She's Off to the Races!!

Well, maybe not racing speed yet, but we'll get there!!!

Brooklyn crawled for the first time today!! Un.Be.Lieve.Able. I have other stuff to post from today too, but we thought this major feat deserved a post all its own. :) I was getting out of the shower this morning, and she was playing on the floor in the bathroom while I got dressed. I look down and she just crawled like 6 "crawls" across the floor to get my makeup bag. I freaked out! David thought I was making it up, so I brought her in the living room, and we got this video! Obviously a crawling novice, but she is DOING IT! Talked to her therapist today, and she was floored. They never thought she would have enough hip strength to conventional crawl, one leg at a time. So, we've been working on "bunny hopping," where she could maybe pull both legs up at once, but she's never done that either. Well, she fooled us!!! We'll work on this some more, and who knows what she'll do next!!! She is just amazing. 21 pounds of answer to prayer! :) Cheryl, her therapist, said today, "yep, that girl is proof that prayer works!!!!!"

Update: that video was taken this morning, her second try ever. By tonight she is already WAY better at it. She is a rockstar!!!

Catch-up Stuff and Sea World

Before the big Thanksgiving post AND the big birthday posts coming up (sigh... mixed feelings about her big day!).... here's some stuff to catch me up.

Cutie-pie in her chair for her 11 month pics.

B is really making huge strides in her PT. Yesterday, we saw her pull up to standing at the fireplace hearth!! And yes, there are bumpers, but it scared me. Regardless, she is LOVING standing right now and getting better all the time. Crawling is HARD. She wants to so badly, but still needs help with those little legs. But this is the position I see her in constantly (that silly little leg gets stuck underneath her!)... she tries so hard! We'll get there soon!!

She does find ways to get around. We call it her "Twirly Bird." She kinda gets to all 4s, then swings her bum around and twirls over. Thus, she is all over the place even though we aren't "real" crawling yet. I found her stuck here in the upside down stool. No idea how she got there. She was puzzled too, I think.

Newest trick: "TOUCHDOWN!" She'll do it on command... 95% of the time. Even sometimes with some spirit sprinkles on top. :)

Not sure what this pose was about, but she was cracking me up. How I love this girl....

Sleeping with her baby doll... too sweet not to risk waking her up with the flash. She slept through it.

Again, finds her way around! Dumped out the toy basket in the living room and parked her happy butt right in the middle of it. :)

Her new FAVORITE toy right now.

Reagan's class had "Favorite Hat Day," so of course we had to be LarryBoy.

Swinging fun outside!

We got to go to the zoo with our friends Ali and Cannon. Cannon and Brooklyn are exactly 3 weeks apart and were both born with L4 spina bifida. Ali graduated from ACU too, but we only came to know each other through friends of friends while we were pregnant. She has been my ROCK for over a year now, and we just got to meet face to face!! And our sweet kiddos! Cannon was trying to actually GET Brooklyn's face...

Sweet boy!

Guess we should have left Miss Cranky Pants out of the picture. Might have been better....

Sea World

We took a last minute weekend trip to San Antonio before Thanksgiving with the Isbells. SO fun. Reagan had a BALL, and Brooklyn was a peach. Plus, we really enjoy watching Reagan and Brandon together. Such great friends. AND, the weather was great and there was hardly anyone there. Greatness.

We went to feed the dolphins first-thing.

Flipper, begging us to go spend another $5 on sardines.

Mommy and Brooklyn, taking turns waving at the dolphins.

This girl was scuba diving with the Rays. I think she was cleaning stuff or something. Anyways, she came up to the glass and waved at the kids. Reagan immediately stuck her fingers in the corner of her mouth to make her "funny face" at her. The lady thought she was hilarious, and started making funny faces right back.

Here you can see that R is making her face, and the girl had to take out her mouthpiece because she was laughing so hard. This went on for about 10 minutes. Our little ham....

Scott, Brandon, and Reagan checking out some fishies.

On to the next thing. Notice, no people.

It always makes me laugh that these Clydesdales are at SeaWorld. Anyways, this was Jerry, and we could go up and pet him. These are gorgeous animals, and HUGE. Notice how self-sacrificing I am, taking Reagan. It is against everything I feel inside, but I put on a smiley face as to not place my own stupid fears upon my children. Thankfully, no one was allowed to ride them. That is where I might draw the line...

Smiling for their camera for the $15 picture we of course declined.

This ferris wheel was Reagan's first big-kid ride. She barely met the height requirement, poor short girl. Anyways, here is my pep talk about how much fun it would be. Turned out, no pep talk necessary. She was so excited!

"Seat Belts, so we can be safe!" (Amy, Susan, please notice the shirt....)

Up we go!

Up top. Hope you can enlarge this one and see her cute face!

Her first roller coaster!!! She was about 3 inches shy of the height for this one, but we just looked like we knew what we were doing and they didn't stop us! She wanted to ride up front, of course. This is right before they took off.... see how excited she is?!?! No fear.

Click on this one to see pure excitement. We have an adrenaline junkie on our hands! Makes this Momma so proud!

Getting off, immediately into "LET'S GO AGAIN!" We did. :)

The Isbells at the Shamu show.

Reagan and Daddy watching for Shamu.

This was where you were to put your hands up and make him splash with his tail.

All the noise scared our littlest one. She's a bit sensitive!

But she cheered up and cheered him on!

Just a funny face in the stroller.

The penguin keeper-lady doing a little info session. She asked for questions, and of course our little extrovert immediately raises her hand. She had it up for like 5 minutes.... all I could think was "she's gonna ask something 3-year-old-ish.... like 'Do you know I like Bob and Larry?'" Actually, she asked a big-kid question... "Does that penguin have a name?" I was so proud, and thankful. And I think her name was Penny.

All of us checking out the sea lions.

We splurge on some food.... and they give us squid. Ew.

This picture might be kinda artsy with the light shining through.... if it weren't a GROSS dead squid. She has NO fear. I love that about her.

At the Sea Lion show.

At first she was a little timid about going up to him, but that lasted about a second.

On the way back to the car.... sweet Elijah gave up the fight and fell asleep like this. Sweet boy.

As did B.

Soon after in the car.... if you enlarge this you can see her drool....

Such a FUN trip. Makes me really excited to take the girls to Holiday in the Park at Christmas!

Halloween Fun with the Beaver Girls

Of course, I'm behind on blogging, so this contains TONS of pictures. Sorry!!! But here is the whole Halloween extravaganza for us in one post!

We took the girls to ZooBoo the Sat before. It was a gorgeous day with our gorgeous girls!

Couldn't decide which to put...

Brooklyn's first carousel ride that went up and down. She was NOT a fan. Chicken.
It is however Reagan's FAVORITE thing at the zoo!

LOVE this.

The giraffes are my favorite. There are two baby ones right now.... and here is one little family. If you look closely (might not want to!), you'll see the Mommy had to tinkle and the Daddy decided to drink it.

Reagan was CRACKING up! Kept yelling, "We don't DRINK TINKLE GIRAFFES!! WE DON'T DRINK TINKLE!!!!" It was so funny.

Sweet Brooklyn laughed along too. Poor baby's scar was hanging out for all to see in these jeans... just wanted to say that so you'd know it is not her crack. :)

I think this one is the only one I took!

David got artsy with this reflection shot...

Little Miss Blue Eyes strollin'....

.... with her new Scrunchy Nose Smile.

R and I got matching ZooBoo tattoos!!!

R and I also did a little pumpkin decorating.... We did one for her and a tiny one for Brooklyn.

And B caught a little snooze. Sweet girl...

Later that week, more pumpkin painting. This girl wanted ONLY pink and purple, and by the time we were done it was a completely lavender pumpkin with sparkly beads glued on it. Awesome.

Reagan's PreSchool class Spooky Breakfast. Look at those cute little Beaver girls!!!!

The "girls" table. Check out Ariel... :)

Baby Brooklyn Beaver. :)

Little pumpkin walk game.

Excited about trick or treatin' down at the church office!

On actual Halloween, we went to the church carnival at David's siblings' church. It was fabulous, but hot! My parents were in town for my dad's follow up doctor stuff (got great reports!), so they got to come too which was great!!

R of course went STRAIGHT for the bounce houses!

We've lost the canopy for this stroller, so Aunt Mary was sharing her glasses with Brooklyn.

And Aunt Mary brought R some cotton candy. Brownie points like crazy!!!

They shared. :)

Had to take off Reagan's super hot costume, so we got some sister-shots really quick of our sweet little Beaver Girls. Wish I had waited until after this picture. Still sweet though.R picked a cat for her first ever face painting.

Games!!!

Check out her throw!!!

Little golf help from Daddy.

Waiting in line.....

Ball toss.... you probably can't see it, but this shot was a winner!!

Her prize was a confetti egg!!! I love this picture!

Ring toss. We were unsuccessful on this game, but who cares. Got candy anyways.
That is the beauty of church carnivals. :)

Back to the bounce houses now that she wasn't sweating!

The playground!!!

Granddaddy is a great swing pusher!

I love how great our new camera is!

Action shots!

Probably my fave...

My two favorite men swinging my girl back to the car. :)

At the beginning of the evening, R was answering the door for trick or treaters like this.....

The girls' first real trip trick or treating..... LOVE their tails!!!!

You see how Brooklyn ALWAYS holds my hair.

I love that at this age, 4 houses was plenty. :)

Here we are, heading back to our house after a FABULOUS day. You can see Brooklyn's cute little tail in this one. :)

I would be sad that Halloween is over, but it means that the holidays are OFFICIALLY here. My favorite!!! And I'll try to be better about blogging through them!

Amarillo Pics.... from Labor Day.

Um, so these are from Sept. Not sure HOW I forgot to post them, but better late than never! David had to work Labor Day weekend, so the girls and I went to Dallas one night, to Amarillo the next with Granddaddy and Grandmommy. I did a HORRIBLE job taking pictures, and really only got some from our trip to the park. But it was so fun.... seeing Reagan with her cousins is the best thing ever. She loooooooooooooooooves them.

Speaking of loving things, Brooklyn loves to swing!!! All smiles the whole time!

Cutie Corbin. Reagan reminds me daily of how funny it is that Corbin's teeth have fallen out. She says she does NOT want that to happen to her, though.

Reagan loves "twisty" slides.

This one was metal, so she got some serious momentum out of it! Flipped her every time!

How funny is this?

Reagan just sitting there letting them do all the work while she ate her cookie.

At one point, Adley and I had a swinging contest. It had been forever since I had swung on big swings like this.... so fun! I just love that girl to pieces.

Corbin talking to Reagan....

... who was too short to reach it, so had to have help from Uncle Adam.

Fun glidey thing.... no idea what it is called, but they loved it. I love Corbin's face in this one!

And the action shot!

It got a cute look from Reagan too. This was a first for her.

The next couple are blurry since I evidently switched settings on the camera on accident. Shoot. Anyways, Aunt Missy and Brooklyn had a little chat on the picnic table while the big kids played.

Aunt Missy is a BIG help to this Mommy. Love her. Check out Reagan with her (second or third) cookie. These were Adley's birthday cookies... that were her name. R is down to the "EY." They were SO SO cute... a lady at their church gave them to Adley. Super fun, and sweet of her to share.

Again, blurry. But Grandmommy and Brooklyn were "talking" this time... sweet.

Getting printed to hang in my hall!! Granddaddy hooked us ALL up with Cowboys attire for game day! This is as good as it gets, folks. Cutest kids ever. No offense. :)

Quick Brooklyn Update and our Dallas Trip

First of all, for all you Moms reading this, click here and sign on with a "promise." It will brighten your day, your kiddos' day, and feed hungry kids. Win, Win, Win. :)

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I was planning on doing my next update on the girls AFTER Brooklyn's appt on Monday, but after the evening she has had.... I added it to this post! I am quite positive no one will understand how FREAKIN' EXCITED I was tonight, but she hit a huge milestone tonight! David was still at work, so thankfully she kept up the hard work long enough for me to grab the camera and snap pics and a quick video (it is at the bottom.... couldn't get blogger to put it on top).

She was sitting up, looking longingly at a toy out to her side that was out of reach. She lunged towards it, cross-ways over her body, like a baby would who could just swing their legs underneath them to crawl. We've been practicing this "motion" in PT, as a pre-crawl activity, but she's never really done it without my prompting her. So... I praised her for doing a great job, then "finished" the motion for her by putting her knees up under her body so she would know how it felt. THEN SHE HELD HERSELF UP ON ALL FOURS! She has NEVER EVER been able to hold that position before without someone holding her trunk up for her. EVER!! This is so huge, I can't even tell you how proud I am! Seriously y'all, this is direct answer to prayers!! I texted her therapist and told her, and she immediately wrote back (and I quote) "NO WAY! Guess she didn't get the memo that she shouldn't be able 2 do that!" Just shows us that she has enough hip strength to support her body weight and take the weight off of her arms, and she really shouldn't. Blah blah blah... it's just great news and a HUGE praise! And so early on for a kid like her. I'll stop rambling now.... here she is, the stud. :) Had a hard time getting her big ole head up, but I'll tell you she was laughing and smiling HUGE. She gets so proud of herself.

Got the head up! Look at that 4-point position!!! YAY B!!!



On to exciting things of a totally different sort. We were in town the weekend of the opening game at the "Death Star" aka Cowboys Stadium. David got us tickets! I was so darn pumped. Here is the unbelieveable structure.... it is so huge, it's unreal.

Rode with Alicia and some of her friends. Great to share this with my sweet friend and fellow football FAN!

Us and the Death Star. And a billion tailgaters.

God bless Tom Landry.

The big windows on the end.

And standing up there when they opened them!

These guys were cracking me up. During pregame, it was beyond obvious that they were going to make a big deal of presenting the star in the middle. So, to keep that a big "secret", these guys were what I called the Star Secret Service. They stood there on guard of the star the entire time before the game started... in their suits. Cracked me up.

President and Laura bush headed out for the coin toss.

Part of the pregame extravaganza... a la Jerry Jones.

And we have lift off!!! Or, the Star Secret Service uncovered the turf off of the star with a little pyrotechnics. It was cool though.

Huge Flag with American Idol singing. She did great, which I was thankful. I can't stand when people butcher the national anthem.

My sweet hubby on one of our best dates EVER. Even from the nosebleeds, our seats were GREAT. Thanks to the $40million spent on that screen, there is no bad seat in the house!

After the severely disappointing loss, we ran into Dale Hansen and Coach Joe doing their recap. You can tell on Coach Joe's face how he felt about the play of the Cowboys...

Stuck around a minute and asked Dale for a pic!

Back at Grammy's, Reagan learned a few of the finer points of Spider solitaire.

Hanging out with Daddy and Poppy's pond. Too sweet.

Daddy and Reagan's footprints. Awwww...

I looooooooove this pic. Didn't even stage it.

We got to spend a few hours at Cassidee's house, and Amie and Charlie got to hang out too! Brooklyn got some lovin' from Amie.

Cass and Reagan hadn't seen each other in awhile, so they were attached at the hip. Charlie wasn't sure what to make of Reagan stealing his friend Cass, so he tried warming up to Brooklyn. Poor guy, he wasn't so into hanging out with the baby. She's way boring for a big boy. Seriously, could he BE any cuter in those pants and shoes?!?!

The BFF's were outside the ENTIRE DAY. Came in for food, drinks, and potty. The wind did a number on R's hair throughout the day, but I still got some cute pics. And I couldn't decide, so I put several.

Cuties.

We went to visit Reagan's crush, I mean, Jeremy at the fire station. It is old hat to Cass, and we had to wake her up to go, so she was less than enthused at first.

Brooklyn got loved on this time by Kendra while I snapped photos.

R thought Jeremy was awesome BEFORE this, but after he let her "drive" the fire truck, well, he is GOLDEN.

That's more like it, Cass. :) Seriously... SUCH a cutie pie!!

Speaking of cuteness, Cason got to walk around. Big shot in his cool daddy wind suit.Jeremy finding all kinds of cool stuff to show R. He's her hero.

R in the passenger seat....

.... Cass at the wheel. Having a little chat over the headsets. SO COOL!

Then they got to pull this switch that made the ladder go up and down!

And play with the mini light sabers... for directing traffic. All in all, a memorable day for my girl. THANKS Jeremy!!!

And here is the video from tonight of my little rockstar. Terrible video... I was hurrying because I didn't know how long she could do it, and I was the only adult here!! Sorry! But, I'm glad I caught it!! Can you hear her laughing over my dumb voice??!!

Prayer Request

We have a new friend, Hayden, who lives down here. He's 2, has SB, and is presently in ICU at TX Children's. Evidently he got too much of a certain med in his system, and how he's having to go through some form of detox in hopes that it stops the seizures he's had as a result. PLEASE pray for him and his sweet parents, Ryan and Johnna. We have become fast friends, and I know they will appreciate it beyond words when I tell them that my whole "blogland" is praying for them too! Thanks so much!!!

Kentucky Trip, 8-9mo pics, Sweet Sisters, and a Brooklyn Update

These were about 2 months ago now, but better late than never! We flew to Kentucky for David's cousin's wedding in Aug, and it was Brooklyn's first time to meet all the fam up there! We are busy busy busy when we get to make that trip, and unfortunately this time it meant we took basically no pictures. But here are the few that we did get.

Brooklyn meeting Uncle Mike. She loved him of course. How could you not love Uncle Mike?!

She also loved cousin Scott, although maybe not as much as Reagan. Reagan loooooooooooooves Scott. ;)

Probably because they go way back. Here is Reagan with Scott when we got to see him in California. Yeah, I didn't recognize him either.

Brooklyn: "Who's the guy with the long CA locks??"
Yep, that is pretty much it from the Kentucky trip. I'm ashamed.
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Brooklyn's 8 month chair pics with Mr. Beaver

I can never just put one, you know.

9 months. At least I'm posting them before I take the 10th!

Got some funny faces this time!

Happy girl bouncing in her jumperoo. LOVE it.

Some sister-love. These two are just too much fun. And they LOVE each other so much.... makes my job so much better!

For instance, one afternoon (awhile back, with Brooklyn in the box) I was doing laundry, going back and forth to bedrooms, laundry room, etc. I come in the living room to find this tea party. R had gone to her room and gotten her fabric tea set and set it up next to the box were B was playing.... offered her a cup.Seriously, how sweet are they?! I know it won't always be this way with sisters, so I cherish these times!

I love how B looks like she is really sipping hers too.

I promise R actually has clothes and wears them often, but in our normal everyday... well, she prefers this. We wear clothes to leave the house. When we come home, she sheds them layer by layer so that within about a hour of being home, panties only. I choose my battles.

Anyways, notice, NO BOX!

This wasn't posed.... I found them like this.

Her butterfly umbrella was one of the best $4 I ever spent. She loooooooves it, and it doesn't pinch, so she can do it by herself. She'll spend as much time as I'll let her outside on our front walk when it is raining.

Random pic. It was the first day I ever braided R's hair, and when I took it out....

First Cowboys game of the season! This was our attire for church that Sunday. Cuties! (I have a whole post coming about our trip to the first game in Jerry's World. Awesome.)

More sweet sister-love. I was trying to take B's pic in her cute little skort, but got this instead. Way better.

And..... announcing (a month and a half late) our official SITTER!

We completely retired the box at the beginning of Sept. She is a champ!! Sometimes she gets over-excited with herself while she sits and throws herself backwards. But she's totally got it.

Another random pic.... this was how she was sleeping one night. Makes me sweat to look at it.

Little cartoon watching early one morning.

I love these two girls so much, it's crazy. And I love these two pictures because they have the exact same eye expressions. Just laying there watching tv, looking so much alike. :)

First day of preschool!! Had to wake up the sleepyhead for us to make it on time.

Her eyes were still swollen. :) Seriously, how do our babies get so big so fast?!?!?! She looks like such a big kid.

Sporting our TX burnt orange and playing on the floor.

Ok, I just read over what I've typed and kinda made myself want to barf! I know, lots of love and cuteness and a gushing Momma. But I just can't help it! Now, it isn't always all sunshine and rainbows around here, but I do love my job God has given me and I love these two little squirts more than words can say. Sorry.... can't help it!

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Quick Brooklyn update:

You can see in these pics that B spends a lot of time on the floor. She has become a rolling fool!!! YAY B!! She can now log roll to get where she wants, and sometimes where she doesn't. Not a big fan of ending up on tile. :) But we've been working on sitting and rolling for a LONG time in PT, and she's got it!! Now, her immediate goals are getting from sitting to laying down and vice versa. Pretty close! Also, that pic where she is on my tummy... can you see how she is kinda on all 4's?? We're in the beginning stages of that too.... she'll end up there and need a little support (my tummy works well!) then rock back and forth. Awesome! I can't say enough of how proud I am of her. Her PT is really HARD work, and she lets me know it. But we work daily, and she works SO hard and gets so proud of herself! It is precious how she'll light up when she does something new! So, any prayers for her continued progress are of course appreciated!

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At her 9mo checkup, she was in 60th %tile for weight, 51st for height, and about 120th for head. Whuuuuuuut??!! Yeah, we got big noggins in this fam, and Reagan's has always been in upper nineties, but never off the CHARTS! Knew Brooklyn's head was big too, but this was a red flag. So, Monday we were off to TCH again for another head CT and check up. Her scans are fine, her behavior is normal, and she's showing no symptoms of anything being wrong. So, we were sent home. The surgeon used the word "worrisome" and said to just watch her. So, please be praying that there isn't something going on in her precious little head that is a problem. For now, it's just big. Oh well. Better than sick!!

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We have her first appt at Scottish Rite Hospital in Dallas a week from Monday. I'm really looking forward to this. We've been more than taken care of at TCH, but Scottish Rite is amazing and a great long-term fit for B. So, we'll go visit family and then have a day at the hosp with B on that Monday to start her care through their doctors.

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That is all I can think of for now. Yay for it being October! Pumpkin patches, costumes, long sleeves (hopefully sometime soon!).... fun start to the holidays!