My view

I love to walk in our neighborhood. I have not done it NEAR as regularly as I should have during the past year. Ryan is not a good excuse for me to use because he usually likes the walk. I like to be outside and see all the other houses in the neighborhood. I like to look at their landscaping and try to get ideas. But my favorite thing about my walk now is my view when I look down :)
Priceless!

Virus.

Ryan had his first official virus last week. Poor thing started running fever on Sunday and it finally broke on Wednesday morning. It would always get back to about 103 between Tylenol doses. On Tuesday evening it was 104.2! I had read about fever and that it is actually good and that no ones brain has actually fried from fever :) so I wasn't TOO freaked out....just a little! Besides being very clingy, with rosy cheeks and a very HOT body on Sunday and Monday, you wouldn't have know anything was wrong with Ryan. One time I took his temp on 103.2 and a couple minutes later he was laughing out loud at Michael :) On Tuesday he was obviously wasn't feeling well :( I took him to the doc on Tuesday and he tested negative for strep and the flu. They said it was just a viral thing. This was on the way to the doctor....sweet boy waving at cars on the road. Have I said lately how much I love this precious boy?
Thankfully he is fully recovered now! And I really enjoyed all the cuddle time :) Here are a few more pictures from his sick days:

The picture above was taken right after I took his temp and it was 104.2. We let him sleep in his diaper because he was so hot. Thank the Lord his fever broke the next morning about 6:30.

Just to let you see that he is doing just fine now, this picture was taken this evening with Ryan doing what he does best...emptying the cabinets :)

Valentine's Day 2011

Valentine's Day was on a Monday this year! What a way to start the week! Michael said that he had something little planned so I was curious....and I love surprises, even little ones :) Michael had been organizing/cleaning out/setting up/getting electricity to his "barn"...it's the storage building in the back yard that is shaped like a barn. Michael loves it. It is one of the reasons he wanted to buy our house. Seriously. He wanted it to be kind of like a man-cave. Well, his plan was to fix dinner on Valentine's Day and for us to eat out in his barn. He ended up not being able to leave work early so the cooking plan did not work out. He had to get Carrabba's instead...YIPPIE! I could eat there every week for the rest of my life and be perfectly happy. We had a lovely dinner in the barn. It wasn't too cold...just right. We brought Ryan's high chair out there and he at his dinner with us.
Michael has his work out machine, radio, tv, dvd player and refrigerator out there! It's actually really nice now! He had some scrap carpet that he put down that makes it cozy.

Michael got me the new book by the Pioneer Woman "Black Heels to Tractor Wheels"...the love story of her and Marlboro man :) Can't wait to read it! I got my Valentine a book called "Back yard Ballistics"...a book about how to make potato guns and other very romantic things. I am all about the romance :) Michael got Ryan a book about a dog that travels around Texas with his owners in their travel trailer! So cool!


Michael also got Tin Roof ice cream...one of my very favorites! I love him.
and him :)

Valentine's party 2011

Ryan had his first Valentine's Day party last Friday! I got to go and be there for the party :) It was fun to see Ryan interact with his friends in his class and I was glad to be around his teachers some also.

When I got there, the kids were in the seats fixing to eat their party food! Basically, a half of a cookie and a itty bitty cupcake. Oh , and apparently a cheese puff :)
He was so cute and grown up looking! These are the goodie bags that I put together:
I was happy with the way they turned out. I asked people on facebook for ideas for the bags and got a lot of good ideas. I ended up giving them a small thing of bubbles, small individual bag of gold fish (I have always called them fish crackers) an Oreo cakester (it's a soft cookie like an Oreo) and a Valentine's balloon. Ryan has had lots of fun with his balloon....lots of laughs!

After his party, we went to get his hair cut. I love his cute short hair cut!

I had dinner with friends on Friday evening, so Ryan and Michael had a boys night.
I am so thankful that Michael is such a wonderful daddy to Ryan. He loves spending time with him and Ryan loves being with daddy. Can't you tell?

We had a pretty quiet weekend...over way to fast as usual!

Player

Ryan LOVES to play! I said something to his teacher a month or so ago about how Ryan had been going to bed earlier than usual (between 7:30 and 8:30). She said that made sense to her because Ryan plays ALL day! That makes me happy :) I'm glad that he has fun playing!

He normally takes 1 nap...usually between 1 and 2 hours but last week there were a few days where he only took a 30 minute nap! However, that meant that he was literally falling asleep at 5 o'clock. YIKES! We would let him nap for 30 minutes or so and then wake him up. That meant a later night for bed though...oh well! I think it may be adjusting to his new schedule and class at school that is causing it.

Ryan got this racetrack from Grandma Whitehead for Christmas. He LOVES it and plays with it all the time! There are 2 cars that go with it but Ryan likes to put EVERYTHING he can get his hands on on the racetrack :) Lately he has been trying to crawl OVER the track. Don't know why he doesn't go around it ??? Sometimes he gets a little stuck :)
Sometimes he just sits and stays awhile
Just had to put this picture on here on Ryan when I go to take a bath.....Moooommmaaa! :)

This is what...

70% chance of SNOW showers looks like.
Or at least PREDICTED 70% chance. My favorite thing was that the weather people were trying to convince us they were RIGHT! I heard one of them say "the weather came through this morning just like we predicted". Um, no it didn't. It WAS very cold (for southeast Texas), rainy and there was ice of over passes and LOTS of wrecks.

If they predict it, it will not happen. It must be UNpredicted. This is what I have learned.

Thankfully, the 3 of us got to be home (off of work!) and cozy in our house! It was a great day. I was literally giddy the night before knowing I would be home all day with my boys and not have to get up too early and not really have to get ready! I loved it.

I blogged about our snow last year (2009)...

But I don't think I was blogging when it REALLY snowed the year before (2008). We were living in Beaumont and they didn't really predict it to snow here (from what I remember). It was supposed to snow close to us but we were NOT supposed to receive 3-4 inches! It was miraculous! Jenny called me at 2 in the morning to tell me to look outside...scared me to death! Michael and I got up for a while...went outside and froze. Michael went back to bed but I sat up for a long time at the kitchen table watching it snow and sitting there is disbelief! I am not exaggerating when I say it felt like a spiritual experience (I think Jenny said that first but it is true!) Amazing.

This is Ryan on a very cold day in his cozy wozy outfit! I have to say cozy wozy because it is SO soft and cozy! (Thank you Ricky and Janet!)

Big boy class

Ryan started in the next class up at school yesterday! They had put him in there for a few hours at a time before to ease him into it. I have been very impressed with the way his school has handled the transition. They didn't make him move up just because he had turned 1. They waited until they thought he was ready. On one hand, I am glad for Ryan to get to move up. He had 2 buddies that had moved up before him so I am glad that he gets to play with them again. They moved 2 other of his friends up with him so he should not feel alone in the new class. This class is more structured than his old class. They have a nap time and lunch time. Don't know how in the world they make that work! They have one of those tables with seats build in that they put the kids in to feed them. They will feed him food from the kitchen which makes me a little nervous...just because I am not there to watch to make sure he doesn't choke! I know they do this every day and they are very capable. I did make them aware of his eating situation but they said that he ate very well today :) Something else that me happy is Ryan is having his first school party...Valentine's Day!! I got to sign up to bring goody bags for the 10 kids in his class :) I am super excited! But the more I think about it, what in the world do you put in goody bags for 1 year olds?!

On the other hand, I am a little sad that he has moved up in school. His old teachers, Mrs. Kelli and Mrs. Angela, loved Ryan and took GREAT care of him. They were an answered prayer! I prayed that God would make Ryan have a special place in his teacher's heart and He did that.

I know that this is something that we will go through every year as he grows...new teachers, environments, friends, challenges. Some will be great...others not so much. I pray that we will always be able to protect Ryan while he is small and help him as he grows to handle things on his own too. But right now, I just want to cuddle him close and cherish these days of him being our baby boy...these are the days!