Happy Anniversary to us!

Steve and I are celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary. I can't believe it's been 9 years already. I know many people say marriage is very hard work, but I have rarely felt that to be the case for us. I feel very fortunate to have married someone than I can truly say is also my best friend. I knew he was the one because from the beginning we could sit with a bottle of wine (or beer) and just talk and laugh and contemplate the world's problems into the wee hours of morning. It's like we never ran out of new and interesting things to talk about. We still do that sometimes....but not usually into the wee hours of morning anymore. The kids would have a thing or two to say about that part of it. But, I do still love talking to him and I love that he always knows how to make me laugh.

We're not doing much to celebrate tonight, but I think we'll get out this weekend for at least a little while. Next year we hope to plan something big for our 10th anniversary. Hopefully we'll actually follow through with that plan.

AND!! Congratulations to Jason, Valerie, Abigail, and Emily on the newest addition to their family! My brother and his wife just had their 3rd baby and 1st SON this morning. Welcome to the world Cason Daniel Lake!

Ryan is really funny!

Ever since Ryan started talking he's been showing us that he has one amazing little personality. He LOVES to joke around and "tend" (pretend). It's hard to believe that not that many months ago I was very worried that he didn't do any pretend play. Something happened about 3 months ago (right after he started preschool) that caused him to "wake up". I just don't know how else to put it--he just suddenly started showing a real awareness about everything around him and even became incredibly interested in everything. He started off by just saying "dat?". I remember it so well because I was so thrilled that he had actually finally asked a question. That one question quickly turned into constant questioning and many other question words followed. Yes, we are definitely now in the "why" stage.

Even his speech therapist is just thrilled and amazed to see his little personality emerge. Lately, she is always writing cute little stories about what he did or said at school in his "communication log" (a little book that we use for corresponding). I am so glad we have this book--it will be a wonderful keepsake. It's already been great for seeing his progress. The first entries are all about him learning a new sign or attempting to say a new word. Now, his book is full of 3 and 4 word phrases that he says completely spontaneously. AMAZING!

Ok, now here's what really prompted me to write an entry all about Ryan. Tonight I cooked a whole roasted chicken for dinner. When I took the chicken out of the oven he was soooooo excited! He started jumping around and waving at the chicken and saying "bahk-bahk" (the chicken sound). It was very entertaining to see how excited he was about the chicken and to watch him try to "communicate" with the chicken. After a few minutes he looked at me and said "why talk not?" He was wondering why the chicken was talking back to him. His facial expression was actual more funny that the question. He was very serious and seemed very confused about why this chicken he had waited so long to talk wasn't responding. I told him "the chicken isn't alive, we're going to eat it". Of course, that led to many "why's" and me trying to answer each why question in a way that he might understand. Finally, after one of his questions I just said "Ryan, he doesn't even have a head anymore". He stopped suddenly and looked at me with even more confusion and said "bahk not see!!!" with a great deal of incredulity. Again, the expression on his face was too cute. This back and forth banter about the chicken went on for a while. I finally decided I even needed a picture of this moment (which I will add to this when I can) because I know one of these days I will miss these little conversations with him (and forget them if I don't write them down). And, since I knew I had to write about it, I wanted a picture of what he looked like in hopes that one of these days I can picture his wonderful little expression throughout the exchange.

Another cute little Ryan story. He often takes a fish oil supplement, but he can't swallow it whole. He chews it and then swallows the "shell" afterwards. Let me stop here to say I can't imagine how gross that would be, but he doesn't seem to mind. Tonight he was actually "joking" with me. He was pretending like he couldn't swallow it and kept making a swallowing motion and saying "me not (swallow motion)". I kept saying "well, spit it out then". Finally, after going through this a few times I realized he was just playing around. He had already swallowed it and just wanted to joke a little.

I can't even describe how happy I am to be able to have conversations with him now. Every night we read books before bedtime. I have so much FUN! talking to him about the books afterwards. I know that when the girls were this age I took those moments for granted because they had been talking for a long time and talked non-stop. With Ryan, I feel like I've been waiting for this day for ages and I can't get enough of it! He still has trouble with longer words and he can be difficult to understand, but he's REALLY talking now!!

Here's Ryan "waving" at the chicken

Day at Pullen Park with Grandpa and Grammy

While in NC during spring break we spent a morning at Pullen Park. It is such a great park and is right next to the campus of NC State University. Along with 3 large swing/play areas there is plenty of open grassy areas for picnics or just running around. Two of the kids' favorite attractions are the train and the carousel. The train goes through a dark tunnel and around the park (and over a duck pond). I really enjoyed our picnic. The kids played ball, rolled down a grassy hill, played with bubbles and just had an overall great time. We had beautiful weather for our day at the park.

Me (Bridget) and AJ on the swing.

Ryan giving Grandpa a kiss. Of course, Ryan couldn't resist looking at me when he saw the camera.

Grandpa and Ryan in the background. Paige, AJ, and Grammy in the front. We were on our way over to the picnic area.

Steve and Paige

Paige showing off her silly side
Paige and Ryan and concentrating on blowing bubbles while AJ shows off some of his signs. In this picture he's doing the sign for caterpillar. He loves Signing Time videos and has started using the caterpillar sign to tell me when he wants to watch the video. There's a caterpillar song on one of the videos that he just LOVES!

Grandpa blowing bubbles with the kids

Kaeli showing off her beautiful smile

Our future pro quarterback in action :)

Click here to view ALL pictures taken at Pullen Park.

A Rare Photo

I think the last picture of all 6 of us was AJ's Baptism over a year ago! I think it would be too much to hope for to have all 4 of the kids looking at the camera, so having only one looking down seems pretty good. Then, of course, there's Kaeli with her hair in her eyes. I'm looking forward to the day she gets tired of having her hair always in her face, but until then I am just learning to accept it. This picture was taken at Pullen Park in Raleigh, NC on March 27.

Brothers!!

About 15 minutes ago I was changing Ryan's diaper. AJ was sitting right next to us and pulling wipes out of the box. I decided he had pulled out enough and closed the top of the box. For those that have been around him you know he can throw some amazing temper tantrums. He proceeded to have one of those tantrums. During his tantrum he took a heavy sippy cup FULL of milk and threw it right at Ryan's face. When the cup hit I heard a little crack sound and knew it had really hurt Ryan. I picked up a screaming AJ and took him to his crib upstairs.....I was so angry with him and he's still too young to understand discipline. At least he couldn't do any further damage to anyone or anything in his crib while I took care of Ryan. The cup must have hit directly on top of the bridge of Ryan's nose and, by the looks of it, the bottom edge of the cup is what hit him. His nose immediately swelled up and turned purple. I think there is a chance it may have broken, but there's nothing that can be done. It just frustrates me so much that all of this was just because AJ wasn't allowed to pull wipes out of the box indefinitely! I know his determination and persistence will serve him well in life, but right now it's just driving me crazy!

But, I'm pretty sure this will not be the last injury inflicted on one brother by the other. Steve and I already predict there will be some monumental battles between these boys.

Grandpa entertaining the kids outside

Who says you need snow to go sledding? Grandpa just got a piece of cardboard and had the kids slide down the hill in his backyard. Well, actually....it's the slope off the side of the golf course. But, we just had to make sure we got off if we saw golfer's teeing off. Kaeli preferred just rolling down the hill (last picture). We had a neighbor's granddaughter come out and play, too. Carter is the little girl in the 2nd picture on back of the "sled" with AJ and Paige. I told my dad it must be weird when you start getting together with friends to let your GRANDkids have playdates.

Grandpa also made a homemade swing using rope and a wooden board. Here is AJ and Ryan on the swing. Maybe slightly dangerous, but it worked out well. The kids really enjoyed it and there were no injuries.

We took the girls' scooters and they spent a lot of time on those. I didn't think about the fact that Grandpa's driveway slopes downward. It's not a big slope, but it is big enough that I had to stay on the girls about going too fast. Unfortunately, we forgot to take their helmets and I was sooooo nervous watching them fly down the driveway.

I just love this next series of pictures of AJ examining the tree. It shows so many of his expressions that I just love.

Here's his playful expression.

Here he is carefully examining the tree. This is his look of concentration. I can just imagine that he has tons of questions and thoughts running through his mind.

Here he has picked off a piece of the bark and seems very interested in picking it apart. He is such a determined and persistent little boy and you can see that in this picture. He's completely oblivious to everything else going on around him as he experiments with what happens as he picks at the bark.

This is such a fun expression of his. He does it a lot when you call his attention away from something and ask him to show you. It's almost as though he's saying "Look at this!! Isn't it the coolest thing you've ever seen?"
Click here to see the remaining pictures related to this post.

Fishing

Here are the pictures of Ryan, Paige, and Kaeli with each of their fish.

Tuesday, April 25-Children's Museum of Richmond

AJ and Ryan "searching for fossils" in the sandbox.

Look at these adorable dinosaur babies we discovered. They look just like Kaeli and Paige, don't you think?

Paige playing at the water table

Here's Kaeli getting ready to play at the water table

I think, by far, the most popular attraction for all of the kids was the dinosaur slide. The following pictures didn't turn out so great, but it shows them running around to climb back up the slide again. The first picture shows Kaeli at the top of the slide. AJ must have gone up and down that slide 30 or more times.

The museum also had a little theater complete with a stage, dress-up clothes, and props. Here's a pic of Ryan in a hat he chose to wear.

After Ryan got all dressed up we noticed he was just sitting quietly in this chair right in the center of the stage. I guess he was waiting for the show to begin. :)

Here's AJ in his stage outfit

Kaeli closing the curtains on stage. It's amazing to me that she can be so shy and yet do things like this. The little theater room was full of other families. She really wanted to put on a real show, though. The funniest thing is that Kaeli is currently in a "anti-princess" stage. She's much too old for that sort of thing. When she put these clothes on she explained to me that she still doesn't like princesses-she was only wearing this because she couldn't find anything else. when she saw this picture was so mad at me! She didn't know we got a picture of her in the princess clothes. Notice AJ trying to climb up on the stage with her.

Trying to get a picture of all 4 of them.....TAKE I

Trying for a pic of all 4......TAKE II...........We figured this was as close as we'd get so we gave up.

If you would like to see ALL the pictures we took at the museum, click here.

Spring Break Vacation

We just got back yesterday from a little Spring Break vacation. This was our first car trip in quite a while and it wasn't all that bad. It's definitely easier when the youngest is over a year. No doubt there were some moments that Steve and I felt like pulling our hair out, but all in all we had a good time.

Our trip started on Monday afternoon. We spent the morning getting the car packed and doing yard work. At around 3:30 we pulled out of the driveway headed south. We stayed overnight in a hotel in Richmond, VA so the first leg of our drive was only about 3.5 hrs long. With 4 kids we always make reservations ahead of time at a hotel with the most affordable suites. The hotel we stayed at was OK, but not great. It definitely lacked good customer service. But, the room was nice and comfortable. There was a very large bedroom with 2 queen beds and a living room with a pull-out sofa bed. Kaeli and Paige slept in one bed, Ryan and I slept in another bed, AJ slept in a pack-n-play, and Steve slept on the sofa bed. The night was a little rough because AJ woke up screaming at around 3AM. The other 3 kids weren't too happy about being woken up by a screaming baby. Fortunately, he did go back to sleep after I put him in bed with me and Ryan went to get in bed with Steve. Then, of course, AJ woke up bright and early at 6AM the next morning. I can't wait until the day he consistently sleeps past 7AM.

Tuesday morning we had breakfast and went the Children's Museum of Richmond. Overall, I think all the kids really enjoyed the Museum. There was a little something for all of them to enjoy. I'll write more about the Museum under a separate heading with pictures.

We arrived at Grandpa and Grammy's house in NC Tuesday afternoon around 4:30. We mostly just got settled in and played outside the rest of Tue evening.

Wednesday we spent the day just playing outside and at the neighborhood playground. Grammy took the girls to see Horton Hears a Who in the evening.

Thursday morning we spent the day at Pullen Park in Raleigh. That is the best park!! Besides swings and slides, they have a working train and a carousel. We spent all morning there and ended with a picnic before going home to let the boys take naps.

Friday morning Grandpa and Steve took Kaeli, Paige, and Ryan fishing. I stayed home with AJ. But, I did hear that the girls each caught a fish and Rayn spent most of his time hiding from the bugs. :)

Saturday morning we were on the road by 8:30 to head home. We drove straight through (other than a few quick stops for bathroom breaks and lunch) and got home around 4:30. I think the trip could be made in as little at 6 or 6.5 hrs without a car full of kids.

We got a TON of pictures, so I'll make a separate heading for different parts of the trip in hopes of giving more information about each picture.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to everyone! We have more pictures to add soon, but for now I'm toooooo tired! Updated to say: Steve just added the Easter Day pictures to the photobucket album. ALL Easter pictures can be viewed from the link in the other "Happy Easter" entry.

We spent the day at Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop's house. And, thanks to Aunt Kristen for doing such a great job planning the kids' Easter festivities. Here's a great idea for anyone wondering how to keep the"hunting" even. Kristen hid a different set of eggs for each child. AJ's eggs were all sports-themed, for example. The kids had a lot of fun looking for their special type of egg. THEN, when we got inside the house each child was presented with a special Easter Basket and in the basket was a clue telling them how to find their prize.

As always, Mom-mom did a wonderful job with the food! Everything was great and we appreciated all the hard work Mom-Mom put into the planning, cooking, and cleaning.

Now, here's funny little story! Before we left the house this morning we emptied the Easter baskets onto the dining room table. When we got home we discovered that our black lab, Bailey, had eaten EVERY SINGLE piece of candy. He tried to eat the Burt's Bees chapstick, too, but I guess it didn't taste too good because he left it half-chewed on the floor. Now as we all know, dogs do not possess opposable thumbs-so he was not able to remove the wrapper from his candy before ingesting it. Yep, you guessed it, there was no sign of any of the wrappers from the miniature Reese's cups or miniature chocolate bars. He did manage to rip open the jellybean bags and eat only the jellybeans inside. We had some SERIOUSLY upset kids on our hands! Thankfully, Mr Bunny (or the "big bunny"as Ryan has named him) left a stash of extras in our pantry. Actually, if Kaeli ever mentions it, mommy had some of the SAME candy put away because I had to stuff eggs for Ryan's egg hunt at school. Imagine that!!! Mommy and the Easter Bunny use the SAME candy. No doubt she will figure out who the Easter Bunny really is sooner rather than later.

That last paragraph reminded me of Ryan and his "big bunny" comment. Last night he picked pj's with bugs all over then. Just as I was about to put his pants on he said "big bunny gare". After a little back and forth conversation I realized that he was trying to tell me the Easter Bunny might be afraid of the bugs on his pj's. He wanted to changed, but I assured him the "big bunny" would not get scared away by his pj's. If only you could have seen the expression on his face during all this! He went from having an amazingly serious, concerned look on his face to a very relieved expression. But, that was when I reaized that he only referred to the bunny as "big bunny". I'm guessing Easter is a little too hard for him to say, so he came up with a different descriptive word that would get his point across. He's very smart in that way! If he can't verbally produce a word, he's very good about coming up with a sign or an alternative word.

I'm sure I could come up with a million more things to write about, but I'm so tired and need to get some sleep.