Moving on...

to another blog! 

As I have mentioned before, Blogger has been a pain in my booty lately.  It is finicky about uploading pictures and putting them where I want them to go.  It doesn't put paragraph breaks where I want to put them. And so on.

Sooo....I have decided to move my blog to Wordpress. So far it has been good!  It puts pictures where I want them but I still have had an issue with it not putting a paragraph break in the final copy where I put it in the rough draft. But I can deal with that :)  (Just so you know that I do TRY to use the skills I learned in English class!  Oh, and if you see any grammer problems or spelling problems...I'm sure it's not my fault either! :)

My new blog address is www.thekingstexas.wordpress.com

I was able to import this whole blog into the new one...so check it out!
Katie

Momma, momma!!

Ryan likes to make sure everyone is involved in whatever is going on.  One day, he and Michael were looking through some pictures. As he saw each one, Ryan would face it towards me to show and tell me who was in the picture..."Ry ry, momma",  "daddy, momma"...then he came across one of me..."momma, MOMMA!"  For some reason, that was hilarious to me!  I still think of it and smile :)

Ryan has started calling me "mommy" sometimes and I think I heard "mom" once too. Not really ready for "mom" but I guess I better get that way!  

P.S. I am so annoyed with Blogger right now.  It is messing up all my pictures I put on here.  Also, when I look at the blog on my MacBook, it looks fine but when I look at it at work on a non-Mac, the pictures are all messed up!  I am going to try to figure out what is wrong or find out more about another blog program to use. 

Sweetness...

Sweetness is one of my names for Ryan.  It's a great description of what Ryan is :)

The other day at supper, we held hands to pray.  I asked Ryan if he wanted to pray.  (I had no idea what he would say or do.) Ryan took a second and then he said "Jesus.......loves me, this I know!" 

Pure preciousness.  

We have had a crazy week with crazy rain every day.  This morning, about 5:15, the thunderstorm woke Ryan up. After I got him in our bed and back to sleep (I thought), there was a LOUD thunder.  Ryan lifted his head up and said "whoa nellie!" I had a hard time not laughing out loud!

Race Day

For Michael's birthday, we gave him a drive in a Nascar at Texas Motor Speedway! He has always wanted to do that so it was fun to get to give it to him :)

 We were so thankful for the clouds!  

When we got there, they had about a 30 minute class on what to expect, what to do, etc.  

 These are some of the cars they raced with that day...

 Ready to race...

 Michael drove 10 laps two different times so he had two race cars...

Michael said it was great! The top speed you can go in the cars is 150mph and he had it topped out.  The first set of 10 laps, he was getting used to the car and track so the second 10 laps, he really had fun! I could tell by the smile on his face when he got out of the car :)  (you have to climb in and out of the window like a legit driver:)

They offer a ride around the track in this....

Mike and I took the drive! It was fun!  They get up to about 60mph and at one point he stopped in one of the turns at the very top of the track so we could see how steep it is.  Very steep!  I had no idea. 

I'm so glad that Michael had fun:)

Cross that off of the to do list!

Children's Museum

A while back, mom and dad went with me to a doctor's appointment for Ryan in Houston.  Afterwards, we took him to The Children's Museum. They have an area for toddlers and after he warmed up to it, he had a great time :)

It is no surprise that one of his favorite things was driving the cars. Being the cautious boy that he is, he doesn't like it when toy cars move or make noise.  These were right up his alley because they did neither of those things :) He even took a girl on a ride!

Memorial Day 2012

I started several blogs but it wasn't letting me download the pictures I wanted.  Sooooo, I have some old blogs that I never finished.  Here is one and I will try to finish the rest soon!

We had a fun and relaxing Memorial Day weekend.  My parents got Ryan on Friday so Michael and I were able to get some stuff done around the house.  We went to their house on Saturday afternoon and had a great, relaxing time.  Michael was able to do some fishing and kayaking.

Ryan FINALLY got in the kayak with Michael! It made Michael so happy :)

Mother's Day 2012

This was our Mother's Day picture that I never wrote about! I am so thankful to be Ryan's momma!

Fun and learning

Ryan cracks us up.  

This weekeind, we went to Michael's great aunt and uncle's house in Nacogdoches for one night.  Ryan had a hard time going to sleep because he was wide awake and not in our normal environment. He was a wiggle worm.  I asked him to sing me a song. He said "ready, set, go, ahhhhhh!" Uhhhh...that's not a song :) (They live at a busy intersection and there are lots of big trucks that go by...Ryan was in heaven.)

 Waving at the big trucks...

 Ryan is loving playing in the sprinkler this year! I love it! I was remembering last year, when he was so ready mentally to run through the sprinkler but he still wasn't walking.  I had to run him through the sprinkler holding him and he still loved it but this year he has some freedom :) If I am watering the plants, he will want me to hold the water hose up so he can run under it.

He also likes to water the plants himself.  A couple of weeks ago, Michael was watering the back yard and Ryan was helping him. He wanted to hold it by himself so Michael set it to where the hose would spray without having to hold the nozzle down.  It had some force behind it so it was giving Ryan a hard time with his balance.  It would knock him down and he would get right back up.  He would drop it and it was spray straight up in the air...and all over him.  He would go to pick it up and trip and then it would spray him straight in the bottom!  It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen!  This went on for at least 5 minutes.  Ryan had a blast and kept saying "Ry ry big helper!!!!" (Ryan is a big helper!) Michael recorded some of it and by the time he was done, Ryan, Michael and his phone were soaking wet :)

Ryan has been learning so much lately!  Michael has really been working with him on his numbers and they are working on those things at school also.  Ryan can count from 1-5...most of the time :) He is getting good with his colors...purple, orange and yellow are always right. Blue, green, white, black are sometimes.  Red is orange...never thought about how hard that must be to distinguish the two.  Ryan has numbers and letters on the brain right now.  He will count things he sees...sometimes it sounds like this "two, eight, nine, ten, purple." :) He is also getting good at naming shapes.  I love watching him learn!

I have been getting Ryan to repeat Philipians 4:13 after me "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." It is the absolute sweetest, cutest thing to hear. 

Outside!

We got a load of dirt a few weeks ago and Ryan (and Michael) had a blast playing in it!

It doesn't matter what we are doing...as long as we are outside, Ryan is happy :)

It is great therapy to lay in the grass with a 2 year old and look at the clouds and birds.  Love it...

Fish and Fast

Ryan got his first pets!  We are not big animal owner people so this was a big deal :)  We figured we could handle fish!  

Ryan named them Fish and Fast.  (Fish has already made his exit to the big sewer in the sky. He cost us a whole 26 cents!)  

Ryan has lost some interest in the fish but he does remind us to feed him sometimes..."fish...eat!!!!" 

Girl's weekend #1

A few weeks ago, Mom, Jenny and I had a girl's weekend in Austin!  We took a trip when I was pregnant so we wanted to take one while Jenny is pregnant too!  Mom and Jenny had both seen an ad about the Country Living Magazine Fair in Austin and so we decided to make that our trip! 

It started out pretty eventful.  After getting our yummy Whataburger breakfast in Winnie, mom started having chest pains.  They went away and then came back again.  It was weird because she had never felt that way before and it made her very uncomfortable.  When it came again and didn't leave, we decided to take her to the hospital.  We were nearing Baytown so we found the closest hospital on our Iphone and went there. After a wrong turn, we got her there to find out this particular hospital didn't have an emergency room.  Uuuhhh. A hospital with no emergency room? Never heard of it.  So we waited in the car and Jenny went it and waited while the 90 (literally) year old lady at the front desk pushed the panic button thinking it would call an ambulance.  Instead, someone called the front desk wondering if there was trouble up front.  She then got instructions on what to do to call an ambulance.  Literally.  They work at a hospital and don't know what to do when people need help?  Wow.  By this time, mom was actually feeling fine.  Ha!  But the ambulance was on the way and she still felt like we should get it checked out.  So not only did an ambulance come but also a fire engine...sirens wailing! About 8 of Baytown's finest were there crowding around mom's door all staring and asking questions.  So funny...now!  Jenny rode in the ambulance with mom (in the front seat because she wasn't allowed to ride in the back seat!) and I followed them through every possible red light (no siren) you can imagine.  I am guessing if mom had really been in trouble they would have gone faster because it took us forever to get to the hospital.  Anyway, after an eventful waiting room experience, Jenny and I were able to go in the back with mom.  It was determined that she had none other than....reflux/heartburn!  The people were very nice and got us on our way as quickly as possible.

We stayed in The Domain. It's north of Austin and reminded me of a smaller Woodlands kindof.  We stayed at a nice Westin hotel and there were some shops and restaurants around that they offered free shuttle service to.  It was a neat area.  

On Friday evening, we went to The Oasis.  I am SO glad we went there! It is amazing!  The views were beautiful and we got to watch the sun set.  The food was really good too!

Watching the sunset was amazing!  It was like watching a show and as soon as the sun was completely gone, people started clapping!  I liked it...kinda like thanking God for the amazing sunset.

The next morning was the Country Living Fair.  We really enjoyed it!  We didn't buy much but really enjoyed looking at everything. This was the first year they had this in Austin and they said it will get bigger and better!  There were several thousand people there so it wasn't small! We would like to go back!

We went back to the hotel and relaxed for a while and then ate at Maggianos. We had never eaten there before but it was so amazingly delicious! We got to sit outside which we always like :)

On our way out the next morning, we went to Mount Bonnell. It was so pretty! The views were beautiful.

We had a great time together and are thankful that we enjoy each other :)

Michael and Ryan stayed at my parents while we were gone and had a guys weekend with my dad.  They had a fun time too!

Ryan being excited about something:

On an animal ride:

Driving Paw paw's truck:

Having a slumber party:

It was a good weekend!

Washing trucks...

Michael has always enjoyed washing vehicles.  Don't ask me why cause I sure don't! We have a picture of him when he was very young washing his fire truck :)  

The other day, Michael was washing his truck and Ryan wanted to help.   It made Michael's day :)