Thanksgiving Pictures

Here are the promised pictures of Thanksgiving... I am so impressed with how it turned out!Don carving the turkeyMy brother and IGroup picture with Jess, David, Mike, Don and Jay This is why Ryan wasn't in the above picture

Thankful

We had a wonderfully successful Thanksgiving! Everyone brought something and so the food ended up being a great mix of everyone's family traditions. I can't believe how great the food and company were, you can't ask for anything more! So I said before that I would list some of the things I am thankful for this year, there are a lot so I am just going to list a few.

1. My family, I really never could have imagined that family life could be like this.
2. My friends, some I talk to a lot and some not so much but I really appreciate and love them all.
3. Sleep... when I get it
4. Those moments when i get random kisses or hugs from Ryan or when he just snuggles in to give some love.
5. The general good health of most of the people around me
6. In the spirit of the very large meal I just ate... Pumpkin pie because... well it's too obvious to explain.
7 Super cheesy movies
8. The days Don doesn't have to work
9. The opportunity I have been given to stay home with Ryan
10. My sense of self which I feel has gotten a lot stronger since I have started doing more of what I love.

I will post pictures of today once the turkey coma has worn off (which will probably be tomorrow)!

Preparing for Thanksgiving

This is my first year hosting Thanksgiving and so far I feel pretty good about it (granted at this moment my house smells like burning after some of the pie filling dropped into the bottom of the oven... but still). We are having I think 7 people over, luckily everyone is bringing either a side dish or desert which helps. Tomorrow my post will be about what I am thankful for and I am hoping that one thing on my list will be a successful meal. I know I will be in good company so hopefully I have something to feed them!

Uncle David Day

Ryan had a special Uncle David day today. Don had been out of town for a week and Ryan was in much need of some guy time so we drove out to Durham to spend a fun filled day with Uncle David.

Before heading out from Uncle David's apartment they shared a bowl of cereal, they needed fuel for a busy day.

Our first stop was the Life and Science Museum. When I was little I used to go to this museum and it was great to go again, some of it has changed but a lot is exactly the same. Ryan liked how much of the museum is outside and probably could have stayed longer but it was lunchtime when we left. Ryan thought that the computer mouse was a telephone (to be fair we only own laptops with the built in mouse so he has never seen one before)

Smoke machine, Ryan was fascinated!

Ryan liked watching the turtle swimming around in his tank.

Digging for fossils in the dinosaur exhibit.

After the museum we stopped for lunch at Top of the Hill in Chapel Hill.

We then decided to play on the UNC campus, Ryan loved the open space. The leaves were still gorgeous and the weather was great.

Taking a walk.

Huge old Tree.

18 Months!

Ryan is officially a year and a half old! We went to the doctor and they said he was perfect, of course we all knew this but it's still nice to hear :).

He is 28 pounds, 4 1/4 ounces which is 76th percentile, apparently he is getting enough to eat even when he is being super picky.
He's 32 inches long which is about 40th percentile, and of course his head is 20 inches around which as they wrote it on the sheet is >97%

Ryan was waiting in his diaper for over 40 minutes for the appointment (the nurse was on time so she did weight... the doctor was late, thus the lack of clothing). Luckily there was a sink so he washed his hands for a good 10 minutes... naked baby + water = always entertainment. The great news is now that he is getting older we don't have to go back to the doctor for 6 more months which means we will miss the brunt of the flu season at the germy doctors office!

Lessons Found in Art Class

Everyone had a different style of parenting. Mine is generally laid back, I figure even if he isn't doing it the "right" way, as long as he isn't hurting himself or anyone else it goes. This is of course easier said then done and sometimes I have to remind myself to take a step back and let him do his thing.

Ryan loves art, I mean he is almost always focused on the task and does almost everything himself. I let him go at it, he picks his own colors, shapes, decorating techniques, again I am there to make sure he doesn't get hurt (and in this case to get the caps off the markers). Really I don't care if I come home with something covered completely in brown and orange scribbles or if he decides to only decorate a small corner with a million overlapping stickers or if we just end up with a piece of paper with a glob of glue on it. It is his class and he always walks out proud of what has done which in my book is way more important then the art work itself.

I was sitting at a table today with a mom who literally wouldn't let her child do any of the art herself. Instead she was only allowed to hold the paint dobber if the mom was the one actually controlling the dobber. Apparently the 16 month old child was going to mess it up and there was the possibility that God forbid she would get some paint on her hand.

I think sometimes we lose sight of the goal and I am actually thankful that I saw this unfold today. If we are smart we remember that we can only control ourselves, that instead of trying to change others (which we all know is futile) we can learn from them. Today this woman made me put a mirror up to myself so that I could look at my actions and make sure that when I intervene with Ryan I do so for his best interest, not because it is easier, cleaner or makes things prettier.

Showing Love

Tonight Ryan was winding down by watching a cartoon. His dad lay down on the floor about two feet away from him and started watching. Ryan looked over at him, thought for a moment and stood up; he walked over to where his daddy was laying down, put his arm around him, rested his head on his shoulder and watched the rest of the cartoon that way.

How cute is that?

It is in these moments that I can’t imagine having a better life.

Random November Pictures

Ryan found a kitty on the porch this morning, he wanted to keep it.
Ryan hates his rain jacket, for some reason he doesn't think he can bend it it so he falls over a lot when reaching for things

We have started taking long walks when the weather is good, Ryan loves being outside and he likes leading the way.

Ryan trying to be spooky with the little lights that went in our pumpkins... BOO!

When Time Slows Down

I was having a conversation today about slow motion moments. When you can see something about to happen but there is no time to stop it and it seems like everything slows down as you watch the chaos unfold. Like when you see a child about to fall but you are too far to catch them, or when you drop a glass but can’t react quickly enough to catch it. It’s moments like these I wish I was in an action movie where everyone seems to have super human strength and speed, unfortunately my slow self gets to stand by and watch.

Like the sock in the previous post… I saw it a moment before it got sucked up the nozzle of the vacuum, but there just wasn’t enough time for my body to react. Today I had another one of those moments. Ryan and I were in the grocery store without a cart (mistake #1… it was raining, the carts were wet I thought we could do without). I was picking out cheese; I was three feet away from Ryan (mistake #2). I reached for a package of cheese and when I turned around Ryan had an egg in his hand (he had opened the package and taken it out). This is when time slowed down, all I knew was that it wouldn’t be good; he looked up at me and slammed the egg down into the open package breaking not only the one he was holding but another one still in the package. Awesome.

Here’s to a speedier me tomorrow…

Adventures in Vacuuming

I sucked up a sock with the vacuum cleaner... now it doesn't work and I can't find the sock. What to do... a decision must be made soon because with a toddler in the house a vacuum is a MUST.
Everyday is a new adventure in mommy-hood.

Learning to Speak

Ryan has always been very opinionated. He wants things done his way or he will not do it. Ryan doesn't seem to be very interested in speaking and therefore is often unwilling to try.

He still primarily uses sign language. He often won't try speaking out loud until he gets frustrated enough because he can't represent what he wants to say through sign or body language. He says some of the basics like "no", "yes" "mama", "Dada", "more" etc. but he hasn't wanted to say a lot more out loud.

The one thing he is willing to try is the alphabet. So far he is able to not only say all the vowels but he can actually pick them out of a pile of letters by sight (those plastic magnetic ones that go on the fridge and the foam ones in the bathtub). It seems like everyday he getting better at it, and he seems to really be proud of himself when he learns a new one. I find it funny that he is willing to learn letters that are essentially useless in getting what he wants but he won't say the word "eat", but as I said before he does what he wants and how he wants.

It is wonderful to watch a small child learn something new, you can see the second the light goes on for them. I hope that he is able to pick up some other basics like "juice", "food" etc. so that he is able to avoid some of the frustration I know he is feeling right now. This week he has made a huge stride towards speaking, hopefully he decides that it is worth the effort to keep trying!

Static

Ryan loves being outside. Today I think we spent over 3 hours hanging out outside. Usually we walk/run, swing etc. Today Ryan was very much into the slide, the first few times I had to go down with him which is always interesting. He must have gone down the slide about 40 times, after the first 10 times he was willing to go alone. My favorite part of it was Ryan's hair, the slide caused so much static that I just had to catch a picture. The first is Before the slide, the second After, the picture doesn't capture that literally every hair on his head was standing up.