girl's weekend

Raegan, my mom, and I were "fishing widows" last weekend as the boy's headed south for 5 days. We had no trouble keeping busy though and the time flew by before we knew it! I have 77 pictures just from those 5 days and I wish I could post them all as we had so much fun exposing Raegan to a bunch of new things...most of which she was less then thrilled with (the sun, wearing a sun hat, the sand, Lake Michigan...). Even with little enthusiasm on her part, I was able to capture some great pictures.



Having a cool treat on a very hot day....Yay for watermelon!







Saturday night Raegan and I got together for a BBQ with some friends from college. Here are all her playmates...






Testing the water in Nana's "infamous" blue bucket (a Rottschafer family classic in the summertime).









Raegan liked the beach as long as she didn't have to move from her towel and she had plenty of animal crackers in her lap. Here was a rare moment where she stretched her legs and stood up...but did not move and inch off the towel!

the rear view...

On the day I took the picture in the post below, I tried out piggy tails in Raegan's hair. It was a struggle to get her to hold still but oh how CUTE she was when it was over! So I just had to share....

Cheese!

Raegan is such a ham right now. Lately her new thing is shaking her head "no" at us. "Raegan, do you want a drink?" Shake shake. "Raegan, do you want to go to bed?" Shake shake. "Do you want more strawberries?" Shake shake. Oh wait, she never says no to more strawberries...
Anyways, I am enjoying this stage with her so much that the thought of a newborn seems so foreign. As cute and cuddly and small as they are there is just nothing like having a little extension of yourself to interact with.
She also plays so well by herself and I really appreciate that! It is the cutest thing to watch her putz around, holding her bear, and stopping every so often to "read" a book to herself, or to pull out Brad's entire sock drawer onto the floor. That is a never ending source of fun. Some days I feel like all I do is wander around behind her picking up her trails of discarded objects. Good thing I have "nothing better" to do with my time!

Family Time

We had a really nice and productive weekend! Friday night we watched my nephew and the son of some friends of ours so it was a busy night! We learned quite a bit about tag-teaming and chaos-control! =)




Caden, Luke & Raegan playing "together"






Saturday we worked on our yard and got some of our landscaping accomplished. It felt really good to at least get started although there is quite a bit of work yet to be done. I'll try to post some "after" pics once we've got a little more completed.

Sunday afternoon we tried to go out and see the "Great Lakes Kite Festival" on the Lakeshore but it was FREEZING and so windy that it was good for the kites, but not comfortable for us to be on the beach! We ended up only watching about 10 minutes of kite flying before we headed in for warmth and lunch.

Raegan after too much fun watching kites...

Sunday evening Brad volunteered to watch Raegan so that I could do some grocery shopping by myself. A nice gesture considering the Pistons were playing Game 6 (or 7...regardless they won so it's over now!) and he would have to "multi-task". I came home to her running around in her onesie with her daddy's baseball cap on, stopping every so often to "check the score" and clap along with the crowd on T.V. Well, at least Brad has someone around the house who is interested in watching sports with him!

window licker

We are so desperate for warm weather here...Raegan tests the temperature outside with her trusty tongue to the glass. Hmmm...is it warm yet? Nope, still cold.

 

never too much of a good thing

Momma was PAMPERED this weekend! And this is probably not a picture you expected (or maybe wanted) to see but I just have to brag about how good my husband treated me this weekend. Not only did he let me have a girl's night out Friday night, but he let me sleep in Saturday, fed Raegan, made me breakfast, surprised me with a "Day Relaxing" package to get a pedicure, manicure, and massage, and then took me out for dinner Saturday night. It was the most spoiled I have felt in a long time and I loved every second of it! I hope all of my "Mother" friends had an equally nice Mother's Day!

Mother's Day

My mom and Raegan (October '05)






This post is to give a big THANK YOU to my mom...a few days early.
Today she took Raegan for me for a few hours which is not out of the ordinary but it was MUCH appreciated by me.
Since the weather turned to junk and we couldn't do the Tulip parade I decided to go to Holland anyways to see Grandma(mom) and Great Grandma. We stopped at the old folk's home and visited with the grannies and of course Raegan was a hit and thoroughly enjoyed all of the attention. We even brought the Dutch costume along and gave everyone a mini "KinderRaegan" parade down the halls. =)
Then, my mom offered to take Raegan back to her house so that I could run some errands alone. What BLISS! I think I spent an hour alone just at the GAP Outlet trying on clothes, just because I could!! Then I ventured over to a coffee shop and got a Latte and sipped that while I browsed another favorite store for another half hour or so...
All in all, it was a fabulous day for me and I just want to say that I really appreciate my mom and all that she does for me (and Raegan). Love you Mom!

But I don't want to be a Dutch Girl!

Raegan went to Tulip Time with Nana and Caden yesterday. My cousin Julie had Dutch costumes for both of the kids to wear so she and my mom dressed them up and took them to try to get some pictures amongst the tulips. Unfortunately, most of them also have Raegan's favorite bear in them since lately, Mr. Bear is attached to her hip.
Tomorrow we are heading out to T.T. again with some friends to watch the KinderParade (if it doesn't rain) so if I can get some better pictures without the bear, I will post them!

CALVIN vs. HOPE 4-1 (in our family)

A big CONGRATS is in order for my "baby" sister Krista who graduated from HOPE college this weekend. She's the smart one in the family...graduating with the most majors (2) in the least amount of time (3 1/2 years).
I love you Max and we're so proud of you!

Busy Weekend

Lots of stuff happening this past weekend. Our friends, Mark & Sara were in town with us and they have a 2 year old son, Zach, so we had some good times with them playing and hanging out. Zach and Raegan were really cute together; chasing and tickling each other alot. Saturday the greenhouse across the street had an open house with a petting zoo so we took the kids over there to see the animals. Raegan was more into running around and exploring than she was looking at the animals but it was fun nontheless.
Saturday night we had some fun away from the kids at our friends the Bosscher's house. Happy 30th birthday to our friend Krista! It was fun to get away for awhile and catch up with friends and have a bonfire. Thanks to my cousins Julie & Kelli for watching the kids so we could get out!

The one that got away

To those of you who have heard me lament about this already you can stop reading but I feel like I still need to "talk" about it because I am so bummed!!!
This morning our neighborhood had a big garage sale. Now I am not a die-hard or anything but since it was in my neighborhood and I had a little time this morning I thought I would hit them first thing before Raegan's nap. Both of us still in our p.j.'s, we piled in the car and headed over to a house that I had "scoped" out last night and saw they were pricing a ton of baby/kid stuff.
On the way around the lake, I spotted one of the newer houses with only a few items in the driveway and right away something caught my eye...a VERY cute white kid's headboard/baseboard for a twin bed (it looked like a picket fence...did I mention it was VERY cute?).
Being the naive and inexperienced garage saler, I passed it by to head to the "jackpot" house that was my destination thinking...."I'll hit that one on my way back". Well, much to my disappointment, the first house was a bust and Raegan's eyes were already red with exhaustion so I proceeded back to the other house. It was literally about 15 minutes in time that had passed and as I rounded the block I could see that the bed boards were gone! Oh No! I stopped at the house and ran up the driveway and sure enough, my lucky find had already been snatched up by someone who clearly knows a good deal when they see it and jumps on it. There it sat in the back of the garage with a large SOLD sign on it. ARGH!!! To drive the stake in further I asked what she had sold it for and she told me...Thirty bucks!!!!!!!
She just wanted to "get rid of it" because they were re-doing her daughter's entire room since they just moved.
Oh, and did I mention the pink Pottery Barn bedding that was also tucked in a box next to the sold purchase waiting for pick-up? That was "thrown in" for an extra $50.00.
OF COURSE.

another first

We had awesome weather today and a play date at the zoo. It doesn't get much better than that when you are a kid! This was Raegan's first zoo experience and I think she was pretty amused. Highlights were probably the Grizzly Bears, the Chimpanzees and the Spider Monkeys. Lots of pointing and babbling on her part which I took to mean she was enjoying herself. It is so fun to see kids get excited about animals. The girlfriends I was with have older kids too(ages 2-4) so it was really neat to watch them run from exhibit to exhibit and ooh and aah over each animal. I can't wait until Raegan can join in their enthusiasm next year!

Taking a drink break at the chimp exhibit!

Boy's Weekend

Lot's of testosterone in our house this weekend! As I mentioned before, two of Brad's best friends came into town and stayed at our house to go Turkey hunting with him on Saturday morning. I love how excited Brad gets about hanging out with his "boys" and although I can't quite share his enthusiasm for hunting, I love that he gets a chance to do things with his friends and that they take the time to come into town to spend time together!
Their turkey hunting was unsuccessful but they did have some luck fishing in our backyard in the afternoon!