Snowy Tennessee!

It has been a strange few weeks this February in Tennessee!  The local schools, including mine, have called off school for snow/ice days, six total so far I think.  I know a lot of people around here are already getting cabin fever, but I'm not complaining!  It's been fun to hang out more with Reagan and Hank at home, and David for once, on his two days off during the week, Tuesday and Wednesday, since normally we don't share a day off from work together, as he works the weekends.  We were off all of last week, extending our school "February Break" and then we returned to school this past Monday, but got off school today and now tomorrow, too.

Reagan seems like she has already grown a lot just in these last two weeks when I've been home with her.  She's sitting up by herself, ALMOST standing up by herself, but not yet crawling.  And her hair is growing like CRAZY!!!  I'm so tempted to trim her bangs because the hair is reaching down to her eyebrows.  The day care teachers always remark how long it is, too!  Instead of cutting her hair just yet, David styles it with water in the morning so that it parts to one side, and the day care teacher told me this morning how much she liked Reagan's new do.  I can't wait to put her hair in pigtails!

 She'll roll from one side (back to belly, moving first onto her left shoulder when she rolls to her belly), but she doesn't move from that position and gets sick of "tummy time" pretty quickly after that.

 I have a feeling that she's one of those babies that will skip crawling completely and go straight to walking instead.

 I LOVE the picture of the face that Reagan makes below.  It's the expression that she always makes immediately after she finishes a bottle of milk and then falls asleep.  She's so peaceful!

 Below, I dressed Reagan up ready to go to our high school's girls' basketball game, and Hank was entertaining Reagan before we left by grabbing one of his stuffed animal toys and shaking it furiously, as he often does in our apartment.  Reagan could not stop giggling!  Baby laughs are the best.

 Today, we ventured out to take Hank on a walk in the snow that keeps building up here in Tennessee and just doesn't seem to melt away.

 Reagan wore her new 9-month fox onesie that I picked up on my Costco trip today and her favorite winter hat, which we really didn't think she would make as much use of her as she has this past winter in Tennessee!

 Reagan seemed to like the fresh air and snow!  And, lately, Reagan has been absolutely FASCINATED with Hank.  She watches his every move.  I think she and Hank will become very good friends, especially when she learns to grab her food and throw it on the floor!

 Below, I took a picture of some snowmen (with cat ears???) that some residents of our apartment built in the middle of the apartment residence.  We do have a lot of snow for a winter in Tennessee, the most that I've seen in my five years here in Knoxville.  Everyone keeps referring to the "Blizzard of '93" that happened here in Knoxville, and while it sounds like we're having a rough winter storm in February here, it sounds like it's not as bad as that infamous blizzard that people have been telling me about since I moved here in 2010.

ICED for the week!

I was shocked because I thought that the weather was getting a little better down here in Tennessee by this afternoon (Thursday), but I got the fourth phone call of the week from school to say that we would be out again on Friday due to the harsh weather conditions.  I'm not going to lie... it's been really nice to catch up on my sleep, working on taxes, actually getting caught up on laundry and, frankly, getting caught up on everything else in life!  It was especially sweet to spend some quality time with Reagan at home this week.  It almost makes me want to be a stay-at-home mom so I don't miss all this QT with her, but David is right when he says that I would probably go crazy, knowing my personality of being a workaholic and not being able to continue my teaching career.  All in all, it's been a nice break in the middle of February.

 David brought Reagan to Fairways & Greens today to visit friends.  She sported her sunglasses and looked sassy doing it!  

 Just look at all that attitude on that baby face!

 Reagan is definitely teething, and she's been showing it lately as she has been chewing on my and David's fingers a lot!

 We don't see any teeth yet, but her gums are definitely hard, so I'm sure that we'll see some teeth come through soon!  

I decided to try the green beans again with Reagan (with EXTRA rice cereal mixed in, of course, to get rid of some of the yucky green bean flavor) because we had been feeding to her the squash the past week and even I was getting sick of the squash smell.  

However, I think Reagan remember the infamous mushed green beans from a few weeks ago when we first started feeding solids to her, and her look of confusion and consequential frown appeared immediately on her face after taking the first bite of the green beans (with lots of rice cereal mixed in).

 Well, she ate some of it... I bought about six more mini containers of these mushed green beans that are sitting in our kitchen cabinets, so I thought we'd start Round 2 of green beans before moving onto the fruits.

 Several people have told us to "start with veggies before fruits" because it's more difficult for babies to eat the veggies later on if they get hooked on the sweeter, sugary flavor of the fruits right away.

 Ooops, we already have given her a few bites of the Bomb Pops that David shares with Reagan, so she might already have the sugar rush from popsicles before even having had fruit yet!

Well, Reagan had fun making a mess of the green beans anyway!  Oh the adventures of staying home with a baby and not getting much else of anything done around the apartment... but she's the most important on the To Do list anyway!!!  :)

Ice Day #2

So, we had another "ice day" or "snow day" or whatever you want to call it down here in Knoxville, Tennessee.  The roads that I take to school really do get bad when we have this weather, same that we had last winter, and I only live five miles away from school!  I didn't really think we were going to get such a bad effect from these nasty winter storms, but we're definitely in the middle of it!  You know it's not good when Tennessee is the focus of attention on the Weather Channel all morning when talking about the winter storms!

 So, since Day Care has been closed all week, too, I've been at home entertaining Reagan, while sneaking in my own food, using the bathroom, taking a shower, finishing grading, REVISING my lesson planning constantly and taking Hank out to walk and feeding him, all in the always unpredictable nap time that Reagan takes throughout the day. Don't get me wrong... it's been wonderful spending time with her and David on his two days off this week, but I sure hope we get reimbursed for the $217 check that I wrote for her day care on Sunday night before we knew all of this was going to happen!

 Part of my SECRET PLAN is to entertain Reagan and wear her out a little bit by constantly changing her outfits and doing photo shoots so that she'll take her routine naps!  Therefore, we've been using some new outfits lately!

David and Uncle Tyler even took Regs to Fairways & Greens yesterday to give me a few hours break to, again, shower, eat, use the bathroom, grade, lesson plan and take care of Hank.  They gave Reagan her first putting lesson!  Except, that Reagan used her hands to throw the ball into the hole instead of the putter.

Today was officially "Ice Day #2" and who knows what the schedule is for the rest of this week.

Judging her expression in the picture below, Reagan looks like she's missing her day care friends!

Or, maybe not so much!  She's probably not going to miss all of these outfit changes and photo shoots by Mommy from this week at home!  It wears her out!  (But, again, that's part of my secret plan... ;)

Tennessee was very much talked about on the Weather Channel the past few days....

See?!?!  Nap time already after all that changing into cute outfits and taking pictures!  Now I can take Hank out in the snow because I don't know if we'll make it out safely later today!

The snow plow came two nights ago, but I think we're going to need it again tonight!

Hank and I admire the snow coming down fast and take a #selfie together.

Princess Reagan sleeps peacefully while the winter wonderland forms outside in Tennessee.  Just wait until the extreme summer heat comes, and then she'll be confused about what kind of weather is considered "normal" for Tennessee!

I got this text message early this afternoon... not looking good.  Or, is it, if we want to spend more time home with Regs?!   We've already got enough groceries to keep us well-fed for the next week.  I even stopped at the Kroger grocery story with Reagan on the way home from Day Care when they told us it was cancelled, and NO ONE was in the store... easy shopping!

Ice Day in Knoxville

Yesterday was supposed to be the last day of my long weekend February Break, but, as we were all anticipating, the Octavia and Neptune winter storms passed through, and Knoxville was covered in several inches of snow and ice this morning.  So, we teachers and staff have an extra day off from school, because today was scheduled as our in-service day... to catch up on grading, paying bills, cleaning our apartments/homes, but MOST IMPORTANT of all, snuggle with our own babies before taking care of our high school kiddos Wednesday.  The students had today off anyway, and it looks like we'll be set to start school tomorrow if the weather forecast stays the same.  It'll still be icy and very cold (10-15 degrees F, which is COLD for down here in mid-February), but the snow plows will have time to clean up the roads without any extra precipitation tonight, even if the temperature does not rise much today to melt the ice.  I know that the amount of snow and ice and cold is nothing compared to what Boston got, or even back at "home" in Wisconsin and Indiana, but Tennessee just doesn't put as much money into the plows and salt to prepare for a storm like this because it's so unusual!

The parking lots of our apartment complex were still full of cars at 8:00 AM when I took Hank outside for a walk.  Just about all schools were called off, including the University of Tennessee, and it looked nearly impossible for even other non-academic people to drive out of our apartment complex to get to work.  David and I heard the snowplow driving around late last night outside of our apartment at 10:00.  It was the first time that we had seen a plow here in five years, so this was obviously a really bad ice storm.  Even with what the plow cleaned up last night, it still looks icy and difficult to drive on the hilly driveway to leave our apartment tomorrow for work!

David was off of work today at the golf course anyway today.  Sunday, he got sent home early because a pipe burst open at the golf course, and when he went to check it out after getting a call from the head greenskeeper, he quickly discovered that the bursting pipe was spewing out sewage water... yuck!  He came home that afternoon to immediately shower and change clothes before beginning our hibernation with the girls and Hank from this nasty weather.  So, we've been cuddling up in our cozy apartment for the last few days.  Naturally, Reagan asked me if we could take some #snowdayselfie photos as long as she was awake and playing this morning, before I finish checking off things on my To Do list to get ready for school tomorrow!