Reagan IS Taylor Swift (with video to prove it!)

These days, there is nothing that Reagan loves more than Taylor Swift.  

She and I went to see "The Lorax" the other night, and the next morning she made this picture... for Taylor.

Those are Lorax style trees with Lorax style animals!

Taylor's music is all that she plays on her iPhone.  (It's my old phone that we disconnected service to when I upgraded to the new iPhone... so it's not really a phone so much anymore... it's more of an iPod I guess!)  She walks through the house singing Taylor's songs over and over, again and again!

She wants to wear her hair just like Taylor and she wants to use the same lipgloss as Taylor.  She calls her bathroom her dressing room, and her bedroom is now her tour bus... because of course Taylor must have a dressing room and a tour bus!

She allows us to still call her Reagan because we are her biggest fans, but she will answer faster if we refer to her as "Taylor".  

I will admit that I am guilty of using all of this to my advantage... it's easier to get her to eat all of her dinner if I tell her that she is eating some of Taylor's favourite foods!

But in all of the Taylor things that Reagan has done lately, NOTHING compares to this.  This is our little Reagan, as Taylor Swift, performing "Mean".

Reagan is now convinced that she needs a real guitar and that she needs to perform on a real stage!  Look out world, she's going to be a superstar!

The Ultimate Spring Break Staycation

In the past, Spring Break for me has meant anything from a quiet week spent at our family beach house while I was a young girl to a loud and crazy weekend during my University days spent at Panama City Beach trying desperately to end up on MTV.  

Nothing like either of those situations happened this year.  In fact, there was nothing "beachy" at all about this Spring Break... it actually snowed off and on briefly for three days during the first week of Reagan's vacation!  But I can honestly say that this year, enjoying Reagan's Spring Break, may have been the most fun that I've had in my Spring Break history.

We didn't go anywhere.  We decided to have a Stay-cation.

What's a Staycation you ask?  Well, it's when you stay.

We stayed at home.
We stayed in bed as long as we could each day.
We stayed in our pyjamas as much as possible.
We just stayed!

And we loved it!

Even though we didn't have any plans, and we never really left the house for longer than a trip to the park or to the bowling alley, we were constantly busy the past two weeks.

We built our own racetrack, The Knopper International Speedway, and we hosted our first big race, The Knopper 500.  Reagan, Myers and Ryan each had their own Hot Wheels car lined up at the start, (Reagan in the #88 car of course took the pole) and it was a hot race to say the least.  After the hairpin turns right after the start/finish line, the drivers had to deal with some serious banking over in turns two and three.   It came down to a green, white, checker finish after multiple cautions, and I still don't have a clue who won the race!

Reagan practiced her skills in make-up artistry, and her Daddy was the perfect model for her.  I think she chose just the right shade of blue to compliment his eyes.  And the lip gloss was the obvious finishing touch to her beautiful creation.  His scraggy beard just gave it all that extra special touch, don't ya think?!?

 

Reagan spent an afternoon making her very own puppets, and she wouldn't let me see them until she was completely finished.  I have to say, I was pretty impressed by her artwork.  As you can see from left to right below, she made a stage out of a cereal box, and for puppets she had a puppy dog, a crab, a flamingo, a butterfly, a koala bear, a penguin, a mouse with cheese, a lion, and a cat.  That night, she entertained Ryan and I for over half an hour with an amazing puppet performance!

 

The highlight of the entire Spring Break was easily THE TENT!  We literally pitched a tent in our office space a few days before Spring Break started, and Reagan slept downstairs in that tent EVERY SINGLE NIGHT until we took it down a few days ago.  I will be honest, she had tears in her eyes as we were taking it down!

She would camp out each night, and then she and Myers both would play in there for hours on end together during the day.

I have to admit, I really considered leaving the tent up for a while longer.  I mean, what's a few more days when it had already been up for almost three weeks?!  When we took it down on Wednesday it caused Reagan to have to sleep in her own bed upstairs for the first time in 19 sleeps!  But I needed her to get back on a regular schedule before going back to school tomorrow, and I was worried that it may take a few days/nights for her to get back into her normal routine after so many late nights downstairs during the break.  It was super fun while it lasted, and it brought back many memories of the first time that we decided to go camping inside!

As I just mentioned, Reagan returns to Kindergarten tomorrow.  I have to be very honest with you now... I don't want her to go!  I don't want Spring Break to end.  And no, it's not just because I am dreading having to go back to making her school lunches at the crack of dawn each morning... I am genuinely going to miss her!  And I don't even want to think about how much Myers is going to miss her.  He has LOVED having Sissy home all day every day to play play play!

But as they say, all good things must come to an end.  My only comfort is knowing that we now only have 65 more school days (95 days total including holidays and weekends) until Summer Vacation!  And you can bet your bottom dollar that we won't be "stay-cationing" during that entire break!!!

Myers - Naked Or Stuffed?

Holy Moly!  

Myers is all over the place these days and he is growing like a weed.  I'm beginning to think that I need to buy him some new pyjamas because he has started wearing them unzipped with his belly hanging out ALL THE TIME!  I'm not sure if he is trying to make a fashion statement, if it just feels good letting his belly get some air, or if his belly is in fact too big to be confined by the zipper of his pyjamas.  Regardless of the reason, this is how he looks 99% of the time when he has his pyjamas on.

Who am I kidding... he has his pyjamas on 99% of the time!   We have a habit in this family of staying in our pyjamas as much as possible!

On more than one occasion lately, he has unzipped to nothing more than his diaper.  And just the other morning I walked into the nursery to get him out of his crib and I found him 100% completely butt naked! Needless to say, I was very thankful that other than the wet diaper that had been flung out of the crib, everything else was still dry!

When he's not taking his clothes off, he's stuffing things down his pant legs.  A few days ago, I went to change his diaper and discovered a play microphone, two dice, and a measuring tablespoon all shoved down the left leg of his pyjamas!  Since then, I think that I have removed this, that, or the other from his pant legs on a daily basis.

As you can tell, there is never a dull moment around here these days!

And yes, as you can tell from the first picture above, he could probably use a haircut.  I just can't bring myself to have it done just yet!

The 2012 Spring Wedding Show at Newlands

You may remember that I have expanded my bridal business to include special event planning along with the day-of wedding coordination that I have always offered.  Tonight, I was wearing my Event Planning hat, as the 2012 Spring Wedding Show at Newlands was THE place to be!

This was by far one of the most successful wedding shows to date at Newlands with over 40 vendors present, close to 500 guests in attendance, and over $20,000 in door prizes given away to many lucky brides-to-be!

Of course, the highlight of the evening for me was having my family there to help and to celebrate with me.  Reagan and Myers both hit the main stage early on in the evening before the guests started to arrive for a little dancing fun.

Once the show was in full force, Ryan took Myers home and put him to bed. This was the first time that Myers did not nurse before going to bed, and thankfully it didn't phase him one bit.  This could very well mean that I nursed Myers for the very last time ever when I put him down for his afternoon nap today!

Reagan stayed until the very end, as she is always my special helper at an event.  Tonight, she was helping to greet all of the brides and their guests at the main entrance, and then she later helped me to emcee the dance demonstration and fashion show.  She is always the super star!

During the fashion show, as she was admiring all of the wedding gowns, she looked up at me and said, "Mommy, all of these dresses are so beautiful.  I'm going to need help one day when I get married.  Will you please help me make all of my choices?"  Oh my goodness, I was a hot mess of tears right then and there!

We wrapped up the evening and made it home a little before 10PM.  Reagan is now tucked into bed, and I'm already planning for the next two events!

The 2012 Fall Wedding Show at Newlands will be held on Thursday, October 11th and the 2013 Spring Wedding Show at Newlands will be held on Thursday, March 14th.

I hope to see YOU there!