Eleven

Well, it's about time I post about my little girl turning eleven.  Whoa....it's going to take a while for me to get used to saying that!  We had a fun birthday celebration at the cabin (on the 4th of July) with a gooey chocolate dutch oven cake that was DELICIOUS (with some homemade vanilla ice cream on top...yummm....)

I could go on and on about this sweet eleven-year-old, but I'll keep it short.  Anna is such a blessing to our family.  She is such an amazing daughter and older sister.  I always dreaded my kids getting older.  When Anna was in Kindergarten and Aimee was a cute little three-year-old and Nathan was a baby, I wanted to just freeze time and go on like that forever.  But I'm so glad it didn't (otherwise Ryan wouldn't have ever come along!)  I never thought that having older kids would be as fun as it is.  We are buds (most of the time, anyway....unless I'm making her do chores:) and we love hanging out together.  Anna especially loves "one-on-one" mother-daughter time.  It's very cool...

I also love that Anna is developing her own interests and talents.  I can't tell you how many hours I've spent in years past worrying about what classes she should be in, what sports she should play, what she should do with her time, etc.  (Me, worry?  ....No!)  I didn't want to push, but I didn't want her to miss out on anything either.  Well, all of the sudden she has become her own person and sets goals and works hard to accomplish them.  Again, very cool.  She has so many talents, and it is fun to see her discover and develop them.

Her latest favorite thing was a Drama Camp she did last week.  They were performing "Grease Jr." and Anna tried out for and got the part of Sandy (the lead!)  She was pretty excited.  Here are some pictures of her performance (there are a ton...these are for you, Mom & Kim!)

This is Anna with the cute girl who played Rizzo (Sandy's rival...)  Anna said she was too nice to play a mean girl!  They got to be pretty good friends...

I'm so glad she got to do this.  What a great experience for her.  Good job, and happy 11th, Annalyn!!!  We love you...

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!!!

Nine Months

My little guy is 9 months old today...WHAT?!  Can that be possible?  Let's take a look at what he is up to lately:

He loves to stand up to everything.  He's been pulling himself up for a few months, but now he is pulling himself up and then letting go for a couple of seconds until he falls.  In other words, he is trying to stand all by himself!  I'm not too anxious to have my baby walking, so I'm hoping this doesn't progress very quickly.  Terrible mother, huh?  Oh well...he's my BABY!

(Anna snapped this cute picture today...)

I love looking at him from behind....although he's so cute, he's never sitting undisturbed for long.  He's probably the most held (spoiled!) baby there ever was.

(Sticker, courtesy of Anna as well...)

Ryan also loves to help anyone and everyone brush their teeth.  He's been fascinated with toothbrushes for a while, so he was SO excited to get...

...this!  For his first tooth, which just happened to pop through on his 9-month birthday!  (We're late-tooth-getters in this family...)

Ryan and Nathan are best buds...I think I've said that before...

Here they are hanging out in the laundry basket (sitting on top of my freshly-washed clothes...)

Nathan always wants to take a "funny-face" picture, but he was so busy making sure Ryan had one, he forgot to make his own!

Ah...here we go-

Remember how Ryan loves to stand?  Really...since he was about 6 weeks old, he has preferred the standing position to sitting.  His latest trick is to stand on my hip when I'm carrying him around.  It is hilarious!  We look like an acrobat circus act (well, that's what I feel like anyway...)  Imagine walking around Target (and to school, and just about everywhere we go) like this:

Some other fun things about this cute boy...

*He loves the song "Fireflies" (the crazy-techno one by Owl City).  If he's crying in his carseat, all we have to do is turn it on, and he quiets right down!  Nice, while it lasts!

*He gives the best kisses.  Ryan will grab your face, open his mouth, and plant a big wet one on your cheek.  It's one of my very favorite things...

*He also gives me hugs by snuggling against my shoulder and patting my back with his hand.  It's so sweet!
*He still loves food...any food...hopefully he'll have gone up a little in his percentiles at his doctor visit on Monday...

Happy 9 months, sweet boy!