A Week of Thanksgiving!

The past few days have been a lot of fun. I love this time of year when the holidays officially begin. There is plenty of good food, family, friends, and shopping! Matt, Ryan, and I are very lucky to have both families close to us. This year we spent Thanksgiving with Matt's family and then went to my parent's house that night. It really was a great day!

Our little family

Our Turkey dinner was fantastic! We had all the traditional foods. You know turkey, stuffing, homemade rolls, potatoes, and pie. However, Matt's family is unique because they love their pie more than any other family I have ever seen! We had 11 people at dinner (3 of which are under the age of 4) and get this....12 pies! More pies than people! There was 2 chocolate, 1 banana cream, 2 peanut butter, 2 eggnog, 1 cherry, 2 pumpkin, 1 apple, and 1 raspberry cream pie! It was nuts!

Grandma Great (Matt's Grandma), Ryan, and Matt

After dinner, pies, and an hour or so of scouring through the ads and planning the shopping route for the next day, we all drove to my parent's house for some left overs and more pie. My grandma and grandpa Allen were there as well as my uncle Chuck and Drew and a few of his teammates.

My mom, Matt, and I all got up at 4 AM to go shopping on BLACK FRIDAY and it was so worth it. We were at Target when the doors opened and I got everything on my list! Thanks for the fun morning mom!

Overall we had a great holiday weekend and are so grateful for all of our family and the many blessing we have been given!

Oh yeah....this is totally separate from Thanksgiving but we also gave Ryan his first haircut today. He had some major wings working on the sides of his head and a matted nest on the back so we figured it was time. He looks so grown up now! Here is a before picture and a couple after pictures. Check out the mess in the first pictures....it was bad!

BEFORE (CHECK OUT THE WINGS!)

AFTER... SO HANDSOME!

12 month pictures

Here are a few of Ryan's 12 month pictures. He did so well until the end when we tried to change his clothes...he was done! This is why there are only 2 pictures of him in the orange vest, they are the only ones where he was even looking at the camera. I think we got some really cute pictures though.

HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY RYAN!!!!

Our little boy is officially a toddler! I cannot believe that he is one year old today! It is so crazy to think about the past year and how much our lives have changed. Ryan has been so much fun for us and such a blessing in our lives. We love our little guy so much! He is such a fun little character! He is walking or a time running all over the house and has a hillarious laugh!

A few things about Ryan:
22 pounds 5 ounces (50%)
31 inches long (75%)
Head Circumference is in the 90%
He has been walking for about a month now
He talks all the time and says "whats that?" "orse" for horse, "vrrrrr" while playing with a car or truck, "woof," "dad," "Pam-pa" for grandpa, "ishy" for fish, and "uh oh."
He absolutely is all boy and loves to throw a ball and chase it, play will any car, truck, or tractor, and wrestle with his dad or pam-pa.
He still isn't the best sleeper but he is making progress (I can't be too mad, part of it is probably mom and dad's fault)
He loves to eat and especially loves drinking real milk!

We love our little guy!

We had a big party for him on Thursday night and had about 25 family members that came. He was so SPOILED! He got so many fun toys from everyone he didn't know what to play with. He would open a present get excited and start to play with it just as I would make him mad because he had to open another. This process was repeated until all of his gifts were opened. Ryan has 7 cousins on Matt's side that were at the party so he had tons of help opening the gifts and playing with the new toys....he loves his cousins!

After all the presents were done we made Ryan get into the high chair for his cake. We have really tried to stay away from sugar until this party. He was so mad at us for taking him away from his toys until he saw his cake. He was literally in Heaven! I had made him a monkey cake (for some reason he loves monkeys in all of his books) but then I also made him his own round cake that he could dig into. He looked like an old man with whiskers in a couple of the pictures...so funny!

This morning (his actual birthday) my dad carried on the pancake tradition of making Ryan a #1 birthday pancake. He didn't really know what to think but he loved it!

Thanks everyone for making Ryan's birthday such a fun one! We are so grateful to have so much family around us that Ryan can grow up with!!! Thanks for all the great gifts!

Look Who's WALKING!!!!

Well at just over 11 months old, Ryan has decided that it is time to WALK! He has been standing on his own for about a month now but just the other day he took off. He is still kind of wobbly but he is constantly taking about 5 steps at a time. The most he has taken so far is about 10 steps (all of which were in a circle, almost like he was pivoting or something) but it is hard to get him doing it on film. This is the best clip we have been able to get so far, sorry its not the best quality (If you look close you can probably see Conference on TV in the background) we will try and get a better one soon!

TWO "GREAT" BIRTHDAYS!!!!

This past week we had the opportunity of celebrating two of our grandparents' birthdays. My grandpa was here for his 77th birthday and Matt's grandma turned 80! We are so lucky to have all of our grandparents so close to us.

For my Grandpa Lewis' (commonly known as Grandpa Dodo) birthday we drove up to Sundance skii resort and had lunch. The leaves were so pretty, we had a great time with them!

For Matt's Grandma Jane's birthday, we had a big party! We all decided that an 80th birthday deserved a party. She lives across the street from Matt's parents so we get to see her a lot and Ryan really loves his Grandma Great! Matt's mom did a great job getting everything ready and I feel bad I didn't get any pictures of the sunflower center pieces and all the other decorations.I am so glad that Ryan has 5 great grandparents here and that we can spend time with each of them!
Happy Birthday Grandpa Dodo and Grandma Great!!!!

Another Summer is Over!

It is always so sad when summer comes to an end. I absolutely love summertime! I love fresh vegetables from the garden (yes we did have a garden this year), family reunions, warm nights, being outdoors, and especially camping. Matt and I love camping so what better way to bring the summer to a close I guess. His family always has a big family camp-out over Labor Day. This year was really fun and it was great weather! Ryan got the nickname of Smilin' Ryan from some of Matt's family. He is such a good boy and is so dang happy when we are outside. I love it!!! These are few pictures from the last night around the campfire...he was so funny and was "cheesy" in every picture.

Ride 'Em Cowboy!

My mom and dad bought this goofy horse a while back and Ryan has always seemed to like it. However, it has not been until recently that he loves it! When we go to my grandma and grandpa's house, it is the first toy that Ryan wants to play with. This horse is pretty cool. It is a rocking horse that sings (his mouth actually moves) and swings his tail. The last few times Ryan has rode on it, this has been his reaction :)

On a totally different subject, we have been camping alot this past month and it has been so much fun for our little family. We have two bigger dogs that we always take with us but this last time we went we had Yogi and Teesha (the Allen family dogs) with us so we had 4 dogs and 3 people. We probably looked like some major trailer trash but we had fun! Ryan absolutely loves being outside so it makes that part easy. I figured we don't have many pictures of us as a family on here and this one is kind of fun. We couldn't get one of Ryan looking at the camera really, he just stared and the dogs!

Another First Day!

My mom and dad always had the tradition of taking our pictures on the first day of school. I think it is kinda fun to carry on little traditions so I made Matt take my picture this morning as I left for school. I know it is kinda cheesy....but oh well! I am wearing new school clothes as well :)

Ryan has also had a few firsts lately. He fell asleep eating lunch the other day (so dang funny), he crawled up the entire flight of stairs, and he has learned to stand up in the tub! He is definately becoming a handful! But we love him!

The Lil' Diner

I am using my blog as an advertisment for this great new product that will really help anyone who has a grabby, excited, crazy baby who loves to make a mess at the dinner table.

Picture this scenario: You are out to dinner at your favorite restaraunt with your family when it happens...your innocent, adorable child makes the entire restaraunt turn and stare at your table. He/She has grabbed, hit, or flipped the plate in front of them (with Mac & Cheese or chicken fingers on it) and knocked it off the table, this creating a loud BANG and consequently spreading their dinner all over themselves, the floor, and most likely you! You are now mortified and try to quickly clean up the mess without drawing anymore attention to yourselves while your upset child is now screaming because they no longer have any food to play with (lets face it I could say eat but really...they play more than eat).

Now picture this scenario: You are out to dinner at your favorite restaraunt with your family and you set up your Lil' Diner before the food gets to your table. Then it happens...your innocent, adorable child starts grabbing, hitting, and trying to flip his/her plate but is unsuccessful. The Lil' Diner holds your childs plate in place and no matter what he/she tries, it will not come off! There is no mess on the floor, on your child, or on you!

Ryan using the Lil' Diner (he is going to be the new "poster child" for it!)

The Lil' Diner is really an awesome thing. Its a new product that was invented here in Utah simply to make our lives easier. Here is the link to their website and pictures of Ryan actually using the Lil' Diner are on the way. We really to love it and it makes eating out so much easier!!!!! Please pass the word to all of your friends and family who might use something like this and let me know what you think. If you are interested, you can buy these online or at the University Mall kiosk in Orem, Utah!

Ryan: 9 months!

Well Ryan had his 9 month appointment today. He is growing up so fast. Here are a few facts about our little boy:

He now weighs 20 pounds 7 ounces (50th %), he is 29 inches long (75th %), and his head circumference is 47.5 cm (95th %).

He started crawling last week (video coming soon) and is everywhere! He loves to get into anything and everything that we don't want him in. You can see him getting into our recycling box in the pantry below....he thinks he is so dang funny!

He also can clap his hands, give 5 to someone, kick his legs, make funny noises with his tounge, and wave bye-bye all on command.

He has 7 teeth and loves almost any food that we give him. Some of his favorite foods are cheese, pancakes (without syrup of course), carrots, and almost all fruit.

He can say "dada," "baba," and he calls a dog "da." He doesn't say mama yet but I am sure that is next :)

He still doesn't sleep very good at night but we are used to that by now. Sleep is so OVERRATED anyways!

All in all Ryan is doing great. He is such a happy baby! We are so grateful to have him in our life and feel blessed everyday.

OuR LiTtLe FiSh!!!

I bought Ryan a little blow up pool for the backyard this past week. He has always loved the bath tub so I figured he would enjoy a pool too. This was Ryan for about 30 minutes straight the other day. He just splashed and splashed! It was so funny because he has also recently learned how to clap his hands and usually gets really excited to do it, however he was so pre-occupied with the water that he really just claps for a second and keeps playing. It was almost like he was clapping just to make me happy for a second. We love our little guy! Sorry the videos are sideways.

Ryan also got to play with his cousin Bella on Sunday for a few hours. Bret and Jan and Bella moved to Michigan two months ago so we haven't got to see them lately, but Jan and Bella came for a visit over the weekend. Ryan had such an interest in Bella's bow, he kept trying to grab it and touch her head. They were really cute together!!