Thursday, October 7, 2010

Ryan

Our son Ryan is growing up so fast.  He is a full 2 and three quarters years old.  He was born on January 11, 2008 and our life changed on that day forever.  I cannot possibly cover the last almost three years since he was born in one blog post but in a nutshell...

Ryan slept through the night on March 17, 2008 (my birthday!), slept on his tummy around 5 months of age, sitting up at 6 months, crawling at 7 months, and walking at 10.  That winter he took some swim lessons, played in the snow for the first time and helped daddy chop down a Christmas tree on a freezing cold day. We had a wonderful first birthday party with our family and few friends with Ryan not wanting to make a mess at all. 
 




Over the next year we watched Ryan grow and change, speaking more words each day (first was "mama").  We took him to Chicago when he was 18 months to visit some family and he did wonderfully the entire trip.  Ryan's favorite part was the zoo in Chicago...he loves animals.  He also learned how to jump into Grandma Jane's pool.  Through the fall Ryan watched mommy's tummy grow bigger and bigger as there was a new baby to be born in January 2010.  Ryan's second Christmas was filled with many visits to family in New Jersey and in PA and he spent his New Year sleeping at the Rudge's while the adults "partied" in the basement. 








 



   

Ryan welcomed his little sister Taylor K on January 17, 2010.  He has never had anything but love for his sister.  Ryan continued to go to school while I was on maternity leave (he thrives on routine) and adjusted well to having a new little person in the house.  Since Taylor was born we have taken many adventures...Lake Tobias, Hershey Zoo, three trips to NJ, a trip to the beach and to see Elmo Live! in Philly. 

Ryan likes....Golden Grahams, cucumbers with dip, watching the Phillies, playing with his friends, singing songs, reading books, looking for diggers and trucks while we are driving.  He asks me about my day, every day when we ride home in the car and then he asks about Taylor's day.  He gets upset if he forgets to tell someone 'thank you' for something that they did (the other day someone held the door open for us and he was upset because he forgot to say thank you). He loves to snuggle and dance and listen to Celine Dion in the car on the way to school (it helps Taylor calm down when she's crying). 

Ryan does not like...fireworks, the jungle song and peanut butter and jelly. 

 
There...you are caught up on our firstborn....he says and does new and funny things every day and I am going to try to get better at writing things down. 

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Repair and Destruction

Thanks to all two of you who have probably checked back here since my initial three posts.  I got all psyched up about this blogging thing and then didn't do it for a lot of days.  I'm not sure what the proper protocol is on how often to blog.  There probably isn't one.  Anyhow, over the past few days I was pondering what the next story is that I'd like to share.  Without further adue delay (because I don't know if the previous word even exists), here it is. 

I enjoy going on mission/service trips with my church and have been doing it since I was 16 years old (until recently when children entered my life!).  I've been to South Carolina with Habitat for Humanity and more recently, Mississippi to help with Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts.  About 4 years ago I traveled with a group of people to help rebuild a church in Mississippi and had a wonderful time with many great memories. 

On the last day of work (which happened to be my birthday, March 17) I thought it would be neat if I could learn how to drive a backhoe.  So, with the help of Doug Frombaugh I drove this backhoe back and forth around the worksite doing various tasks.  At one point I decided to take a shortcut under the front porch of the church (instead of going an extra 2 minutes around and through the driveway).  It definitely looked like I had plenty of room to maneuver this large piece of machinery - which I had never driven before in my life - under the porch and out the other side. 

I'm sure you know where this is going but I may as well finish.  As I was driving up the driveway (under the watchful eye of men on the trip - Steve Lehman Sr. and Rich Love) and up to the porch I see an alarmed Justin Poe reaching out in slow motion "STOP!"  At that point it was too late and there was a very loud crash.  Then I stopped.  One of the more experienced drivers came out and said "OK, now just lower the bucket and back down."  Riiiiiiight.  Apparently that piece of information was going to be included in Lesson 2 of Learning to Drive a Backhoe. 

So...I got off of the machine, bawled like a baby, and let someone else get it out of the mess.  The interesting thing about this whole situation is that one of the men was going to remind me to lower the bucket when I went around to the front of the church but "figured that I knew what I was doing."  And the two other men who were watching me drive around the front were having a discussion about whether or not they thought I would make it under the porch. 

What a story to come home with and never live down.  I guess some day I'll "get back on the horse."  But, for now I limit myself to driving my car and helping my kid learn how to ride his bike.




This is a picture of the dog that roamed around the church as we worked.  The picture below is a piece of wood that we were using to replace the ceiling of the church.  We ended up cutting this down to size and giving it as a gift to the pastor of the church. 

Saturday, September 4, 2010

One week late...one week early...

Who's late?  Who's early?  That would be my kiddos.  Ryan was born one week after his due date, Taylor was born one week before her due date.  I'm sure that at some point I will share those birth stories, some people like to read those, you know. 

Right now I just want to share some things that happened today specifically.  Taylor climbed up the stairs...TWICE.  She is a mover.  She actually skipped the nice stage of sitting up and being still.  She was inching her way across the floor before she could even sit up.  So we're back to child proofing and keeping everything under the sun out of her reach or SHE WILL EAT IT. 

I reflected today on just how caring and loving Ryan is.  He:  held the door open for me when my hands were full (without being asked), held my ice cream dish still so that I could eat it while I was holding Taylor with my other hand and he swept the dirt out from under our table just because he saw that it was dirty.  He is just the best. 

Ryan also has some speech problems and has been seeing a speech therapist.  I can understand almost everything that he says however, today was a little bit different.  He was saying something to me and I had no idea what he was saying.  After saying it a few times and me trying to figure it out, he looks up at me with the sweetest little face and says, "You don't understand me mommy?"  Right at that moment (and now) I just wanted to cry.  I went over and gave him a big squeeze and we worked together and found out what he was trying to say.  It breaks my heart at times but I know that this is how he was made. 

Hope everyone has a wonderful rest of the weekend. And, if you are blessed enough to have the day off on Monday, enjoy! 

Friday, September 3, 2010

A victim of my own pet peeves

Okay, so I have many pet peeves.  Two of them are people who do NOT lock the door when they are using the bathroom and the other is people who do NOT knock on the door when they need to enter the bathroom. 

My main theme when it comes to the bathroom is "knock and lock."  It's that simple.

Well...the other day at work I had just finished and was getting paper towels when - imagine my surprise - I am greeted by a smiling face opening the door to greet me as I was drying my hands.  So, I was a little upset that that person did NOT knock.  But I failed to lock. 

I have many more stories.  Just wait. 

I've never done this before

I LOVE reading blogs.  In fact, the other day I was telling Andy about one that I started reading about a year and a half ago of someone that I don't even know.  He said "you read about someone you don't even know, why?"  I don't know, I'm hooked!  I'll post a link to her blog as soon as I can figure that out. 

Anyhow, if anyone is interested in reading about our life...it's here :) 

I always have these funny things happening to me and felt like I wanted to have a place to share them with other people. 

So, if you have five minutes to waste...start here.