Today

Today we are hanging out in the house. Ryan's absolute favorite thing to do. I'm being serious. Lately he is completely a homebody. Leaving the house requires hours of notice to avoid a meltdown. And it really doesn't matter where we are going. Not sure if it's because he hates January as much as I do. I loathe January. It has got to be the most depressing month of all. UPS doesn't acknowledge MLK day (there is a lot of irony here, but I will leave that up to all of you to deduce) so that means there is no holiday in this house all month long. I hate the cold weather (which, again, I'm sure I shouldn't complain because the average temp here is like 55, but I still don't like it). I wish the days of January away and don't feel one bit guilty about it. Bring on February.

So, today is an "house day", although I told Ryan this morning that he had to ride his bike after Jake's nap. He agreed if it's just to the park and back. Lucky for Jake, since he loves to ride his bike outside.

I have some pictures and I'm actually going to post them really soon. I can feel it. Because I read back in this blog and remembered how Ryan used to stack things when he was Jake's age. I had completely forgotten. So, I have to post Jake's latest weird obsession so I don't forget that either. Stay tuned.

Fall

It is beginning to cool down here. Which is really nice. I think the temperature is only going to break into the 80s once next week. Awesome. We having been playing outside and keeping busy.
Ryan started t-ball. His team is the Dodgers. He seems to like it but a huge part of that has to do with the snacks and hanging out "where the baseball players go" aka the dugout. Here are some pics from his first game against the Orioles.

Here he is hanging out in the dugout. He LOVES to come in for water...even if they are in the middle of an inning.

Here is Jake sitting on the bleachers. He's cute.

After Ryan's game last week, we had his birthday party. You can see if you look closely the Gatorade moustache from the snack after the game. Best part about t-ball, obviously the snacks. He was a little disappointed when we went to practice and found out there are only snacks at the games. We had a Lightening McQueen birthday party. It was obviously meant to be because as I was shopping for stuff for the party I came across a million birthday party items at Michael's for 90% off. I didn't pay more than $0.50 for anything. AWESOME!!

Lame - I think I've used this title before

This blog is turning out to be lame. Infrequent posts don't add up to a good read or a realistic picture of what we have been up to. I actually keep a journal, more frequent that I blog (as if that's any kind of an accomplishment) but I would love to publish a blog book with pictures and little stories more for the family than my personal journal. So I decided I would start fresh at the beginning of 2012, because who can have a book that begins randomly in the middle of the year (for those unaware, the neurotic behavior runs very deep) but then I figured I could practice making a habit of it now so that my book will be awesome later....we'll just see how that works out.

Random pictures...

Matt took Ryan to get his haircut and had them buzz his head. Ryan hated it and after kept asking what happened to him. Where did all his hair go. I wasn't a fan of paying someone to buzz my kids head, if that's the haircut, I'll do it myself. We have since returned to his regular style. This picture is from right before Easter. He won the egg decorating contest in the neighborhood.


Our garbage disposal broke...actually it didn't but we thought it did. My dad came over to put in a new one (which it turned out we didn't need, awesome!) and for days after Ryan was "fixing" the sink with his tools.





This is from the zoo, feeding the budgies. Our favorite exhibit. The Atlanta Zoo leaves a lot to be desired after growing up in Calgary, but the kids like it so we go a lot. These particular pictures are also from the day that I lost Ryan at the zoo. He went back to see the giraffes. He didn't tell me. It got crazy. But then he was found. Stressful. But he hasn't forgotten it and is a little better about staying close to me, which is nice.

Playing in the car. They have more fun with this car in the garage than actually driving around the neighborhood. They will sit in there for ever and bring toys and snacks while playing.





We love hats. Love them.

We went to California to visit Aaron and Stacey. Our kids never adjusted to Pacific time but we still had a really good time. The first morning, after traveling all day the night before, Jake woke up at 3:30. Awesome. It didn't get that much better by the time we left so we were pretty tired. I took him to the Arboretum and I thought we were going to end up "When Animals Attack" right after the first clip is taken, those peacocks turned on us and I had to put Jake in the car and get in through the passenger door. A couple days later we went to the arboretum in the day and had such a good time. Aaron and Stacey live right around the corner and it is such a cool place. The kids loved it.

This is of Ryan dancing at Disneyland while waiting for some food. Funny.

Birthday Boy

Jake is ONE! Can't believe how fast this year has gone. I guess they all go fast. Which is annoying because when you are a teenager and people say that you kind of want to punch them for being annoying, but I guess once you have kids they speed up? Is that when it happens? Not sure, but anyway, they seem to be going faster. So, we had a little party for Jake. It was a really fun afternoon with friends and family. I didn't take a single picture. Nice. And I didn't take a single picture on Jake's actual birthday (last Sunday) YES, I am up for the mom of the year award and I hope this doesn't hurt my chances ;) But not too worry, my Dad was there and so he had me covered (maybe this is why I don't take pictures...because he always does. Even as a kid my friend Meagan had albums and albums of pictures of our childhood and I hardly ever took any, like I'm always expecting someone else to do it...weird.) So, here are some shots of the day.

Isn't he the cutest baby you have ever seen?

Anticipated

Can I be lame and put this off until some other time? My afternoon did not go as planned. Matt didn't get home from church until 3:30 and Jake wouldn't nap because he still isn't feeling 100% (he has the FOREVER lasting double ear infection - seriously this is #4 this year!). So, here it is 8:30 and I can't remember any of the stuff that I was going to put on this blog.

I guess I'll just upload some pics. Nobody like reading all the rambling anyway.

Here are some from Christmas

Here is Ryan doing his begging face.

Here we are hanging out in my bathroom. Why is the bathroom the favorite room in the house?

Jake woke up from a nap and Ryan jumped in bed with him before I could even get in there. Funny.

So that's it for now. I made good on my promise but I know I had more stuff to post so I will think about it and make that really long post soon :)

Did you know?

My grandparents read this blog? I found this out a while ago and thought I should blog something, anything. But I haven't. Although now that I know that they are reading I'm motivated....it's a super busy week though. So Grandma and Grandpa - if you are reading THIS - come back on Sunday (all of my other fabulous readers are welcome to come back too). We have morning church. And I know what I will be doing in the afternoon ;)

Halloween and Stuff

We went the aquarium because they were having free admission for kids that were dressed up. Ryan loved it and can be seen in these pictures looking for the sharks. He told me before we went that "sharks are mean and they bite you, but dolphins are nice." I'm not really sure where he got that from. But he was really excited to see a shark.

Jake loved looking up and seeing the fish above him.

Finally we got to the shark tank. This is where they have all the smaller sharks and then the huge whale sharks. He was satisfied with the shark viewing. Though interestingly, he seemed to like the beluga's the best, because he kept running off to go back and see them. Picture me, carrying Jake running after him through the aquarium. Fun.

Then we carved pumpkins on Friday. He loved that too. He liked the guts and wanted to eat it. Badly.

The finished product. It is actually dark outside in this picture but the flash made it seem bright as day.

On Saturday we went to the ward trunk or treat at the tree farm. Ryan loved getting candy from people but was more obsessed with the fire pit. Jake was dressed up as a skunk and was very good natured about wearing his costume! Ryan was a cowboy and loved all the accessories that his costume had. (a map, a canteen, a badge, a hat, etc.) So he has still been enjoying wearing it and is trying to figure out how to get more candy when he puts in on ;)

And for the costume contest at the office (those regular readers are familiar). Tami and I won, yet again, with our excellent insurance mascot costumes! Woohoo!