The Party

Where to start?? Well – Will had quite a lovely party on Saturday. The theme – Lil Slugger’s First Birthday! It turned out great! Fun to do a baseball theme since the Rangers are doing so well right now. And red and blue is just cute for a little boy. And – we love sports in this house!

The table set-upThe cake – I was so pleased! The room decorated The party favors The family before everyone arrived Will with his uncles. He sort of stole their birthday thunder. Their birthday is coming up on Wed. So we celebrated their birthday Sat evening after Will’s party. We had a piñata for some entertainment. It was a hit! Kevin had to help out a little and broke through it for us. Candy!! Time for presents! Will got a lot. Everyone was so generous. We have trucks and books and wagons and movies! We had a hard time keeping Will’s attention. He did spot Mickey! And the main event – the cake eating! Hmmm. What is this? Not sure about that. Mom gives me a little taste… Oh yes – sweets and chocolate no less! I got this! No need to be shy – a bigger bite… Might as well grab a fist full What? It is a cake – all to myself. Can you blame me?!? Why is everyone looking at me? A precious memory That was awesome!!! Time for clean up. To the bath! This isn’t nearly as fun. :(

Dustin, Tricia, and Dylan got Will this neat wagon! So after the party was over we all decided to try it out. We took Dylan and Will for a ride around the neighborhood. Uncle Dustin pulling us alongUncle J’s turn! I really love this picture. I love this memory of my family taking the boys around the block. :) So much fun! Sweet, sweet Lindsey painted this awesome chair for Will! It is so adorably cute. It has the verse, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Phil 4:13” on it. She has memories of having her own chair as a child and reading all her books in it. I love that Will has one, too. And the talent that went into painting this is amazing. Thanks Lindsey!

It is days like Saturday that just make me feel so incredibly blessed. Not only do I have a wonderful child, I have so many family and friends that would take the time to come celebrate his birth. It was such a fun, special time of doing just that. Thanks to everyone who came. It means more to us than you will ever know!

The birthday

Friday was Will’s actual birthday. Kevin and I both took the day off to spend with our special little guy. We took him to a great park to let him have a little fun. He was so funny because he was really more interested in watching all the kids run around rather than playing. I am sure once he can run around it will be a different story.

I’m 1!

Sliding with daddy – not sure what to think!

Monkey bars! I’ll just see what it tastes like.

Look how cute these two guys are! I am one lucky lady!

They had a sand box. He wasn’t totally sure how he felt about it, but he did warm up to it.

I’m sure we’ll cut his hair fairly soon, so I had to make sure I got some pictures of how long it has gotten. Makes me a little emotional looking at this sweet one year old. We reminisced about a year ago – wow. What a year! What a wonderful, happy, sweet natured little boy we have been blessed with. I can’t possibly imagine life without him. What did we do with ourselves before he came along?

We are both just so thankful to be parents to Will Ryan.

Will – please know mommy and daddy love you so much. We may not always makes the right parenting decisions and we may not always be perfect, but we can assure you our hearts explode with joy for you. We prayed for a child to come into our lives and had no idea how blessed we would be. Thank you for being you. Your sweet smile warms my soul. We look forward to seeing your personality more and more. Happy Birthday Will! Love, Mommy and Daddy

Can you believe it?

This little boy is going to be 1 on Friday! What?!? How is that possible? We are cherishing the last few days of him being a baby. He’ll always be my baby, though. :)

Looking so big sitting on the step! He can’t get down it, but man can he get up it quick!

So I haven’t gotten a pic better than this, but Will started standing finally this past weekend! He did it because he wanted our food! Ha! Here daddy is feeding him bananas – which he absolutely loves.

Mimi worked with him on showing us that he is 1! Smart kiddo!

Yes, I know his hair is out of control. And, I promise I’ll cut it soon – but not yet. Not until he’s officially one. And not until after I’ve taken his one year pics. I can’t do it yet. I just can’t.

Just a happy, happy boy with the sweetest cheeks in the world! Makes me one very proud mommy!

Looking forward to his fun party on Saturday!! We will celebrate big sweet baby boy!

All things Will

Wow – three posts in one night – this is one for the record books (scroll on down if you haven’t read in awhile)! We are continuing to enjoy every minute of our little cutie, Will. He is generally the happiest kiddo in the world (except when teeth are breaking through and the occasional diaper change freak-out). Oh and on that note, I am scared to say it for fear of jinxing us, but we have seen great improvement in the diaper changing area. Let’s hope that was just a phase and the worst is behind us! He is cutting teeth number 7 & 8 as we speak! They are popping up like crazy!

We’re still working on eating big boy food independently and working on that cup. The cup is hit or miss. I am guessing the bottle goes away, he’ll figure it out, right? He can do it, he just doesn’t seem interested in drinking much. Strange.

We are so fortunate to have such great parents that help us out so much with Will. My mom has kept him for us so many times and not only does she babysit, she does laundry! It is quite a treat! Will definitely enjoys spending time with his Mimi.

Here is one of his new favorite places to play. Seems like every kid does this while mom works in the kitchen. Luckily there is nothing breakable in this cabinet! We bought Will some new shoes! The poor kid has been going barefoot pretty much everywhere for pretty much his whole life. Shoes are a pain to put on and he generally didn’t care to wear them. Since he should be nearing the walking phase, we figured the kid should start wearing some shoes! He sure looks cute in his new tennis shoes!

I love this jersey and love that it has a 1 on it.

Working with daddy on waving – his new favorite trick.Here is Will with his other grandmother, Ally. He spent the night with her the other night and I imagine he was spoiled! He did great and loved every minute! Thanks for keeping him for us Ally!

Tonight I made baked ziti (surprise, I cooked) and Will loved it! He ate a crazy amount of it! I was shocked. I fed it to him – wonder what he would have looked like if I had let him feed himself?!? This was a straight to the bath night.

Well, that’s all the blogging I have in me tonight! Hope you all have a wonderful week!

TCU game Suite Style

I think I’ve mentioned before that one of the perks of my husband’s job is awesome tickets to all sorts of cool stuff. This past weekend we had TCU vs. Oregon State tickets at Cowboys Stadium. But they weren’t just seats…they came with the coolest parking spot I’ve ever seen at an event (like ridiculously close, should have taken a picture it was that close), tickets to watch the game in a suite, oh and let’s not forget the VIP access to the amazing owner’s suite complete with a fantastic buffet. Okay, yes, I am easily amused – but I am telling you – it was cool. Like really cool. They even had mini hot dogs on the buffet. And truffled mac ‘n cheese. That’s how we roll around here. (Okay we don’t, we just know people who do and were blessed enough to score tickets!).

Dust & Tricia down on the sidelines underneath the jumboness that is the Jerry screen.None of us actually went to TCU, but we managed to find purple to wear…except Dust. We also took pictures of almost every possible combination. Fun night! Oh yes, here is where we lounged in the gorgeous owner’s lounge thingy. Comfy white couches!

Birthday Season!

Well, I haven’t gotten any better at blogging. I’m going to try to play catch-up tonight!

Birthday season in our family is upon us! It is almost funny how many of our family birthdays fall right around this time. And every couple of weeks we celebrate another. It is a fun fall!

Not too long ago we celebrated Kevin’s dad (a.k.a Jeff or G.J.)’s birthday at a fun pizza place in Uptown. Will seemed to be the one getting spoiled, though! G.J. and Neille made sure to let him have lots of dessert. Yummy!

Last weekend I turned another year older, as well. And guess what – I got a surprise party! Ha! I can assure you, I was quite surprised! I mean who expects a surprise party on their 33rd birthday? I sure didn’t and was blown away by the love of my family. I don’t know what I’d do without them. Everything was so cute and I felt so blessed that they would take the time to plan something like that for me. They invited all the people I love the most and we had a great time. Thank you family! My brother and Tricia hooked me up with some nice workout shirts. I signed up for another bootcamp – yikes! I survived the first one and actually saw a decent amount of progress in 6 weeks, so I figured I would give it another shot. My sweet friend Lori felt she would help me out and give me some very pertinent reading about raising strong willed boys! I think I’m going to need it!

Hamming it up in the middle of the room… Good practice for Will’s birthday! Kevin, Justin, Tricia and I ended up staying up waaaay too late playing spades after everyone left. I learned – I stink at spades. Sorry Tricia! There were some funny pictures taken but those will not be shared publically. :)

It is crazy when I look back a year ago at my birthday. I was 9 months pregnant and miserable!! I flipped back through pics on this blog from my last shower that was actually on my birthday and – wow. I was a huge!!!! I almost looked like a totally different person. What a difference a year makes!