Reagan

..said her name plain as can be, for the first time on Wednesday. I looked at her and asked 'Who is Reagan?' She smiled and started pointing at herself, frantically saying 'Me! Me! Me!'

My heart just nearly melted!

Disgruntled

Did I mention a few months ago that someone opened our car and stole our garage door opener? We reported it to the police..but of course, they really can't find something like that and I doubt they tried. Well a few days ago we noticed another small theft...a beautiful arrangment that my mother and father in law did for me for mother's day in a gorgeous planter...GONE! Also gone were my plant stakes that featured cute sayings about love and home...GONE!

I'm absolutely furious..what kind of person does that kind of thing?? I just put out my new McCain/Palin signs yesterday and now I'm waiting for those to be stolen too...I'm tempted to hide in the bushes with one of Josh's golf clubs, ready to rattle some heads.....

A new recipe and a funny story for today

Lately I've been feeling extremely sluggish..no energy..I can barely function. I notice when I do manage to haul my behind up and get moving, I feel much better. In an attempt to help me do that, I'm going to start walking a couple of miles first thing in the morning with Reagan (this will also help keep her away from the tv!). BUT in order to do that, I needed to come up with some grab and go breakfast items for the munchkin. Here's a recipe we'll be making later today and trying tomorrow! It's from Stories and Recipes of the Great Depression by Rita Van Amber.

Apple-Oatmeal Bars:
1 cup oatmeal (I like to use old fashioned..has more fiber for you!)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 1/2 cups of chopped apples
1/2 cup sugar (I may try to reduce this and use some honey instead)

Combine the first five ingredients and pat half into an 8*8 inch pan. Layer on apples and sugar. Crumble remaining mixture on top. Bake 35 minutes at 350 degrees.

Feel free to post any other grab and go recipes you have in the comments section!

And now, for a funny story that happened no less than 15 minutes ago (excuse the lack of punctuation/capitalization..I just cut and pasted from my mom's board!)

sooo..i decided to wrench myself off the couch and take reagan on a walk...she was nearly falling asleep by the time we got home, so i picked her up...cradling her bottom...and i suddenly realized...hmm, that's bare baby butt....i looked..sure enough, no diaper..i set her down, looked outside on her riding car..no diaper, i thought, how the heck did we lose a diaper on our walk? surely i would have noticed it, so then i walk around the couch to put a new diaper on her..sure enough..there was her old diaper, on the floor..and her baby butt was red from being jostled over countless sidewalk cracks and bumpy streets..poor kid......stupid mommy!

Much laughter!

Here's a little tidbit from Reagan for you:

*****when we got home from being out and about today, josh was teasing reagan and asked her 'hey, what's that on your foot?' (it was a bandaid and she loves talking about booboos)...well, apparently it didn't register that he was asking about the booboo, because she kind of shrugged her shoulders in a 'gee, don't you already know, dad' kind of way and said ..."toes"

i nearly fell off the couch laughing!******

And if you want a really good laugh, check out my IRL friend, Jana's post about her battle with bugs!!!

As I was dying with laughter imagining her chase bugs around her house, I was reminded of a specific night when Jana, Kelly and I were all in college together..we shared a suite..Jana on one side with Mariah and Kelly and I on the other. One night as I was lying in the bottom bunk studying, I felt something staring at me. I looked up and straight across to where a mouse was WATCHING me.

Needless to say, I freaked...and of course, so did Kelly! I promptly vaulted to the top bunk and then Kelly and I used our desk chairs to walk around the room: standing on one, picking up the other, moving to that one, reaching behind and lifting the other. Of course Jana heard the commotion, came in and with all practicality said, 'oh goodness it's just a little mouse. I'm going to bed.'....and she did...after stuffing three towels under her door to make sure the 'little mouse' couldn't get to her!

After a long night, a trip to Walmart in seal slippers and buying a mouse trap the size of Montana, the mouse finally departed ways with us. Poor mouse.

Ooops!

The last few minutes of summer are upon us and I have been so bad about blogging! Not to mention, I have been trying to reorganize and rearrange things so we have more room (did I mention we are quickly outgrowing our house and there is no way we're going to buy another right now in this particular market?!).

At any rate, we're all doing well and enjoying the cooler weather and sunny days. We've been spending quite of bit of time walking up and down the streets admiring butterflies, flowers, green grass (for the first time all summer) and the gorgeous trees that are JUST beginning to turn on the very tips.

One of Reagan's great joys in life is collecting all types of leaves for Mommy to ooooh and ahhhh over! My personal favorites are the red, but Reagan doesn't seem partial to any particular color (unless it's purple...and we dont' really have too many purple leaves around here!)

We're also getting ready to enjoy the apple harvest in this part of the country. Tomorrow we'll be heading to the Johnny Appleseed Festival and then in a few weeks, it's on to the Apple Festival...in the meantime we have farmers markets, pumpkin patches, mums, gourds, corn mazes and the like to traipse through and enjoy!

I can't wait to let her have her first cup of WARM apple cider...she's been enjoying it cold for several days now and I really can't wait til our local trip to a state park where we can run through the woods and let her collect colored leaves to her heart's content. I'm also planning on teaching her to make mini apple cobblers, which she can later eat as snacks! She's very into apples and I'm sure this is going to be a favorite activity..come to think of it..she's really into anything that involves trees lately...apples, apple trees, trees in general, leaves..so on and so forth..oh and snakes! Yes, my daughter loves snakes lately! We actually borrowed one from the library (stuffed of course!) and she is having the best time dragging him around with us all over town and hugging and hissing at him...much to the amusement of everyone that sees her!

I think that about does it for now! If anyone is interested, I have a cute butterfly craft that I'll be posting later this week that is suitable to do with toddlers, with adult supervision of course!

Hugs to all!

Some Reagan-isms for you!

Getting in the car to leave from a playdate:
Mommy: Are you ready?
Reagan: Ready! Ready to roll!

Reagan in the middle of watching Pooh on the couch with mommy suddenly notices that Daddy got up:
Reagan: (hands up in questioning shrug): Where'd Daddy go??
Mommy: He went to the bathroom to pee-pee.
Reagan: Otay. And gets down to follow him!

Watching Daddy cut the grass where he has to step into the road to turn the mower around. Each time he steps in the street, Reagan says "UHOH!!!"

Reagan singing while playing with her puzzles:
"Chooochooo! POOOOH BEARR! Choochooo" (She inserts Pooh Bear into EVERY SONG!)

Reagan and mommy outside playing in the rain:
Reagan: It's raneen! It's raneen!
Mommy: Ok, it's time to go inside.
Reagan: Otay, bye RAEEEN!

Reagan playing with a little doll my mom sent her. She turns the doll over and looks under the dress, sniffs and says "PEEPEE!"....this made me die with laughter..apparently I say "I smell peepee when she needs a diaper change!"

And just a million other little things. She is so incredibly smart. She talks constantly..in sentences and carries conversations with me all day long. She counts a little bit, she picks up things that you tell her and she uses it weeks later like when she told me I had gum in my mouth, or talked about the chickies...and we never really talk about chickies!

She calls anything crunchy and carby a chip and any dark drink a coke! She's just absolutely hilarious!!!!

Ahhh, the beauty of dreams...

Ever have one of those dreams you don't want to wake up from? Well last night I had one. I was married to Batman..yes, Batman. Ok, yes, that's sort of embarrassing, but well, I don't care! And it wasn't the Christian Bale variety of Batman (although I have to admit he's the best Batman, EVER!). Nope, I was married to the Val Kilmer Batman. WOW. *imagine starry eyed, faraway, dreamy look*

But Joker wouldn't leave us alone..which put a slight damper on the dream..you know, it tends to have that effect when people are shooting at you. On the plus side, I got to drive an AMAZING car and Val Kilmer/Batman was in absolute and total love with me, completely enamored..so much that he had photos of me everywhere...I loved it!

It's nice to have those dreams sometimes! A little escape from reality!

I can't believe I haven't posted in four days! That's awful! It's been a busy week here though and I finally have a few minutes to post while Reagan is down for her mid-morning nap!

I can't believe it's September already. I have an entire calender stocked full of activities for us to celebrate fall. We're also going to be taking Reagan to see the Disney Playhouse show next Sunday. I can't wait to see her face when she sees Pooh! I wish there were some way we could get to spend a few minutes one on one with him..she thinks Pooh is just the greatest thing ever...she's even talked about him in her sleep!

Let's see..what news do I have to share? Oh yes! Josh got a new job! I'm really excited for him as it's a nice pay raise and more time at home..plus he can commute with one of our friends that works there also! I also am cutting back to one day a week at work. I really think this is going to be great for our family.

We also have another major car repair. I swear, I just wish we'd get the Honda Odyssey and be done with it! But, right now I'd like to focus more on our savings!

I also made homemade chicken stock yesterday...it's absolutely yummy and I can't wait to try it out in some recipes! I have to skim it today and then freeze it! It was pretty simple. I just used chicken bones, onions, carrots (unpeeled), celery (with leaves), a little No-Salt, peppercorns, poultry seasoning, 1 bay leaf and some water. I let is simmer for about 5-6 hours. Perfect! And it made the house smell completely yummy! I also roasted some pie pumpkins and scooped out the flesh for pumpkin puree. I can't wait to make those into muffins.

Speaking of pumpkins and baked goods, Jill, from my mom's board, shared this super-easy pumpkin cookie recipe:

1 box spice cake
1 small can of pumpkin puree

Mix and drop into cookies on baking sheet. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. WOW! I can't wait to make these with Reagan!

Hope everyone is doing well!!

So this is how it's going to be

Today, two of Reagan's friends came over to play. One, Joseph, she has a major crush on (he's three!) Of course, the one boy she absolutely adores is the one boy that doesn't pay much attention to her. All of the other little boys hug and kiss and love her to death..she could care less.

So anyway, the kids were playing and I asked Reagan for a kiss. She promptly responded "NO!" I then told her, "Mommy's very sad!" And turned down my lips in an exaggerated frown (we've been talking about being sad lately as a new emotion). Then Joseph said "Joseph's said too!" I turned and said to Reagan, "See, Joseph is sad that you won't kiss your Mommy too!" Reagan got an anxious look on her face, said "OH!" and ran over and promptly kissed......Joseph.

GO FIGURE.

The States are alive...with the sounds of scaaaaaaaaaandal...

*BLECH*

Let's chat for a moment about the election. First of all, I'm proud to say I'll be supporting McCain and Palin in November. I'm even more proud to say that I'm behind a man who chose a woman who is a mother and deals with REAL issues and has the courage to face them head-on and stand behind her convictions, even in the face of adversity and lies and hate-mongering. *GASP* Bet liberals never thought I'd turn that term on them did they!?

Second, I'm sick of hearing scandals such as Palin's baby is really her grandbaby, or oooh I bet there's a miscarrage coming in the near future for her daughter. I'm sick sick sick that liberals are calling Hurricane Gustav an act of God as proof that He is on their side.

I'm sick of the fact that history was made today as Iraq took control of Anbar province and the mainstream media IGNORED IT!!! They refuse to publicize anything that will show that the war IS working! Yet, if there had more deaths and bombings, the media would have been all over it.

I'm sick that a young girl's midsection is being scrutinized all over the web and she'll probably end up with an eating disorder caused by so many thinking she's pregnant! I'm sick that so many people are hypocritical about when THEY started having sex and ridicule a young girl that made an obvious mistake.

What is wrong with people!?!?? Why is it that it's ok for someone to chose to have an abortion but it's not ok for a young girl to chose to have her baby and chose to marry the father? Why is it ok for a PRESIDENT to have sex in the oval office but it is not ok for a Vice Presidential candidate's daughter to show up pregnant and for the family to comfort her while the liberals go nuts and invade the CHILD's privacy?

It's no wonder the world is quickly falling apart at the seams. America is the new Sodom and Gomorrah. Is there any chance we'll recover??