Pictures!

Ryland L-O-V-E-S to dance. He will bounce, stomp his foot, clap his hands and snap his fingers! Here are a few pictures from him dancing to the song that his Tiger doll sings ...


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Jack is letting Ryland borrow some more of his toys. And he loves the bouncing Zebra!

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Eating breakfast before school.

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He is into smiling for the camera right now. And sometimes it comes out looking like a mean face. I love it!

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Eating breakfast before school again. But this time he is sitting on the counter eating dry cereal out of the box ... his favorite!
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18 Month Check Up and Lollipops!

Ryland had his 18 month check up today. And he was such a big boy. Whenever they called his name to go back he went without us saying anything. He walked straight into the room and then when it was time he walked right up on the scale to check his weight. He definitely put up less of a fight (and alot less screaming) when Dr Loventhal was checking him out. So maybe we are starting to get out of the phase where he absolutely screams and fights at the sight of Dr Loventhal.

He had a really good check up. He is hitting all of the 18 month milestones which is great. some more good news is that he still has both tubes in his ears .... YAY! Bad news is that he has the start of an ear infection in his right ear. ... BOO! So we are going to start him back on the ear drops. He has not shown any signs that his ears are bothering him. And there has not been any drainage. So hopefully we are catching the ear infection right at the beginning and it will be gone with a few doses of the ear drops.

Below are his 18 month stats ....

Height = 31 3/4 inches (32% percentile)
Weight = 24 1/2 lbs (33% percentile)
Head = 51 cm (still off the charts!)

While we were waiting on Dr Loventhal to come in the nurse gave Ryland a lollipop. This is the first time he has had one. And it did not take him long to figure out what it was and that is was really good. He was a sticky mess before we knew it!


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Father's Day

We had a nice and relaxing Father's Day. The day started off with Tab reading books to Ryland after breakfast. And then my parents came out to have lunch. Ryland then went back to Douglasville with them for the afternoon. While Ryland was out in Douglasville, Tab and I went to see a movie.

Below are a couple of pictures from the day ...


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Belugas to Turtles

Today was a big day for Ryland. He officially moved from the Beluga room to the Turtle room!

The Beluga room is 12 months to 18 months and the Turtle room is 18 months to 24 months. Both are considered "transition" rooms since the kids are only in there for 6 months. But the Turtle room is much different from the Beluga room. It is more like the pre school rooms and even has a bathroom in there so that the kids can start potty training. The kids in the Turtle room only take 1 nap in the afternoon (which is what Ryland does at home) and their day is more structured. Ryland has been visiting the Turtle room over the past 4 weeks as preparation for his big move. His visits and transition has been great so far and hopefully his first full day in there will go well.

I cannot believe how fast he is growing up!

Catching Up

Tab left for St Simons Island and Tybee Island last Thursday ... I was so sad that Ryland and I could not go with him but work has been crazy for me lately so I had to stay back.

Ryland and I have been having some quality mommy/son time. My mom came out a few nights to help since I had to work late. And Ryland loved having his "CC" to hang out with. And just to add to the craziness of the past week I think every random thing that could happen while Tab was gone has happened ... Ryland's school had to close early due to A/C problems, I saw a bug in the house, Codi has been sick and throwing up, I had to take Ryland to the liquor store to buy stuff for Kari's shower, I got picked up at the liquor store with a baby on my hip - ha! ....

But the best part about the last few days is that Ryland has learned so many new things.
- He can now talk like Cookie Monster ... "I want my cookies" - I give all the credit of that one to my mom!
- He can now bark like a dog when you ask him what a dog says
- He found a new hiding spot next to the big piece of furniture in our hallway
- He loves to stomp one foot while he dances
- He tries to snap his fingers ... especially when the "If you are happy and you know it" song is on.
- He now says "please" in sign language .... all the time. And it makes it really hard to tell him no.

Below are some pictures over the last few days .... and you will notice that he is getting really close to needing another hair cut :)


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I was in the kitchen making lunch and turned around and noticed Ryland had taken the magnets off of the refrigerator and lined them up on the counter ... a sure sign that he is getting taller :)
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Having a naked breakfast.
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Squinting because the flash was so bright on the camera.
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On our way home from school.
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Watching Seseme Street after breakfast ... still naked and munching on dry cereal.

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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!

Uh Oh ...

On Tuesday night we were all outside with the kids in our neighborhood. Our neighbor has one of those little cars that the kids can get in and it is open to the ground below. Ryland L-O-V-E-S playing in this car. Tab was pushing Ryland and Ellie Brook around in it and before we knew it Ryland had fallen into the opening and was being drug under the car. And to top it off he had on shorts so his little knees were just torn up. I cannot imagine how much it hurt and burned. We took him straight inside and to the bath to clean out all of the scraps/scratches and to stop the bleeding. This is by far his worse "accident" so far. He screamed every time that we tried to touch them or put medicine on them. He screamed when we put on his pajamas. And he screamed when we tried to put pants on him the next morning because his little knees hurt when he walked in pants (needless to say he went to school with shorts on). They are getting better and the scabs are starting to form. It just breaks my heart when I see his little knees with these scratches and scraps knowing that they hurt.

His knees in this picture do not look as bad as they do in person but this was the best one that we could get ... Ryland was not in the mood to sit still for a picture of his knees!

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