Catching Up ...

Things have been really busy at work and when I get home I am so drained that I have not been posting a lot on our blog. So now I feel like I need to catch up on what has been going on in the world of Ryland ...

I have already mentioned that he has moved to the toddler class at school. So far he is really liking it. They try to get the entire class on the same schedule (snack, lunch, nap, etc) and Ryland has been doing good so far. They also eat lunch at a little table in little toddler chairs. They say that Ryland does great sitting in the chair and eating. He is still taking naps in a crib but before he moves out of this class he will have moved to nap time on a mat.

It seems like every week Ryland has a new tooth. Before we know it he is going to have an entire mouth full. He got his first molar a couple of weeks ago. So that makes a total of 9 teeth to date! Cutting teeth does not seem to bother him too much which is great.

We decorated our house for Christmas on Thanksgiving weekend. This is the first year in a long time that we have put up a tree. It was fun to get everything out and hang the ornaments on the tree. And Ryland has been great with the tree. We put it in our front office which has glass doors. Whenever we have the doors closed he will go up to them and knock (well really bang) on the glass trying to get in. He loves to sit in front of the tree and look at all of the lights and ornaments. He typically has a lot to say when he is in there checking everything out. To watch him look around at everything and take it all in is pretty amazing. This is going to be the best Christmas yet .... and I hear that they only get better as they get older.

We all went to Highlands last weekend for the annual Christmas parade. It was COLD while we were there so it definitely felt like the holidays. The parade was on Saturday morning. We bundled Ryland up so much that he feel asleep within 5 minutes of being outside to watch the parade. We then relaxed around the house for the rest of the weekend next to the cozy fire. Tab and I went downtown for dinner and drinks on Saturday night which was fun. It was a perfect date night. When we woke up on Sunday morning it was snowing. It was beautiful outside but we were afraid that we were going to get snowed in so it was a mad dash around the house to get everything packed up and in the car. We made it back to Atlanta with no problems on the roads.

We took Ryland to see Santa last Friday afternoon. We went during the day which was nice because that meant no lines and we could take our time with pictures and hanging out around the Christmas decorations. Ryland LOVED the big Christmas tree at the mall but did NOT like Santa. I was not prepared for him to cry when I put him in his lap so it caught me off guard. He cried the entire time that he was in Santa's lap and the picture that we ended up with was pretty funny.

Ryland loves playing with his toys and anything that he can get into. I love to watch him learn new things and he seems to be doing that every day. He loves putting the blocks into the holes on his toys or putting the wooden shapes on the little pegs. And he even knows that the driver of his truck sits in the front of the truck which I think is really cute. It is amazing how much he remembers.

Ryland loves playing in the kitchen cabinets and in the pantry. We have the baby locks on most of the cabinets but he knows which ones do not have locks and will go straight for them. His latest favorite thing to do is to climb all the way in the cabinet with our plastic containers and pull out the ones in the very back.

** I will post pictures of all of the above soon **