Reagan Fuller

Birthday Party

Is it over yet? No! Today, we held Reagan’s 4th birthday party. It was at our local blow-up bounce place. Reagan had her party there last year too. She had her choice of venues but this was the clear winner. The theme was “Littlest Pet Shop”. So if you don’t know, that is one of the latest little plastic doll crazes. Kim and I shared a laugh because with some balloons, matching plates, and cake decorations — the party is now a “Littlest Pet Shop” party. That is all it takes theme-wise to please a 4 year old. Although, Kim always goes all out and finds matching party favors, candles and anything else you can think of.

The birthday crowd has changed from our friends to Reagan’s friends now that she is in school. So it is really a mix of school friends and neighbors at this point. Reagan ran around but I wasn’t sure if she ever thought or cared that this was her party. She was just having fun with all her friends there — almost as if they all came that day by coincidence.

As always, I got into the mix and chased kids around until I was sweaty. Something about Dads being monsters always gets them running and screaming. Otherwise, they seemed pretty happy.

Time for the cake!

I also tried following them around with my video camera. Let’s see how that went!

Well, I hope you had a great birthday, Peep. You seemed to enjoy it. However, I bet when your sister opens gifts in about a week you will ask — WHERE IS MINE? How quickly they forget.

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Presents For Me?

Happy Birthday

Today my soon-to-be middle child is turning 4. Where has the time gone? Last week we were watching past birthday party videos of her. Hilarious.

So this is what she did at craft time today. She wanted to be Uniqua on her birthday. More power to you, Peep.

Birthday @ School

With Reagan’s birthday on a non-school day, today was the party. Luckily, it coincided with Kim’s monthly day in the classroom so she got to help orchestrate and observe the party.

Craft time.

Serious negotiations.

Recess!

Birthday party snacks!

But when it was time to sing, the birthday girl had enough and covered up.

Follow Me

Reagan is always messing with my iPhone — games, typing notes, taking pictures. So I am going to try and put her to work documenting her own life. Not letting her write blog posts yet. That wouldn’t be pretty. However, I think she can handle some tweets. So come on over to Twitter and follow Reagan!

http://twitter.com/reaganfuller

Flower Girl

Reagan was chosen to be Flower Girl at Ryan and Lauren’s Wedding in Indiana. We graciously accepted the invitation and made the visit to Indiana to attend the festivities. Ryan is Kim’s nephew if you need to make the connection. Cousin Jonny, who is Ryan’s brother, was the ring bearer. Think there is going to be trouble?

Time to rehearse. Can they do it? Guess so.

Next day. Time to get ready. Oops. What happened?

Maybe the bride can cheer her up?

Pictures were before the wedding. Hope Reagan stays pumped up for the wedding.

I came separately and got an emergency call for some McNuggets because the Flower Girl was crashing pre-wedding! So I delivered them and powered her back up. Then it was time. Everyone took their seats and I waited in the hall with the little ones and prepped them for the big walk. I kept stressing slow walking. Finally, they were called down the aisle and they did a great job. I don’t have pictures because we let the professionals cover the photos during the event. Reagan took her seat and crashed. I had to come and get her after the wedding.

After she woke up, we got a few more pictures.

Then it was time for outside pictures. The little ones were crashing again. Reagan was blinded by the sun and Jonny could have cared less and refused to look at the camera anymore.

Then it was time for the reception. Cake and dancing. She’s up!

Finally, I got to dance with my daughter for the Father/Daughter dance.

Well, it was a great time. Here is a video of all the dancing!

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Cousins

For Reagan, one of the highlights of any visit to Indiana seems to be hanging out with Cousin Jonny. This appears to be a mellow tea party of sorts.

The rest of the time was spent looking at the 5 day old baby kitties. These guys are Zelda’s new brothers and sisters. Their mom gets around. We took ZERO home.

Want Some Cake

How’s Mimi?

We are in Fort Wayne this week for a wedding on Saturday.

One of our first visits was with Mimi, the girl’s great grandmother. This is the only great grandparent the kids have remaining. It is great that they are able to spend sometime getting to know her.

The girls walked Mimi to dinner and were very interested in holding onto the walker and helping Mimi along.

We just let the camera roll for a while in her room to capture some of the visit.

Doll Show

Its A ???

Zebra!

Show Off Day

The kids went to open gym a few weeks ago and were able to demonstrate their expertise for you.

Easter

The kids were up at 6 ready to find eggs. Good thing I told Mrs. Easter Bunny that the hiding must be done the night before. You can’t beat these kids to the door anymore. However, they had to locate their Easter baskets that were hidden in the house first. Gotta have something to put the eggs in!

Then it was outside for the egg hunt. Luckily, it wasn’t too cold so they were able to enjoy the hunt. There sure were a lot of eggs!

Reagan enjoyed not having the pressure of other kids around her. She isn’t the fastest at this.

Can you feel the excitement?

After the eggs were collected, we headed to “the ranch” to enjoy an Easter buffet and other activities. We did this last year and the kids became the poster children for the event so we had to return. We had to do face painting and then hold any little critters we could.

It was raining at this point so the fun level was decreasing. However, we still made our way to the the barn and saddled up for a quick ride.

Live action of the horse ride.

I hope you enjoyed our Easter coverage. I am worn out.

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Making Eggs

The Hunt Is On

These kids love their holidays. So does their Mother. We hit all the neighboring towns egg hunts today. The biggest and best one is always down in Fredrick. You better get there on time because it is over in about 3 minutes. Show us the loot!

I am looking for chocolate!!

Guess she found some. Happy kid now!

Since it was a live action day, I opted to do more video of all the egg hunts. Plus, when we got home, there were presents in the mail as well. Who are they from?

Tantrums

Dear Reagan,

When you are older, I hope you get to read this. This morning, I could not get you dressed. I put your tights on you and you kept saying that “they made you feel crazy”. I am not sure if this is like Charles Manson-crazy or what. But you surely didn’t like them. So we gave up after 20 minutes of screaming. We put some other pants on you and you still were not happy. I will try my best to convince your mother that we should keep you as long as you don’t turn your crazy on me again.

-Dad

Spring Break, Colorado-Style

Kim and I blew the Spring Break budget this year on the Costa Rica trip. Plus we are headed to Indiana this month for a week for our nephew’s wedding. Hence, Spring Break 2009 was to be played out close to home. However, we figured with all the warm spring weather we could do some cabin camping to get away for a day. So we booked the cabin in advance and were all set to sit on the porch by the fire and enjoy the outdoors.

Attention: The National Weather Service has issued a severe weather watch tonight which might develop into a blizzard and make your camping trip more interesting than you thought.

Should we still go? Of course! So we traded in the regular supplies for winter ones and set off to the mountains. It didn’t look great up there from down here but by the time we arrived, the sun was shining and it was nice out. What were they talking about? Forecasters are famous of getting about half of the storms right here. A blizzard warning could mean you are stuck for days or it might mean you might need gloves. We decided to go on a shorty short hike around the campground.

Little Miss Kidney Failure thought this was a good idea too after a morning of fluids.

Sydney claims she is thirsty and we forgot her water bottle so she is going to improvise.

Welcome to our new home!

First order of business: Try out the beds!

From there, this is how we would see the kids for the rest of the day. Up and down. Up and down. You would have thought the bunk bed was the most magical thing ever!

Peep spent much of her time instructing Slothy the Sloth on how to climb the beds.

Only one accident when Sydney stepped on a rail that was a “spinner”. She fell a little and proceeded to cry and say she wanted to go home right now. Minutes before, she wanted to live here. I kept asking about no TV but that didn’t seem to matter.

And then it started to snow.

Nobody wanted to hike up the snowy road in the middle of the night to the bathrooms. So we brought the port-o-pot and set it up. It has a trash bag in the middle — not seen here. So everyone took turns doing #1s on the porch while enjoying the snowfall. #2s were forced to make the walk of shame to the real bathrooms.

That wasn’t so bad because there was fun stuff to do along the way. Like hang out in the kiddie cabin.

Sleep went so-so. Sydney was out. Reagan couldn’t seem to fall asleep. And then randomly started bawling and wanting our cat, Zelda. Reagan never thinks about Zelda at home but from her crying, you would think that she couldn’t live without her. She finally passed out. When we got up, there was more snow! Not a blizzard but some fresh base to play in.

Time to sled! Oh. No hills. Daddy! Pull!

I got my workout in! Sprinting around at 9100’ with 2 kids on a sled in knee deep snow is a pretty good workout.

Our checkout time had come so it was time to pack up and head back home. The allure of the cabin for the parents was that we could just pack a few things and drop in. No big setup required. The cabin fit the bill nicely. If you zoom in, you can see Reagan not smiling — she is catching snowflakes in her mouth.

Take me back to Zelda!

So we motored back home to civilization. Enjoy the video!

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