wrap me up, Mommy

After two short days back at work, I came down with a sore throat and cold. I wasn't feeling very good but I was able to continue to work in spite my illness. By the second week, I'd brought home a bug and Ryan was sick with the stomach flu. I stayed home the following day so that Ry didn't have to go to the sitters while he was sick.
I'm still swaddling Evan up for naps and bedtime and Ryan watches me perform this pre-bedtime routine with the little guy. When we were home sick with the stomach flu, Ryan was particularly attached to me. As you can see in these pictures, Evan was exhausted so I was wrapping him up and preparing him for bedtime. Ryan wanted to be wrapped up too. I always say that I'm wrapping Evan up like a burrito but Ryan let me know that he wanted to be wrapped up like a hot dog! Ha! That kid really does have a sense of humor. Anyway, I just had to take a picture of my little burrito and my little hot dog.

Ryan's Birthday Celebrations

So you've probably noticed that things have gotten slightly busier around our house with me working full time, being mommy full time, Colin working full time, going to school full time, and being daddy full time. So, I apologize for this post being over a week late!

Anyway, we did celebrate Ryan's Birthday last Saturday and here is some proof. We had a nice little family thing at our house. Ryan chose pizza for dinner and then we had cake and ice cream too. He got lots of presents and has really enjoyed playing with everything this week. Ryan with his spoils and a balloon. He was excited about the balloon and very good about waiting for Aunt Katie to open his presents.


I did let him open this one before Katie arrived because let's face it, how do you wrap a 5 foot by 5 foot rug?

Starting in on the gifts.

Can you tell how excited he was to get some dinosaurs from Nana?

And isn't that the cutest backpack ever?

He loves it. Wanted to take it everywhere for about three days.

opening gifts


We gave him a train track set and a bunch of trains that magnetize together.

Daddy and Ryan had a great time putting together the track.



He had a wonderful day and those train tracks and dinosaurs kept him busy for nearly two hours. I was so amazed! We celebrated with my family at Sunday dinner the following day but I forgot my camera. Jess gave him an outfit that is of course super cute. Grandma and Grandpa totally spoiled him of course. He got a train for his track that is battery operated. He didn't let go of it for at least 48 hours straight. They also got him a huge Tonka Dump truck. And my dad hand made him the cutest stool. I need to take a picture of it.

3 years old

Ryan turns three years old today!

He stands 3 feet tall and weighs 32 pounds.

He speaks in complete sentences and hardly ever stops talking.

He is fully potty-trained!

He has learned how to pedal his tricycle.

He is a fast runner.

His favorite foods are chicken nuggets, pancakes, and pizza.

He loves juice!

His favorite color is green.

His favorite TV shows are Fireman Sam, Sesame Street, and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

He is very curious and has recently discovered the word "why?"

His favorite books are Bernstein Bears and the Missing Dinosaur Bone, Thomas the Train, and, Goodnight Moon.

He loves everything with wheels and tires.

He loves to ask questions when riding in the car.

His favorite songs are the Spiderman theme song, the OC theme song "California", and Five Little Ducks.

He knows what an iPod is and he knows that if Mommy has the iPod in the car he can request the above mentioned songs.

His best friends are Curen and Charlie.

His favorite animals are dinosaurs and bunnies.

He loves to be outside and play in grandpa's pasture.

He has an awesome sense of humor and cracks his daddy and mommy up almost daily.
He is very smart and knows how to get what he wants. I won't go as far as to say that he has learned the art of negotiating yet but he's close.

He loves his little brother Evan.

We are so excited that Ryan is 3 years old now, and so is he!

5 months

I am 5 months old today! I have really changed this month and my parents are amazed at how quickly I'm developing. Before you know it, I'll be on the field at LaVell Edwards Stadium.

Here are some of the fun things I've done in the past month:

- rolled from my tummy to my back (I only did it twice in a row while Mommy and Daddy were looking, I haven't figured out how to repeat the same amazing stunt)

- was introduced to the exersaucer (Mommy likes to put me in this thing that has all kinds of fun toys on it, I do get bored pretty quick though)

- started eating solid foods (I love applesauce, yummy, yummy)

- had my first portraits taken

- put my feet in the sand for the first time

- saw and felt the Pacific ocean for the first time

-tagged along to many outtings at the Splash Park

- watched my big brother run around like a crazy man

- rode in the car for over 24 hours to go to California and back (please Mommy let's not do that again)

- laughed a lot

- gave lots of cuddles

- melted many hearts with my adorable smile and quirky facial expressions

- learned how to sleep through the night (again)

- decided I would fervently let Aunt Jessie know of my eating preferences (no bottles thank you very much!)

- waited patiently in a three hour line for Mommy to buy some ridiculous book

- learned to sit up (well I haven't perfected this one yet but I am getting better at it all the time)

hide and seek

Sometimes it can be challenging to find things for a three year old to do in 900 square feet of living space. We spend a lot of time outdoors, but what to do when you are just too hot to go outside anymore? Hide and seek. Ryan loves to play this game with his daddy but I do play with them sometimes. Ryan likes to hide inside the dryer. I actually got him to look at the camera once too!

Applesauce

I decided that after several nights of Evan waking at 1:00 to eat that we would try giving him some solid food during the day. I gave him the only thing I could feed a baby in the house, applesauce. He loved it. He couldn't get enough. And, it worked! He slept through the night that night and every night since then. He is so funny when he eats. If the food isn't perfectly pureed then he acts like he is gagging. He also pretty much screams in between bites. I can't get the food into him fast enough. He'll eat a whole serving three times a day if I'd let him. Such a funny baby boy. Evan has tried applesauce, bananas, prunes, and peaches. He also eats whatever grandma and grandpa will give him behind my back as well. He's been eating so much that he has been nursing less which will be nice for when I have to go back to work... this week!

Exersaucer

Evan has been trying out the Exersaucer lately. He likes to hang out and play with his toys for a little while. I didn't think he was quite ready for it yet because he isn't sitting up all by himself, but he does seem to enjoy it. Ryan has also gotten in a few times. I guess he just wanted to try it out since it was something new in the room. I don't mind. I doubt he's too heavy for it.

tiny living things

Ryan has really been enjoying the outdoors and playing with our neighbor. They've ridden bikes and played at each others houses almost every day for the last several days. One day last week we went to the little playground and his friend was stung by an unknown insect. Two days later, Ryan was stung on his lip at the same playground. I went back to investigate and sure enough there were wasp nests inside the top of the slide. Poor guys. This is a picture of Ryan's swollen upper lip from the incident. Luckily he didn't really react poorly and a few Popsicles and a Tylenol later he'd forgotten all about it.

Wednesday we were playing outside and we noticed some tiny little toads jumping around. Ryan's friend is three years older and has gained a little fear with his wisdom. Being nearly three years old, Ryan is pretty much fearless and was attempting to pick up the tiny critter. All of us, including Evan, had a great laugh at the wriggling little guy in his hands. The frog jumped into dangerous territory when he got off into the asphalt. So, I thought I'd help them out and try to coax it back onto the grass. I was unsuccessful in my attempts. After playing with him for a little while, Ryan got excited and wasn't paying attention to where he was stepping. You can imagine what happened next. Yes, he stepped right on the frog and squished him to death just as quickly. Ryan was completely distraught. He did not know what to think, say, or do. He asked why the frog wasn't jumping and we had to explain multiple times to him what happened. Daddy came to the rescue and threw the little guy in the garbage. Ryan was just beside him self with sorrow. He was crying and asking so many questions. None of the answers we gave him helped much. While I prepared dinner in the kitchen, I overheard the most precious conversation. Ryan and Colin were discussing the tiny frog. Colin really took advantage of the teaching moment and told him that the frog got to go to heaven to live with Heavenly Father and Jesus. He told him that we would get to see him again someday too. He also tried to teach Ryan that we need to be very careful and cautious around small things. "We have to be gentle and watch where we step", he told him. I thought it was incredible to listen to them discussing the events. Ryan is still having a hard time understanding what happened. Thank heavens we don't own a dog!

Walk for the Cure

Colin and I are excited to be a part of the 2008 tri-county Walk to Cure Diabetes. We walked last year and had a really great time. The walk will be held at Wheeler Farm on Saturday, August 23. Registration begins at 8:30am and the 5K walk will start at 9:30am. Our goal last year was $100 and we earned that amount in a little less than a week. On walk day, we had surpassed our goal by 20%. I've decided to double that goal this year and we are well on our way to accomplishing it. Thanks to those who have already donated and registered for the walk. It should be a lot of fun. I know that most of my readers are also on my extensive email list, so I apologize for the repetition, I just wanted to get the word out and I thought that this would be another great way to do that. Thanks!

If you would like to join this year's walk please follow this link.

http://walk.jdrf.org/walker.cfm?id=87032163

If you would like to donate money to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, please follow this link.

http://walk.jdrf.org/support.cfm?id=87032163

Midnight Release

Breaking Dawn!

(don't worry... no spoilers included)

Friday morning, August 1st, Jess and I got in line for our wrist bands for the midnight release of Stephenie Meyer’s last installment of the Twilight Series, Breaking Dawn. I knew that people were going to line up early, but rumors spread that there had been people in line since the night before! When we got there an hour before the doors opened, the line was quite long! I towed the boys along with me and they did pretty well in the THREE HOUR line. Jess was great at entertaining Ryan and Evan was a great baby as usual. The wristbands handed out were done in increments of 25. I was just one number off from Jess so she and I were in different groups. This meant that I was number 276. Needless to say, Stephenie Meyer has a lot of fans in Salt Lake. The festivities started sometime around 8:00pm but we decided to leave around 10:30. When we arrived the lines from the morning were nothing compared to the mob of people (mostly young ladies) that was gathered outside of the bookstore. This particular Barnes and Noble had sent out faux wedding invitations and had created a wedding reception themed event. There were many girls dressed in formal attire, prom dresses most of them, and there were even some guys all dolled up too. Truly a sight to behold. At around 11:00pm the line started to form although it remained mostly a mass of people and the chaos was really starting to get to me. Fortunately, all turned out well and we had purchased our books by about 12:40. I have finished the book and I liked it a lot. I'm not really one to criticise literature much though. I could have bought the book on our regular Saturday morning trip to Wal Mart for a few bucks cheaper and without the lines, it was fun to be a part of the hype. So, without spoilers, what did you think? I’ve liked it so far.

the line in the morning
Ryan and Jess... don't they look bored?
Me, Ryan, sleeping Evan, and Jess' friend Stacy

showing off our wristbands
the crowd of people anxiously awaiting midnight
the bookstore

Jess and I in line to buy our books
a cute volunteer helping out the B & N people

she did a little comprehension game and handed out candy
Jess and I separated by one number she got to go in the group ahead of me
Jess buying her copy of the book
We are so excited to finally have our own copies of the book.