Ten Months and Happy Father's Day!

We can hardly believe Ryan is ten months old. It doesn't seem like very long ago that we were gearing up for our big summer of waiting for him to come. What a wonderful ten months it has been! This little guy makes us all so happy! We're excited for the super-fun (and busy!) summer ahead of us. For some reason I'm thinking it might involve a few messes:

                           

                                           

And that pretty much sums up what Ryan has spent his Tenth Month doing! :)  He is a very busy and very curious little boy.  He also loves to chatter, blow raspberries, play the piano, write with markers (the invisible ones that only show up on that special paper!), explore the backyard, play peek-a-boo, and he is currently working on getting his two front top teeth.

We also got to celebrate Father's Day for this amazing daddy:

(This was his birthday a couple of weeks ago...)

These kids are  lucky to have such a great dad who loves them so much.  I think I'm pretty lucky too... :)

Home

After an amazing week at camp...

....she's home!!!

Welcome back, Anna!  We missed you! :)

She Made It!

Looks like they got to camp, and are having so much fun!!!

Dear Anna

You wanted me to write down everything we did while you were gone so you didn't miss anything.  So, here it goes:

After we said goodbye to your bus and left the school, I took the boys home and got Ryan down for a much-needed nap.  He was pretty tired after our busy morning!  As usual when he's napping, I hurried around trying to clean and get the piles of laundry done from our trip to Arizona.  Nathan read thirty words to me, so he got thirty minutes on the Wii.  When his time was up he helped me get some things done, then helped entertain Ryan when he woke up.  Little Ry-guy made it half-way up the stairs...uh-oh!  Time to get a gate on them, huh?  Oh, I also talked with Aunt Crystal and wished Gavin a happy 1st birthday.  Can you believe he's one???

After lunch, Nathan wanted to watch Alice in Wonderland since we finally found it, so he watched that while Ryan helped me with more laundry!  We walked over to get Aimee with Lisa, and it was so strange only picking up one of my girls instead of two.  We had a nice walk home though.  The weather was perfect. 

Since we were out of some essential groceries, we decided we'd better go to the store.  Aimee was more than happy to run errands with me...you know what a little shopper she is!  We stopped in a couple of stores to see if they had those silly band things she's been looking for.  It was her lucky day, as Walgreens had gotten a new shipment in over the weekend.  She is now the proud owner of 53 Silly Bands!  Good thing she'd been saving her allowance.  I also got an organizer for one of the kitchen cupboards.  I can't wait to put it together and put it to use!

Daddy came home at the usual dinnertime, and we had hot dogs with baked beans.  Yum, huh?  I'll bet your dinner was much better than ours.  Nathan had saved up some Wii minutes to play with Daddy, so they played for a little while, and Aimee and I cleaned up you girlies' room.  It might look a little different when you get back.  Hopefully you'll like it!  Then we had a couple of oreo's for dessert.  Ryan had his first taste of Oreos, and he LOVED them!!!

Well, we love and miss you.  Hope you are having a great time!!! :)

Love,

Mommy

Science Camp

Today was a big day for our little Annalyn.  We sent her off (with only a few tears shed!) to 5th grade Science Camp.  I remember when she was in first grade, and I saw those big busses coming to pick up the fifth graders for their week away.  I pleaded with Anna to promise me that she wouldn't want to go.  I told her that she didn't even have to go to school that week.  That she could stay home with me every day, and we'd have so much fun!  Every year for the past four years we've had the same conversation as we've seen those kids pack up and leave their families behind.  She agreed that she didn't really want to go until last year when she ended up in the 4/5 combo class.  Hearing those fifth graders talk about how excited they were to go, and then how fun it had been when they got back changed her mind (can you blame her?)  So this year, when we started getting all the letters and forms to turn in, and my offer of a week of fun at home was presented once again, she looked at me like I was crazy and said "No thanks, I want to go to camp."

And so, for the past seven months, I've been gearing up for and dreading this day!  And I have to say....it wasn't as bad as I thought.  It was rough packing her up (I had a sick feeling at the bottom of my stomach all day yesterday), and hard this morning getting out the door, but we made it.  She's been so excited, I wondered if she'd be sad about going at all.  Then, walking over to school, she got really quiet, and I knew it was all settling in.  She got a little teary when we got to her line, but it passed quickly when she found her cute bus partner and got caught up in the excitement again.  I took the boys and headed home, but we came back at the 9:00 departure time for a last goodbye.  I did pretty good at keeping my composure until those busses left the parking lot.  Then my tears came!  Only for a little bit though.  I know she's going to have a blast.  They get to do some pretty fun and amazing things up there, so she probably won't even have time to  miss us.  We, however, are counting the hours until she's back with us!

Bye, Anna....have so much fun!!!