Sunday, January 31, 2010

Welcoming a Nephew!

Kevin and Shannah are having a Boy! They invited the family down to Round Table Pizza yesterday afternoon for a Gender Reveal Party. We arrived to find pink AND blue cupcakes decorated on the table, with pink AND blue jelly beans to snack on as well. They had each of us hold either a pink or blue cupcake (depending on what we thought the baby would be) and take a picture as a group for the baby book. Then they told us we had to wait until after lunch to find out girl or boy. When they brought out the pizzas, we quickly saw BOY spelled out with tomatoes and olives on each pizza! (I forgot to take my camera - sorry, no pictures from me!) It was a cute way to reveal the sex of the baby. And they wrote down their top boy names and let us give our input on what names we liked and which ones we disliked, OR to give suggestions of spellings or our own name ideas for Baby F.

We look forward to Baby F's arrival in June.

Congrats to Kevin & Shannah - boys are lots of fun! :)

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Movin' on up!

For the past week or so, Ryan has been napping at Nanny's house on the big kids' beds. He comes home in the evenings so excited to tell me that he's slept on the big bed! So Jake and I decided that we would finally take the front crib railing off Ryan's bed and replace it with the convertible rail. He can now climb into the bed by himself and he actually got in the bed several times this evening to play!


We gave Ryan very firm instructions that he can sleep in the big boy bed as long as he stays in bed all night and only gets up when Mommy or Daddy comes in to get him up. Tonight was the easiest bedtime routine in a long time. We brushed our teeth together, I changed him for bed, he gave his bedtime kisses and then climbed in bed and told me "goodnight". When I closed the door, for the first time in weeks, he did not cry! And 30 minutes into bedtime, he didn't get up even one time.


Our little boy is growing, growing, growing! Now that he's into his big boy bed - well, not technically, it's still the crib but now he's not "locked in" - maybe the next big step for me will be removing the changing table from his room that he outgrew a long time ago!

Monday, January 25, 2010

If I didn't have bad luck...

...I wouldn't have any luck at all!

One day last week on a trip to JoAnn's to purchase tulle for Kinedy's first birthday tutu, I found a cute Valentine's Day mug that I wanted to pick up for my Bonco secret pal. It was on sale and I only paid $3.00 for it! On my drive home I was imagining that I would fill it with Hershey Kisses and wrap it in clear cellophane wrap and take to our next Bonco in February. I was also imaging that on my way to the front door of Bonco, it would be my luck that I would drop it on the sidewalk and the mug would shatter and then my secret pal would find out who I was!

So when I pulled my car into the garage that evening, I opened the back door of the car and grabbed my shopping bag from the floorboard. No sooner did I grab the bag, it slipped out of my hand and landed on the cement, breaking the handle off. I'm not even making this stuff up! I was so upset. After I finally decided that spending $3.00 on a mug was a good idea an entire month before Valentine's Day - I dropped it on the ground and it broke!

Moving on to Friday after work. I'm at WalMart picking up a few things and happened to walk by the Valentine's Day aisle. I ignored it at first but then turned my cart around to check out what items they had and to see if I could find a comparable mug for my secret pal. I found a mug! It was $5.00 but it had a stuffed dog in it that I could take out and give to Ryan and use the mug for my secret pal. I purchased the mug along with all my other items, loaded my groceries into the trunk and drove on home. Forgetting about the mug completely - I grab all my grocery bags from the trunk and lug them into the house. I place all my bags on the kitchen counter and hear a loud shattering noise. Yes, I broke the mug! Can you believe it? $8.00 on 2 mugs that my secret pal will never see!

I've decided I will not buy my secret pal a mug and fill it with candy. Instead, maybe I will find a plastic container to fill with candy! Ha!

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

New Addition

My brother and sister-in-law, Kevin & Shannah, are expecting their first child this summer and we are so excited to meet him/her!

Kevin & Shannah --

When I asked Ryan, what do you think the baby will be, a boy or a girl?" he responded, "Yeah!" So I rephrased the question, "do you think it will be a boy?" to which he replied, "Yeah!" And then, "do you think it will be a girl?" and again he replied, "Yeah!" So apparently Ryan is still undecided on the decision! I, however, think we will be welcoming a nephew! Jake, on the other hand, thinks we will be welcoming a niece!

So will it be a a boy?
Or is it a girl?


Will we be buying trucks and tractors?

Or buying hairbows and tutus?


Whether we are wearing blue and welcoming our new nephew...
Or wearing pink to welcome our new niece...
We love you guys and can't wait to meet your bundle of joy!

Friday, January 15, 2010

Using his manners

I am so thankful that Ryan is such a polite little boy! This morning as we backed out of the driveway and neared the end of our street, I reached down and turned up the heater and Ryan must watch everything I am doing because as soon as I turned up the heater he said, “Thank you Mommy” and went right back to drinking his juice! Every morning when I strap him into the car seat he says, “Brrr, its cold. Turn on the heater!” Haha!

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

A little Night Cap

I wanted to share a few funny stories from Ryan over the last 2 days. He's so funny in the evenings when we get home from work.
Lately I've been giving Ryan a countdown (20 minutes, 15 minutes, 5 minutes, etc.) until bed time. By the time 8:30 rolls around, he's ready to lay his head on the pillow! Last night I was telling Ryan that he had 20 minutes before it was time to go to bed. Now, obviously, he has no sense of time but I literally laughed out loud when he responded, "No, me go to bed in 2 minutes" because he thought that was longer than 20 minutes! Haha!
Today I looked into a local preschool to get Ryan on the waiting list for the 3 year old class in September. When I got home tonight I was asking Ryan if he wanted to go to school and make some new friends. He was so excited, wide-eyed and asked, "Me wear helmet to school?" He is really into wearing my old quad helmet and apparently thinks that not only do you wear a helmet while you're riding quads but also that you wear a helmet to school! I laughed and told him that he won't wear his helmet to school but that he can wear a backpack. He thought that was pretty cool. I mean, what 2 year old doesn't want a "pack pack"?
I look forward to Ryan's first day of preschool this fall - I know, I know, it's only January - but I don't want him to miss this class! And this means potty training is now my goal for Ryan by the summer.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Up in the gym just workin' on my fitness!

So today was an extremely busy day at the office and then my friend (and co-worker) and I finally got back to the gym tonight! It felt really good to get back on track and start working out today. The plan is to hit the gym again tomorrow night and then pick back up on Thursday. We're shooting for 4 days this week and the only reason I'm blogging it is to hopefully hold myself accountable to the workouts. It's a slow start but I'm feeling good about it tonight! Here's to hoping I keep at it this time!

This week is Bonco at my house so I'm planning on taking some photos and blogging about our Bonco group later in the week! I love Bonco night - it's a fun, one night a month where the girls can get together, eat yummy food, catch up on the girl-talk and try to win $30!

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Sunday Drives

A few weeks ago while Jake was on a two week vacation (must be nice!!) we took a nice, leisurely Sunday drive. Can you guess where we were?


Although there is sand in this picture, we were not at the beach!

Ryan was pointing the direction he wanted to keep exploring!

We loaded up the car and headed towards Kaweah Lake and past Three Rivers. We drove to the gate at the Sequoias and then turned around and ate lunch at a nice little restaurant with a creek running along side of it. The picture above is of the blow-up Santa and friends across the creek at the restaurant.



We took a little photo shoot of Ryan hanging out on the rocks before we ate lunch.



We sat on the patio of the restaurant so Ryan could watch the ducks playing in the water and still see Santa and friends as well. For the most part, Ryan walked around the patio, climbed the stairs and hung over the railing while we ate our lunch.




After lunch we drove back towards Kaweah Lake and stopped to play at Slick Rock Recreation Area where we climbed the rocks and played in the water. Ryan LOVED splashing in the shallow puddles in his rain boots!



I was trying to explain to him why he couldn't just go run out into the water, he wanted to go in deeper.


He got to walk through the water between Jake and I and he had so much fun!




It was difficult to drag Ryan away from the water but I think we had just as much fun as he did! Next time we venture out for a Sunday drive, I think we will head for snow!

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Did you know?

Today, as I wait patiently for Blogger to cooperate in uploading my pictures, I thought I'd share some information you may find useless but nonetheless information about me that you may not have ever known! Sounds fun, huh? So here we go:
  • I am still afraid of the DARK!
  • I have good intentions of cleaning the kitchen and running the dishwasher every night but usually I'm too lazy and let the kitchen stay dirty for a night (or two)!
  • I love to wear cowboy boots and own both a black and brown pair.
  • I have no intention of ever going back to college - should have done it right after high school but wasn't too interested then either.
  • I used to want to be on the reality show, Real World.
  • Driving sometimes stresses me out - I am definitely a road rager!
  • I wonder if it's normal to remember phone numbers of friends from high school, 10 years later? And am I the only person who still has the same cell phone number 10 years later?
  • I used to always have a pack of Big Red gum in my purse. I wonder when I stopped carrying it and chewing it?
  • I laugh at something Ryan says or does everyday.
  • I love to experiment with my hairstyles and color. In fact, I'm having it cut tomorrow and will probably dye it soon after.
  • I am obsessed with checking Blogger and Facebook as soon as I get to work everyday (shhh, don't tell) but hardly ever comment on my friends' blogs or Facebook status.
  • I am so glad my kid likes to go to bed at night. At least we only have to fight him on what to eat for dinner and not when to go to bed.
  • As I type this post, Ryan is sitting next to me flipping through the channels on the tv, stopping on ESPN of all things (just like his father!).

Hope you've enjoyed getting to know me a little better! As soon as I can get my pictures uploaded, I'll post about our recent weekend Sunday drive. Stay tuned...

Friday, January 1, 2010

A late gift!

This post is brought to you by MY NEW LAPTOP COMPUTER! Yay! Our friends were here celebrating New Year's Eve with us last night and their daughter brought her laptop to keep her entertained. I told Jake this morning that I was a little jealous that she could sit on the couch and surf the net and that I wanted to be able to blog while laying in bed at night. SO, Jake did some research and we headed for Best Buy earlier today. The end result, my brand new laptop! It's actually our little Christmas present to each other - since we didn't really buy each other gifts this year. I Love It! We're laying in bed, Jake is watching ESPN and I'm clicking away on the computer - I love technology that lets me be comfy in bed and stay connected to the world! Haha!

Happy New Year all!