Real

A long time ago before David and I were even engaged he went to Dallas for a weekend trip to visit some of his buddies. He called a few times while he was away as most people do when they are away from someone they love.

When he came home he told me that none of his experiences felt "real" to him until he told me about them. It was such a nice thing to say, and I think about it often.

David was in Europe for his job for more than a week. While he was away:

• I painted the living room
• Reagan and I decorated for Christmas
• Reagan had a wonderful week at school
• I went out with some of our good friends
• Reagan and I put up lights in the front yard
• We had a relatively normal week
  

But NONE of this was "real" until today when he came home.

I am now finally enjoying the new paint and the holiday decorations. I am finally in the Christmas spirit. I am finally completely proud of Reagan's excellent week at school.

And while he wasn't with us when we had a friends-night-out (and I really did miss him that night), I am able to share with him some of the great laughs that we had.

While he was gone Reagan and I were in the normal routine of a school week. And because David works really hard, and even stays up late working WAY after I've gone to bed, the evenings were even 'normal'. I admit thinking, "This isn't really that much different as to when David is at home."

Whoa. Was I wrong!!!

Nothing was the same. I didn't have him to share in the daily experiences, not to mention the out of the ordinary ones, and it just didn't feel complete.

But tonight is complete. The house feels homey again. Our family is complete.

Happy 6th Birthday

Somehow I blinked, and this:

became this:

Sports lover
October 2009

Handsome
December 2009

Best friend
December 2009

Always silly (and a swimmer)

January 2010

Snowball thrower
February 2010

Lego lover and creator
July 2010

Missing two teeth

August 2010

Kindergartner (with Mrs. Thibodaux)
August 2010

Circus fan
August 2010

Soccer player
October 2010

Phineas and Ferb Birthday Party

On Sunday we celebrated Reagan's 6th birthday at our gym, Lifetime Fitness. Reagan loves the show Wipeout, so we had wipeout type gym games planned for he and his friends to participate in. The kids were put into three teams, and they "competed" in running, Redlight/Greenlight, Dodge Ball, scooter board hockey, and an obstacle course. It was a perfect party for a bunch of active kindergartners!

Putting on their team jerseys.

Dodge ball--the blue team was on the side of the gym trying to tag another team running down the middle of the gym. The third team was on the opposite side of the gym also trying to tag the runners. So much fun!

He tagged someone and got them out!!

All the parents ran down the middle of the gym while all three teams of kids threw balls at them! That was the best part of the game!

Scooter board hockey!

After the activities there was of course pizza and cake!

PIZZA!

Reagan has been watching the show Phineas and Ferb for the past year, so he wanted a Phineas and Ferb cake. The problem is that the decorations were all sold out until October 6, and we needed them for October 3rd. I found the paper products on ebay, and I ordered the cake toppers (which are really toys) from amazon.com. I love technology! I took the toys to Lone Star Bakery (Round Rock donuts), and said, "Please put these on the cake. You can be as creative as you'd like to be." I think they did a fabulous job!

Singing "Happy Birthday"

May all his wishes come true.

Kitchen Remodel, Part 1

While Reagan is in school, I am working on updating our home. We started with the kitchen. Our kitchen had the builder cabs in a very, very light stain, and I painted the walls many years ago in a sage green. It was nice, but we needed to freshen up the space.

before

After reading a friend's blog and seeing her beautiful white cabinets that she painted herself, I decided that I could do that too! So, I did. Which led to us adding hardware to our naked doors and drawers. We bought our hardware from Ikea, and it has completely changed the look of the kitchen! I can not believe we didn't do this years ago.



Painting the cabinets inspired me to change our kitchen wall color. I was leaning towards a slate blue or a chocolate brown, but decided blue would be fun and different. I slapped up some color choices and we picked one.

On a side note--in the following picture you'll notice that I have already taped off the walls to protect the trim and the cabinets that I had worked so hard on. While taping off the kitchen there were some places on the ceiling that I couldn't tape so well, so I decided to just go slowly on those edges with a small angled brush. Hours of watching HGTV told me to do that. Let me tell you--the places where I did not tape look so much better than the areas where I did tape. I'm going to have to go back and do several touch ups in the upcoming days.

Which one did we choose??

Oh, that picture above is so deceiving. I will say that we picked the third color--the one right above the super dark navy. We made a very bold color choice. And we are pleased with it. It will take some time getting used to it, and I'm going to have to keep telling myself "It doesn't matter what other people think..."

Because the color doesn't read the same on the computer as it does in real life, just think "Dallas Cowboys". Our kitchen is the ultimate fan kitchen. All we need are stainless steel appliances to match the Cowboys silver pants, and we're all set!

The next things needing to be done is our kitchen floor--the tile has been purchased and has been sitting in our garage for 7 years. Not an exaggeration. It has become sort of a family joke that I've been living with concrete for the past year.

We will also be installing new counter tops in the near future. As well as new lighting and painting our ceiling white.

The next project is painting the other walls in the house--including our eating area which will no longer be green.

But it will also not be Cowboy blue.

The First Day of the Next Thirteen Years

Today is Reagan's first day of school. I am so excited about his new adventure and eager to hear about all he learns in Kindergarten.

Reagan is off to a good start.

• He had a breakfast of Cheerios while watching his favorite show on tv--Phineas and Ferb.
  
• He's wearing an outfit that I picked out with shoes he picked out.
  
• His backpack is filled with a new pencil, a bookmark, an afternoon snack, 2 Lego knights, and Ted (of course!).
  
• His Mystery Machine lunchbox is packed with a healthy sandwich, fruit, cheese stick, and a special Oreo treat.
  
• Pictures were taken to document this important day.
• We drove up to school and all walked into the building to the Kinder drop-off area.
• There was a quick kiss "goodbye".

Now I'm counting down the hours (only six more to go!) until I get to see my baby...


Hopefully I don't cry all six of those hours.

Perspective

I am going through some pretty crappy stuff this week. And although all of this "stuff" comes from something I did, and I am dealing with feelings of anger, "why me?", and unfairness.

And then I have this blog brought to my attention.

And I think again about how blessed I am--God loves me enough to make me Reagan's mom, David's wife, a sister, and a daughter. We have the opportunities to go on great vacations, live in a house in a great city, buy a great new car, etc.

Not to mention we are healthy.

Dear God,
Thank you.
Amen

New Smile

Reagan woke us up early this morning by saying that he lost his tooth. I was immediately wide awake. He said that he just pushed his tooth out with his tongue.

Yuck. But ok.

Man-oh-man is this tooth tiny!! I'm so scared that we're going to lose it before the Tooth Fairy can come tonight.





Reagan believes that she will leave a platypus for him when she takes his tooth.

I hope he isn't too disappointed when he wakes up tomorrow.