A 9th Birthday
Reagan turned 9 yesterday, so I meant to do a post about her then, but we were too busy enjoying the day together. It’s fitting anyway because I swear that for the first year of her life I had trouble remembering whether she was born on the 20th or 21st because she was born so close to midnight. So I’ll finish the celebration with a post on the 21st this year!
I won’t go through her life from birth to now with some of my favorite pictures since I already did that last year (but feel free to go look at that post if you want – she sure had a lot of cute moments). But I will tell you about what this sweet girl wanted for her 9th birthday.
We’ve enjoyed (suffered through) a lot of fun and fancy birthday parties in the past. The Children’s Museum. Our local bounce house. Chuck E Cheese. Great Wolf Lodge (fun!). Funigan’s. But this year Reagan said she just wanted to spend the day with her family. She invited her best friend for a Saturday night sleepover so she’d be here the morning of her birthday, but she didn’t really have much she wanted to do. And she didn’t want a lot of gifts. She’s sweet like that.
So our day went like this. Her brother slept in so the sleepover wouldn’t have to end at 5:00 in the morning when he normally wakes everyone up. That was nice, wasn’t it? Reagan and her friend woke up and requested Reagan’s birthday breakfast – yogurt and fresh fruit.
Once we dragged her slightly surly big sister downstairs, Reagan opened her presents. She truly didn’t ask for much, so we were able to give her what she wanted:
An alarm clock, an owl lunchbox, and new owl earrings. Jenny’s a little annoyed Reagan’s going to have an alarm clock that she probably won’t hear that will just annoy Jenny, but Reagan’s excited!
Doesn’t she look happy?
After healthy breakfast and presents, we worked on birthday cake for an unhealthy second breakfast.
There’s not much tastier than Funfetti cake with buttercream frosting and sprinkles. Especially because it’s easy. Brinkley loved it too. Maybe a little too much.
After presents and cake, we spent the rest of the day relaxing and having fun and eating the meals of Reagan’s choice – McDonald’s for lunch and Mexican for dinner. We spent a lot of time playing Just Dance 4, even more fun after Aunt Charlotte arrived. We played a new board game. And Reagan played the keyboard her grandparents sent to entertain us for a bit in the evening.
Look how happy she was when she opened the keyboard on Friday:
She really got a kick out of playing the keyboard on the sound effects mode. And I was excited about the hilarious expressions I captured while she was playing, making us laugh so hard. I wish I’d recorded it, but we’ll save that for another day.
I’m so excited to hear the music (or something resembling music) she creates with her keyboard.
A 2 Year Old Boy
It’s so hard for me to believe that my sweet baby boy is two years old today! But he is. I won’t repeat the birth story, but you can go read it here if you’re in the mood. And I will share a few pictures showing how much he’s grown and changed over the last two years.
One week old:
One year old (still pretty bald):
Around 18 months with all of his curls:
And a couple weeks ago at almost 2 with his cute haircut:
He’s growing up – literally! He was a little over 34 pounds and over three feet (by one inch) at his 2 year checkup this morning. I swear my girls weren’t this big at his age.
He’s still such a sweet boy. He still doesn’t talk, so he can be my baby a little bit longer. He walks and runs and jumps and climbs everywhere. And he gives the best hugs. I can’t wait to continue to watch him grow and develop his own personality. And I’d bet this is the last year we won’t have to truly separate his birthday celebration from Christmas!
A Happy Birthday Message
I’m sharing a happy birthday message to my dad on here this evening, because it’s his birthday, and we’re still not sophisticated enough to do things like video chat. So I thought it would be fun to post a video here so that he could see his three grandchildren and their heartfelt happy birthday.
We chose to record this video on the family room mattress because Brinkley spends much of his time jumping on it. So it’s a jumping on the bed rendition of Happy Birthday.
Happy birthday, Dad!
Monday Listicles: An 11-Year-Old’s Birthday
I promise I’ll move on from discussing the fun of Jenny’s birthday week after this post. This week’s Monday Listicles topic is birthdays, so I thought I’d wrap up all the birthday talk with a list of 10 details about Jenny’s actual birthday party on Saturday.
1. We went to our local Embassy Suites to celebrate Jenny’s birthday. I saw this idea for a girl birthday party a couple years ago, and this seemed like the perfect year to try it. It was actually cheaper than some of the bigger parties we’ve done at our local bounce house or Chuck E. Cheese – and perfect for this kind of in-between age (but I kind of hate the word tween).
2. We brought three friends, so it was me and 3 11-year-old girls. I chose the Embassy Suites because it would allow them to be in a separate room from me within the suite. So I had my own space! (Where I used my Kindle Fire to watch as many episodes of Grey’s Anatomy as I could manage in between reminding the girls they needed to be quiet.)
3. The girls were very happy to be able to enjoy the pool and the hot tub, twice, while we were there.
4. After fun pool time, they decided to get all fixed up to head out to dinner. They really had fun putting on dresses and doing their hair and nails (and a teeny bit of makeup). But don’t they look older than 11 walking to dinner?
5. We had a little trouble with our dinner plans. We were planning to walk across the street to Mellow Mushroom, but by the time they finished getting ready, it was 7:00 and Mellow Mushroom was very crowded. We walked around a bit to decide if there was a better option, but ended up heading back there since it was what Jenny really wanted. Fortunately, they are all equipped with electronic devices to help them get through a wait.
6. We ended up bringing the pizza back to the room because we got rained on since we were seated outside, but that was fine with them because they were ready for the next part of their evening. Birthday cake! Jenny had picked out a cookie cake at the store and we brought it with us.
7. Next: eating junk food (we were smart and packed food and drinks) and watching a movie on demand. And Jenny was very happy to see Hunger Games was available. It went perfectly with her new Hunger Games pajamas.
8. Next was the part where they were never going to go to sleep. I felt like I wasn’t too mean about it, but at 4:00 I told them they had to go to sleep or we wouldn’t be going back to the pool in the morning. That did the trick and they finally settled down.
9. We enjoyed the hotel’s awesome breakfast buffet the next morning before one more quick pool visit.
10. We completed one more search of the room to make sure no one forgot anything, and then we headed out to drop the other girls off and come home. It was a successful birthday party – Jenny enjoyed it, and she’d love to have one like this again.
Linking up (late again) for Monday Listicles.
Magazine Day: Featuring Jenny
I told Jenny she could help me with a long overdue Magazine Day post this week, in celebration of her upcoming 11th birthday (it’s Wednesday; feel free to send gifts, please). Jenny enjoys our magazines possibly even more than I do, so she’s certainly qualified to share her opinions, too.
Dumb people. I don’t like them. Don’t care about them. From what I read, I think she should have escaped a long time ago and shouldn’t have gotten involved with him at all. It seems like she was planning this for a long time, so why did she get involved with him in the first place.
That is a terrible dress. I like Jennifer Lawrence, so she wore it best. That is the truth. 64% of the population are bogus because they voted for Kim Kardashian.
I like Adam Levine. He should not have a beard. It is weird and unnatural because it is a fake beard which makes it even more unnatural and weird. My thoughts exactly are done.
Out of all the characters in Buffy, you would not have ever thought Willow and Wesley would be together because Willow is gay and Wesley had a crush on Cordelia, and then he liked Fred, and then he died. But they have cute children. That’s my opinion.
I think her hair is actually gray and that she wants to hide it so bad that she dies it so many colors that it ends up so thin, messed up, and ugly. Also, when you’re in a bathing suit, why would you apply makeup? It’s just going to wash straight off.
First of all, what’s weird is my friend was going to get a pig and name it Penelope Porkers so I think it’s a weird name now. Also, why would they put so many toys in the nursery cause it’s just going to distract the baby and keep it from sleeping?
I don’t actually like him. I think that he is a little full of himself for thinking he can just go as fast as he wants just because he’s famous. And I think that is a bad character trait to have. And I think he’s lucky to have Selena Gomez, even though she’s about to be in a movie that is inappropriate and is going to be bad for her publicity with all the kids who know her from Wizards of Waverly Place. They’re going to want to see Spring Breakers because it has Selena Gomez in it, and it’s rated R.
First of all, she’s just wearing a bra with that. That’s all. But I thought it was a crop top. That’s a really ugly outfit, and it’s inappropriate, and I read this article that said she’s more famous than Liam Hemsworth, and right now considering that she’s doing absolutely anything, except a movie apparently called LOL with Demi Moore, so I think he’s about to be way more famous than her or he already is, so I think he should be the one holding the ring because he’s the one that gave it to her.
In honor of my daddy, I have to say Kristen Stewart Face. Also, if they think Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson are going to steal the best kiss award, they are wrong. Josh Hutcherson and Jennifer Lawrence are going to beat their butts because Josh Hutcherson rocks and Jennifer Lawrence is okay because she’s with Josh Hutcherson in the movie. In conclusion, Hunger Games is going to win. Twilight is going to lose.
I saw this movie today! It is very good, but it can make you cry. And that costume is at the beginning of the tour, and she’s holding the microphone and has to fake smile because she’s about to cry because of problems with Russell Brand. Also, the music was really good and I heard some songs that I didn’t know happened because she was signed to her second label that she didn’t stay with the year I was born, so obviously I missed out on a couple songs. There was one called The Box. It’s good, but it doesn’t make sense. There was one called Peacock that is inappropriate, but it’s catchy. Overall it was a very good movie, and you should see it. But the surprising thing was it’s called “Katy Perry: Part of Me” but it doesn’t play that song at all. It plays the tune without her saying anything.
She’s not wearing any pants. It’s inappropriate and it’s the worst outfit ever!
The person in the corner looks like a cat person with a cape, and Katy Perry looks very happy there, so I think that’s recently because I think she’s gotten over Russell Brand. Also, I don’t really like the whole outfit. It’s a little inappropriate. But personally the bottom one is too sparkly and there’s too much of it on her if you’re gonna have to do something like that. But the top one I think is a good example if you have to do something like that.
Stay tuned for a post about Jenny’s fashion and gift ideas tomorrow as we celebrate her birthday week!
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