(2nd) 1st day

Ryan started preschool again today. He went in the spring, but then had all summer off. Today he starts his 2's class (yes, b/c of the way his birthday falls, he'll always be the oldest one). He did really well at open house last week, but I think that had something to do with the fact that Mommy & Abby were there too. He wasn't so sure about going today. I know he cried a minute or two when I left, and his teacher was holding him. But the cries seemed to quiet pretty quick (I hung out in the hallway out of sight), so hopefully he will have a good time and make lots of little friends. I love you Buddy!

Alabama?!?

Yup, embarrased to say it, but we vacationed to Alabama this weekend :) Coleson doesn't have the time-off for a real trip and we're saving our vacation money for a big roadtrip in the fall ... so Alabama it was! We've never truly been to Birmingham, and we were looking for somewhere close that was different.

We started the day south of Birmingham with a train ride in Calera. We had a good time, although I think Ryan enjoyed playing with the Thomas train set in the gift shop more than anything else we did! Oh well! In addition to the train ride, we walked around & saw some old trains, ate a picnic lunch, and hung out in the gift shop (playing with Thomas!).

After the train, we drove north and spent the afternoon at Rickwood Caverns State Park. The park was pretty awesome. We had a good time walking around all the cool rocks and then we took a cavern tour. We weren't sure what to expect from the kids in the cave, esp Ryan. But he did great! He had a wonderful time and was very independent. He walked the whole tour and barely even let me hold his hand.

After getting a little lost in Birmingham we had a yummy dinner at Newks and spent Saturday night in a hotel (Thanks Mom for the reward points!). Sunday morning we went to Vulcan Park. While it had pretty cool views of the city, we had hoped for a little more out of the park. And poor Ryan was very disappointed seeing as he thinks parks and playgrounds are the same thing. All he wanted was a swing! So being the awesome parents we are, we suffered through McDonald's for lunch so that Ryan could play in the playplace.

It was a nice quick trip, a great little getaway. And now we can say we've spent time in Birmingham, check that off the list, we're good. :)

Four months

Abby is four months old today! She weighs a little under 13 lbs (30%) and is 23.5 inches (25%). But don't worry, just like her big brother, she has plenty of brains! Her head circumference is in the 70%! Petite but smart, nothing wrong with that :) She is doing great! She loves to roll, lay on her belly, stick out her tongue, smile, coo, watch her big brother, and just take it all in. I really think she wishes she could run around and chase Ryan. She's so observant and will throw her body in the direction of the action. She also has very strong legs and likes to push up, I just have to hold her for balance of course.

Fail, my bad

Alright, so much for being better about updating my blog! Sorry for the recent lapse, but apparently they are going to be the norm. :) We are all doing well here. Abby will be 4 months old on Friday. In some ways it's hard to believe, but most of the time it feels like much longer than that; I suppose that's just because we went through so much at the beginning. But she's doing great, healthy now and such a happy baby. She loves to lay on the floor - okay, that's a lie, she really just wants to be held all the time! But when she's not being held, she loves to roll around. She can go tummy to back and now back to tummy too. She also kinda shifts around and will scoot her way off the playmat. While Ryan's a big fan of the rolling ("Abby turn over, Abby on back!"), he was pretty upset about her getting off the mat ("Abby on mat, Abby on mat" - in the same scolding tone he uses to tell the dog no bark or to go out).

Ryan is hanging in there. The unsuccessful potty training is about to be the end of Mommy, but Ryan's doing just fine with it (not making this up: "I like poo-poo in underwear" AARGH!!!). My advice to those of you that haven't started potty training yet: don't do it! Wait til they are, say I don't know, 8 years old! But anyways ... Ryan's doing great. His speech is really taking off. He talks in sentences and uses some pronouns now (I, my, mine). He asks unprompted questions (what is it, where's Daddy, etc). His speech therapy ends on his third birthday, so we're in the process of being evaluated by the county, talk about a lot of paperwork, it's absurd. However, I'm really thinking that the bigger problem is that he is insanely shy, so thus people think he doesn't talk. I guess we'll see what the county evaluator has to say next week!

Ryan, Mommy, and Abby recently took a trip to Greenville - it was Abby's first time leaving Georgia (by this age Ryan had been to probably ten states already!). It was a little overwhelming at times being the only parent (see earlier paragraph about potty training, nothing like hearing "mommy, pee-pee" in the middle of nowhere when you are going 70 mph and just past the only exit for miles). But we had a wonderful time visiting Auntie Sarah, cousin Maxim, and Uncle Christian. We spent some time in downtown Greenville playing in the fountains and feeding the ducks. We also went to a pretty cool playground and walked the "choo choo train tracks." And we enjoyed a nice evening with Uncle Tyler & Aunt Jennifer, great to see them too.
""Goodness!!""

"Moo-tee Book!!"

So Ryan's new favorite book is the "Moo-tee" book. He loves it, he's asked for it before each nap & bedtime for a week. It's a special book, so much so that it stays on the top of the dresser out of his reach. So what exactly is this "moo-tee" book. Why Snoopy of course. What do you mean you didn't you get Snoopy out of Mootee?

He's gotten so much better at his speech and can usually say the s's & p's, but for whatever reason he doesn't when he talks about snoopy. We even clap out "snoopy book" so he can work on the individual syllables to no avail. Although it is pretty funny to watch him dancing around clapping " Moo tee book, Moo tee book!" Oh well! We'll keep practicing, but until he gets it, I just have to laugh whenever I hear "Moo tee" :)

Vote for Abby

Please vote for Abby as the cutest Baby Girl!! Not only will get lots of bragging rights, but it's also for free tickets to Sugarland (for those of you that don't know country music, they have a hit called "Baby Girl"). Everyone tells us how beautiful Abby is, so we figure it's time to find out if it's true! We can only vote once, so we need as many people as we can get. The tickets would obviously be amazing (front row for one of my favorite groups ever!!), but can you imagine how awesome it would be to say my daughter's the cutest baby girl in Atlanta?!

Vote for Abby by clicking here. Thanks!!!

hat trick

Today's post is gonna be short ... neither kid is sleeping and I don't know how long they'll stay calm! But at least they are in their rooms pretending. Alright, they aren't even pretending. Ryan is talking to himself and has already rearranged his closet. Yesterday he took out his suitcase and packed it up with all his blankets, pillows, animals, etc. Abby is thinking about crying ...

Yesterday was a big day for little miss Abby. If you haven't heard yet, she rolled over! I brought her downstairs and laid her on her mat for tummy time. And she said I don't think so and immediately rolled over to her back. There's a video of her rolling on youtube. And of course one of Ryan as well, he wanted to take turns rolling and asked for his pictures too. Silly kid!

Another highlight, my house was professionally cleaned this morning as a slightly belated birthday present. It was wonderful!!! I had no idea my house was so dirty until I came home to a clean one. Love it!! Thanks Mom & Dad!!

two-for-two

Had a good morning today, Abby slept until 6:30! She nursed and then went back to bed, so I got some me-time early today. Did a mile on the gazelle and then enjoyed a nice long shower, washing my hair & shaving my legs, with no kids running around causing trouble :) Ryan didn't wake up until 9:15 and Abby slept until after 10!! We spent the morning (what was left of it!) at the park with Nana. Ryan had such a good time running around and I was happy to have him expend some energy. All of a sudden he's realized he's a 2.75 year old boy and he is becoming quite rambunctious. We all enjoyed getting outside for a while!

hot and sweaty fun

 smiles while watching Big Brother play

 

a fresh start (maybe)

So it's been forever since I've blogged! It's not intentional, I just can't seem to find the time or energy! Life just keeps getting in the way :) I love having two kids, but it sure is an adjustment (especially when you visit scottish rite as often as we do!). As one friend put it: it's "good chaos." I'm so blessed and so grateful for the two amazing children we have and I love my family more than anything, but some days I'm just plain tired. That and Ryan has given up his naps, so I lose my "me time." Yes, I still have him lay down every afternoon, but it's hard to relax when you hear him walking around & you are afraid of what trouble he might be causing! And his new favorite trick: "mommy, pee-pee." (I hate potty training, if you haven't done it yet, don't start, keep them in diapers as long as you can!). Another favorite: "Mommy, wake up!" He doesn't seem to understand that you can't wake up if you haven't slept... All that to say, blogging is not at the top of my to-do list these days!

Abby is three months old and doing wonderfully. She is such a happy, laid back baby. She loves to smile & coo and she rolls halfway over - she likes to get up on her right side. She sleeps 8p - 8a, getting up once in the night to eat, somewhere between 3-6. Compared to Ryan at this age, we're just amazed! As you may recall, he didn't sleep through the night until 6months and he cried every evening for a couple of hours.

With the exception of the potty training struggles, Ryan is doing well too. His favorite activity right now is playing cars (I am thinking he's borderline obsessive about it, he'll play for hours if we'd let him). He also loves to go to the swimming pool, esp with Grandpa. He jumps in, blows bubbles, climbs out, goes under, kicks with a tube on - basically everything except actual swimming. He loves to be in the water! His speech is really coming along, he talks all the time and will say the most random things. His memory is amazing too, he'll say something out of the blue that we haven't talked about in a week.

So we'll see if now that I have taken this first step, I can continue to blog. Please don't hold your breath or anything, but I'll try :) And ps, even if I don't update this, I still keep my picasa pictures updated, so check those out occasionally to see what we're up to! Happy Summer everyone!

Ryan's point of view

Over the weekend, we had a family reunion of sorts with my mom's side of the family. We all had a wonderful time. Ryan especially enjoyed documenting the occasion with photographs. He took hundreds of photos on Aunt Lolly's camera! When the memory card filled up, he moved on to my camera. We only got about 30 images before it started thundering and Ryan turned off my camera & took it inside because the rain was coming - "raining, raining." But I'm amazed by how much I've enjoyed looking through Ryan's pictures. They are very insightful into what the world looks like from his point of view. I can't wait to see the ones he took on Lolly's camera too!!

I never realized how tall we (especially Daddy) must look when you are short like Ryan!

And when you are short, you take a lot of pictures of knees. Here's great-Uncle John doing some sort of jig for Ryan :)

What do you suppose Ryan was thinking when he walked right up to Steve's shoe and took a picture of the bottom of it??