Summer Fun

Spending time at the pool wears her out!! Perfect!!
A little bonding time!

A bathing beauty, I was so excited that she fell asleep at the pool without having to be swaddled!

Finger paintin, in my high chair! What a MESS!

May 2009 031

This is ryan talking!

Ryan loves the park, the weather in Iowa has been beautiful and there are a bunch of very nice parks. Ryan loves to hang and swing. I wish we had a little milder summers so hanging out at the park was fun.

Adoring!

I love the way Ryan is looking at his sister in both of these pictures. He calls her "titer"(which is sister but also sounds very similar to sticker) which he also says pretty frequently

CAROLINE SMILES!!!

Okay since this little girl rarely smiles this is a post full of smiles!!! I LOVE the little dimple and hope I will be seeing more and more of it as she gets happier! She is typically happy in the morning and while she is nursing-she just smiles away then but I sure no one wants to see pictures of that!

Her tonuge is always out and her hands are always by her face!

Full on belly laugh-well actually it comes out like a cough! She has started to realize that when I lay her down in my lap it's time to nurse so she does this little laugh cough and gets all excited.
So sweet!

Welcome to my world....

This little girl is really hurting my feelings by puking back up all my hard work!!! As you can tell(from the soaking wet shirt) this is like our 5th round of spit up in about a 2 minute span. i guess I should just give up and keep her in a bib, but the bibs are ugly and the cover up her cute clothes! She's not very smiley but I think she is sure is cute!

trip with two!!!

I was so nervous flying with two kids by myself, stroller, bjorn, car seat, large suitcase, three bags, 3month old and a 22 month old-I 'm brave I know-But it couldn't have gone any smoother. The airline let me board first which was so nice! Ryan sat and played with his animals and Caroline slept the whole time. PERFECT!!!

This is Alison and her little family!! We are having a great time in Iowa! Ryan has had issues with sharing and saying "MINE" about everything. On top of that he got an ear infection and is teething, so he is LOVELY and sleeping wonderfully-NOT!
Today we went to the zoo-Everyone had a great time and the day couldn't have gotten prettier!


Ryan got to feed the animals

Cory helped Ryan fed the llamas-he had a blast as you can tell.

Ryan loved seeing "Nemo"

This was a cool display full of jellyfish!

Ryan getting eaten by a hippo!

Caroline slept most of the way through the zoo luckily!

Is your mama a llama?

Cooper and Alison
Ryan would "wing" all day if I let him.
Caroline just chill'n in the grass-she ALWAYS has her tongue sticking out.

Alison has a great front yard, so the kids just blew bubbles and played ball for most of the afternoon

Cooper

I just think it is so weird to think that both Alison and I have kids and the spending time together is like we have never been apart even though we've only seen each other a handful of times since High School graduation. I so thankful for such a good friend, who loves me even though my kids don't act perfect and cry all the time. She was so excited for me to come and wanted everything perfect and I told her today that she will be the same amount of excited to see me leave! : ) Thank you Alison for such a wonderful trip and hopefully soon I can get you back!

Both kids were asleep in their room by 8:15!!! HIP HIP HOORAY!!!!

I definitely needed the break, especially after today, church just sucks it right out of me!!

Baby Girl

Caroline sure is giving me a run for my money. I've had polar opposite children, I would have been happy with both of them somewhere in the middle. It has set me up for a big let down when the second one isn't any where near as easy as the first and then you still have the first one to attended to and entertain. I do have to say though this girl is a great sleeper she averages 7-9 hour stretch, which is the only thing that is keeping me sane at this point! I love her with all my heart, and I know she will out grow this phase(hopefully sooner then later) but right now most days I have to remind myself to smile at her and talk to her. She looks so peaceful while she asleep!

She is getting so big, smiles are starting to come a LITTLE more easily. She is usually very happy in the morning for the first hour she's awake. This is our bonding time when she will talk, babble, and smile at me, it's what gets me through the rest of the day!!

Want to come along for the ride?

This was my ride home from my mom's house!! They both screamed like this for about an hour, the drive should only take an hour but tonight it took two because of traffic!! Are we having fun yet??

What a great week!

We had a great week, my Aunt Laur came to visit for 8 days and we had a blast!!
NO family visit is complete without baking something wonderful, and Ryan was right there to clean up any mess

We had some great bonding time with cousins

and with aunts,

We went on our first train ride,

to the Dallas Zoo.
We fed the birds
Caroline slept through the entire day
Ryan went on his first horse ride and LOVED every minute of it!! He loved it so much he rode the horse twice!

This was Matt's lunch for his last day of law school

Laur wanted a picture of Ry happy and these are what we got! He is really hard to get a picture of these days because he moves so dang fast, most pictures are truly just a blur!

Laur also tried all week to get a pic of Caroline smiling and this is what she got in her last few minutes here! Perfect timing!

Thanks for a wonderful week Laur, I'm so glad you came to visit!

Garage Sailing!

I went garage sailing today in my mom's neighborhood(well actually her neighborhood doesn't allow garage sales so it was in a church parking lot, which was fabulous because we didn't have to pack the kids in and out of the car we just strolled up and down the aisles) and I got all of this for $20~~~the car rug(which I have wanted for awhile), 2 Mr. Potato Heads, life jacket,2 pj's, 2 dresses, 2 Melissa and Doug puzzles, little people dinosaur, 2 beanie babies, and a bunch of books!! I was very excited about my haul!! I forgot that I love to go garage sailing and how rewarding it feels to get a great deal!!

Leftovers

This was the easiest, tastest dinner I've made in a long time.

I NEVER eat leftovers, but I happily ate all the leftovers from this dinner. There are all kinds of things you could add to this pasta (olives, chicken, bacon, the list could go on and on, but it was perfectly wonderful just the way it was!)

Penne with Two Tomatoes

6 ounces fresh mozzarella, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
Coarse salt and ground pepper
12 ounces penne rigate
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, sliced
2 garlic cloves, sliced
1/4 cup snipped chives (I used basil instead, wonderful)




Directions
Place cheese in freezer. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta until al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup pasta water; drain pasta and set aside.
In pasta pot, heat oil over medium-high. Add cherry tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, and pasta water. Cook until cherry tomatoes soften, 2 to 4 minutes.
Add pasta, chilled cheese, and chives to pot, season with salt and pepper, and toss to combine.

I'm so excited to report...

that Caroline and Ryan are sleeping in the same room!!! They both go to bed at 9 and then Caroline awakes up about 5:30 to 6:30ish(to eat and go back to sleep and so far hasn't woke Ryan up) again this was way easier than I had worried about, the crying must be white noise for both of them at this point.