a few pictures

Our family of four!

Three April birthdays now!

Coleson, sis Sarah, and the cousins

 

Happy Easter

Easter egghunt at preschool!

 

Neighborhood egghunt at Nana and Pop-Pop's

 

Hunting eggs at Grandma and Grandpa's

 

"Candy!!"

 

G-E-O-R-G-I-A !!!!

Ryan loves to read letters and I finally caught him on video reading the Georgia Bulldogs flag. He does this just about everytime I put him in the car :)

Locks of Love

As many of you may have noticed, I cut all my hair off! I've been growing it for a good year now and it's been driving me crazy, but I finally made it! I donated 10 inches of hair to Locks of Love. It was a really fun hair appt - my mom & sister went with me and we had a great time. I felt like a princess getting my hair cut, highlighted, washed, styled. It was a good feeling and I'm glad I did it ... but I don't think I'll be doing it again any time soon :)

Measuring 10 inches!

Woo-hoo!

After, feeling pretty :)

Maxim's here!

the Petting Zoo with Maxim and Madeleine!! Ryan had a great time hanging out with his two best friends!!

 

Ryan was scared of the turkeys and I was having a very pregnant day, so Ryan stuck to Mrs. Tara who could pick him up whenever the turkeys came near! Thanks Tara!!

 

Catch-Air with Maxim and Auntie Sarah. Ryan was very brave and did great. He actually ran all over the place and tried new things instead of merely following the bigger kids, yay!

 

We've had a great start to our weekend and look forward to more fun to come!! All our siblings will be here and we have lots of good stuff planned - haircuts, Abby's shower, celebrating Maxim's birthday, celebrating Grandma's birthday, Ryan's friend Peyton's birthday party ...

Vroom- Vroom!

Yesterday, Grandma & I took Ryan to his first race! (Ours too!). My mom's boss races cars for fun on the weekend and we enjoyed hanging out with him & seeing his car. It was a very laid-back and relaxed atmosphere. We were able to walk all around the cars and go anywhere we wanted. Ryan loved watching the races, he would get so excited!! "Race-car, vroom-vroom!!" However he didn't really like the cars all that well up close and would not get in Al's car. Grandma did get to go for a ride though (I don't think I could have gotten in & out what with being 8months pregnant and all!). It was something very different & fun and I am glad we had the opportunity to experience it!

Updates!

We've been doing really well recently. Ryan's growing up so fast. I know that's cliche and everyone says it, but it's true! I don't know when he turned into this little boy instead of my baby. I'll try to highlight some of the exciting things he's saying and doing, although there's so much fun happening everyday, I'm sure I'll overlook something ... But here we go anyways ...

- Ryan's vocabulary is improving all the time! He says all sorts of things now, and is getting pretty good at doing so unprompted vs always just being my parrot.

- He can name probably 2/3 of the alphabet (only capital letters). It still catches me off guard to hear him announce "E" or "B" or "H" seemingly out of the blue. But if I look around, he's always right and there's the letter on a sign or something. He has a set of large cutout alphabet shaped books and he loves to match them to the correct letter on his alphabet caterpillar. Even if he doesn't know their name, he always matches them right. And he does this on his own, he's really smart :) He also knows his name. He reads the label on his sippy cups: "R-Y-A-N"

- He tries to do numbers, but doesn't do them in the right order. He just starts naming them ... "6, 2, 5, 3,9, whatever" and wiggling his fingers. He can finally hold up just two fingers which he likes to do. For a long time that third finger just wouldn't stay down and he'd try to hold it out of the way.

- He also can name the colors. Unfortunately he just doesn't put the name with the right color yet! Pretty much everything is either green or yellow. Funniest thing: Twice now walking up the stairs, he has recited "green, ye-yow, green, ye-yow" up the stairs. Not really sure what that's about.

- He loves school. He's all smiles and happy to go now. And when I pick him up, he's very talkative. "Bye School, Bye Friends, Bye Vickie (his teacher)" followed by "Home, Sampson- Dog, Kitty- Nellie." Occassionally he's offered "fun" and "ball." It was hard those first few weeks to leave him, but I'm starting to enjoy my free time!

- He can open doors now which is mostly bad, but has some positives. He gets his own sippy cups from the fridge and that's nice. Not so nice is opening the pantry or the garage doors - those both have baby proof handle covers now. He hasn't quite figured out the front door, but he's way too close to that one too. He can open the deadbolt, but not the little lock on the knob. Aargh!

- He's becoming very independent. Really like to put on his own socks and jeans, which he can't quite do. So getting dressed can take a very long time now if I let him help! It's hard trying to balance letting him try these things and just wanting to do them myself since it's easier & faster! Esp on the mornings when we are trying to hurry to get to school or a doctor appt.

That's about all I can do right now, my attn span is running out and I'm tired of sitting here at the computer! :)

Have a great weekend!!

I Pray For You

Not sure if this will work or not. For some reason this song just cracks me up, I have to laugh every time I hear it. See what you think ...

Cool looks like it's going to work, you just have to be patient through a commercial!

Jaron and The Long Road to Love More CMT Music More CMT Music Videos

A visit with Granddad

Coleson's Dad & Jo-Ann spent the weekend with us and Ryan had a great time visiting with his grandparents. We walked to the playground, went to ihop & kayson's, finished putting together Abby's furniture, played lots of playdough, and enjoyed spending time together. Ryan was very well behaved and really liked all the attention! It was a nice weekend, thanks to Granddaddy and Grandmom for coming to visit!

I'm a big kid now

Well, Ryan's in a big boy toddler bed now. I must confess I was hoping we could get away with the crib a little while longer, but Ryan had other ideas. Yep that's right, Monday morning he went over and out the crib. He was fine, a little shaken up, but no injuries thankfully. So Monday evening Ryan & Daddy "built" Ryan a new bed. He has slept in it two nights now and is doing great at night. He's stayed in bed and slept all through the night. Yesterday's nap was more like playtime as he enjoyed taking books off his shelfs, all the wipes out of the box, opening dresser drawers & the closet. But so far, today's nap is going better. I've been checking on him every few minutes and being more firm about staying in the bed. He's been in there everytime, usually sitting up playing with a soccerball, although last time he was laying down. Maybe he'll actually nap today!! So many milestones, hard to believe how big he's getting!!

PS. Ryan was so cute on Tuesday morning - the first time he woke up in his bed and could get out on his own. He was standing at the gate to his bedroom and when he saw me walking to his room, he shouted "hi!!"