Happy birthday, Reagan

Reagan turned 5 on December 11th. How is that possible??!! Anyway, we opened presents in the morning, then had a party with her friends, then had dinner with Grandma and Grandpa that night. It was great fun, but it wore her out completely!

This is how excited she was the day before her birthday.

 Her new outfit from Grandma Rusch. So cute!

 We found tiaras for everyone at the party! Because everyone needs a tiara!

Things I want to remember about Reagan turning 5:

• She LOVES her brother and is the best little sister ever. After dinner was over, she said, "Hey, Davis, do you want to play Barbies?" And of course, he did. Living with your best friend is pretty great!
• She is very creative, and loves to draw, cut, color, and tape anything. She could, and does, spend hours doing it almost every day.
• She is a great self-entertainer. We are home together most of the day, and she really entertains herself while I do my work and my mom stuff.
• She loves Barbies and princesses. Anything princess. Princess Barbies are the best.
• She is very independent (always has been) and is pretty sure that she's just as old as Davis. She is working really hard on learning how to read, and I'm sure that she will pick it up in just a few minutes.

We love our Reagan girl, girlfriend, and sweet girl!

Happy birthday, Davis

It was Davis's birthday on November 20th! He is 7 years old! How did that happen??!!

Because life is crazy, we had his birthday sandwiched in between a trip to Phoenix for Mom and Dad and a trip to Chicago as a family. Both trips were lots of fun, but that's a different post. Anyway, we had a birthday party with family on the evening of his birthday, and a birthday party with friends on Friday.

Things I want to remember about Davis when he turned 7:

• He is the NICEST kid ever. He is a great friend, and a fabulous big brother. He honestly has always been nice.
• He is such a good reader! It is amazing the words this kid can read! And he loves it!
• He loves LEGOs and superheroes. Superhero LEGOs are the very best in the entire world.
• He has a bunk bed in his room, and loves sleeping on the top bunk. It's awesome.
• Clothes and food are usually just something that need to happen in order to exist. They are not a priority at all.

We love 7 year old Davis! He is getting baptized NEXT YEAR! Wow!

Growing Kids

I took the kids to our pediatrician on Friday. Here are the stats:

Davis:

• 42.5 inches
• 39 pounds

I can't remember exactly, but he is in the 70th ish percentile for weight, and the 88th ish percentile for height! Yep! Just as expected!

Reagan:

• 24.12 pounds, 42nd percentile
• 37.25 inches, 57th percentile
• 19 inch head, 89th percentile

The doctor was asking about milestones, and asked if Reagan could make three-word sentences. I said, "Yesterday, she said to me, 'Mommy, can I have some Cheerios, please?'" So he wrote down that she is far above that!

December birthdays

We are doing this all as one post, because it's December, and life is crazy! So, here we go!
First, it was Daddy's birthday on December 8th! Yayyy! We sure do love him and he works very hard for all of us!

 We knew that he would be working late on the day of his birthday, so we had a small party the Sunday before. Here he is blowing out his candles. He's OLD!! 38!!

Here he is on his birthday opening presents, with the help of Davis and Reagan. They are great helpers, especially with present-opening!

He got some shoes, which is a BIG surprise. Davis wanted to try them on!

On the day of his birthday, I made buttermilk pie for dessert. He had been telling me about how delicious it was for many weeks, so I tried it out. And yes, it was delicious!

Reagan's birthday is December 11th!

She cracks me up, because she KNEW that it was her birthday, and told pretty much everyone at church that it was her birthday, and that she was a princess. Both of these things are true.

We got together with my parents and grandparents and the Meservy family for the celebration.

 As you can tell, she LOVES her new snow hat!

The kids enjoying cake.

MY birthday is December 16th. . . by the time we finish Reagan's birthday, I am done and would like to cancel my birthday. Especially this year, because December 16th was when my little brother decided to get married. So here's how the day went:

• We went to bed late the night before, because it was Casey and Hilary's reception, at which the kids got food ALL OVER themselves and thus needed to take baths before going to bed.
• At 4:00, I woke up to use the bathroom. At 4:30, I realized that I had left my temple recommend at home, which is not good when there is a wedding happening in 4 hours. I woke up Chris. He texted a member of our Stake Presidency, and then said that he could not go back to sleep, and went to exercise in the hotel.
• I made it into the temple with a temporary recommend. Phew!
• After the wedding, the kids came with Whitney's sister to the temple, which was fun. It was cold, but beautiful!
• On our way back to the hotel, Reagan fell asleep in the stroller. So, we waited until the last possible second to go to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for the luncheon.
• We knew that we would have a parking pass to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, but the parking lot was full. So we parked in City Creek, and then found out that even though those parking lots are connected, you can't go through them. We didn't take coats, and it started to hail. Hard. We frantically ran to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, and by the time we got there, looked like wet dogs.
• It was awful weather during the luncheon, but we were inside. Oh, and my brothers and I chose a time when the elevators were out of order to work on decorating their car. So we ran down 12 flights of stairs to get the job done.
• After the luncheon, we searched for our car for an hour. We forgot where we had put it, because we were so frantic at the time. But, we saw old friends, and old students in City Creek, so that was fun!
• We finally got to our car, changed our clothes, and started on our way. Of course, the other cars going to Idaho Falls were quite a bit ahead of us.
• We pulled over at the truck stop in Downey, Idaho, and called my parents to ask if we should keep going. My mom said, "NO!!" Roads were terrible, visibility was bad, and there were a bunch of slide-offs. So, we decided to stay the night in Downey. The motel there is run by the truck stop. We actually had a somewhat decent meal at the truck stop, and then climbed in bed, which was great.
• The next morning, roads weren't fabulous. We were glad that we weren't on them during the night and in the storm.
• But when we got back, there was a surprise waiting for me:

• Chris had collaborated with my friend to leave cheesecake and flowers for me at my house. Isn't he the best? That night, we went to dinner and Star Wars with my parents, which was fun.

•  And, two days later, I opened up a small gift from my parents. Oh, the day before, I also opened up some other presents. So, all was not lost. 

Anyway, happy birthday to us!!

Reagan 15 month stats

At 15 months, Reagan is:

• Weight: 20 pounds, 6 oz.
• Height: 30 3/4"
• Head: 19"

Everything is in the 50th percentile, except her head. We make big heads around here!
The doctor said that she needs to go to therapy so they can teach her how to walk. So we are working on teaching it. Hopefully it will happen before the therapists call!
We still think she is pretty darn cute!

Preschool!

This little champ went to preschool today. I asked him if I could take his picture, and he said yes. When I told him to smile, I got this:

He also wanted to go have his picture taken with Alvin and Damian, his two buddies. This is what I got.

Yes, Alvin has a bucket on his head. Yes, they are 3 year olds! But they are pretty cute and I am glad that Davis has good friends.
Here are some of the questions that Davis asked me about preschool:

• Will you drop me off?
• Will Curious George be there? (we read a book about Curious George's first day of school, and he REALLY wanted Curious George to be there)
• Will Thomas be there? (Because we can't go anywhere without Thomas!)
• Will they have books?

It was a raging success though! Davis loved it and had so much fun! Yay!

While Davis was gone, Reagan and I went to go see her Daddy at his school:

She is our snuggle bug!

Davis is THREE!!

We had a fabulous little party for a fabulous little boy today! He is so much fun!
The one request that he had for his birthday was cake and ice cream, so we delivered on that!
I made an elephant cake for him, which has now been through three generations.
Here is me on my third birthday with an elephant cake:

 And here is Davis's elephant cake:

 Reagan liked it too. It was a warm-up for her birthday in a couple of weeks! She knew exactly what to do with it!

 

We also had some great friends come to help us with the present opening, like Alvin:

 And Great Grandma and Grandpa:

 And Damian and his grandma:

And Grandma and Reagan (playing with the balloon that Great Grandma and Grandpa brought):

 And Damian's mommy (sorry for the blur):

In addition to cake and ice cream, we opened presents and gave hugs to all those who gave them:

And Davis got a bike!

After the party, we took naps (Well, Daddy and Reagan took a nap) and then went to the festival of trees and saw a very cool tree with a train theme that we visited like 15 times. We also saw Olaf!

And then we went to a pizzeria and got pizza. . . and olives!

All in all, it was a fantastic and well-celebrated birthday!

Things I want to remember about Davis as a 2-year-old:

• He is so sweet to everyone. He is especially sweet to his little sister, and loves her so much. in fact, when she cries, he usually yells and cries too because it makes him very sad to see his sister sad.
• He USUALLY loves to share, which is pretty unusual for someone his age. He is just a kind little boy.
• Whenever I am upset, he tries to make me feel better by saying, "Don't worry, mommy. You are big!" because being big really helps things a lot. :)
• He has a profound love for his family. He loves mommy, daddy, Reagan, Grandma, Grandpa . . . he loves everyone in his family!
• He knows his ABC's and his numbers and colors. Not because I taught him, but because he is intensely curious about it all.
• And countless other reasons--we love you Davis Christopher Rusch!