Mouse Ears (Throwback Edition)

A while back, I posted some pictures of Ryker in his new Mickey Mouse ears that Papaw got him and talked about how Dad had brought me my very own pair when I was a toddler.  See that post here.  I promised pictures of me in my ears and now have them to show you.  Dad ever-so-kindly scanned them for me.  Enjoy my cuteness!  haha!

I wasn't a very smiley kid..sorry!

But, check out how chunky I was!  Yikes!

Busy Bees

We've been so busy lately that I don't have many pictures to show, but I'll let you know what we've been up to.  Last weekend we spent Friday night and all day Saturday at a marriage conference at our church.  It was called the Art of Marriage.  We really enjoyed ourselves and learned a lot.  Two things really stuck out to me.  1)  Christian marriage is an example of the gospel and Christ's love for the world to see.  Our commitment and love for each other should be a symbol of Christ's love for His church.  2) Our spouse is God's perfect gift to us and we need to love them unconditionally just as God loves us.

Saturday night we headed to Mom and Dad's to pick up Ryker.  We ended up staying for pizza and movies.  We watched Marmaduke with Ryker before putting him to bed and then watched Secretariat.  It was a great movie!  As my dad said afterwards, "It's amazing, no cussing, no sex, no violence and it was still a great movie!  It can be done!"  I have a hard time enjoying many movies any more because they are usually full of foul language, inappropriate and crude humor, and violence.  Secretariat was a welcome reprieve from the norm!

Sunday we went to church, had some breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts, and then headed to Michelle's to visit with her and Baby Nathan.  Ryker even held him for a bit and loved it.  Nathan's getting so big already.  He weighed over 10 lbs. at his 2 week appointment! 

We've been very busy this week too.  We cleaned Aunt Karen's house on Monday then ran some errands.  Tuesday we checked out a preschool for Ryker, went shoe shopping for Ryker (can you believe he's in a size 10?!??), then met Aunt Karen for lunch at McAlister's.  Today we went to another potential preschool, then Meijer, the bank, and to pick up Tucker at the groomers.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day so I decided to have a picnic in the park and let the boys play.  Praise the Lord for the sun and warm weather today!  It was just what I needed!  I'm not a fan of winter and have been ready for spring for quite some time!

Enjoying his lunch

Checking on Tucker from the bridge

Swinging!  Yay for outdoor playtime!

Lovin' My Boys!

Robert found out this week he's been promoted.  He's been with the Department of Labor for a year now and has loved it!  Technically he should not have been promoted until the 15th of this month, but they pushed it through on January 30th.  I am so very proud of him and wanted to take the opportunity to brag on him a bit! I am truly blessed to have such an amazing hubby.  He is loyal, hardworking, patient, and loving.  I couldn't ask for a better Daddy for Ryker either.  We love him so much and are so proud of him!

Now, for Little Man's turn.  After our bedtime story tonight, Ryker and I sat in his bed and talked and talked and talked.  He has been telling all kinds of stories lately.  They are turning into some real whoppers.  Tonight he told me that Aunt Chelle flew in a pink airplane to buy a new outfit but went to the grocery store instead.  Like I said, they are rather creative!  I love just sitting and talking with him.  As I was telling him about the plans for this weekend, which include him spending time at Nana and Papaw's while Robert and I are at the marriage conference at church.  Ryker said, "I stay at Nana and Papaw's and you go to church to play with your friends?"  LOL  Sure, buddy, that sounds good! 

Just had to brag on my boys and love on them a bit!  They are my world and I love them SOOO much!  :-)

Dora and Diego!

Yesterday, we had a play date planned with friends.  We were originally planning on going to Playland at the church but we found out a daycare was planning on coming in with 20 kids at the same time we wanted to go.  We decided to forgo the chaos for a slightly less chaotic time at the Children's Museum.  The new Dora and Diego exhibit opened this week.  We've been looking forward to it opening and it did not disappoint.  We met up with Katie (Chaney, Tucker, and Paislee), Emily (and Charlotte), and Raendra (Clayton and Collin).

All the kids loved driving the car.  Ryker found his "seat" on the side there and was quite content.

Paislee loved driving

Playing receptionist at the Barbie exhibit.

Tuck and Ryke taking pictures of the girls on the runway

Dora and Diego had a pirate ship complete with costumes

Driving the pirate ship

Hanging with Dora and Boots

Ryker helping an animal in the animal rescue center.  This was a really neat section.  You could put all the animals under a scanner and it would tell what each animal was and what was wrong with it.  Very cool!

The boys really liked the space shuttle.  They had a video playing that would give you directions and they boys loved pushing the buttons and pulling the levers.

The slide was a big hit too.

It's an alien!

Checking out a T. Rex video

Chaney carrying Charlotte around the Dinosphere...she's quite the little mother

Digging out some dinosaur bones

Emily showing the kids some videos on dinosaurs

I think he was getting a little tired! ;-)

My sweet little boy!

Sing Along on the Toilet

Yes, I said on the toilet!  Haha...Ryker's #2s take a lot longer than I would like.  In an effort to help the time pass quicker, we sing songs!  Here are a few of the songs we sang today.

He was getting a little shy toward the end here.  He doesn't like performing for the camera much.

Please pardon my terrible singing.  I know it's awful, but it's all I got!

This is a new song for Ryker and obviously, he doesn't have the motions down  yet.  I couldn't help but chuckle as he kept using his thumb the entire time. I was trying to show him the right finger, but he's not quite that dexterous yet!

Home Show

Ryker and I had originally planned on going to the Home Show on Wednesday with Auntie Em and Baby Kainen, but the ice storm prevented that from happening.  Emily's mom and step-dad have a booth at the Home Show every year and are nice enough to share a free ticket with me.  We rescheduled for Friday night and were going to bring the husbands along, but Ryker was down with a cold, so they went without us. :-(  Thankfully, by Sunday, Ryker was feeling a bit better and we were able to get out to church.  We had lunch at Panera afterwards and then headed down to the Home Show just the three of us.  My friend, Julie's husband, Craig, works for Fischer Homes.  They built this year's Dream Home and since he was on the team that put it in, he was able to get some free tickets too.  He gave all of us ladies in Bible Study a pair which was so nice and thoughtful!  So, Robert and I used those on Sunday.  Gotta love a free outing!  We had a great time seeing the Dream Home and the booths.  We even got some information from a couple of builders now that we are entertaining the idea of possibly building our next home. 

This started out as nothing but a big hunk of sand.  Two guys have worked all week on it.

It was AMAZING!  I have never seen anything so incredible.  That is just pure talent!  Of course, Ryker said he wanted to knock it over!  Aaagghhh, that would have been bad!

Blackberry Pics

Playing with his new fences

Helping Mommy clean

Yes, those are my knee pads on his elbows.  He does this quite often!

This takes the "white man overbite" (When Harry Met Sally reference) to a whole new level!

Because He's So Cute...

Michelle does a great job of sending a daily picture of Nathan to us.  We look forward to it every day.  Ryker loves to see them and we enjoy it too!  Here are a few of the sweet pics she's sent over the last week.

Bright-eyed and looking a lot like his big brother (in my opinion, anyway)

Aunt Chelle sent some with his giraffe just for Ryker since Ryker kept calling him giraffe when we visited

Another sweet giraffe picture

Sleeping away

This was today's pic...too cute!

Ice Storm 2011

We had a crazy ice storm this week.  It started in late Monday evening and lasted until 7 pm Wednesday night.  Over an inch of ice accumulated while we were hunkered down in the house.  Well, when I say we, I mean Ryker and I.  My crazy husband was galavanting all about.  His office closed down both Tuesday and Wednesday, but that didn't seem to stop him!  Tuesday morning he took off for the gym and two separate trips for food.  (Not by my request!)  We played with lots of puzzles, read lots of books, painted, colored, watched TV, and ate some yummy taco soup.  Yesterday the boys were getting a little stir crazy so they all (Tucker included) suited up and went "skating" in the backyard.  It was literally a sheet of ice so they were able to literally skate around.  They had a grand old time while I snapped pictures from the non-slippery surface of our kitchen floor!  Thankfully, we were able to get out today and the roads are much-improved. 

Robert was able to dig a hole in part of the ice.  Ryker thought that was fun.

This is one of the many times Robert took off running and then slid on purpose as if he were sliding into home base.

Scooting Ryker down a small incline.  Robert let him go down the slide once and he just kept sliding after he landed on the ice...pretty funny!

Robert kept pulling huge chunks of ice off of stuff.  He pulled a big sheet off the grill cover and showed it to me.  You could see the Weber emblem plain as day on the ice!  Ryker's favorite thing to do was throw the pieces of ice across the yard and watch them shatter once they hit the ice on the ground.

Tackling Daddy

Robert dragged him around like this for a while.  Ryker seemed to enjoy it.

Enjoying some hot chocolate afterwards with our new Micro Mini Marshmallows Jo brought us from the Amish store in Illinois.  They are so cute and yummy! 

Mickey Mouse Ears

Dad took a business trip to Florida last week. While he was there he had the chance to visit Epcot.  He brought Ryker over a surprise Sunday night.  It was his very own pair of Mickey Mouse ears.  The back even had his name sewn in!  Ryker was so excited and thought they were so cool.  I thought they were super sweet too.  When I was about 18 months or so, Dad took a trip down to Florida and visited Epcot.  He brought me back a pair of Mickey Mouse ears too.  In fact, the way my parents tell the story, Mom and I went to pick Dad up from the airport.  When I saw him getting off the plane, I yelled "DADDY!" and took off running toward him.  Apparently, there was a collective "Awwwww!" from the majority of other patrons in the airport.  Most of you know that I am a total Daddy's Girl.  I was then and still am today!  I'm going to try to find the picture of me in my ears to show you all, but in the mean time, here are some of Ryker in his.

Nana and Papaw with their Mickey boy

He was in mid-cheese here, but you can see his name on the back a bit.