Busy Bees

I feel like this weekend was just go-go-go-go-go!  It was great fun and we accomplished a lot, but it just left me plain wore out! 

Friday was errand day and we didn't get home from the grocery store until nearly 6:00, not good when you've got plans to cook a nice big dinner.  But it was still yummy and only took an hour or so!  Then the bedtime routine and killing some time on the computer (and making a lovely Valentine picture for everyone, hope ya'll enjoy the next post!). 

Saturday, gee that seems so long ago already.  Oh yes, Saturday was Ryan's first swim lesson!  He and Nana are taking classes down at the Y every Saturday for the next six weeks I believe.  And I guess I should clarify before continuing - it's really only Ryan taking them, Nana already knows how to swim!  I heard he did really really well, no crying at all, and had no fear of the water, yay!  It was a whole lot harder on me than I ever imagined though - scary having your baby at a pool all by himself when you're not there to protect & watch over him!  Anyways, thanks Nana for the swim lessons!  And, yes it is an "inside pool, too cold outside" 

We also were able to visit with Uncle Jason for a bit on Saturday which was nice.  And Coleson & the kids enjoyed a nice dinner with Jason, Jim, & Nana while Mommy had a much needed girl's night out, thanks for taking care of them for me!  I'm so blessed with this group of girls from our old church - five of six of us made it on Saturday which is amazing in itself.  Three of us have known each other six years, the other three joined a little over four years ago.  And we haven't been an organized group in over three years, yet we are still able to get together and have fun, despite nine kids with a tenth on the way!  I love these girls, I love that we can talk about anything, I love that we are still friends even though life has pulled us in so many different directions - only two still even go to the same church, several of us have moved, lots of kids obviously!  Anyways, it was great seeing them and celebrating another baby on the way!

Sunday was church, haircuts, making chili, a quick visit to Grandma & Grandpa's tennis (sorry we couldn't stay longer!), and then a "long drive to (Uncle) Tyler's church" although with Ryan's muffled speech it sounded more like dinosaurs at church then going to Tyler's church.  We were so happy to celebrate with Tyler as he was baptized last night!  Congratulations!  We love you both!  Not sure how sitting on our bums in the car for two hours, sitting in church, and then sitting in the car again was so tiring, but it sure was.  Guess it has something to do with having two little ones in tow!  They did surprisingly good during church though and fortunately slept pretty well in the car. 

So now we are back to Monday again, speech, preschool, repeat, hopefully throw in some fun trips to the playground since it's supposed to hit 60 degrees, yay!  And oh yes, Happy Valentine's Day too!

Fishies!

We spent the day in Chattanooga at the Tennessee Aquarium with our friends James & Rachel & Jake.  We all had a great time!  Ryan loves hanging out with Jake and has really been looking forward to today.  All yesterday he kept talking about Jake & fishies & penguins & all animals.  We also saw lots of turtles and butterflies and sharks and even river otters (like in wildlife bingo). 

Understandably Ryan was not a big fan of the enormous spider crabs; neither did he care much for sting rays.  His favorite seemed to be the jellyfish and sea nettles.  He lit up at the sea nettle display : "there's one, another one, and one up there!"  And of course the escalators were a huge hit :)

Abby enjoyed the butterfly display; she repeatedly reached for them and would track them flying all around.  She also enjoyed all the fish tanks.  She loved standing up against them and pointing and shouting "DA!"  Oh and be sure to notice her cute little fishie outfit - it was one of her baby dresses last summer that made a really cute shirt today!

Unfortunately it was really cold and windy, so weren't able to spend time at the playground and we only stuck around long enough for Ryan to run up the cool bridge once.  We had a very yummy Mexican lunch before heading home.  But we are now season pass holders, so if anyone wants to go, let us know!  We're looking forward to more visits in the future and I think we can save you a couple bucks if you go with us.

After vegging at home for a bit and enjoying some cheesy weekend movies on tv, we finished the day with dinner at Cold Stone Creamery!  Sometimes you just have to be bad :)  Ryan enjoyed his very own kiddie ice cream cup and picked out chocolate chips for his mix-in, yummy! 

Days Go By ....

Well, it's Friday again!  I hate the idea of wishing away my life, but I sure do love Fridays and the promise of the weekend & lots of fun & family :)  Let's see if I can remember anything interesting from this week ... 

Tuesday, Abby had a followup with her urologist and we were told she was "boring" and we thought that was the most wonderful thing we'd ever heard!  The good kidney is perfect, yay!, and the bad kidney has already just about shriveled up and disappeared, so it was a wonderful appt.  We'll go back in a year and then after that we'll probably be able to go several years.  Her pediatrician/ nephralogist will likely monitor some levels occasionally, but we are normal now!!

Wednesday we had a fun morning at Catch Air with our buddies Asher & Andrew.  We love seeing our friends and the kids have such a great time running running running and playing.  Even Abby is starting to get in on the fun and crawling around and pulling up on some of the toys. 

Thursday we made an adventure of lunch and Walmart after picking Ryan up from preschool.  We had a real lunch at the Midway meal house and it was quite enjoyable.  Again, I'm trying to balance not wanting my kids to get too big and yet loving how much more independent Abby is getting.  It's so nice to be able to do things and get out of the house and experience the world.  We ended the day with a fun dinner & book study with some friends while Ryan and Abby and their son Jake tore up their house, oops :)

Today we are hibernating and trying to stay warm & dry.  Weatherwise, it's been a perfectly nasty week.  Abby is taking a marathon nap (I'm sooo jealous, I'd love to be in my bed!).  Ryan is sending random texts to people while I type this.  He loves to type and "spell" on my phone.  I used to be able to get away with him using my notes feature, but now he's discovered the "mailbox" when a text gets sent.  So he isn't content with mere notes anymore, he wants to "push green button, put in mailbox."  And just now, "I put in mailbox for Sarah."  Thanks for being a good sport if you are the lucky recipient of any of these texts!

Happy Friday everyone and have a great weekend!

"Daddy home TWO days!"

So after a week of not feeling so well, especially for poor Abby, we were very excited for this past weekend.  Our sweet girl had a cold that turned into an ear infection, conjunctivitis in her eyes, and five days of breathing treatments for a bronchial type cough & wheezing. 

We planned to kick off the weekend with a family movie & pizza night on Friday, but Ryan got a better offer.  He spent the evening with Grandma & Grandpa (after a week of hanging out with a sick sister, he really needed some individiual attention so thank you!).  They had a nice dinner and Ryan helped Grandma pick out "two sweaters, one blue, one red."  Since I hadn't made any dinner plans, Coleson & I still enjoyed a pizza! 

Saturday, Ryan & Coleson had some guy time.  They enjoyed a yummy breakfast at Chickfila and doing manly things at Lowe's and even bought Abby & I presents from Target, thanks boys!  Saturday afternoon we headed to the park to enjoy the sunny, 60 degree weather.  And then Coleson & Ryan washed the cars for us - well, I think Ryan got more water on himself than the car, but hey whatever.  :)  We ended the day with a yummy dinner at Grandma & Grandpa's house. 

After watching the sermon online Saturday night, we had a super lazy Sunday morning (hey, Abby was sick, no sick babies in the nursery, right?!).  We headed to another park Sunday afternoon to hang with Ryan's friend Jake and his family.  We finished with a delicious dinner, compliments of Nana & Pop-Pop this time. 

It was a great weekend enjoying the sunshine and family & friends!  We are looking forward to a great week and a trip to the Chattanooga Aquarium this weekend.  Hope every had a nice end to their Januaries; we are a month closer to summer now, yay!

Hiking the Mall

We had hoped to take the kids hiking today to get out of the house and get some fresh air.  However, despite the sunshine, it was only about 40 degrees and windy, thus we wussed out :)  So we packed up and headed to Discover Mills mall instead.  Being about an hour away, I can't tell you the last time we went there.  We had a great time though! 

We came in through a huge Bass Pro Shops, complete with a stop at the fish tank and a lifesize display featuring two moose.  Once in the mall there were all sorts of adventures to be had.  Ryan and I rode a train through the mall - quite fun actually!  We all rode the merry go round and our fun-loving Abby smiled and cooed the whole time, no surprise there!  Ryan rode a few little cars and stomped around on an interactive floor.  And of course we had to snack on some pretzels.  It's fun being intentional!

Thank you to you too

This picture was taken nearly three years ago at Central Park.  No not nyc, right here in Georgia.  I'm not sure why they call it Central Park, but it's a great park and we love to go when we can.  There's a huge playground, plenty of paved walking that's perfect for pushing strollers, baseball fields, tennis courts, a gym, etc.  I believe this was actually Ryan's first time in a swing.  He's about eight months old in this photo, but most of his younger days were in the cold of winter, so we hadn't been out much yet.

Anyways, now that we are a family of four, I have been updating our picture frames to include Abby.  This is the last pre-Abby picture to be replaced.  I LOVE this photo.  It wasn't planned, it wasn't even our idea, and yet it's one of my favorite photos ever.  A complete stranger at the park approached us and volunteered to take this photo for us.  How cool is that?  So thank you to whoever you are!  Three years later this fluke of a photo is still one of the best! 

Ryan vs Abby

Rewind 2.5 years ....
He weighed in at 17lbs 2 oz and is 28.5 inches - long and lean like his daddy.

And as of today ....
She weighed in at 16lbs 11 oz and is 27.25 inches - not as long but still very lean.

Skinny with big heads (90% for both) ... but that, my dear friends, that is where the similarities end! :)

Dearest Auntie Sarah,

So since you are one of only a handful of people that still follow my blog (shout out to Lindsay & Louie, thanks for the comment the other day!), I figured I could use this venue to tell you my little story.  And besides, anyone that knows you and your dog will likely appreciate it! 

I was at Homegoods the other day and the lady in front of me had apparently returned a dog bed.  It was still sitting on the back counter; it was pretty big and kind of goofy looking with some sort of cheetah/leopard print.  The manager was asking the cashier if there was anything wrong with it.  The cashier said no, it was fine, just that the lady's dog was terrified of it.  The owner had tried all sorts of things, sitting on it and calling the dog, putting treats on the bed, etc, but the dog would just not go anywhere near it.  Hummm, made me think of a dog I know ....  lots of love to you Laia ....

Nine months old (+ 1 day since I'm late posting!)

Abby turned nine months old yesterday!  (I no longer refer to them as birthdays, since Ryan gets all excited about birthday cake!).  Abby is doing great!  She has four teeth now, she got her top two right about Christmas.  She is still our wonderful sleeper - 12 hours at night and usually two or three more hours during the day.  Her eating is slowly progressing.  We've still got a long way to go, but we're focusing and working really hard on it.  In fact this morning she ate a couple of bites of pancake and bananas from my breakfast.  She still uses her fingers to push them all in of course and it's quite a mess!  I'll spare you the details, but she's also taking a bottle now three times a day, we've had a sudden weaning experience :(  But we made it nine months, so I feel good about that.  She loves her bottles and I actually think she drinks more, so that's also good.  She is a crazily fast crawler and is super curious.  She gets into way more stuff than Ryan ever did, so this should be interesting!  I've finally started putting up some of the breakables on my kitchen bookshelf since I just can't get her to leave them alone (Ryan never touched them). 

Ryan is a great big brother.  It was a wee bit rough when she first started crawling and getting into his toys.  But I guess he's realized that she's pretty fun to have around and to play with.  I also think it helped that Abby got a bunch of new toys for Christmas - now they can play with her toys, versus Ryan thinking they were all his (which in a way they were, he knew all the baby toys used to be his).  He loves to crawl along with her and bring her all sorts of toys and update me on where she is & what she's doing.  He also enjoys holding her and wanted to be in all her nine month pictures with her. 

I love my babies!

 

Happy Nine Month Birthday Abby!  (I can still type birthday since Ryan can't read yet! - actually he does recognize his name and Abby's name)

Being a silly camera hog! But Mommy will never say no to taking pictures :)