Friday, April 24, 2009

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!








Monday, April 13, 2009

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!

Monday, April 6, 2009

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!

Sunday, February 22, 2009

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.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

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.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

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.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Happy Holidays

Richard and I have a tradition of staying up late on Christmas Eve. We hang out in the kitchen, have a couple of drinks, make some cookies and Christmas treats and just enjoy each others company. We usually have spent so much of the past three or four weeks running with the kids, adjusting to his after school soccer practice, buying Christmas presents, and other asundry chores that we really enjoy the time to catch up with each other and feel like two people reconnecting after a long time apart (sort of odd since we sleep in the same bed each night, right?). Tonight was no exception - we read Christmas Eve stories with the kids (we are very excited - Mason read most of "The Night Before Christmas" by himself tonight), put the kids in their new Christmas pajamas, popped open a few beers and started making our chocolate balls.

In the middle of washing dishes, laughing with Richard about whatever it was he was telling me, and watching him patiently rolling coconut balls in melted chocolate, I glanced out the kitchen window and saw cars driving by (our neighborhood is "the lighted one" in town.) I realized some of the people in those cars were looking through our kitchen window and witnessing a "Norman Rockwall" moment in the making. What was even more astonishing to me was the realization that, for the most part, they were right. We are two people very much in love with each other and with the idea of spending the next fifty years drinking a few beers and making some candy on Christmas Eve - with each other. We have three of the most beautiful children (in our humble opinions) sleeping soundly in their beds waiting for the moment they can jump out of their beds and see what Santa has brought - which of course will be exactly what they wanted. We just left a loud Christmas get together at my mom's house which follows a great weekend with Richard's family. Friends and family are coming over tomorrow to play and hang out. We are truly blessed - and grateful!! Merry Christmas from the Meisels!!