Mason's 9th Birthday

My baby, my first born, my pride and joy is now my big boy. Mason turned 9 on September 22nd and I realized that next year he is officially a decade old. For his birthday we and his friend Clay went to Houston and stayed the night at Aunt JuJu's house (she's cooler than I am now because she has a pool - Mason says so). The next morning Julie kept Reagan and Connor for Richard and I to take Mason and Clay to an Astro's game. We had a great time and I was so impressed with how well behaved and mature the boys acted. They actually watched the game and talked about what was happening but secretly, deep down inside somewhere, I longed for just one more cartoon themed party with crying kids and screaming parents (or vice-versa as is usually the case). I've caught myself hugging just a little bit longer or snuggling just a little bit more because for the first time in his life, I'm not sure how much longer it will be cool to hug or snuggle with mom. I want my baby to grow up and become a strong, independent man, but do I really have to grow up with him?

Back to School 2009

All three of our children went back to school today. Reagan is in the big kid's room at daycare, Mason moved to the intermediate campus for third grade, and Connor is going to kindergarten. I remember when I used to say, "I will never be that woman," and now I am so thrilled to be that woman, although I prefer the title "Mom". You know the woman I am talking about - three kids, an SUV, soccer practices, parent conferences, and a camera in hand at all times in case something important happens. This morning I actually broke my personal record for "Mooommmm's". When I asked Mason and Connor to pose for a picture before leaving with the shiny new backpacks, lunch kits, and uniforms, I got two. When I asked Connor to pose on the sidewalk outside school, outside the door to his classroom, and with his teacher, Mrs. Zeleskey (who thankfully goes by Mrs. Z - Connor is still in speech therapy after all), I got two more. The final two came from Reagan who doesn't know what it means yet, but likes the way it sounds when her Bubbas say it and mimicks everything she likes. I even got an "Eemmilyyy" from Richard who exasperated by 7:20 but I thinking secretly enjoying every minute too. The kids aren't the only ones starting new schools today, I started at the Middle School today and loved it. After eight years of high school and high schoolers, the youthfulness and innocence of middle schoolers is refreshing. All in all, the first day was a success at the Meisel house. Hope everyone else had a great first day of school too.

Vacation 2009

For our family vacation this summer, we travelled to Tennessee to meet Granddad and Grandmom (Richard's dad and stepmom from Baltimore) for a week. On the way to meet them, we drove through Shreveport and had lunch and enjoyed the Boardwalk. For something that is so close to home, I don't think we utilize the Shreveport Boardwalk enough. The kids had a great time window shopping and mom and dad got to eat at our favorite restaurant (Hooter's), yes, we take our kids there - we are those parents.




After Shreveport, we headed to Memphis and took the kids to pay homage to the king. Of course we stayed in the hotel with the guitar shaped pool. We spent the next day at Graceland and the evening on Bealle Street. I wish I had a video of Connor dancing to the music of the street musicians. I swear he fit in perfectly.




The next day we traveled the rest of the way to meet Dave and Pat. We stayed in a cabin on Center Hill Lake which is absolutely beautiful. It is about an hour outside Nashville so we spent one whole day in Nashville enjoying Opryland and attending a concert at the Grand Ole Opry. In my opinion, The Grand Ole Opry is one of the best tourist attractions we have ever visited. The prices are excellent and the atmosphere and performances can't be beat. We spent two hours just walking around the lobby of the Opryland Hotel which is a tourist attraction all by itself. The actual entertainers at the Opry were phenomenal. I am telling you right now, if you ever get a chance to see Little Jimmy Dickens in person, take it. It is an experience I don't think any of us will forget anytime soon.

For the rest of the week, we hung out at the lake and around the cabin just enjoying seeing Dave and Pat who we don't see or visit with nearly enough. We did take one very interesting side trip to the Cumberland Gap Caverns - yes, you heard that right. I, Emily Meisel, the claustrophobia queen, went to caverns. And, yes, caverns are those caves that are dark and underground. It was the one thing in the area that Richard wanted to do, so I gave it a shot, and it was a disaster. We arrive at the caverns and put on the warm clothes we stopped and got at Wal-Mart because it is a lot colder underground. Then we strapped Reagan onto Richard's chest for the 2.5 mile hike through underground caves. When we got into the caves, I was doing okay. The actual rooms in the caves were large and open and lit up fairly well, so I thought I was going to be okay but then one of the other tourist (an idiot in my humble opinion) asked how far we were underground and the tour guide said 225 feet. Yes, we had literally 225 feet of dirt above our heads. I took a few deep breathes, said some silent prayers, and kept going. About that time, Reagan started screaming every time the tour guide started explaining a stalactite or stalagmite or water pool. Once again, I took a few deep breathes, said a few prayers, and kept going. We then get to the bridge made of natural rock stairs that requires climbing 150 stairs to the top, descending 150 more stairs to a dark room on the other side, and the stairs are the only way in or out. I made it to the middle of the first stair case and started yelling for the tour guide to get me out. YES I did, and I am not embarrassed to admit it. It was only the second time in her 8 years of leading tour guides that she had to turn around and lead a tourist to the waiting area of this part of the tour and the other person had been an elderly lady who couldn't do the stairs. Thankfully, Pat's fear of heights had kicked in just as much and she stayed with me. It was an experience I will never forget - or repeat. Richard was a trooper and finished the entire tour with a screaming toddler strapped to his chest. Bet he will think twice before he asks me to visit caves with him again.

What we enjoyed most was spending time with each other and getting so much quality time with Granddad and Grandmom. Some of the best memories Richard and I both have of our childhoods are times spent with our grandparents and we want to make sure that our children have those same types of relationships. We are lucky that our kids live relatively close to most of their grandparents and that we have the resources to allow them to visit with those who don't live so close.

Reagan's Birthday Party

I can not believe that Reagan is really one. The time has flown and I am beyond amazed at her and all the things she can do. She now blows kisses when she hears the word "kiss" and playing hide and go seek is her favorite game. She thinks its hilarious that she is the only one who can hide under the table so easily. She is crawling and pulling up all over the place and it is only a matter of time before she begins walking. Actually a better word for her "crawl" is scoot, because that is what she does. She scoots with one hand on the floor. The leg that she scoots on has a callous that we have to lotion up everytime she gets out of the bath. She is already scooting into Connor's room and a few minutes after the does, we hear "REAGANNNNN, Mom, Richard, Reagan is messing with my stuff!!!" I think it is hilarious because he sounds just like Mason did when Connor got into his things. We had a first birthday party this last weekend and a great time was had by all. The invitations said, "Daddy grillin' fajitas, and Mamas chillin' margaritas," which is exactly what we did. She got so many great presents. In fact, mom is getting a little jealous of her great wardrobe. Everyday that we watch her grow and change we feel more and more blessed. Here are just a few of our favorite pictures from her party... Hope everyone is well and can't wait to see you all again!

Easter

We had a great Easter this year! For the first time in a long time we didn't do Easter at our house, instead we went visiting. We spent most of the day on Saturday at my sister, Julie's, house. We decorated eggs, had an egg hunt and really just enjoyed spending time together. Then we went to College Station to spend Sunday with Richard's side of the family. We went to church with Sue, Andy, and Brian and Rachel, Jay, and Katie who drove in for the day. Grammy loved having all of her babies at church with her. We did the egg hunt at the church and then had a great lunch. We finished up by taking family pictures which turned out great. We enjoyed every minute of it and loved spending time with all of our family. We feel truly blessed that our children have the opportunity to grow up with their cousins so close surrounded by so much family. Hope everyone had a great Easter!

Reagan's Turning One

It's impossible to believe that our little girl turned one today. Seriously!?! Has it really been that long. We have gone from sleepless nights to sleeping through the night (and back again but Daddy's working on that one). She scoots around on her little bottom and is pulling up on things left and right. If you leave her in the floor too long, she scoots into one of her brother's rooms to bother them. We are loving every minute and can't wait to see what she is going to do next. If we aren't careful, we will turn around and she will be going to prom...wait, there's no way her Daddy's letting that happen...let me try that again...if we aren't careful, we will turn around and she will be playing in her first varsity soccer game...hmmm, that's better! You all know that having a little girl has seriously turned me into a mamarazzi, so there are hundreds of pictures of her first year, and there will be many more. We are having her party in a few weeks and I will share pics then!

Basketball, Standing Up, and Juicy Stuff

It's been awhile since I updated on the kiddos and our family, so I will give it a shot, but the truth is so much has happened or is happening that I am guaranteed to miss something. The boys are playing basketball. In fact they have been playing for six weeks now. We have one game left and then we will start soccer and baseball (Mason is doing both and Connor is doing t-ball). Basketball is a new experience for us. Personally, I am not sure how smart or safe it is to put that many young children in a confined area with parents, add in a bunch of balls, and not expect the parents (not the children) to hurt someone. Mason has taken to the sport really well. He makes at least one basket each game with his personal high being 12 points in one game. Connor, bless his heart, begs to get out of the game each time the coach puts him in; however, it was worth the $75 we paid for him to play because the pictures are adorable.

Reagan, who recently started clapping and snapping, loves to watch her boys play basketball. Okay, maybe that is an exaggeration; she loves to watch the little cheerleaders who cheer at the basketball games. I love to torment Richard, who fully expects his daughter to be a soccer player, with the image of his daughter in a short skirt shaking her pom-pom (wink;, wink;). The clapping and snapping are just the tip of the iceberg of what she is doing. I feel like everytime we turn around she is doing something new. We are still not crawling - I think she feels getting her knees dirty is beneath her, but she is standing up while holding onto something. Also, the most amazing thing happened tonight. Tommy and April came over for dinner and as they were leaving we were all saying bye-bye to get Cheyanne to wave at us (so cute). All of a sudden it became really quiet and Reagan said, "Bye-bye." Not by, by, by, by, by, like she has been doing for a while and not the other babbling sounds she has been saying all the time (the child talks more than her mother and brothers put together), but "Bye-bye". I don't know what was funnier, the huge deal we all made at the same time or the look on her face. The look seemed to ask, "Are you seriously acting like that over bye-bye, what are you going to do when I say superfilious?" (My child will have words like that in her vocabulary).

Now to get to the juicy stuff - Mason has a girlfriend! Or, as I should probably say, Mason had a girlfriend. Got her the day before Valentine's Day and broke up with her the next Monday. It was the cutest thing ever. He wanted to buy her a present, so he asked Richard to take him to the store. He deliberated for thirty minutes and his side of the conversation sounded something like this, "It has to be something small so I can give it to her and she can hide it in her backpack, I don't know how to give it to her without everyone seeing it, I don't think she would like a stuffed animal, this is hard...". I think you get the idea. The hilarious part is the next morning he decided not to give it to her because he just couldn't figure out how to without someone else seeing it. He said he didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but I think secretly he was embarassed - which is fine with me, his mom, who plans to be his only valentine for a few years to come. One thing I am proud of is the comment he made when he told me about her. He said that one reason she was his girlfriend was we went to church with her and he thought she was a good Christian and he didn't want to date a girl who didn't believe in God. I know he is extremely young, but I love the direction he seems to be heading in right now. I was worried when he was baptized in October that he was too young to really understand the decision he had made, but he seems to be taking steps everyday toward a stronger relationship with God. All in all, we are still maveling at and thanking God for our wonderful children and great lives.

Connor's Haircut

Last Thursday evening I decided I was tired of looking at Connor's hair sticking up all over his head (it truly looked as if he had stuck his finger in a light socket), so I got out the clippers and trimmed his hair. The entire time I was cutting his hair, he begged me to cut it all off like daddy's. (He has gotten really good at knowing when is just the right time to call Richard daddy to insure he gets what he wants.) Actually what he said was, "I need to be baud so I wook more wike daddy (thus the need for speech therapy)." I refused - we finished the hair cut - and I thought that was the end of it. The next day after we got home from school, he told me there were still some long hairs and we needed to go back over it - I fell for it and out came the clippers. I put the five guard on and start trimming the few long hairs which were really there. About that time, Mason comes into the bathroom and starts bothering me about wanting to play the Wii - I turn around to tell him to give me a minute to finish the haircut and - you guessed it - that's when Connor chose to make his move. He grabbed the clippers, knocked the guard off, and ran the clippers all the way across the top of his head. I screamed, he looked scared but pleased with himself, and Mason started laughing - which got Reagan who was observing from the bathroom floor to laughing also. I laughed, then cried, then laughed some more. I guess it justs goes to show that when he wants to "look kool wike daddy" - no one is going to stop him. By the way, the clippers are now on a high shelf in the linen closet because there is not a doubt in my mind that he now considers himself a licensed barber and wouldn't think twice about doing it again - he might even think about practicing on Reagan and the little hair she has managed to accumulate.

P.S. - Did I mention he had basketball pictures, Little Panther Pictures, his class picture, and his spring pictures all in the next two weeks? I am choosing to look at it as an opportunity to make wonderful memories for the future - rather than think about all his beautiful hair on the bathroom floor.

Once again - never a dull moment around the Meisel house.

Connor's Birthday

For Connor's birthday, I cooked his favorite dinner, spaghetti, and my mom and dad, Julie and Andrew, Tommy, April and Cheyanne all came over. The best part was the cake. Connor made it himself (with a little help from me). The decorations were all him. I think he had a great time. We are holding off on presents - Christmas was only two weeks ago. I am seriously thinking about giving him half birthday parties. It is so hard to think of party ideas for January only two weeks after Christmas.