the Music class

 

Today was Abby's last day of her music class.  She has had such a great time in the class!  There are probably ten kids and mommies; Abby's the youngest and the oldest is about to turn four and graduate out.  Her teacher, Ms. Anna, is awesome.  She's very upbeat and energetic and wonderful with the children.  She pays attention to everyone and has always been very good with Abby, even before she was walking.  Of course now that she walks she's into everything!  Abby and two little boys in particular are the wanders of the class and get into everything.  Ms. Anna is great about it though and encourages us to let them explore and learn and listen in their own ways.  And Abby will now walk up to Ms. Anna and plop down in her lap whenever she feels like it!  During class we sing and dance and play instruments and wave scarves and all sorts of other fun stuff.  It's been a really good experience and I'm glad Abby's been able to have something that's all hers, instead of merely tagging along to Ryan's stuff :)  We've already enrolled again for the fall and I am looking forward to it!

Writing Words

Writing words on my phone has become a new favorite activity for Ryan.  He enjoys texting quite a bit and can pretty much do it all by himself.  I'll ask him who he wants to send words to and pull up the screen, but he'll type them and then he loves to hit the green button to send the words to that person's mailbox.  He knows all his letters and can type several words all on his own including Daddy, Mommy, Ryan, Abby.  He has also remembered the last few times that Sarah starts with S and Maxim with M like Mommy.  After that he just asks me how to spell the word he wants and I'll tell him, but he does all the typing.  So if you ever get a crazy random text from me, it's probably from Ryan!  Here's an example of a lenghty text he sent to Auntie Sarah over the weekend:  Dad dy sarah christian maxim mommy jake rachel James abby ryan laia  Pretty good, eh?!

Sportykes

Ryan and one of his best buddies, Asher, have been taking a Sportykes class together for the last nine weeks.  It's an awesome class and I've been so happy with it.  They spent the first two weeks playing basketball, then two weeks on baseball, soccer, and finally football.  This past Friday was the last class and they opened the gym to parents so we could watch and take pictures.  The boys played each sport for a few minutes and it was a blast.  Coach Laura has been so good with the boys and taught them so much.  It was a great experience and I'm so glad Ryan was able to participate!

Baby D pictures

I got the pictures from the photographer yesterday and thought they were wonderful!  What a nice gift - she's a professional wedding photographer and yet she donated her time & talents to the baby dedication service and all her pictures are available for free downloads.  Love it!!!  Thanks so much!!
 

Baby Dedication

This Sunday we dedicated Abby at our new church, Watermarke.  (well, not that new, we've been going there almost a year).  It was a special afternoon service with about twenty babies and families.  Chad Ward spoke for about ten minutes, we had some family prayer time and Coleson & I spoke about our values, we ate some cupcakes, and we had our photos taken.  It was a nice celebration of our commitment to raise Abby in a Christian home full of love and support and encouragement.  Hopefully one day she'll decide to give her life to Jesus and then we'll have a really big celebration!  Thanks to Grandma, Grandpa, Nana, Pop-Pop, Auntie Sarah, Uncle Christian, and cousin Maxim for coming and sharing in this very special event with us.  We love you guys and we love you sweet Abby girl!

Here we are in front of Abby's picture during the slide show before the service.  The photographer took some pictures of the four of us, as well as the extended fam.  I'm placing a lot of trust in her to have gotten some good ones and to get them to us. I only have a handful of pictures from the day, so I need her to come through for me!

300th post!

A quick Ryan-ism to make you laugh.  And as I opened a new post I saw that this was number 300, that sure sounds like a crazy lot to me!  But I guess I've been doing this for over three years now. 

So we got home today and went down to check the mail.  There were two magazines in there, a boring business-y one for Daddy and Ryan's highlights magazine.  Ryan always likes to carry at least one piece of mail up to the house, so I handed him his magazine and told him he could carry this one since it was his. 
"This is my magazine?  I'll put it by the potty!"

the end is near :(

Today was Ryan's second to last day of preschool, sad!  I really cannot believe it!  This year has gone super fast.  Since Thursday is the school performance, today was party day.  The fun began with bike riding.  When we told Ryan last night that he'd be bringing his bike to school today, his whole face lit up.  Seriously.  Not sure I've ever seen him so excited!  So of course I had to stay and sneak a peek of bike day.  He did really well on his big boy bike and appeared to have a great time.  He even negotiated a trade and rode Caden's little car thingy for awhile. 

After that the class had an ice cream party, yumm!  Despite my instincts to go with vanilla, I made Ryan a dish of chocolate ice cream like he asked for.  After eating all the M&Ms and gummi bears, he decided he didn't like chocolate ice cream, so I finished it off for him :)  His teachers gave him a beach bucket full of goodies including a pinwheel, a beach towel with his name embroidered on it, and a CD of pictures from throughout the year.  Ryan enjoyed playing with his little friends, especially under the table.  Apparently that is their "house" and quite a few of them were under there! 

It was a little sad for me - Ryan really knows and likes his friends this year.  He talks about them all the time and is already asking if they'll be in his bigger kid class after the break.  I sure hope so!  I know it's cliche, but my baby really is growing up fast!

Ms. Erica, Ryan, and Ms. Shannon

Zac Brown Band!

This past weekend was a great one (but, hey, aren't all weekends?!).  We didn't have too many plans for once, so we enjoyed lots of down-time and family-time.  In fact, Coleson & I each got in a nap on Sunday afternoon!  And what relaxing Saturday afternoon would be complete without a cheesy weekend movie?! 

The highlight of the weekend was the Zac Brown Band concert on Saturday night!!  Woo-hoo!!  I was itching for a date night and this one was a wonderful one indeed.  Dinner needed to be quick, but preferably somewhere different, so we ate at Jimmy John's.  Pretty tasty.  Then we were off to Verizon Wireless Amphitheater.  After two opening acts, Zac came out and it was awesome.  I've heard that he's amazing in concert and he was!  The lights, the video screens, all the a/v stuff was crazy cool.  It was such a fun and energetic show.  The violin player was seriously close to stealing the show and Zac did an amazing drum break on some sort of conga drum thing {I probably knew what it was called back in my band days but not anymore :)}.  He played all my favs - Chicken Fried, Devil Went Down to Georgia, Toes, Knee Deep, Colder Weather.  And believe it or not, Alan Jackson showed up for his verse on As She's Walking Away.  I had actually told Coleson on the way there, wouldn't that be cool if Alan Jackson showed up?  He's from Atlanta,  you know.  I only wished he had sung a little longer than his handful of lines.  I'd also heard Zac plays a long show and that is also true.  I lost the battle and we left at 11:l5 (concert started at 7, Zac came on at 8:45).  But we were tired and needed to relieve babysitting Nana.  And I checked off my mental list and had heard everything I wanted to hear.  So yes, we certainly got our money's worth.  What a great show and a great night.  Thanks Coleson for the date night!!  I love you :)

Socks, Frogs, & Kitty Cats

For better or worse, neither one of my kids has really attached to anything in particular.  I suppose that's good since I don't have to worry about losing it.  However, I do think it is sweet to see a child loving on a special toy or animal. 

For Abby the closest thing she has to a lovey would be socks.  Yup, socks.  She loves them, carries them around, can't get enough of them.  I have watched her dig through a stack of laundry, throwing aside underwear and shorts, and seen her entire face light up when she finds a sock.  I am serious here, no exaggeration.  She loves them.  Clean, dirty, Ryan's, Daddy's, colorful, white, black, it doesn't matter, she loves them all. 

Ryan's go-to comfort toy would have to be some combination of his kitty cat, frog, and Moo-tee pillow.  Kitty Cat was a gift from cousin Ricky when we were visiting family up North over Thanksgiving.  Ryan immediately bonded with Kitty Cat and takes him everywhere.  It's not a must-have, I can't sleep without him situation, but he does usually ask for him at night.  However, Kitty did spend the night at Grandma's house once (aka Mommy had no idea where he was so I told my son a white lie, oops).  Kitty used to ride in the car a lot; now he just mostly stays in bed all day.  Kitty has gotten to go a few exciting places with Ryan, including preschool.  Frog came from an even more unlikely place.  We were at a craft sale in December and some lady at a booth just handed him to Ryan - he was getting a little tired of shopping and was somewhat cranky :)  I'm thinking this is sort of weird and probably germ-covered, but oh well why not.  Frog has been a best friend ever since.  Frog sleeps on his bed as well and I try really hard to keep him there.  Ryan occasionally wants to carry him around, but he's awfully little and awfully attractive to his orally-fixated sister.  And of course the Moo-tee / Snoopy pillow.  It's very cute and Ryan loves it.  It's a little small and I bought him a bigger brown one awhile back, but he won't use it.  He sleeps on Snoopy every night.  And if he spends the night away, Kitty and Frog and Snoopy Pillow always make the bag. 

For now, this is the closest Ryan & Abby have come to attaching themselves to something.  I suppose we'll see what happens, especially as Abby gets older.  I've seen her on occasion holding a doll or sleeping next to a stuffed cat.  I would imagine she will eventually pick a favorite being a girl and all.  But I guess we just get to wait and see! 

Filling in the gaps

What with all the birthday posts, I feel like I haven't been very good about posting the daily stuff recently!  So here's a quick summary; hopefully I can get caught back up and then stay current again :)  Last Saturday, in addition to Abby's birthday, we went to Touch-a-Truck.  It was really cool.  All sorts of big trucks, firetrucks, dumptrucks, tractors, racecars, swat vehicles, etc were parked and Ryan got to check them all out.  He had a blast with Maxim and Jake.  His favorite was the big green swat truck, I think because he got to play with the walkie-talkie thing! 

Easter Sunday we celebrated with some egg hunts and a brunch at Nana & Pop-Pop's neighborhood clubhouse.  

We've enjoyed grilling out this spring and the new picnic table has been a big hit.  We're really loving the warm weather and all the fun stuff in our backyard!  Today we spent the evening out on the water with some friends.  It was so nice to be on a boat again and both kids did really really well!