Two Months Old

Here is a picture of Chris giving Reagan her first bottle!!  After the first couple of bottles going down without any problems, she is now not so much loving the bottles so we are trying to work on that and give them to her more frequently so she becomes more accustomed to them before I have to go back to work.

Definitely Daddy's princess ... she already has her daddy wrapped around her little finger!!

My sister came up to visit and finally got to meet Miss Reagan.  Reagan also got to meet her cousin, Jackson, for the first time!!  I grew up with a cousin who was 2 months younger than me and it was so much fun having her at all of our family gatherings.  So I LOVE that Reagan is going to grow up with a cousin so close in age (they are 2 months apart) .... and my brother and his wife are expecting a little one in December so the 3 cousins will be separated by only 8 months between them!!  We are going to have so many babies at all of our family gatherings now!!

Sisters and our babies!!!

We also got together with a couple of my cousins while my sister was in town.  It is always a fun time when we can all get together and catch up!!

Reagan and Jackson, ready to get out of the restaurant and hit the road!!!

We also had Olympic fever this month!!  I absolutely love the summer Olympics so we watched tons of Olympic coverage at the Heath house - it was nice having something to watch all day & night!  My friend, Nicole, came over one night to watch the Women's Gymnastics Team Finals and so Reagan thought she would get 'fancy' for the occasion! :)

Lexie does great with Reagan - as you can see below she likes to help out whenever possible whether it be mimicking whatever Reagan is doing....

...or observing Reagan playing through the glass...

....or just enjoying having the whole family take her to the dog park!

I don't think anyone doubted that Reagan was going to be raised as a KU fan, and we are definitely starting her early!  We took Reagan for her first trip to Allen Fieldhouse and she seemed utterly unimpressed by the whole experience.  We even ran into Bill Self while we were walking in but it all happened too quick to take a picture at the time (but we got one the next day!)

We took Reagan to the KU Football kick-off rally in Prairie Village and she did great!  She got to break out her cool new sunglasses and also met such KU celebrities as Big Jay...

...THE Bill Self!! (who said that Reagan was a "cool baby")...

...and she even met Max Falkenstein!!  Our little Jayhawk is definitely starting things off right! :)

Some of Reagan's other accomplishments of Month 2 include smiling.  She will smile at us a lot more now, and I just love it anytime I can get a smile out of her!!!

Reagan's legs are also getting stronger and will stand up "unassisted", only using us for balance! (although she will then just decide she is tired of standing and therefore we must be there to catch her if this happens.)  I can't believe how big my baby girl is getting already!

I'll leave you with a fun video of Reagan.  She doesn't do too much at this age so it is not terribly exciting, but you can see some "live action" smiles from her! :)

-Ellie

One Month Old

People say that time goes by fast when you have a baby, and wow they weren't kidding!!  Our first month at home flew by!!!  Here are some pictures to update you about what we've been doing during Reagan's first month at home...

This is a picture of her first real bath.  As indicated by the screaming baby, bath time did not go over so well at first.

She was much happier once she got out of the bath and was wrapped up in a warm towel!!!

Subsequent baths have since gone much better.  She now loves bath time and is so alert and happy while in the tub!!!

The fourth of July was our first real "outing" since Reagan was born.  Since it was so hot, we really didn't want to have her outside (not to mention I didn't really want to be outside either) so we decided to go to Lawrence and meet up with some family for a nice day inside!  Both of our families got together for lunch at my mom's house and of course Miss Reagan was the main attraction and the most popular person there!  Some of my mom's friends and neighbors came by while we were there so that they could meet her too!

Such a happy little firecracker!  I just love her to pieces!!

Sometimes when she is sleeping she will have a bad dream or something and get this really sad look on her face.  It only lasts for a couple of seconds, and then she goes back to sleeping peacefully as if nothing happened!  It is ridiculously cute and sad at the same time!!

My birthday was the day after the fourth of July and so I decided I wanted to get out of the house and do something, but wasn't really up for anything too crazy and wanted to try and stay inside if possible.  After getting to sleep in while Chris took the morning shift, we packed up and went to Crown Center.  I forgot how much I love that place, and we had so much fun just meandering through the different levels and doing a little bit of shopping.  Reagan loves riding in her stroller and does great as long as we keep moving (she will get upset and start to cry when we stop so we always have to be walking!)  After Crown Center we headed over to Oak Park Mall and walked around there as well.  It was great to be out amongst other people and Reagan even decided to take a nap at the perfect time so Chris and I were able to take her with us while we went out to eat!  I was so happy to spend my birthday with the best early birthday present I have ever received, and it was so much fun celebrating as a family of three!

Reagan does great in the car - but once again is not a fan of red lights and prefers that we keep the car moving (don't we all though)!  After taking in all the sights around her, she usually will take a nap if we are in the car long enough.

 The other day she discovered her tongue and was making some silly faces at mommy!  Such a cutie!!

There is nothing more precious than a sleeping baby!!  We have her swaddled in the swaddle blanket that we received from the hospital as a "parting gift".  She loves it (although will resist having her arms restrained to her sides at first).

For my shower, my mom made this little bonnet out of a hankie.  The poem that accompanies the hankie says that on her wedding day, we can pull out a couple of stitches and turn the bonnet into a hankie that she can take with her when she walks down the aisle.  I love the thought behind this, and it was so special for my mom to make this for her!

Our first month at home has been wonderful.  We are loving getting to know our baby girl, and it is so much fun to see more of her personality start to come out as she starts getting bigger.  Can't wait to update you with everything she learns in month 2!

-Ellie

Home!

Once we got home from the hospital, it was definitely an adjustment to figure everything out!  Luckily we had lot of people willing to come visit us and bring us food which was extremely helpful!!  We managed to get a fair amount of sleep - mostly by napping whenever Reagan was sleeping!

Here is the first in what will be a year long series of pictures so we can watch Reagan grow up!  The Raggedy Ann doll is special to me because that is my sorority's mascot - we call it a Hannah doll!  So we are planning on using that so we are able to measure Reagan against it every month!

Here are some of the pictures from our amazing newborn photo shoot with Shalaine!  Love these!!!

 These are some of the first smiles we got from Reagan.  Probably caused by gas, but I still love seeing her smiling little face and was glad to capture them on camera!

Reagan has decided that is enough blogging for now so I will catch up more soon!

-Ellie

Reagan Grace Heath

Our perfect baby girl was born on June 18, 2012 at 10:02 pm.  She weighed in at 8 pounds, 1 ounce and was 21.5 inches long (she was so long - no wonder I was getting so many jabs in my ribs!!).  Everyone could not believe her hair - she was born with a full head of long, blonde hair!!

Once our baby girl was cleaned off and given to me, Chris went out to the waiting room to tell his parents and brother that she was here and we were both doing great!  Once he came back, my mom went out to the waiting room so that Chris and I could officially decide on a name.  Reagan was our top contender going into the day (we had heard it on a TV show and both just loved it - we liked that it wasn't too popular of a name (not in the top 100 in 2011), but was still easy to pronounce), but we had a couple of backups in case we decided that didn't fit her.  As we were mulling over her name, we decided to ask her if she was a Reagan and we saw a very clear head nod from her so that was it!  Our baby girl had a name!  We decided to pass on my middle name to our little girl, so that is where Grace came from.  Here we are in our first moments as a family in what is easily the best moment of my life!!!

After getting in some skin-to-skin time with me, Chris finally got to hold his little girl and it was an amazing moment to see just how fast she got her daddy wrapped around her little finger!!

It was almost 1:30 a.m. by the time we both got cleaned up and moved to the room where we would stay for the next couple of days.  Needless to say, all three of us were exhausted and settled in to get some sleep!  When Reagan did wake up in the middle of the night to nurse, she was wide awake so of course it was the perfect time for me to get some pictures of my beautiful little girl!

There is that pretty blonde hair!

Here is the first Royals game she watched with her daddy (they actually won!).  I cannot get enough of that cute little face - I love how she sleeps with her mouth open like that!

Chris's mom and grandma came up the next day to see Reagan - it was so late the night before that no one besides Chris or I got to hold her so everyone was anxious to get in some baby snuggles!

And here is my mom holding her granddaughter for the first time!

We were released from the hospital on Wednesday, June 20th.  Here is a picture of our little Jayhawk all ready to go home!

She looks so tiny in that car seat, and loved the car ride home!!!  She was so amazed by all the sights around her and was wide eyed the entire ride!

And so like that, our family of two grew to a family of three and we were ready to start our new life together at home!!

-Ellie