Happy Dude

He's made his way down to the 90th percentile.  Looking at the growth chart, it's an abrupt drop between 7 and 8 months, when he started scooting (7 mos) and crawling and pulling up (8 months). Speaking of growth, his 4th tooth just popped through the gums.  He also gets the idea of communicating by pointing at everything and saying "dot" or "duk".

Cam's 32! (Nov 13)

We made and decorated a cake after returning from Disneyland since we couldn't do our homemade cake on the road.  Pretty much an excuse to make a cake.

Ryan helped by trying to empty out the pantry

Family

Reagan drew the family as one of her projects in preschool and did such an amazing job.  So cute!  At first I thought my legs were coming out of my armpits, but it turns out that's my dress :-)

Proudly showing off her artwork from school

Disneyland Trip

Nov 7-14, we went to San Diego and Disneyland.  After getting in late Sat night after 9 hours in the van, we spent the first day just walking around Mission Bay and the coast and the 2nd day at San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park.  This place was way better than any zoo I've been to.  The first thing we encountered were ducks nibbling at our feet.  That freaked Reagan out.  It was quite a trek getting around there too, it's a huge place.

Hanging by the pool and hot tub at our hotel on Mission Bay

Cam, Reagan, and Ryan on a Rhino Rear

Ready to drive the Autopia Cars at Disneyland

What?!  Goofy's mailbox is upside down!  Gawrsh, that's goofy!

"What is this strange mouse-person, Mama?"

Meeting princesses was a little daunting in reality

Everyone's enjoying It's A Small World

Halloween 2009

Carved pumpkins (Note To Self:  do not carve pumpkins a week ahead since you do not live in a cold climate anymore.  They turn into white, fuzzy liquid by Halloween night)

Cinderella, Gus the Mouse and the Fairy Godmother

Cinderella makes Blueberry Pancakes

Reagan likes her costume so much that she wears it for everything.

Arizona Vacation

Thanks to Uncle Brandon and Aunt Danielle for a great vacation! After a couple days at their house, we spent a night in Sedona by ourselves, then met them and friends in Flagstaff for a couple more days before spending one last day back in Pheonix.

Reagan really enjoyed Winston, especially giving him dog cookies. He got a few more than usual when she was around. "Can I feed Winston another cookie?" He also got the scary milk jug w/ pennies shook at him more than usual too. She over-used it to make sure he didn't jump on her.

Ryan got really good at scooting and he officially does commando-style crawling now (ok, took me a while to get around to finishing this post and he actually crawls as of late Oct). The only drawback was being vulnerable to Winston kisses but he didn't seem to mind. He just concentrated on the new sensation when Winston licked his ears repeatedly. Here's "Chubba Wubba's" enjoying his toys on the floor before Winston was up one morning. Cousin Leslie (Freshman at ASU) came over one night for burgers on the grill. It was great to see her!

We accompanied Winston to the dog park one evening. It was funny to watch the dogs frantically socialize with each other during their limited time together. It usually takes a while to get him back on the leash to go, but Brandon was able to sneak up behind while another dog owner was petting him. He knows what's up.

At the Zoo. Reagan looked for 10 minutes and couldn't find the lion. Can you? (click to enlarge)

Our Studio in Sedona was a great deal. Here's the view from our front step and out our front window. It opened to a courtyard with a pool, fire pit, two hot tubs, and great view. The picture through the window includes the mesa we hiked up in the morning (the shortest one ... we were holding Ryan in a baby carrier that he's way too big for).

Good Morning Ryan!

We literally walked out our front door, across the courtyard and onto this trail.

At the top of the mesa
After the hike, it was time to go for a swim.

Here's another great picture in Sedona.

Sedona Nappers: After checking out, hitting an outlet store for a bit, and heading into the town for lunch, both kids fell asleep. Neither have ever slept more than an hour at a time in the car, so we figured no problem, we'll kill a little time. They were both sleep deprived and Reagan hadn't been handling restaurants well, so the wait would be worth it, we decided. 2 and 1/2 hours later, we finally got lunch. Of course they slept that long when it didn't work with the schedule.

That night, we checked out the Flagstaff observatory. Reagan was interested in learning everything but afraid to look through any of the telescopes.

We stayed at Corey & Jer's family cabin where we had great home cooking and even made s'mores in the fireplace! It was nice and relaxing. On a walk around the neighborhood, Cam and Reagan found 16 unique kinds of wildflowers. We stopped at the Montezuma indian ruins on the way back from Flagstaff. Pretty amazing that they lived up there let alone built it!

Our last day, we went to a really fun park. Reagan loved the train ride around the park and a couple merry-go-round rides too.