Happy Veteran's Day

Today Daddy had the day off work, and the kids (and me!) LOVED having him around!!

(Thank you Veterans for your service!)
Jeff plays this game where he puts the kids on his back and then pretends like he can't find them, and he spins all around looking for them. They think it is just hysterical. (And it is pretty funny to watch, too...where is the video camera when I need it?!)

Daddy: "Where is baby??"
Ry: "Right there!!!"

Look how excited Ry and Julia are that Daddy has finally "found" her!!!

Now for Ry's turn!!

Late this morning we went to Glammie and Papa's house and visited one of our friends, Jerri Ross, who was visiting from Jackson, Mississippi. Ry stayed the afternoon there, and enjoyed a little "boys afternoon out" with Papa at Dairy Queen, where he told me "Papa bought me chocolate ice cream". (As if I couldn't tell from the leftovers on his face!) and he also told me "I dropped my spoon, so Papa gave me his." I enjoyed the afternoon with a little salon visit while Julia napped at home and Jeff worked on a little (ok, actually a BUNCH of) paperwork here.

Ry and Tyler checking out conservative talk radio at a young age!

..And some sweet cousin snuggles!

Tonight we had family Little Ceasar's Pizza night (did you know this was voted America's Best Value?..or so says the pizza box top!) and Ryan declared, "I like this pizza. This is my favorite. I'd like some more." And then a few minutes later he said "Baby, you need to take a nap. It is dark out." to which she screamed, "NO!" and pointed an angry finger at him.

Other Ry-isms from today:
Jeff: "Look, Ry, the leaves fell off our bushes. Fall is here."
Ry: "Ohhhh, Let me see!!"
(Jeff holds Ry up to look out the window).
Ry: "Ohhh! No! We need to call the policemen!!" (I'm not sure why?? Does he think the leaves have been stolen??)

And then when Julia dumps the ENTIRE bin of crayons out on the kitchen table.
"Whoa, baby! It's time to clean up, silly goose!"

Girlfriend Time!

Our friend from high school, Amanda, now lives in Florida but returns "home" about every 6 weeks, which makes for a great reason to get together! This Saturday night consisted of dinner out, some shopping and then hanging at my house. What more could a girl ask for?! Here is a pic of myself, Emily and Amanda. (Happy birthday, Amanda!)

Emily, Me and Katie. I'm so thankful for these girls!

Sunday afternoon I brought Ryan to Cole's birthday party. His friends from preschool were there, and he had a blast. Running around. With friends. Thomas the Train theme. Eating cake. What more could you want at age 3? (or 30!?).

This morning I had tennis and then Ry had his gymnastics at the Y. The kids were so tired (and me!...we had a late Sunday night at church and grandma/papas house) afterwards, so we came home, despite Ryan's pleas of "We need lunch, Mommy. Let's go to the Donalds!" (meaning McDonalds), and I put both of them down for a nap by 12:45. It was SO NICE to have the afternoon "off" to actually tackle some of my ever-growing 'to-do' list.

Gym Time!

Friday our Mom&Me group rented the gymnastics room at the YMCA. This is probably one of our favorite outings. The kids get to run and run and bounce without hearing "be careful!" or "we do not jump on the furniture!" It is usually a great time for all. This day was no exception.

Julia enjoys climbing in and out of the foam block pit. Humm..how could I recreate this at home?! Ryan has already discovered if he takes all the pillows from the bedrooms upstairs he can pile them up nearly as high as the doorway goes in our bedroom and then crash through...sorta similiar..just more danger! Augh! =)

I am "behind" in blogging some..we have had a fun weekend. I am not quite sure what happened to me..I left the house most of the weekend without the camera (gasp!). It was one of those weekends where we had so much happening that in order to "simplify" I thought leaving one thing at home (the camera) would make life easier..but I missed it, for sure! So thanks to Taran, Krista and Trina for sending me pics from this event!

Friday night Jeff and I had "date night" at Theresa and Mike's wedding. (Thanks Uncle Jeff and Aunt Amy for babysitting!) It was nice to get out and see some friends we don't get to see too often...and I particularly enjoyed not filling up a single sippy cup during dinnertime. HA.

Ry-isms

These are some recent conversations with Ryan:

Ry: "We go to the circus soon, Mommy?"
Me: "Soon, Ry. In about 15 minutes we will leave."
Ry: "But Mommy, it is DARK out! We need to bring a flashlight. We might need new batteries."

Ry: "May I pick one?" (Referring to a piece of candy out of a container)
Me: "After dinner."
Ry: "But I don't want to eat dinner. I don't want to. I don't like dinner. Only lunch."

Ry: (bows his head to pray) "Dear Jesus, thanks for the food. And please help Jesus to get better. Amen."

Ry: I'm a rockstar! Bamm ,bamm!

The Greatest Show On Earth! Circus time.

Tonight our family had a great time going to the circus! We ended up having amazing seats (12th row center circle!) and the kids both thought the whole thing was fantastic.

These brothers did some pretty amazing stunts, including riding unicycles across these ropes.

And another favorite, the zebras!

These gymnasts worried little Julia. She kept pointing to them saying "Get down! Get down!" as if she were protecting them from an accident waiting to happen.

This was one of my favorite acts (although the pics just do not do it justice!). The guys on the left jumped on the board and the guy on the right was tossed up in the air, did a flip and landed on the stack of guys to the far right. They did several variations of this, including one that was 5 men tall! It was really unbelievable!

The tiger act was pretty amazing. Ry thought it was cool that one of the tigers wasn't listening and started a cat fight, so he was sent back to his cage during the performance.

The elephants were probably Julia's favorite.

Julia is intrigued by those elephants! She even stopped eating her pretzel when they came out!

Ry's sweet little face looked like this most every time I looked over at him. This for sure will need to become a yearly outing for our family!

Silly Elephant Daddy!

This morning at breakfast we reminded the kids we were going to the circus tonight. Daddy even did a great impression of an elephant, with very realistic sounds and all. Too bad I didn't have the video camera around...that one would have made some great blackmail. I bet 5 years ago if I had told Jeff he'd be walking around the breakfast table as an elephant he would have never believed me..augh, the joys of parenthood! =)

Ry does his best impression of the elephant sound too.

And, of course, Julia never wants to miss out on the action!

Thankful Thursday

Julia's teacher sent home the November newsletter for her classroom. I thought it was a sweet idea she wrote just why she is thankful for each of the 8 kiddos in the room.

"This month usually wells up within us reminders of how thankful we are for God's daily blessings. He is so good to us, and we often take all that He gives us and does for us for granted. In this spirit of renewed thankfulness, I would like to share with you a few reasons I am SO thankful for your little ones.........I am thankful for Julia because she is the sweet mother of the bunch; all 16 baby dolls in our room would be hungry and lonely if not for her.....Be thankful for the precious blessing of our children. Every one of them is such a gift."

And something I think is funny: "And finally, I am thankful for Maggie because she is the class "lover"; she is constantly giving hugs and head-pats to each of the other children."

You know who little Maggie gives head pats to? Julia, who constantly thinks Maggie is going after her hairbow and tries to take her out! "NO!" she screams! =) hehee. That's our little sweet mother!

What we've been up to Wednesday

Building "tall towers" with some cans - who needs blocks?! (Warning: these can hurt or scare baby sisters when they crash to the ground). =)

And then the tractors are called in to clean up the rubble.

We've been working on writing our name. Ry is doing well with the letter "R". Julia enjoys this time because she loves to color these days. I just must keep the markers away from her - she enjoys writing on her hands and high chair for some reason!?

I was bummed still this morning with the election results both for the presidential race and local results, so I decided to take the kids outside to enjoy probably the last day of this fantastic weather and to try and put things into perspective. (Worry does not change anything!). So we had a very nice walk to the library singing "Here is Thumbkin" about a gizillion times, but for some reason it was sweet every time and never annoying. Ry was trying to teach the words to Julia, and as she (of course!) got them wrong, he would say "No, silly baby!" and correct the words for her.
We returned our 30something books to the library (yes, we brought a stroller to lug these along!) and got some new ones for this week. All was great until about the last half-mile from home Julia had a meltdown. I really am not sure why, but it was not pretty. She didn't want to ride in the stroller, and she didn't want to walk. And I was just as stubborn as she was throwing her fit about not carrying her the rest of the way home, which she was insisting! (Hello, backpain!?!) About this time, Ry decided he was going to start to RUN for home. So he is way ahead of us, as I am struggling to strap a very unhappy Julia into the stroller and run after him. One of our very kind neighbors was driving down the street witnessed all this and offered to help..I almost took her up on it..it was getting to that desperate point!) I think we all got our exercise. Thankfully, this tantrum did not last long, and we ended our walk home on a "good" note!

Aunt Stacy is Back!

Aunt Stacy just moved back to the area from NY...or "York City!" as Ry says.

Stacy just got back this morning, and we were happy she came over so quickly to see us!

"Come swing with me, Aunt Stacy!" and "Come play trains with me, Aunt Stacy!" He is SUPER excited she is home! ...And Julia is napping, which makes Mommy super excited! =)

Emily visits

The kids had school today, so I dropped them off, and went with my friend Trina to go vote. We had to wait about 35 minutes, but I don't think I should complain about that after watching the news this morning and seeing the photos of people waiting in half-mile long lines! Yikes! After voting, we still had some time, so we went to Bipod, (our local running sport store) who was having a going-out-of-business 50% off everything in the store sale. Scored a pair of Nike and Merrell shoes for Ryan and some shoes, pants and jacket for me! (Thanks, Jeff..Merry early Christmas to me?! =) ).

Emily had off school today due to the election (her school is a polling place) and so we got a fun unexpected visit!

Julia concentrates on her sidewalk chalk art.

Humm...where can I draw at next?

Ryan, meanwhile, is working hard to put additional mileage on one of his bikes!

Bonfire

On Sunday evenings, Jeff's parents usually watch the kids while we go to volunteer at Fusion (youth group) at church. Tonight, they made a bonfire in the back yard and we roasted hot dogs and s'mores over the fire before we left. The kids thought it was fantastic fun!

Grandma is a great sport, playing in the pile of leaves Papa made especially for Ryan and Julia to play in.

Julia and I roasting up some dogs! Yum, yum!

Ry, Julia and Daddy on the back porch swing enjoying the evening!

Papa and his roasted dog!

Candy solutions and Julia's day in the kitchen

This morning I decided we needed to organize this crazy mass of candy we've accumulated this past week. We had some containers to use for our "favorites" and the rest is leaving my house! (As you can see, no worries, there is no shortage of sugar here!) So, Ryan learned a new word -classification- and he was actually eager to help me with this project!

"Lass-effects-ation" as Ry says!

In an effort to be resourceful, we made banana bread with the bananas that have been hanging out here a day too long and crushed up some of the Hershey's chocolate bars for a sweet treat in the bread. (Well, that and the fact I wholeheartedly believe that chocolate should not be an optional add-in of the banana bread recipe!)

Ry's favorite part of the morning!

Something funny (ok, it's funny now..maybe not as much this morning!) happened during our little activity this morning...I had both kids sitting on the barstools (which still makes me a bit nervous with Julia, but it is easier with cooking activities for them to help stir and dump ingredients and such!) and so I was half paying attention to them, and half paying attention to the mixer in my hand and I stuck my spoon into the bowl and must have just knicked it right and WHAM, the spoon went FLYING across the kitchen (very very lucky it didn't hit a child they would have had NO reaction time at all to protect themselves, it all happened SO FAST!). Anyways, I look over at little Julia perched so cute on that stool and she is completely splattered in dough. I mean, one eye is shut with the stuff and it's all over the rest of her face and hair! (WHY did I not take a photo?!) Actually, I didn't even think to grab the camera because as soon as she got over the shock she was totally traumatized. I spent the next 20 minutes reintroducing her to the mixer until she was comfortable being in close proximity to it again!

The weather here was SO BEAUTIFUL today. I mean, like PERFECT. AMAZING. You get the point. Ryan has recently been telling me "Mommy, I want to ride my bike in the woods." Well, I am totally taking this literally, telling him, "Ry, wouldn't that be tough? Wouldn't you run into trees and it would be hard to ride on the ground in the woods? It would be different than our cul-de-sac." Silly me. Then the other day driving in the car as we pass the bike trail that goes through the woods, he points and says "See, like THAT, Mommy. I want to ride my bike through that woods." So, today, he got to ride his little tricycle through "that" woods.

I am not even kidding, we weren't riding more than 3 minutes when he pulls his little bike over and says, "I need some water." Needless to say, he did go on to ride a good distance, but we ended up towing his bike out the back of the bike trailer and he was a passenger with Julia!

We rode to the park, and the kids had a blast swinging on the tire swing together. (And I am wondering how we have never done this particular swing before?!?) While they were swinging, a little girl came up and asked to get on with them. Julia was screaming "No, no!" (Such a friendly child she is!) Finally, Jill, age 6, joined my two on the tire and Ry asks her, "Where is your baby? Here is my baby (and he nods in Julia's direction)."

My Angels

Today Jeff had his photo shoots. So when he was setting up this morning, he wanted to take some "practice" shots to check out his lighting and he grabbed the kids to test it out...

This one is my favorite (above). I do realize I am biased...but I can't get over how absolutely beautiful she is!!!

I also had to post this for those of you that say you haven't ever seen the princess without a hairbow...proof, we don't sleep in them!! hehe. I sure wish I looked this great when I wake up and haven't even combed my hair yet!!

Sassy girl!

And Ry wanted in on the action too..this is the only pic that he would keep his head upright...why is he determined for us to photograph him sideways or in a headstand pose lately? =)