Holiday highlights

Raegan's cute Christmas dress.

Raegan's first encounter with Santa Claus. Needless to say that didn't go over too well.

Homemade cinnamon rolls. YUM! It's taken Tristin 5 years to master them, but it's definitely been worth the wait.

Decorating the Christmas tree. If you look carefully you'll notice that all of the candy canes are about 3 feet up so Raegan doesn't get them. That's the only thing she played with on the tree.

Annual Nativity reenactment at Grandpa and Grandma W's house. Raegan made her Nativity debut as the sheep. However, this family party just isn't complete without...

Grandpa playing Santa Claus and handing out gifts to everyone.

Grandpa Hendrix meticulously opening his birthday gift. Happy 89th birthday!

Hanging out after Christmas Eve dinner.

This girl doesn't look happy to be up even with a new doll and stoller.

SWAG!

Miles sported a nice futbol jersey that Garrett sent from Ghana. Perfect fit!

Unfortunately this futbol jersey was a couple sizes too small.

My beautiful wife giving my the "Why are you taking a picture of me?" look.

It was such a nice Christmas. We has lots of fun being home with family and friends.. We're not sure where we'll be next year for the holidays so we made sure to really enjoy ourselves.

Bronco busters

Need I say anymore. I've never been so proud to be a Wolfpack.

Happy Halloween

Pumpkin carving

A trip to the pumpking patch wouldn't be complete without some good ol' fashion pumpkin carving. What actually ended up happening was Dad cleaned and carved all three pumpkins while Raegan sat in the high chair and Mom sat in the recliner and read Harry Potter (The new movie is coming out and Tristin has to "catch up").

Check out those works of art.

Pumpkin patch

We took Raegan to the pumpking patch to pick out some pumpkins. She had a fun time running around playing in the dirt.

Trip to the Strip

A few weekends ago we decided to take a trip down to the Strip. The weather was so nice and we couldn't pass up the chance to take Raegan to see some of the more family-friendly displays. Our first visit was to the Botanical Gardens at the Bellagio. They had a beautifal Fall display with a wide variety of plants. A trip to the Bellagio just isn't complete without watching the fountain show. They played The Star Spangled Banner which was very cool.

Our final stop was to the MGM Grand to see the Lion exhibit. The last time I went to the Lion display, they had a male lion who was very active. It was really neat. Unfortunately this time the lions were napping. It was a fun trip, but now I know why we don't do things like that more often.

FINALLY!

This post is mostly for my mother. "Why haven't you blogged it yet. I'm going to do it for you!" But it's also for the future so that one day I can look back (and show my kids) and say, "Yeah, I actually did that and lived to tell about it!"

On August 21st in Fallon I finished a TRIATHLON. That's right, I swam 1/3 mile, biked 14 miles, and ran a 5K. Go ahead be impressed! My final time was 2 hours and 11 seconds. If we're being honest that's actually not very good, but who cares. I did finish 2nd in my age group though (out of 3 people - ha!).

The swimming part was the easiest by far. Down and back 11.5 times. It took me 13 minutes.

Transition #1 - Took longer than I thought it would. Oh well.

Check out my sweet ride (thanks Dad!). I still don't really know how to ride a road bike. The whole time I was messing with the gears thinking that's why I couldn't go any faster. My time on the bike was 57 minutes.

(side note: I passed right by Lyle and Lori's house. They (and Derek and Raegan) were waiting by the road to wish me good luck and give me some Gatorade. Thanks.)

Transition #2 - I'm just thinking, "Crap, I have to go run right now and I REALLY DON'T WANT TO!"

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate running. Well, I hate it a lot. Eminem, Kanye, and Christina (Fighter in particular) were the only reason I made it. Run for a whole song, walk, run for a whole song.... It took me 38 minutes to run 3.1 miles. Don't laugh.

(side note: I passed right by Corinne's house. They were also waiting on their porch to wish me good luck and give me some water. Thanks. My parents were also lots of support. They literally followed me in their truck pretty much the entire way. It did make me go faster. A couple of days before the race, I heard my Dad ask my Mom, "Why is she doing this? Where did the motivation come from?" Good question.)

Here's the video of me finishing. I don't look very happy. It turned out to be so much harder that I thought it was going to be.

TOTAL TIME: 2:00:11

Looking back I'm really glad I did it. I had stopped training for a while so I really wasn't ready. The Monday before I got some bad news, but decided that if I did this triathlon I would feel better about myself. I think it worked. Good news is that I now weigh less than I did before Raegan was born. And just this month I've finally been able to take my wedding ring off for the first time since I was pregnant. Yeah!

Are all children like this?

I seriously want to know. We want to have another one, but I don't know that I want another Raegan. This girl is nuts. Check out what she did during a one hour period just this morning.

Raegan had some cereal and peaches for breakfast, but wasn't overly interested. So I gave her a homemade roll from dinner last night. She didn't like that much either. So I tried yogurt. She let me feed her a few bites, but then refused to open her mouth. She just kept reaching for the yogurt. Of course I caved and handed it to her. She let me put some yogurt on the spoon and then she would feed herself, but pretty soon that was too much work so she just shoved the whole thing in her face and started using her hands. At one point she was licking the tray. Nice.

After a much needed bath (where she refused to sit down) I chased her around the house and finally got her diaper on. While I was in my bedroom brushing my teeth, I heard the lovely sound of glass hitting the floor. Of course, I find Raegan in the dishwasher. It's her new favorite place to play (and the reason the silverware have to stay by the sink now - you know, knives and other sharp things). Well, today she dropped a bowl on the floor which thankfully didn't break. I guess I'll have to start taking those out as well. FYI - if I lock the dishwasher she turns the knob and runs the dishwasher which is equally as annoying. Any suggestions?

(side note: last week I couldn't get Raegan's diaper on quickly enough and she pooped in the dishwasher. That was funny.)

After Raegan finally got dressed for the day, she proceeded to push a chair over to the desk and climb on up. I turned around from switching the laundry and found her standing on top of the printer reaching for the DVDs. SERIOUSLY! Stop already. Preferably before she falls and before I lose my mind. What is the age where they sit in front of the TV and watch cartoons? I would kill for that. And when do they start climbing out of their crib? I fear that day may come way too soon.

Yet another one of my daughter's favorite places to climb.

So to summarize, Raegan runs my life. I pretty much just follow her around and get nothing done. She gets into anything and everything. We try to go to the park or gym often so she can get her wiggles out. We've also tried to go to story time at the library, but she can't sit still long enough. Last time she tried to take the librarian's puppet so we had to leave. She still hasn't said her first word yet. She is constantly babbling and never really shuts up, but I can't get her to say Mama for the life of me. I'm starting to doubt my mad parenting skills. But really Raegan is so dang funny. She's very entertaining and makes me so happy. I do love being her mom. Best job ever.

(but I do feel a little better after venting in this blog. Pheww!)

Monkeying Around

Like any kid at this age, Raegan is on the go and in to everything. She's discovered her new favorite drawer to get into, the computer drawer. She'll push one of the chairs over to the computer desk, climb up, open the drawer and take anything out she can get her hands on.

What a goof-ball!