Happy Easter

I am so excited because I am leaving in an hour to go and pick up my cousin who is coming to hang out for a whole week. BOOYA. So I only have time for a quick easter post. Mostly I just have a bunch of pictures. We had a very yummy dinner and a small easter egg hunt...which was uneventful as Nathan hid the eggs and Ryan hunted for them. HA! We are really excited for Tara to be here and we can't wait till her plane lands!! YEAH!

Ryan in his wearing his little tie and cute sweater.

On the hunt for eggs

Enjoying the plastic on his easter basket. This was much more fun than anything in the basket!

Funnies

I am having major issues with my computer...as in it only works when it feels like it. SO we have taken all of the good stuff off and plan to wipe it clean and reinstall the OS this weekend. So because of that I have a total lack of pictures. Since I only post pictures of Ryan and you already know what he looks like, we should be okay.

I am mainly motivated to blog because I noticed I had been demoted on John's blog. I really feel like I just blogged and then next thing I know a month has gone by.

Things have been slow here. Ryan is growing like a weed and is learning new "tricks" everyday. (I guess other parents don't talk about their child like a dog and call these new abilities "milestones")

The funniest stories I have right now has to do with the continuing education class that I am taking. I guess I really liked school even more than I thought and I have been looking around for some classes to take. I was going to enroll in a painting class and then I found out I was pregnant, my doctor advised me not to take the class....so a year later....

I now am enrolled in a photography class and it is pretty fun. I take it at my old high school which is a little odd since it is like being back in my high school classes except that everyone in the class is about 25 years older than me. BUT the best story from this experience (there are many but I only have time for one) is from the very first day.

We are talking about exposure controls, f-stop, shutter speed etc. The woman in the story is probably about 55-60.

And the teacher says, "so if you increase the shutter speed from 1/125th of a second to 1/2000th of a second you will get a sharper picture but you will let in a lot less light"

And this woman says, "but you increased the number from 125 to 2000"

Teacher replies, "no because it's a fraction so the shutter speed is actually being decreased."

Woman "but the number is getting bigger"

Teacher "but it's a fraction, so its smaller. You know...fractions"

Woman "This class is way over my head, but it's cool, I'll hang out" (these were her exact words)

I hope the tone is being conveyed because I am laughing just thinking about this story. Ahhh...so funny. Well its off to bed. I have more stories and things to post so hopefully I will get back around to it soon.

Addiction

I have a major addiction to truffles. No, not the weird cooking truffles in French food, CHOCOLATE truffles. Here's the thing I'm not like super into chocolate, I mean, I'll eat it, but I don't crave it. EXCEPT for truffles. I love them. Really love them. It's the smooth center that I crave. I also enjoy good chocolate mousse. The problem is this, I eat so many that I make myself sick. So I don't buy them. EVER. I see them calling to me at the end of the grocery isle, Lindor Lindt is my favorite, milk chocolate, but I also enjoy dark (these are the blue and red wrappers). At Christmas, my friend was trying to be nice so she gave me a whole bag...thanks. Then some one else gave me a HUGE box of Godiva Christmas blend truffles...thanks. If your wondering I did get sick on Christmas Eve. (I totally sound like some freak with no self control). The reason I bring up this story is because I was at my parents and my mom stuck a whole bag of truffles in my diaper bag...and I ate them all. I suppose admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery...but I don't know if I want to recover. Hmmm....moving on.

Well, we did get a new vacuum. We got a Dyson thanks to Aaron's hot tip we got a smoking deal and now our carpet is clean, clean, clean. No hair to be found. However, since the shedding is so bad, I have to vacuum EVERYDAY (maybe other people vacuum everyday but I'm more like a twice a week kind of gal) in order to keep the hair under control. Evidently this lasts until nine months, so we have a while to go.

We don't have much to post about. Ryan went to his four month check up. He is in the 95% for height, so he is about to hit the height limit on his car seat and some of his toys, so I guess he really is growing. He is certainly learning a lot of new things. He now gives kisses when you say "Ryan give me a kiss" and pucker your lips. But his kiss is open mouth slobbering all over your face. We still think it's cute. He is really working on sitting up on his own and can sit for longer now but he still ends up in the carpet at some point. He hasn's yet perfected rolling from front to back WHICH IS A HUGE PROBLEM. As we put him in his bed at night and he rolls to his tummy and then cries for help because he can't flip back. He is working on it, and hopefully in the next week or two will be able to do it.

We can tell that he wants so badly to crawl as he flips on to his front and them moves his legs like he is crawling, problem is that he doesn't have the arm action down. But it must be working somewhat because he moves around the floor a little bit so he is actually getting somewhere! We are enjoying him immensely because he now has so much more of a reaction to whatever we do. He gets so excited when one of us comes home and he laughs so hard when we play with him.


I feel like I have funny stories, but then they get so old because I don't post that they really don't seem funny anymore.

I have been working on this post for too long as Aaron gave me the tip on the vacuum the day I last posted, and Ryan is now 5 months. Instead of updating everything....here is a nice stale post.

A New Pet!

Here is something exciting! We have a new pet! What kind of pet you may be wondering, if you know us at all, you know that we have both agreed to never have a dog (in fact I think that is written somewhere on our blog) . And a dog is my favorite animal, soooo basically if it doesn't live in a cage or a bowl, we won't ever be having one....sorry Ryan and any future children, but we aren't going to budge.


So what kind of pet could it be....well, it SHEDS everywhere. On the couch, on the bed, in the kitchen, in the car, in the bathroom...EVERYWHERE. Basically it is totally disgusting and if we could get rid of the pet altogether than we would. Unfortuately, the pet is ME. That's right, I'm shedding worse than any dog or other animal for that matter. Yes I know, after pregnancy you lose a bunch of hair that supposedly you didn't lose while you were pregnant. And I have plenty of hair, so I'm not worried about the amount of hair I'm losing, rather the fact that it is everywhere. I've been contemplating a new vacuum and basically I'm the final straw for myself. I'm surprised I don't hear more people complaining about this, because it's gross.

We got a new camera as a late Christmas present, while I still don't really know how to use it, I've been very click happy since it arrived, as you can see here. A small sampling of the 300 photos I've taken since Thursday!!

An Update!

Things in Georgia have not been too crazy...except for the snow that we have been having. I would like to state for the record that while I am not nervous about driving in the snow, I am nervous about other drivers in the snow. People here have a hard time when it is sunny and I quote "the I-20 is backed up due the sun being so bright this morning" (yes I heard that on the radio) and so therefore I opt to avoid driving when the weather isn't good. It hasn't been overly cold, about typical for this time of year but the snow was something that surprised Matt and I and I don't think I have seen snow here since I was in high school. I'm sure it has snowed since then but I wasn't here to enjoy it.

Ryan has been learning a lot and perfecting all of his tricks. He can roll from back to front, which we have yet to get on camera because once he sees the camera he just watches you instead of "performing." He also doesn't know how to roll from front to back yet, so once he gets on his front, he is stuck! He can sit on his own for a minute or two before tumbling over and planting his face in the carpet.

He also now grabs and hangs on for dear life to about anything, so therefore nothing is safe anymore. We used to work at the computer together until he figured out how to open the drawer and drool all over it, then take things out and drool all over them.



He now loves to play with all of his toys too. He has his four month check up next week so we will know how much we weighs and how long he is. He seems huge compared to how little he used to be but I'm sure he is probably just normal size.



I wish I had something more exciting to post, but in a effort to not be summarizing the entire month of January, I will just post what I have and think of something good for later....I'm sure there is something.

December!

Yikes! I definitely thought that I wouldn't be summarizing the whole month again...December seems to have flown by. We had a great time with visiting family and the holidays. I have lots of pictures for this post. Ryan is growing he nows weighs more than 14 1/2 pounds. He got an ear infection at the end of the month so we got so see his pediatrician again....Ryan doesn't seem to like going too long before seeing Dr. Clark! He was a little concerned that he got an ear infection so early in life and this may be a bad sign for the future, but it has cleared up quite nicely and we have our happy baby back.

Ryan has been "talking" up a storm. He seems to love the sound of his own voice...must get that from his mother! This makes church an interesting challenge as he wants to talk any time that he is awake, and rather loudly (he must also get that from his mother).


He has started to love taking baths. We were trying to get him to like them, and then all of the sudden he stopped fussing during the bath and actually started enjoying himself. This picture doesn't show his enthusiam because whenever I pull out the camera, he gives the funniest look and stops smiling, so we have to be quick to get photos of him smiling.

He also now chews on his hands like its his job. If you remove one hand he will stick the other one right in. It began with only a few fingers but he has now almost perfected his entire fist. This also means that his produces a large amount of drool. I think his shirt is premanently wet, as you can see from this picture with my Grandma.

We had a wonderful Christmas. We enojoyed having both Mike and Sara visit. We saw the Nutcraker at the Fabulous Fox Theatre which was really great. Ryan got so many presents from all of his friends, even Matt and I were surprised with what was under our tree.

Ryan yawning in his Christmas jammies.

Ryan visited Santa. We laughed when we saw this picture because we had to wake him up to see Santa. He looks so tired and out of it. He wasn't scared by Santa at all because I think he was still half asleep!

We miss all of our friends and family that don't live close by but we hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas.

November!

Matt keeps saying that we need to update our blog....the operative word is "we"....Matt doesn't update our blog so when he says that, he is really trying to tell me to do it. Why, you may wonder? He likes reading everyone's comments. Seriously. He doesn't check other people's blogs (don't be offended) unless I tell him to look at something and he rarely looks at ours, except to read the comments. He will refer to things people have "said" as if he had a conversation with them but it is only from blog comments, like Sean, he always tells me what you "said" to him. Don't get me wrong, I love the comments too. (you all love your comments, admit it) Lately I have had a lot of things to blog about, but I have been thinking a lot about the anonymous readers. You know, the ones that read but DON'T comment. I have no problem with this, except you essentially have to assume that everyone is reading your blog and you may or may not know it. This prevents me from writing about certain stories, this is what stopped me from blogging about the MOST bizarre wedding that Matt and I attended an unspecified amount of time ago....what if these people read this blog. You never know!


We blessed Ryan at the beginning of the month and loved having Uncle Ross and Aunt Karen out here for the blessing. We hope that they come to visit again soon!!

Ryan had his two month check-up and he is growing a ton. He is only in the 50th percentile for weight but the 75th for height. He took his shots like a champ and barely cried at all. Matt was nervous that he was going to be cranky after but he was just sleepy for the rest of the day and then he was back to his regular self. I have had to pack away an entire bin of clothes already. Ryan was given an exorbitant amount of clothes from 0-3m all the way to 3T, but managing his clothes is practically a full time job. He only has a chance to wear most things once and by the time he was worn the other stuff in that size, he is moving up the next, so there is a full rotation going on. Hopefully as he slows down growing, he will get to wear things more than once...or in some cases at least once.

We had Thanksgiving at my parents house this year. We all have figured out my mom's trick of saying every October since we moved to Georgia that "when in Rome" and since we aren't living in Canada we will celebrate in November with everyone else, and then in November saying that since we aren't American, we don't need to have American Thanksgiving. I think she has avoided making Thanksgiving dinner for 7 years, but this year she caved! About time! Dinner was FANTASTIC. This picture was taken right as we were heading home. Matt said that we hadn't gotten a picture on Ryan's first Thanksgiving, I said we could take one tomorrow, he said that it wouldn't be Thanksgiving anymore, details, details! Whatever, if I look tired, its because I was!

On the day after Thanksgiving we went out for breakfast with John, Lindy and Anya and my parents and Nathan. Breakfast was good, Ryan slept so Anya had to keep everyone entertained which she did a great job of.

Matt attended the Georgia vs Georgia Tech game with John last Saturday. This was probably the highlight of the year for him. Although when I asked how it was all he could talk about was how cold it was. Maybe a t-shirt isn't appropriate for a November night game....it also rained that night. But Georgia won and that was all that mattered.

We are getting ready for Christmas and we got our tree today. We get a real tree every year, if you remember the Christmas tree post from last year and the quest for the Fraser Fir from North Carolina. We got a Fraser Fir again this year, because they had them at Home Depot. We didn't want to drive all the way out to the tree farm this year. So when we bought the tree Matt thought I was reading the price wrong....evidently we've been getting majorly ripped off every year, but this year we actually got a good deal. We haven't decorated it yet, we will post some pictures once we do.