Seven years ago...

I was spending my first night with my brand new baby boy. He was tiny and perfect and loved to just be snuggled up with me. I couldn't believe how much I loved him. Now he's a big giant boy who is still perfect to me and loves to be snuggled up with me. :-) I can't believe that Ryan is seven years old. It doesn't seem like that long and I really can't even begin to know where all the time has gone.
Today he let me go to his class to bring cupcakes and visit. He was such a wonderful little boy and his teacher told me more than once how much she was going to miss him.
Here are some pictures of him at school.

Here he is while they are singing happy birthday to him.

Finishing lunch and getting ready to eat a cupcake!

Ms. Staup and Ryan.

Ryan and friends!!

Ryan's such a good boy and he really does make friends so easily and I'm grateful for that. He's incredibly smart...sometimes too smart for his own good and he loves to read and spell. He tells me more often than not that he's going to be a brain and blood doctor and that Cole is going to be a baby doctor. Now I can't complain about those ambitions, however I will be more than happy with whatever he chooses to do! I love you Ryan and I am so SO so proud of you! Happy Birthday baby!

Live Nativity, Guinea pigs and birthday cake!

So tonight after church we headed out to Lexington to the Journey To Bethlehem live nativity. It was REALLY awesome! The work that must go into it is amazing. Ryan was a little scared. The roman guards were VERY good at bossing you around and there was a lot of commotion going on with the people of Bethlehem trying to sell you things and get you to come into their shops. Ryan was pretty excited to get to pet a camel though! :-)

Here are the boys waiting for our groups turn to go in.

Ryan waiting patiently

Cole and Josh waiting too!

this is were we were told about a bright star in the sky...

Then we came to the wall of the city of Bethlehem

Inside the tax collectors tent...the guard pulled out a sword and just about scared Ryan out of his pants!

The angel speaking to us about the birth of Christ.

The manger. :-)
After that we headed back home. Ryan wanted an ice cream cake so we got him a REALLY cute snowman one! He LOVED it. I thought the snowman was made of frosting...but he was an icecream snowman and Ryan was VERY excited to get to eat it!

Blowing out the matches...er candles...I SWEAR I had candles...but I didn't. :-( Ryan didn't seem to mind though!

The cake!

Cheesey Smile...

Another cheesey smile! :-)

Ryan had been BEGGING for the Crayola Glow Dome...he LOVES it. :-)

Ryan and G-Force. :-)

Cole was on a BIT of a sugar high. :-) He was being a little crazy...and he's IN LOVE with G. Seriously.

Definitely bedtime. :-)

After the video, he changed the name one more time to G-Force...G for short. :-) Seriously...he was so happy. He's convinced that when we get to Utah, G will be sleeping on the bottom bunk of his bunk beds. :-) He also gave him a hug and kiss before going to bed and said "Don't worry G, you're brave, you won't be scared." :-) I just love him so much!

PS...you can hear Cole going NUTS in the background...he LOVES G and is so sweet and soft with him! Cole kind of sounds like a monkey though! LOL!

Conversation with Ryan tonight...

Ryan was snuggling with me on the couch tonight before bed and this was our conversation...

Ryan: Mom, I'm sad.

Me: Why are you sad?

Ryan: Because Grandpa passed away.

Me: I know, that makes me sad too.

Ryan: Mom? Did you see that really bright star in the sky?

Me: Yes I did.

Ryan: That's Grandpa watching us.

*CRY* How come he's so sweet!? I just love him.

Sunday Pictures...

So after church today, we stopped by the lake to take some pictures of the boys. They both looked cute and it was a beautiful day so I thought it would be fun. We got a few good ones, although I seriously could not get them to both smile for the same picture for the life of me! :-) Oh well...they did their best. :-)

My big GIANT boy Ryan...

He was supposed to be looking at me, but the picture turned out pretty cool anyway. :-)

Little Mr. ColerBear taking a stroll through the leaves.

Ryan was kind of sneaking up behind Cole to try to catch him. :-)

Ryan trying to blow the perfect bubble. :-)

The best picture of both of them that I could get! :-)

Cole's chubby wubby little hands!

Cole chasing the bubbles.

Date night...

Ryan and I had a date tonight. It was alot of fun! We went to see Night At The Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. Ryan really wants to go to the Smithsonian now. I told him it was in Washington D.C. and that we would go someday. He said "Like this Washington?" I said no, Washington D.C. is probably about 3000 miles away. He was pretty bummed. But it was a fun night for us! :-) And the movie was cute. Cole stayed home Josh and they had a night in. Josh said they made pizza and then he laid on the ground while Cole jumped on him. One of Cole's most FAVORITE things to do lately is run as fast as he can and throw himself on Josh...it's pretty funny. :-) So now all the boys are sleeping and I am still awake...so I should probably head to bed. We get to go to a luau tomorrow, so that will be really fun! :-) YAY for fun weekends!!

Ten pictures and a video

So here are some random pictures that we have taken so far. They are kind of all mixed up, but I want to get to bed early so I'm not going to bother putting them in order. :-)

Cole playing on the water mat that Grandma and Grandpa got him for his first birthday!
Ryan playing with the cool sprinkler thing that daddy picked up for him so he wouldn't want to bug Cole.
Getting used to the water.
Ryan and Cole...it looks like the water is shooting right into Cole's mouth! LOL!
Ryan being silly in the car.
My AWESOME loaf of french bread!

Ryan found the sombrero in the garage and wanted a moustache to go with it! We had to try out a couple of styles! :-)
Cole trying to be daddy.
Ryan's picture of Superman. Josh and I were pretty impressed! He's such a funny kid!

Ryan and Cole taking to and thanking grandma and grandpa!

Well then!!

Yesterday we got some stuff done and today we've been really busy too! We woke up and Josh went on a bike ride. I started finishing up the kitchen and when Josh got home, he grabbed Ryan and they went to get hair cuts. While they were gone, Cole took a very short nap and I kept trucking along. Josh stopped at Safeway and got some steaks to grill...so that meant that we had to dig the grill out of the garage! We headed out there and it only took about an hour or so to get stuff pulled out, some thrown away, food storage arranged to where we can actually get to it, so now when you open the garage, it's not scary!! YAY!! That was exactly what I wanted to get done today! Throughout the summer we are going to take time each weekend and go through boxes. We are are going to start transferring all of our stuff into totes if we are keeping it. I'm sure we will be getting rid of a lot of stuff, but we also want to make sure the stuff we keep is packed nicely. It will be a process but I KNOW we can get it done this summer. :-) Josh is happy that his grill is out and we can use it again! :-) I still have a TON of laundry to do, but it's getting better. :-) I'd totally slacked off on my Motivated Mom's, so I've been trying really hard to do everything on my list each day. There are only a few things left to do for today, and they are things I don't like to do until just before bed. :-)
Ryan has been a really good boy today...just a few mins ago, he was starting act up so he got sent to his room and he is playing up there now. But really, other than that, he's been so great today.
Cole's been kind of hit and miss. He is getting his last two teeth in and hopefully once those are through we shouldn't have to worry about teeth again until his 2 year molars. He's a drooly little monster today and his poor bum is pretty red. But at least right now he's just playing around with his toys. He wanted SOOOO badly today to be helping Josh with whatever he was doing. If Josh went one way, Cole was only a couple steps behind him. It was really cute!
So yeah, that is our day. Josh is going to grill some steaks, I'm making garlic mashed potatoes and rolls. I really hope this beautiful weather lasts...I really think it helps me be more motivated! Please sunny skies, please stay!!

You've gotta let go Mom...

So Ryan was in the dining room and Cole had crawled up the stairs. He lets us know that he would like to come back down the stairs by putting his hands on the top step and yelling at us. I went up the stairs and decided I'd see if I could help him start to learn how to back down the stairs. We had gotten down two of the stairs and Ryan comes up the stairs and this conversation happens...

Ryan: Mom, what are you doing?!
Me: I'm trying to help Cole get down the stairs safely.
Ryan: Why?
Me: Because I don't want him to get hurt.
Ryan: Mom, Cole is almost ONE. You've gotta let him go!

So I found this funny and sad at the same time. Funny because Ryan seems to think that the fact that Cole will be one next week means that I have to "let go"...Sad because Cole will actually be ONE next week! Where did my baby go?! He's walking all over the place now, seriously we can't keep him still! So yeah...I guess I'd better start "letting go"! LOL!

Another tooth bites the dust!

So last night, Judy wanted to go to the Olive Garden...and who am I to argue with a request for Olive Garden!! :-) On our way down there, Ryan was being silly and pretending to hit himself in the face. I told him "You have some loose teeth in there, you'd better be careful or you are going to knock one out." Well about five seconds later I hear "Oh my gosh! My tooth!" He didn't knock out his tooth, but he pulled it out! He top front teeth have been really wiggly for a while now and finally one came out. :-) Here are some pictures!

Here he is holding the napkin to his mouth, it actually bled quite a bit!

His big giant bottom tooth is blocking the space where his top tooth was! :-)

There you go! Now you can see where it's missing from! :-)

We had a yummy dinner at Olive Garden but Cole still wasn't feeling well so he was a little grouchy. I had taken him to the dr earlier in the morning because he had a really high fever and wasn't eating well. The dr said his ears looked great, but that he'd seen a lot of kids with upper respiratory stuff going on, so that's probably what it was. He said if by Friday he wasn't getting better, to bring him in. He's actually doing a little better today, so that is good!

Our past few days...

Josh's mom, Judy got here on Thursday evening. On Saturday we got to go to the zoo! We had originally planned to go to the coast, but Ryan was getting sick and we didn't think it would be a good idea to have him in cooler weather with the wind and all. It was a beautiful day so we thought the zoo would be fun. It turned out to be Packy's 46th birthday! So they had really cute elephant ears for the kids, and lots of other cool stuff. There is also a new baby elephant, so that was really fun too! On Sunday, Ryan worked on learning to ride his bike without his training wheels. For Christmas he got his new bike and we have been practicing...but with all the rain, we don't get a lot of time to be outside. But I did get a couple pictures and some good video of him riding! Ryan is doing wonderful in school! He's had a serious turn around and I'm really hoping that it's a permanent one! He's reading VERY well. He's been a little sick but I think it's coming to an end. Cole of course is JUST now getting sick. :-( Poor guy...between that and getting more teeth, he's pretty sad! He has nine teeth now and the 10th is just about to break through. He's walking around like crazy, but I have yet to get it on camera!!! And the way he plays peek a boo is ADORABLE! Judy was very sweet and made us yummy dinners last night and and tonight! Here are some of the pics from the past couple of days!

Ryan and a picture of a lion. :-)

This picture is for reference...note how tall he is in comparison to the Sun Bear. This was taken a little under nine months ago.

This is Ryan just a couple of days ago! Can you believe how much he's grown in such a short time?!

Colerbear smiling away!!

Ryan working on the puzzle.

Finishing the puzzle!!

The new baby elephant!

Ryan in his ears! :-)

Where's Cole?!

PEEK A BOO!!!

The Bald Eagle was sitting in plain sight! It was beautiful!

You can't see the fish, but they're in there!

Cole and the ears!

My boys!

All of us...ignore my chubbiness! :-)

Daddy and Ryan

Ryan pretending to crash :-)


Ryan riding his bike!

Ryan's message for Grandma! :-)