Ryan and Brodie's birthday celebration

Ryan and Brodie blowing out their candles

Me opening Ry's gifts.  He had no interest, as you can see.  He LOVES playing with my hair.  It's his comfort thing.  He says all day long, "Hair, Hair!!!!", which means he wants me to be by him so he can play with it.



We had Ryan and Brodie's party at Eagle Lake Park this morning.  We did a breakfast at 9 a.m.  We had pancakes, OJ, fruit, coffee, bacon, and cake.  It was a lot of fun and the weather was perfect, not hot at all.  Ryan and Brodie are a day apart so Cicely and I thought it would be nice to do their birthdays together.  Hunter and her daughter are 10 days apart.  It's really sweet how all 4 of our kids are exactly the same age.  Ryan and Brodie had so much fun today.  He is beat now.  He had a little nap, but he is just cranky.  I think an early bedtime is in store for him this evening.

Happy Birthday My Beautiful Son

Ryan with my Grandpa who passed away in December

Ryan Nicholas is 2 years old today!!!!!  It's kinda funny that the Royal Wedding is on our son's birthday.   The shuttle launch was supposed to be today, too, but it was canceled.  I can't believe he is 2 now!  The time has gone so fast.  Looking at these pictures, now I am crying.  The time is going to quickly for me.  It's like I LOVE all these moments and watching him grow, but I want them to slow down some.....or can I just go back to when he was a newborn and give him some really good cuddles, if just for a moment?  He was so little in these pictures and now he is a big boy!  I am guilty of not enjoying every single precious moment.......oh how I wish I could always......to never get impatient with him or angry at him, to just love on him every moment.  To not get caught up in doing busy work around the house  and failing to pay attention to him when he is calling out "mommy". Having to leave him to go to school (not much longer, only 2 shifts left!!!!).  He has been such a blessing to me and Sean.   He has brought our home so much joy and laughter (and messiness, too!).  I think I also got a little emo becuse of seeing my grandpa.  I miss him.  Ryan's party is tomorrow so I will post pics.    MOMMY AND DADDY LOVE YOU RYAN!

Easter Sunday

I got to dress our boys in matching outfits, couldn't have done that with a girl!  :)  We had a great Easter.  We went to church and then there was a cookout and egg hunt there.  For dinner we went to Naner's (grandma) for dinner with the family and ate lots!  Ry had a good time hunting for eggs at my grandma's.  At church he didn't quite get it, but at my grandma's my aunt told him the eggs were balls and then he enjoyed it.  :)  Hope everyone else had a blessed resurrection day!

Smile :)

Finally captured Hunter's smile, and although the picture isn't great because he was moving and it was taken from my phone, I still think it's pretty stinkn cute.  He LOVES to smile.  Happy baby!

Recommends

So, my sis in law got me Lily Padz and I just started using them (they prevent leakage for breast feeding moms) and they are super!  They really do work!  And they are reusable, which is so nice and saves a bunch of money.  The only thing is they can get kind of dirty fast so you really need to purchase Lily wash, which is like $9, but it is worth it because it really cleans them and it makes them last longer.  :)

And the other thing Sean and I just started using is sidereel.com.  A friend from school recommended it.  You can view TV shows for FREE!  It's better than Hulu.  Right now we are catching up on Army Wives.  One of my faves!  After we get caught up on A.W. then we are going to get caught up on Smallville and Lost, which they have all of those episodes, too.  Any way, it's great.  :) 

Have a blessed day!

Our baby

RN

Sean surprised me on Sunday with a new stethoscope.  The one I had wasn't that great and he got me a Littman.  He also got it engraved with Hettie Brewner, RN on it!  That made me (and him) cry after I opened it.  Crazy to see my name with the initials "RN" after it!!!!!!  I still can't bellieve it.  This has been my dream since I was little.  I even started nursing school back in 2001, but just couldn't get past the first semester because I was too preoccupied with being 21.  Seriously, I just can't believe I have accomplished this!  Any way, Sean also surprised me with a watch.....one that has military time and is more heavy duty than my nice silver Bulova watch that I was wearing.  Yesterday was my first 12 hour shift with my preceptor and it went well.  I really like her and the 12 hours went pretty fast, as fast as 12 hours can go.  I just know I am going to love my job.  It was hard being away from my boys, but it's always hard being away from all three of them.  :)  On another note, I DID NOT pass my EOP test on Monday.  :'(  I was off by 0.7th of a percent.  Stinks!  I was very upset afterwards and left crying.  That means I have to retake it (all 180 questions) in a couple of weeks  I guess I should study a little bit. 

Carnival

Ryan's very first ride ever!

He also rode the ferris wheel

But just couldn't do the slide by himself.  he tried, but never made it past the point where he was standing before he would turn around and run to us (and the man working the ride) saying "hug, hug!" 

Baby shower

Our church threw us a baby shower today and they really did way too much!  We were so surprised and grateful for all the food and decorations and oh my gosh we got tons of nice gifts for Hunter and Ryan and even some for me and Sean.  We were a little overwhelmed at all that was done for us!  Thank you everyone!

We had a huge scare during the shower unfortunately.  Ryan disappeared.  Scariest few minutes.  Barbi walks over to us and asks if we knew Ryan was playing outside and we said no, thought he was inside with us.  Shame on us for not paying more attention.  Any way, Sean goes outside and sees no Ryan.  What a sinking horrible feeling.  So we start screaming his name and feel so scared because he could be anywhere, but we see him nowhere.  Well, Sean and Barbi go towards a little playground and there is Ryan, thank God!  He was all by himself.  It was really frightening.  I had horrible visions of him being snatched up or run over or never seeing him again.  Really bad. 

Photo shoot

My good friend Angele was kind enough to take some pictures of our family at John Chesnut Park on Friday.  I LOVE the pics she took.  She is very talented.  I think it is super cute that Hunter doesn't fit on the stacked towel pics and that Sean wasn't really supporting Hunter's head in a few of them!  Ryan did really good, though, even though he had to be holding a stick the whole time.  Hunter was pretty fussy.  Thank you, Angele, for your patience!  She did a great job of keeping Ryan entertained enough to take pics of him.  I rarely can get any of him.  Hunter was just not really having it that day, which I thought for sure it would be the other way around.  I LOVE the ones she was able to capture though.  We had a really good time!!!!!  :)