Big Changes for Reagan

The past couple of weeks have been exciting for our big girl! She started a new higher level gymnastics class, and is doing great! (There were some struggles over the summer.) She finally got her very first haircut, which I had been putting off as along a possible, because her hair only curled in the bottom couple inches. But it was so raggedy, it had to be done. Reagan thought a trip to the big girl salon was pretty cool.

 Before and after. Not a huge change. But now her curls a pretty much gone :(.

Right after Labor Day, she started preschool! She was pretty nervous in the beginning and had me walk her in, but by day 2, she was climbing right out of the car with the teachers!

 She tells me every day when I pick her up, "I had a good day at school, Mommy," but that's about all I can get out of her.

And last but not least, that same week she started ballet! She was very scared at first but quickly warmed up. Love that tiny ballerina. 

 So excited to see what this year brings for Reagan. She is growing up so fast!

Fun and Not-So-Fun

Not so fun:

Daryn's surgery last week (before and after). We didn't report to the OR until 2 pm (didn't take her back until 4) and she couldn't eat all day. It was rough for everyone. Mostly her. It only took about an hour for them to get what they needed and then we spent a couple hours in recovery and once she felt up to eating we came home. After 24 hours she was back to her normal self :).

Fun:

 It's that time of the year again! We're off to a great start with 2 wins.

Visits down in Provo. 

 I took Daryn with me and Reagan got a library trip and park picnic with Daddy.

 A delightful Arabian Nights birthday party! Thanks for turning 1, Navy! What fun.

And Daryn's first trip to a Home Depot kids' workshop. We made it a family affair this month. 

On an ending note, one more not so fun. We went up to Park City to hang out with Meagan (that was fun) and go down the Alpine slide and coaster. Meagan and I decided to run over to the outlet mall first, and then by the time Lance, Reagan and I got to the resort, they had closed for the night! :( Boo. We'd been looking forward to that for so long. Hopefully we can try again another time.

Daryn at 15 months. And the Aquarium.

Daryn will be 15 months tomorrow. It seems like she just turned one! The past 3 months just zipped by in a summer frenzy. At her doctor's appointment this morning, she weighed in at 18 lbs 12 oz (10th %), was 29 inches long (15th %) and her head was 17.5 inches (20th %). So she is growing, slowly but surely. I suspect she would have weighed more, except she and I have been on a rough diet the past few weeks. Because of increasing bleeding from her stoma (where she poops), we figure she has some sort of food sensitivity, and since I'm still breastfeeding, we eliminated all the dairy and grains from both our diets. The good news is, the bleeding has basically stopped. The bad news is, I'm hungry and grouchy all the time. Anyway, it's hard to make sure Daryn gets enough calories without any milk, yogurt, cheese, or bread! Lots of olive oil and coconut oil in this house. 

Daryn has her outpatient surgery-prep procedure on Tuesday, where they will do some biopsies, scopes, etc to get a better idea of her insides before her big surgery sometime this fall. She finished up with her Early Intervention physical therapy this week (they wont be back until after her surgery). They did an evaluation of where she's at in different areas and she was at or ahead of her age in almost all of them! They were so thrilled with her progress. (Me too). Even though she's not really walking, she's at 16 month level in gross motor skills because she's skipped right over that. She climbs everywhere, even onto the couch by herself, crouches, bends over and picks things up, and actually jumps with both feet! I've seen her take 3-5 steps several times, but it's just hard for her to move those hips forward and keep her balance. She loves to stand, though. All the time. She's still not saying many actual words, but she's very chatty, and you can tell she has a lot to say. And I swear I've heard her singing what sounds an awful lot like part of the alphabet several times recently. Her absolute favorite game is peek-a-boo and she loves playing together with her big sister. She's starting to get frustrated when we going anywhere in public because she usually has to stay in the stroller and that's no fun. She likes looking at books and snuggling with her tiny blankey that she has. Also, slides (especially water) are a new favorite. What a joy that little girl is. 

On another note, we decided last minute this week to check out the new aquarium in Draper. So fun! A great way to spend a rainy afternoon with some silly girls.

3 years and 15 months

Here are the girls' official birthday pictures (only taken a few months late...). Once again, thank you Genevieve for taking the time to do these! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

 

 

I wasn't planning on being in the pictures, but some opportunities are too good to pass up :)

My life :)