A Special Visit to My Office!

This morning Tab and Ryland took a detour on the way to school and came into work with me! Ryland had so much fun going desk to desk finding stuff to play with and running down the hallways and walkways. It was crazy how many balls, toys and stuff around the office that he could find. And I was glad that everyone that I work with was able to see him since it had been over a year since I brought him into the office while I was on my maternity leave.

I L-O-V-E-D having Ryland visit my office and wish he could come into work with me every day!

What a great way to start the work day!

Backyard Overhaul!

Let me start off by saying that Tab has been doing A-L-O-T of work in our backyard trying to clean up some of the trees that fell during the latest round of storms and cleaning out all of the over grown areas towards the back of the yard. And as a result of all of his hard work we had a huge pile of debris in the middle of the backyard that needed to either be removed or burned.

So now lets fast forward to yesterday (Monday) ...

Ryland had been coming down with something for the past few days and has had a low grade fever all weekend with a running nose and cough. Yesterday morning he woke up with an even worse running nose, gunk in the eyes, coughing and still having a fever. So we decided to keep him out of school and my dad came out to help watch him. While Ryland was taking a nap my dad decided to walk up to talk to the guys that were working at our neighbor's house (with a Bobcat) to see if they would be willing to take away of the pile of stuff in our backyard. The discussion then turned into "what about not only removing the pile of stuff but completely clearing the rest of our backyard and grading the area". They were able to give us a good quote so they decided to go ahead with having them do everything. I had no idea that this was going on so when I got home from work I was S-U-R-P-R-I-S-E-D to see mud tracks leading to our driveway and then really surprised to see that they went through our fence and into our backyard. At first I thought that our fence had been busted and these workers had the wrong house!

I will post some pictures of the chaos and mess soon. They are doing a great job. And our backyard looks really good. Now we just need to decide what we are going to do with all of the new open and cleared area!

Now back to Ryland ...

His temp spiked to 104.2 late yesterday afternoon. Dr Loventhal recommended that we take him to an after hour pediatrician since we did not have time to get him into to see him before they closed for the day. So Tab and I headed to the after hours pediatrician's office as soon as I got home. The good news is that he does not have an ear infection or anything congestion in his chest, etc. The bad news is that they could not determine what was causing all of his symptoms. As we were putting him down to bed last night he was rolling around playing like he normally does but then he hit his nose in the wrong spot and it started bleeding. He did not cry so I do not think that it hurt but it took a little bit for it to stop bleeding. He had a decent night's sleep last night but woke up with bloody boogers all over him (yum!) and still had a fever. So we kept him out of school again today and both Tab and I are working from home to watch him. I hope he can fight through this "funk" fast and start feeling better soon. I think he misses all of his friends at school and being able to run around and feel 100%.




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I was not able to take a "before" picture before they got started. But it looks SOOOOO much better now that everything is cut down and gone!

Mother's Day 2011

I had a great Mother's Day weekend ... even though it started off with Tab having to pick up Ryland early on Friday since he had a fever :( Ryland felt much better on Saturday and was back to his normal self. I met Lindy and Carolyn for a girls movie on Saturday morning. It was fun to hang out with the girls! We were suppose to go to Alice's 2nd birthday party on Saturday afternoon but since Ryland had a fever the day before I didn't want to take him around all of the other kids (especially Alice's little brother William since he is only 1 month old!). So we stayed around the house on Saturday afternoon and then went over to Chuck and Lindy's for dinner on Saturday night. And as you can see in my previous post Ryland had a lot of fun playing with Maddie and Stella on Saturday night.

My parents came out on Sunday and we all had lunch together. After lunch we all walked up to the playground at Teasley Elementary School. The weather was beautiful and it was so nice and relaxing. Ryland had a fun time showing my parents how he runs around the playground and goes down the slide head first with no help.

I L-O-V-E being a mom. And loved my fun and relaxing Mother's Day weekend!

Dinner Date at The MacPhee's!

Last Saturday night we went over to the MacPhee's for a dinner date. The Govan's were there also and we all had so much fun. Ryland loved playing with Maddie and Stella. They have a DVD of Sting in concert and Maddie loves it. So they turned it on before dinner and Ryland took a front row seat with his cup of milk. He never pays that much attention to what is on TV so it was funny to watch him.


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All of the kids got so dirty eating dinner so we decided to put them all in the bathtub together. How cute are they!

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And since we did not come prepared for Ryland to take a bath Maddie was nice enough to share her stuff. And I definitely had to take a picture of Ryland wrapped up in her pink towel :)
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After bath time Ryland went right back to watching Sting. He even clapped after each song!

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And then it was time for a group picture before bedtime. We were actually able to get them to sit and look at the camera at the same time!
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Ryland has been really into making this "O" face lately. It is so funny and he always does it at the perfect time!

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And there it is again!
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Checking out the girls! What a great night!

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Muffins with Mom

The Goddard School had "Muffins with Mom" this morning. It was very laid back and very cute. Ryland and I dropped off his stuff in his classroom at school and then walked down to the "Muffins with Mom" room. We were able to sit and have breakfast together. They also had flowers for all of the mom's. I L-O-V-E-D every minute of it! And then when we walked back to his classroom they had a Mother's Day card, picture and hand print plate that Ryland had made for me. This was such a great start to Mother's Day weekend. It made my morning and I could not stop smiling as I drove into work ... ok maybe I had a few happy tears too :)

Knee Update

Just because I know you all want to know ... here is a quick knee update for Ryland :)

On Saturday we were all outside and having fun at our neighbor's 3rd birthday party. All of a sudden Ryland fell down as he was running down our neighbor's driveway and tore off the scab on his right knee :( It definitely bled but he was a trooper and it did not keep him down for long at all. We took him home to clean it up and to put a band aid on it. And then back to all of the fun at the birthday party!

I am ready for these places on his knees to be completely healed so that Ryland does not keep opening up the same wound with all of his bumps and falls. Here is to wearing pants all week until they are all cleared up!

Happy Mother's Day .... 1 Week Early!

A few months ago I decided that the one thing that I wanted for Mother's Day was to run cable and add a TV in our bathroom. Since I get up before Tab during the week and you cannot see the master bedroom TV from our bathroom I can never watch or listen to the news (ie. watch the Today Show) as I get ready for work. I was determined that Tab and I could "make this work" without any professional help and we did it!

A few weeks ago we went up in the attic to see if we could locate any cable wire that we could cut and add a splitter. Our entire attic is covered in the blown white insulation so it looks like a huge snow storm just went through and you cannot see anything but the 2x4 boards running to the ceiling. We were about to give up when I spotted a few inches of the black cable wire that was running over one of the guest bedrooms (luckily that guest bedroom has a raised ceiling so the cable wire had to run up and over that raised part of the floor in the attic). After we confirmed that it was definitely cable wire we went to Home Depot to buy all of the parts that we would need for our project.

While Ryland took a nap today Tab and I started in the bathroom by cutting a hole in the wall under the vanity section of the counter tops. Tab then went into the attic and while I held a flashlight to the hole dropped a rope down the wall. I was able to grab the rope and then pull the cable wire down the wall and out into the bathroom. Step #1 ... Complete!
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Here is the place in the attic above our bathroom that Tab had to first locate and then drop the rope/wire down.
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He then went over to the cable wire that was over the guest bedroom and cut it and then added a splitter to it. Step #2 ... Complete!
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Balancing on the 2x4 boards that are under all of that white insulation!
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After all of the work in the attic was complete we then finished up everything in the bathroom and added the wall plate over the hole. Step #3 ... Complete!

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After Ryland woke up from his nap we all headed to Costco and got a TV. We plugged it in and turned it on and everything works perfectly! Step #4 ... Complete!
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I already love it and know that I am going to really enjoy it every morning! And it is an added bonus since I get to start enjoying it 1 week before Mother's Day!

Thanks Tab and Ryland! I love you both so much!