had to dedicate a separate post to these pictures, because I think they are so cute! I had seen a "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" hat (a Dr. Seuss reference, for those who aren't aware) at the Maple Leaf Festival that we went to in October.  They were way overpriced, so I thought I would see if my oh-so-talented mother-in-law could make them for me.  After a couple of quick hours, she whipped up these little numbers (which were way cuter then the ones I had seen) and we had so much fun snapping pictures of Jackson and Reagan in these hats.

Have I mentioned before that I love that Reagan has a cousin who is only 9 weeks older than her??  And she is about to have another cousin any day now.....it is babies galore in my family these days!  Love it!

-Ellie

Thanksgiving

We had a very fun time celebrating with our little turkey on her first Thanksgiving.  It was very special because all five of her grandparents were there on thanksgiving day to celebrate with her!!  Have I mentioned before how loved our little girl is?!?

We brought her high chair along so she could sit right up at the table with everyone else!  As you can see, since she wasn't enjoying any of the thanksgiving dinner she filled her tray up with toys to play with while everyone else ate.

Reagan has really found her thumb recently, and has the funniest way of sucking on it.  As you can see form the picture below, she twists her hand around to the side.  If any of you are familiar with the "DG Salute" that my sorority friends and I do in pictures quite often, you will notice a striking similarity to that.  Hmmm, can you say future Delta Gamma?!? ;)

Reagan was definitely the "star attraction" at thanksgiving dinner, and everyone loved getting to play with our little princess.  Here she is getting in a little time with her papaw...

...and she had lots of slobbery baby kisses for Grandma!!

Here she is with her Nanny, Mommy, and Nana....chewing on Mommy's necklace, of course! (You will see these beads were a hot commodity over thanksgiving.  They are called "Chewbeads" and are dishwasher safe and safe for baby to chew on.  They are GREAT for teething babies, and so the beads got passed around just as much as the babies because both Reagan and my nephew, Jackson, loved them so much!)

What would thanksgiving be without a thanksgiving nap?? 

Later in the day Carrie, Brandon, and Jackson came over so we got to spend lots of time with them as well!!

The day after thanksgiving, we were at our house hanging out before my dad and Joy had to leave.  Don't I have the sweetest nephew?!? (And check out him chomping away on those beads!)

Here is Chris with Jackson wearing, what else, but the Chewbeads! :)

Friday night we didn't feel much like cooking, so we went out to eat.  Here is my happy little girl in her car seat at the restaurant.

Both babies did great during dinner - they were both very well behaved!! :)

It was such a fun thanksgiving weekend!  I love celebrating all of these firsts with my sweet baby girl.  It just makes the holidays so much more fun!!

Hope you all had as happy of a thanksgiving as we did!!

-Ellie

Five Months Old!

I can't even believe how big she is getting!! (I also can't believe Thanksgiving is this week and therefore Christmas is right around the corner, but that is another story!)  At Reagan's last doctors appointment (about 2 weeks ago), she was measuring 15 pounds (70th percentile) and 25.75 inches long (90th percentile)!  She did so good during her shots and only cried a little bit.  Mommy surprisingly made it through the shots with no tears this time. :)

As usual, we have had a fun filled month.  After Halloween, we had "friendsgiving" with a bunch of our friends.  Reagan did so good the whole night and it was so much fun to get together with everyone.  All the food was so yummy and we had quite the spread!  One of our friends even flew in from Florida for the occasion so she got to meet Reagan for the first time!!

Reagan is teething and while we probably won't see those little teeth pop through anytime in the immediate future, she is chewing on anything she can get her hands on these days!!  Some of her favorites include her 'patula....

....and her toes!!!  She doesn't care if I put socks on her either, she will try to rip those suckers off or just go ahead and put them in her mouth anyways!

Another thing we did this month was drive down to Arkansas to visit my sister.  My mom jumped in the car with Reagan and I since Chris had to work and we made the quick drive down to Bella Vista.  Reagan loved getting to see her Auntie C...

...her Uncle B...

...and of course her cousin Jackson!!

I always love it when I can see my sister and her family, but it is just so much more fun now that we can watch our two little ones grow up together!!  I have said it before, but I absolutely love that Reagan will grow up with a cousin who is only 9 weeks older than her.  And I think it has brought mine and my sister's relationship to a whole different level since we can swap "mom stories" with each other and lean on each other for advice.  She is a great sister and a wonderful mom and I just love all three of the Garcias!

While we were there, Carrie took us to Crystal Bridges which was built a year ago by one of the Wal-Mart heiresses.  We mainly stopped so Carrie and I could nurse the babies, but the grounds were so beautiful that we had to walk around a little bit.  We will definitely have to take another trip there the next time we are down that way!!

This trip was so much more fun to watch the babies together because they were so much more aware of each other.  It was so exciting to see them look at each other and kind of stop as if to say "Hey, there is another person my size over there!"  They even did a pretty good job of sharing their toys!

Even Jackson didn't want to see us go and was trying to break Reagan free from her carseat  as we were trying to leave! ;)

Some other notable achievements this month....little Miss Princess still isn't rolling over consistently by herself, but if I help her tuck that arm underneath her then she can roll no problem!  So silly!!  She is trying SO hard to pull herself up into a sitting position by lifting her head up off the ground.  We have started working on her sitting up by herself and while we still have to be right there and help her balance occasionally, she is getting so close to being able to do it by herself!

I feel so blessed to have such a happy little girl!  She smiles all the time and every time she breaks into one of those huge toothless grins it just melts my heart!  She is also laughing a ton these days - my favorite sound in the world!!

Reagan still does great with daddy and her grandmas while I am at work.  I definitely miss her while I'm gone, but it makes the time I do have with her so much more special!  And it helps to know that while I am away she is having fun with people who love her.  Daddy even takes her on fun outings and she got to sit in a big-girl high chair when he met one of his friends for lunch!

Wow - does she ever have a personality!!!  She is my "sassy girl" for sure!  Chris snapped this picture one morning as he loaded her up with toys while she was in her exersaucer - her face says it all!!

Reagan says "Bye" for now!!  With the holidays right around the corner, I am sure we will have lots to update you all on these next couple of months.

-Ellie