Better Late Than Never...New Year's Eve Photos

Okay, so I finally got around to posting these. To give a little background information, we arrived home from CO (after our flight was delayed due to snow) at 3:30 am. By this point in the morning, Avery had decided that whatever sleep she'd already had was good enough to count as a nap, and she was refreshed and hungry. I, however, was done for the evening, so poor Ed had to stay up with her for about another hour before she reluctantly went to sleep in our bed. Thus, 10:30 am arrived well before we were ready to get out of bed. Alas, we got up and got ready for our big New Year's Eve day, which included the now-annual Noon Year's Eve playdate with Avery's baby buddies and then our annual New Year's Eve bash with Andy and Ashley, Dusty and Kelly, us and our kiddos. Bear in mind that Avery had been teething all week - 4 teeth - and this day ended up being no exception. Still, everyone faired pretty well, all things considered.

Here, you can tell her mouth had started to bother her, poor thing. (She's still so pretty though.)

This is how Ed spent some of his time at the Baby Bash:

We corralled the kiddies onto a retro-style couch at Jodi's. The typical baby group shot:

From Jodi's house, we traveled north to get to Dusty and Kelly's. Andy and Ashley were in town from Texas, so we were delighted that we could continue this tradition with our good friends (it's been something like ten years, off and on, that the six of us - now eight, including our babes - have been doing this).

Andy and Ashley at the Start of Our Evening

Our Sweet Little Girl Before She Went to Bed (She actually stayed asleep through our countdown to midnight this year.)

The Girls Right Before Midnight

Our Midnight Picture

Dusty and Kelly Ringing in the New Year

Liam and Avery having a blast on our air mattress the next morning:

Anyhow, I hope you all had a fabulous New Year's as well and that 2011 has been good to you thus far. And as for us, we have our ultrasound next Tuesday to find out what gender this newest little one is, so you can expect some news thereafter. We managed to purchase the furniture for our nursery off Craig's List last weekend, so after the ultrasound, it will be full speed ahead for planning and executing the room. I can't wait!

Have a great weekend, Everyone!

The Christmas Pictures (Finally!)

Okay, so I pulled and pulled pictures to no avail for many days, then finally created a couple of collages in an attempt to make the posting work. It never did. And now that I have the space again, I simply do not have to drive to go through photos again and pick more. So that's my official apology for not including more pictures and not even having pictures of everyone we were able to see over the holidays. You know who you are, and you know we love you.

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We were able to celebrate Christmas with Ed's family (both sides) the weekend before we left for Colorado. This first collage is from the day we spent with the Tallant side. Before we went to Mary and Rick's house, we stopped off at Granny and Granddaddy's to let Avery open her gifts from them. They bought her a smorgasbord of baby doll-related goods, which she adores. Then we were on to the Tallant household, where we enjoyed a lovely evening of good food, family, and gift-giving. The bottom right picture is particularly funny because Avery insisted on her Auntie Melissa following around behind her with the corn popper, and I happened to catch a classic expression on Melissa's face displaying just how much she was enjoying this task after the first hour had passed. :)

The next day, we went to celebrate Christmas with Mimi, Pop, Uncle Andy, and Auntie Sarah (as Avery refers to them). Ed and I particularly enjoyed watching Avery open gifts with her Uncle Andy's help. We all had a lovely evening (and some tasty lasagna, too)!

On the Thursday night before Christmas, Ed, Avery and I flew into Colorado. The very next day was Christmas Eve, and Adam, Aimee, Gavin, Alec and Conner came over for dinner and to open gifts at Nana and Papa Jim's house (their tradition). From that moment on, Avery had such a great time playing with her cousins (and I'm pretty sure they enjoyed her, too). This is a shot of the kids opening their presents.

I thought this was a cute one of Gavin:

Evan (Jim's Cousin), Papa Jim and Avery

Avery was having a blast playing with Alec and throwing a ball to Sammie.

This is a Christmas present from Mimi and Pop that traveled with us to CO. Avery loves her Elmo camera, and I thought it made a cute photo of she and Alec.

Conner and Avery Taking a Photo with a Favorite Christmas Toy of Theirs:

The Four Cousins in Their Christmas PJs - A Classic Shot!

A Sweet Pic of the Youngest Two

Let me just interject here about the strangeness that was our CO visit this year. Avery's digestive tract seemed off all day on Christmas Eve (to put it politely), but we assumed it was because she was trying to cut four teeth. Well, she woke us up on Christmas morning with a tiny bit of vomiting in the bathroom sink (it was the fastest place we could catch it). Still, we weren't sure what was up just yet, and hoped that whatever it was had passed thereafter...

So this is after we pulled ourselves together and came downstairs to the tree to see what Santa had brought her. She was pretty pleased with this coloring book.

This is her looking at Santa's sleigh bell, which he left with her Polar Express Train - her favorite gift of all, and the one she specifically requested that Santa bring to her.

And this is her with that oh-so-important train (and the remote that she learned how to use immediately):

Avery thought all the jewelry that Jim gave to Mom was actually for her. See how her face lights up when she sees it? We are in for it later in life with this one!

Our Family on Christmas Morning

She loved Sammie's Bed.

I'm not sure if you've noticed yet, but Avery has had a pj change at some point in there... well, she started feeling bad. Really bad. So bad that she most unexpectedly threw up (really threw up this time) on Jim's present from us. He wasn't even in the room when it happened. We had to unwrap it and hand it to him opened, which drew a quizzical look from him. Here's Avery and I resting on Rocky's dog bed, where she refused to move from after her first incident. So pitiful.

And then there were more incidents. At least three more (at least). Lots of puking and napping on Christmas day for a baby girl. Here's another shot of her sleeping on the floor (her place of choice all that day), in yet another pair of jammies. (I think she wore four pairs that day.)

And then I got sick. This happened after Mom and Jim left for Adam and Aimee's without us. We stuck around their house that day. By then, Avery and I were both napping in the living room - she still on the floor, and I on the couch. By that evening, both of us were able to hold down some soup, and since we'd already exposed the Bennetts all day the day before, we decided that we felt okay enough to go over there for the last couple of hours of Christmas. It was certainly not the day we had planned. 

The rest of the week went similarly. Avery still had a couple of incidents and I felt poorly until the end of the next day. That night, Jim got sick. By the time that he was feeling better, Ed got sick. Then the Bennetts were sharing a cold. Somehow, Mom managed to avoid it all. But even after Avery had shaken the stomach bug, she was still teething, so she didn't feel great most of the week.

Having said all that, it was the strangest visit we've ever had. We were so happy to see everyone though, despite the crud. We were home in time for New Year's Eve, in which we had another jam-packed weekend. I plan to post some pictures from that pretty quickly, too. So come on back, ya hear?

Hope your week is going well!

Technical and General Update

Hello All,

So I guess you've been assuming lately that I'm just too busy to get it together and post Christmas photos. And while you're not entirely wrong about that notion, the real truth is that I've been attempting to post them for days now. I have spent too much time trying unsuccessfully to load the pictures, and I've finally discovered the culprit behind the failures: no more photo space on this blog. Boo.

Fortunately, we're solving the problem now, so I'll be able to post pics soon. So check back and you'll probably see something within the next couple of days.

As far as the Reagin family goes, we're all pretty good here. Avery's become quite attached to me lately, so Ed and I are having to actively work on ways to alleviate some of that stress. I'm honestly not sure who it's harder on - her or me (having to listen to her desperate cries for "Mommmmmmy" from the other room).

Ed's been "blessed" with yet more responsibilities at his job as of today. At least this means they're more reliant on him, right? Hopefully, it will all be reflected in any salary increase that may be in consideration come review time. (That's all I can say.)

And I'm okay. This pregnancy is really wearing me out, way more so than Avery did. I'm not sure if it was because I was working then and thus up-and-at-'em by 7am and going strong all day, and this time I'm at home and take a shower when I can get it during the day (which sometimes happens at 2 o'clock or later). Avery also doesn't know the meaning of a schedule, so she wakes at different times every morning and naps similarly. It's hard to make my own plan that way. I did get permission from the midwives to have a daily dose of caffeine, so that should help. But I suspect that no matter how much I ingest, it's just going to be my plight to struggle through extreme tiredness for a period of each day. So that tends to make a wife cranky.

As far as the baby-to-be goes, everything is going well. Good, strong heartbeat, and I can feel the baby moving around now. We get to find out the sex in 2 weeks, which cannot come fast enough. I feel so stalled in planning anything until we know what this little one is. As soon as that happens, I can really buckle down on the name game and on planning the nursery. It feels like it's going to be the longest two weeks ever (until my ninth month, that is). :)

So that's about it for now. Check back soon and we should be able to get you all caught up on Christmas and New Year's photos.

Have a great week!