Another Year, Some More Lights

Daddy had a couple of helpers the weekend after Thanksgiving.  Avery and Rylan both insisted on being outside to "help" with lights even though it was FREEZING outside.  We got them all bundled up: gloves, hats and all.  Somehow, he still managed to get the lights up without anything breaking, and the house looks gorgeous. 

Here they are, hard at work in the garage:

Looking good Daddy!

And the always happy face.  Even when strapped down in the stroller.

Rylan's 1st (and Avery's 3rd? 4th?) Haircut

Last Wednesday, I took the kids to Integrity to get their 'dos cleaned up before the holidays.  Avery, being an old pro by this point at getting her hair trimmed, sat calmly and quietly while Justine shaped up her hair.

Rylan was checking out some other clientele, not sure exactly what was about to go down.

It was an exact remake of how Avery's first cut went.  He started screaming as soon as we put him in his booster seat in the chair.  Continued to scream even after I sat him on my lap.  Justine tried to put the cape on him so we wouldn't get hair all over us, but he tried ripping it off and continued screaming.  Therefore, the only way the cut was going to happen was standing up without a cape on and of course having a bag of crunchies to distract his attention.

 Here he is, pretty P.O.'d that I'm trying to get pictures while he is so worked up.

Oh, but life really isn't that bad.  Turns out this haircut business doesn't hurt.  And the crunchies tasted pretty darn good too.

And Christmas Season Begins!

Happy Holidays!

Beautiful Weather

I know an update is much needed, but for today (at the moment at least), I only have time to put a few pictures from an evening last week when the November weather totally felt like a late April evening!  Enjoy!

Grammy's Pumpkin Patch

Last Saturday afternoon, Chris and I took the kids out to Grammy's Pumpkin Patch for the first time.  For those who are not familiar with Grammy's, it's located north of town and run by a former co-worker of mine from my days at the city office.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous, almost a little too warm at times.  But no complaints here.  The kids had an absolute blast and we will definitely be continuing this tradition for many years to come. 

There were so many different activities for little ones to do.  Rylan and Avery immediately found some bikes, and then ran off to the "corn maze."

After casually diverting Avery's attention away from the sandboxes (sorry, just have a phobia of sand combined with farmcats), she found another game to occupy her time: tossing rings around the pumpkins.  She's turning into quite the athlete.  Notice how all but one are around a pumpkin?

Rylan was trying to steal rescue the pumpkins from being permanently stuck into the ground.

Flushed cheeks.  I think it got close to 90 degrees on Saturday.

And this was Avery's favorite, riding the sled down the hay-covered hill.  We stayed at the station for quite some time.

I made this picture extra large so you can see the kitten next to the scarecrow.  And Rylan trying to pet it.

I love how they created this so we can take the kids back every year and see how much they've grown.  Of course neither child really wanted to cooperate with a picture, but we got the gist of it I think.

Overall we had an absolutely delightful time there.  I think Vince (who runs this wonderful operation) and his family are just about the most generous people I know.  Having an afternoon of fun and entertainment for absolutely zero dollars is unheard of these days.  And they all seemed so happy to have everyone out there.  Thank you Rocco family for giving us a wonderful day of fall memories!!!

Joint Birthday Party 2012

Because their birthdays are only ten days apart, we threw tradition out the window and decided instead of having individual parties for Avery and Rylan, we would just combine the two since anyone invited to one would be invited to the other.  This made planning, invitations, food, drinks, etc. all a lot more convenient for Chris and me, so the out-of-town guests were not the only ones who reaped the benefits of this decision. 

We had the bash on July 28, a come and go party in the afternoon.  Still hot as any other day of the summer, but I guess we should probably become accustomed to warm weather for birthdays since we decided to have babies in July and August.  Avery had been so excited for weeks about this shindig; Rylan, of course, was clueless.  We enjoyed seeing all the family members/friends that made it over for the party.  I always feel so bad that I never get to spend enough time talking to all our guests, but I'm guessing no one is holding a grudge against me.  We had two very special people to honor that afternoon!

For a treat, I made both Avery and Rylan their own individual ice cream cakes.  They may not look very pretty, but tasted pretty dang old good.  I literally spent months researching my tail off trying to figure out a way for Avery to have a big piece of this without giving her a day's worth of insulin and finally came up with a good combination.  Let me know if you would like to know how we did it!

Avery's cake. 

Rylan's cake.

Avery enjoying her new guitar with Uncle Nick.  Charlie is already a groupie.

The birthday boy!

The birthday girl!

I know next year will most likely mark the first year that Avery will have a "friends only" party, since she is finally able to name some of her classmates instead of just calling them kids.  But I'm guessing the joint party will become a tradition for family because it seemed to work really well this year.  The lovely thing about having their birthdays so close together is we still have about 10 1/2 months before we have to worry about having another party!

Summer Music with The Shoes

As I've mentioned in other posts, we made several trips to the water park over the summer.  I'm pretty happy with myself for not buying a season pass, we definitely did not go enough times to warrant one, but we were still there about once every week or so.  This typically happened right after lunch, so Chris was never able to go with us since he was at work.  One Friday evening in July, however, The Shoes came up from Wichita to play at live music night.  Seeing Gramps perform at the water park was something Avery thought was VERY cool.  She was a little confused for a bit because of all the people from the different areas of her little world colliding at the water park, but once she got in the water, the hesitation was gone!

Yay!  Daddy can finally come swimming!

Yay again! Mommy and Avery finally get to try out the lazy river!

Always so happy for the camera.

A couple of weeks following the live music at the water park, Gramps and the Shoes performed in Mactown again at The Well during Shop the Night Away.  A much cooler environment to sit and listen to some music.  Avery was again very excited to see Gramps singing and playing and even said she wanted to sing too.  She (of course) quickly shied away from that though when she saw everyone looking at her!

And back to her seat away from the limelight!

Both the kids had lots of fun experiencing the "concerts;" I'm sure Rylan will appreciate them a little more when he gets to be a little older!

Rylan's First Birthday 7/25/2012

Rylan celebrated his first birthday on July 25, 2012.  Daddy had to work that day, so we spent most of the day like any other day, playing at home and hanging out.  We did have several visitors throughout the day and evening; all four of Rylan's grandparents came over to wish him happy birthday in person and to deliver some presents.  Chris got home from work, we had dinner, and welcomed visitors on up to bedtime.  After a fun day of opening presents, Rylan was ready to call it a night.  I think Avery was more excited about his new stuff that he was.  After putting him to bed, Chris and I looked at each other and said "Oh shoot! (Perhaps our expletive was a little more harsh.) We forgot to give Rylan his presents from us!!!"  Oh well, there's always the day after the birthday. Lucky for us he didn't seem to mind or hold it against us.

In his Cozy Truck from Gramps.  It has been a big hit with both Rylan and Avery.  There have been many laps made in the basement family room with them inside.

 And opening up his gifts from Daddy, Mommy, and Avery.  Such a patient little guy!



Mr. Big Man has been acting awfully big lately, probably because he knows he's not a "baby" anymore. Embracing his newfound toddlerhood happened a couple of weeks before his birthday when Rylan started walking. Here we are, a month and a half later, and he is running all over the house. He's still falling quite a bit and tripping up over his new, clunky shoes, but he loves to be standing up and moving around just like his big sister.

Rylan had his 12 month checkup the day before THE big day, and he is still growing right along. He was up to 21 lb 8 oz (40th %) and 30 inches tall (75th %). Still tall and skinny. He's still wearing 18 month clothes, and his little waist is still struggling to keep some waistbands up. But he loves his clothes, and most days picks out what he's going to wear. His favorite shoes are his Timberland sandals and when he's ready to have them put on, he will grab them both and then plop into anyone's lap who is close by to get some assistance.  His favorite activities include: playing with the toilet, opening the toilet lid, climbing on top of the toilet, threatening to drop toys into the toilet (see the common theme here?...).  He also enjoys playing with anything outside, riding his 4-wheeler, head-butting Daddy (gently of course), reading books before bed, and wrestling with his sister.  He's not saying a ton of words, but knows the basics, Dada, Mama, and dah (dog).  His supplemental words are Dora and backpack.  And I'm not kidding there, he has seen enough Dora dvds that he is actually walking around saying "Backpack, backpack!"  What a cutie! 

Rylan's favorite person is Avery.  When he wakes up in the morning, he immediately is craning his neck all around, trying to find out where she is.  They love playing in each other's rooms.  One of his favorite things to do in her room is look through all her shoes.  And she has plenty of them.  They still fight over their toys sometimes, but for the most part, the two of them are pretty content to hang out and play, which is a relief to me.  They seems to be very great buds, and that is the most fun to watch!