Ryan's week

Well, Ryan & I haven't been up to much the past week or so - lots of lazy days stuck at home. After a stir crazy potty training weekend, we were sidelined by a nasty cold virus. Last Sunday night, Ryan woke up crying and throwing up :( So potty training was put on hold while we battled with a high fever - over 104 both Monday and Tuesday. Poor little guy was miserable and pitiful. We did make a visit to the doctor, but he was negative for strep throat and the flu and ear infections. So we just had to wait it out. He finally started feeling like himself again about Thursday. Unfortunately he missed both days of school last week, including his little Valentine's Day party. And this week his school is out for a winter break. He finally starts to like school and now we've missed two weeks!

Friday afternoon we were hit with snow once again. Two big snows in one year, crazy! There was no snow when he went down for his nap, and by the time he woke up there was probably 3inches. He remembered it though and said "snow" when he looked outside. However, I was not too excited about more snow, so we didn't play in it this time.

Yesterday we celebrated Madeleine's Dedication at her church. Ryan really enjoyed seeing her up front with her parents - "Mad-lynn!!" (He's finally got the M at the beginning of her name, but still leaves out the middle syllable). It was a very special day and we were honored to be able to celebrate with her. Afterwards, we went back to their house for a yummy lunch - lasagna and Valentine's cupcakes. Ryan was very well behaved and ate two servings of lasagna!! While we were happy about it, we were confused none the less :)

Abby Boom

We've made lots of progress on Abby's Room (if you're Ryan then it's "Abby Boom"). Coleson painted the room Saturday morning. It's a fairly dark purple color - liliac ice. It looks great on the wall! The furniture is all white and there is a big double window in the room, so it all works really nicely together. Grandpa helped Coleson pick up the furniture and it's a relief knowing it's all here, albeit mostly still in boxes. We made good progress on the hutch last night, but they aren't kidding when they say some assembly required!

Night night

Tonight we (Coleson) put together Abby's crib, Yay!! The whole family pitched in, even Nellie & Sampson. I'm so excited to be making progress in her room. The dresser and hutch are ready to be picked up from Wal-mart; hooray for free site-to-store shipping. We are also going to paint the walls pink, possibly on Saturday.



"Abby Bed!"

stir crazy!

We've spent the last two days attempting to potty train Ryan, which means we've been stuck at home within a few feet of the potty all weekend! It started slow, but progress was made tonight. He finally pee-pee'd in the potty and knew what he was doing!! There were a few times he pee'd on the potty, but he'd been sitting there awhile and we weren't aware he even had - more that it just sort of happened, then that he meant to. So we were very happy when he went tonight and actually seemed to know what he was doing! He sat on the potty, did his thing, and then got back up. And was rewarded with several M&M's :) We still have a long way to go, but hopefully we had a break-through tonight.

A month closer!

Happy February 1st!! Now that January's behind us, we are that much closer to spring and to meeting Abby :)

We had a nice, lazy weekend. We even watched two movies, which is pretty much unheard of for us! Four Christmases & Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. Both cute & entertaining, although nothing life changing. But hey, that's what we love about Redbox, cheap entertainment!

We also enjoyed a nice lunch at Applebee's on Saturday. We were bored and had a giftcard! We all three shared an appetizer sampler and a plate of sliders. It was great food, and Ryan was so well behaved. He ate two cheeseburger sliders & a quesadilla triangle. It was a very nice and enjoyable meal.

Other highlights included seeing Grandma & Grandpa and Nana & Pop-Pop. And Mommy had a good time scrapbooking, while Daddy played on the computer & watched mindless tv :)

Abby's update

Had another check up on Wednesday and Abby is doing great!! Here she is looking up at the ultrasound. See her face? And those chubby cheeks! The tech looked at those, looked at Ryan, and said wow, she already has her brother's cheeks. Thanks Pettit side of the family - this one's supposed to look like me! :) The tech also said she already has hair, so that's cool.

Not much of a surprise, but she's big! She was 3lbs, 3 oz on Wednesday. She's measuring about 1.5 weeks ahead of schedule. The doctor has already mentioned inducing early to avoid another 10lb baby and looks like that will be the case! Oh well, that just means we get to meet her that much sooner, yay :)

Ryan was great at the doctor. And so super cute ... all morning "Abby doctor, Abby doctor." Too bad he got shy and wouldn't say it when we actually saw the doctor. And before we opened the bedding, he carried the bag all around - "Abby's, Abby's." He's going to be the best big brother ever!

We've picked out her bedding and purchased the quilt set so that we would see exact colors and start planning her room. Here's a link to what it looks like: www.babysupermall.com/main/products/coc/coc7035-854.html In case that doesn't work, you can just google Jacana by Cocalo. We've also ordered furniture for her that should be here within three weeks or so. I'm really excited to get everything here and see how it looks and see how we want to decorate the room!

I suppose that's all that's new from Abby. To see more pictures, look in the Baby Sister folder on my picasa.

Happy Friday everyone!

Use your Words!

Ryan is doing great with his speech! He's been using a lot more words, so that's awesome and fun. Some cute ones are: Abby (my favorite!), Girafee, El-fat (elephant), Sa-son-dog (Sampson dog), cheer-o (cheerio), Bad-lynn (his best buddy Madeleine)

And then in the last week or two, he finally started putting two words together. He does this with lots of words now, but here are some favorite phrases: Daddy Work, Kitty Up or Kitty Down (for up or down stairs), Dog Out (side), Ryan Eat, Dog Sit, Police Car (one of the current fav toys)

He also is very good at grouping:
Nana, Baba (Pop-Pop), Jed
Baba (Grandpa), MomMom (Grandma), Ry-Ry (Riley), Jake!
Ya-yee (Aunt Lolly), By-n (Uncle Brian), Dee-do (Diego)
Saa (Auntie Sarah), Back-um (Maxim), Ris-tian (Uncle Christian)

Once he gets going on a group, he has to name everyone in it several times and if you don't encourage and reinforce him, he gets very upset! Not sure what starts this, but it's quite common for him to be hanging out or sitting in his carseat just going through the whole family. And when we are on our way home, he repeats kitty & sa-son dog over and over. *And yes, Pop-Pop and Grandpa sound exactly the same, as do Mommy & Grandma. You just have to hear them in context!

Today he said his first three word phrase unprompted, yay! "Sa-son Dog Out" Although the way Sa-son and Dog run together, maybe that's only one word, thus only a two-word phrase. But I'm going to count it as three words :)

Another fun activity is watching the new digital picture frame. It was a Christmas present and honestly we'd never even thought about getting one and weren't sure what to think of it. But all of us love it now, esp Ryan. He will sit at the kitchen table and watch it scroll through pictures while naming everyone in them. "Ry, Daddy, Mom-mom, Back-um, Ry, Baba, etc."

He also freaks me out occasionally with his recognizing and random words. For example, after just one day of school, he pointed to it & "scool!" when we passed it. Also the other day, while pulling into Chick-fil-a, he announced "chicken!" without me having even told him where we were going - and it wasn't even the one by our house that we usually go to. He's crazy smart when he wants to be, but only when he wants it! I'm really loving all the talking! It's great to finally start understanding him. And words are a whole lot more fun and much less frustrating then points and grunts.

PS - Wanted to also mention Ryan's amazing "parroting" skills. He will repeat the last word of whatever you say! He can also repeat /count to 10 and repeat his abc's, although W is a little tricky :) If I had to pick I'd say his favorite letter is Q. I think that's because it looks funny and thus it's easy for him to pick out when he's looking at the whole alphabet.

I saw it on the internet, so it must be true

Well since we haven't officially annouced it, or posted it on our blog or facebook, it must not really be true, right? These days it's just not real until you see it on the internet, eh? So, in case you haven't heard or looked up at the new header that my awesome husband designed for us, we have finally picked a name for our little girl ...

Abby Caroline Chase!

It is a combination of being named after my Nana, Alice Caroline, and us just really liking the name Abby. We are super excited to have agreed on a name and to be able to start calling her Abby instead of Baby B or Squirt. And if you haven't heard Ryan tell you his baby sister's name, you are really missing out, it is the sweetest thing ever!! We can't wait to meet little Abby in just about three months!!

Snow Day

Well, in case you are living under a rock and haven't heard ... it snowed in Atlanta! Crazy I know! And not only that, but it's been so cold that the snow actually stuck to the ground and is still there over 24 hours later! Needless to say, we Southerners don't have a clue what to do about this, and I think just about the whole city has been shut down. We enjoyed having Daddy stay home from work today, although he did work very hard on his computer & phone, so we had to practice being quiet & staying out of the way. Eventually we gave into the stir-craziness & watched Shrek 2. Ryan and I had watched the first one about a month ago, so he was very excited. "SHREK!" He sat in between us and watched the whole movie, it was super nice! However, I'm hoping to get out tomorrow and get some fresh air, doubtful though as the high is still not above freezing. This was fun for a day, but I'm ready for summer now :)

Preschool

Ryan started preschool this week, so hard to believe!! He goes two days a week, for three hours each day. It's just enough to get him out and interacting with other kids his age. And it gives Mommy some quiet time, especially now that Ryan's given up napping :) We're still working on the adjustment, but once we get used to our new routine, we know it will be good for all of us. Ryan has cried both days when Mommy dropped him off, but I'm told that he stopped within five minutes and did great the rest of the time. It's so weird that he has a life of his own now, independent of me! He does his own thing and I don't know what that is! While his speech is improving greatly, he still can't tell me what he did at school. But I know it's good for him and I'm told it's good for me too, although right now I still miss him and feel like the world's worst mom for leaving him crying in a strange place!

Ryan amd Mommy decorated Ryan's placemat. The school will laminate it and he'll use it each day at snack time. Fun idea!

 

Ryan's spiffy school bag. What a big boy!