Just Life

What did we do over the past week?

We went to a Braves game, Ryder was fussing about something, can't remember what.

Dippin Dots made him feel better

Connie was there and took his picture, thanks Connie!

My dad came over to keep Ryder for his weekly Monday night visit while we have small group.  They did their usual Chick-fil-A dinner and came home and read books and took a bath.

Tuesday morning we were out of cereal and I was starving so I made biscuits.  Ryder has to have cow sitting by him or in close proximity during bath time, potty time, of course sleepy time, on the way to school buckled up next to him, and now all of a sudden meal time.

Wednesday, Ryder's class wanted to make a train in their room.  Doesn't surprise me that he's leading the train, he thinks he has to be at the front of everything.

Then we got back his school spring picture proofs, seriously killing me with this hand on knee pose.

Thursday on the way to school Ryder wanted to play "can't find me" (new favorite game).  I have a bit of chlaustraphobia and this exercise below put me in panic mode so after nearly 3 minutes under the blankie I had to yank it off, he was not happy with this.

Friday afternoon I had to go get some makeup and a couple other things at renaissance and went into Libby Story, where I could buy things all day long.  Clearly I have a distorted view of my mid-section because I took nearly 6 things in the dressing room to try on.  Why did I think they would fit?  Well, I left with a pair of shoes.

Friday night my sister and her boyfriend came over and we all went to eat dinner.  First of all it took over an hour to get our food from the time we ordered.  I ordered soup and salad because we had also ordered 2 appetizers.  After the food was finally delivered and they were all almost done eating, mine still hadn't come.  Then the waitress dropped by to inform me that soup and salad was only served during lunch, but not to worry because it was her fault for not telling me that (duh).  Then she asked if I wanted to order something else off the menu.  For Real?  We got there at 7:00, it was 9:00 by this point, plus Ryder was with us.  No thanks on that.  Needless to say we got home about 9:45 and Ryder was wired.  That child didn't go to sleep until 10:45 pm, we set a new record.  We seriously contemplated waiting it out to see how long, exactly, he would stay up.  He's never fallen asleep without us putting him in his crib or bed.  I honestly think he would've stayed up until 4 a.m.

Saturday morning we went to our nature center's Nature Day and Ryder got a kick out of walking through the "forest."  He loved to pick which "path" he was going to take, and he picked up a stick and said he was going to save us from the bears.

Later JM's parents came over to help us get our new swing set!  Our sweet friends in our small group just moved into a house that had a swing set and they had no use for it so they offered it to us!  Since we are selling our house we are going to let it live at my mom's house until we get situated for good so we don't have to keep taking it apart and putting it back together.  Plus, all the grandkids can enjoy it until it's time to come back home with us :)

Sunday afternoon we played t-ball, soccer and golf in the backyard and then laid around and soaked up the sun.  While Ryder was napping earlier in the day I finished a book outside and I was out there less than an hour and burned my belly up.  It's lobster red.  It hasn't seen the sun in some time.

Sunday night we went to eat at Cock of the Walk, there is one close to our house now.  We got some extra cornbread and went outside to feed the goats and ducks, Ryder fed himself some of it too.

Ryder's bedtime routine consists of TV and milk in our bed for 30 minutes or so.  Sunday night I was laying there letting Ryder feel the baby kick.  JM snapped a sweet picture of Ryder and lobster belly (you can see as it starts fading to white around the backside - yuck!)

I'll be 27 weeks tomorrow, this has flown.  I am at the point of extreme uncomfortable-ness, if that's a word.  I have got to go get a maternity body pillow today if I plan to sleep a wink tonight.

Wiggin' Out

This past weekend we went to the beach for Meg's bachelorette party.

While Meg was still down at the beach we ran up to decorate for her theme, "Meg's Gettin' Married and We're Wiggin' Out!"

Devin, Lindsey, me and Ashlea getting ready and waiting on Meg to come up to suprise her.

Here's her wig, veil and shirt, too cute!  I had a girl on Etsy make these iron-on stickers and I think it turned out great.

Funny cake Kristen made

Cute straws Devin made

Meg's special glass and straw

Mandy, Courtney and Maghen wiggin' out at the Hangout

Me and the bride wiggin' out

Me and the sisters wiggin' out

Whole group - trust me, it wasn't hard to get anyone to take our picture.  I think we counted 11 people who came to our table to ask if they could take our picture with their own camera. 

Love this one of Lindsey and Meg - It was Lindsey's 28th birthday that night too!

Maghen's fro

Meg and her pretty sisters, Emily and Amy

Friday night after dinner the non-pregnant 8 girls went out to Flora Bama and us three pregs went back to the condo, Kristen, myself, and one who can't be named yet :)  I asked for plenty of pictures throughout the night so we could just sit at the condo and laugh.  We got lots of Meg doing karaoke:

And one of her borrowing the bathroom attendant's helmet (typical)

Saturday night, super cute sash Mandy made

Dinner at Cosmo's

After dinner we went back to the condo to do our bachelorette party tradition, the opening of lingerie (we always make the bachelorette try on the best piece - ha!) and the reading of the poem. I nearly went into labor laughing on Saturday night. For each of our friends, Devin writes a poem starting from as far as she can remember until now. I have Meg's on video and sorry, it won't be shared on here! None of us in the room could breathe we were laughing so hard. Then, we played a new game. Before the trip I went through facebook and found pictures of all the guys Meg has either dated or gone out on dates with over the years and printed them out.  There were about 10 guys to "discuss", so each of us went around the room and pulled a picture out of the bag and had to describe to Meg what her life would be like if she was still with this person. And then Meg had to guess who we were talking about. More ab-crunching laughs all around. 

Devin reading the dreaded "roast"

Wiping our eyes from laughing so hard we were crying

TOO MUCH FUN!

Sadly it was time to leave Sunday morning, but at least I had some wonderful people to look forward to seeing when I got home!  John Michael did a good job of sending me pictures over the weekend.

That's Ryder there in the carseat, under his cow.  He was asleep under cow.  He likes to take cow everywhere he goes.

I am looking forward to two weeks from now as we celebrate Meg's big day!  More laughs and memories with the best of friends will be made, I am sure.

You guessed it... an Easter blog

WARNING:  PHOTO OVERLOAD

When I inserted my memory card it said I had 306 new photos.  Not to worry, I have narrowed them down drastically.

Thursday I hid eggs for Ryder's class.  He didn't know when he ran outside that I would be standing there, he was so excited!

Class Photo

Patiently waiting on Mrs. Hannah and Mrs. Ashley to divvy up the eggs and give them some candy

Thursday night we had a special guest.  Sellers was staying with Poppy and CC so they came over to eat dinner and play.

Blessing their meal (that they didn't eat)

Because they were too excited - we accidently told them before dinner that we were taking them for ice cream.

Friday was interesting.  I pulled into Ryder's school to drop him off and there was not one car in the parking lot.  I thought, this is odd, I know they are open today.  Why did I think that, I do not know?  They were closed.  Mom to the rescue.  Later on JM and I took Ryder to Kids Fest.

I was nervous having him ride this horse by himself, but I was getting on JM's nerves worrying about it, so I just stepped away.

Saturday we went to Vaughan for Nanni and Grandaddy's church hunt and Easter lunch.

I was so proud of Ryder for putting his hands together and closing his eyes when the preacher started praying.

After lunch Ryder was ready to hit some balls with the boys.

Nanni showed him how to get the tee in the ground and put the ball on it.

Ryder caught his first fish!  We have it on video, it was so cute!

I couldn't believe it, he was grabbing worms left and right to use as bait.

Saturday afternoon JM killed a snake in our backyard.  Gross, nasty, sick, UGH.

Saturday night we went to dinner to celebrate Mama Cain's 90th birthday.

Sellers, Walker and Ryder

My sweet family (and new addition, Anna Love!)

Ryder and Sellers started to get a little delirious.

Little Easter happy for Ryder.

The infamous Easter Sunday picture

Next up, Easter lunch.

Ryder, Walker, Tucker ready to begin their search

Sweet cousins

Family photo

And if you can believe it, the weekend did not end there.  Nope, we had a birthday party Sunday night!  Gaines turned 2!  Gaines with his cupcake goatee and Ryder with his cupcake mustache.

Sadly, it was time to put on our shoes, go home, and call this weekend a wrap.  What an EASTER!

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Our nightly bedtime routine is the same each night. Ryder picks out one book, we read it, when we're done he always says, "I don't want this to poke me, put it back in the basket." Then he requests stories, normally he asks for a story about a prince. He often tells me that he is the queen and I have to remind him that boys are kings and girls are queens. I attempt prayers but he'll throw out a few names and ask for another story, so unfortunately, prayers aren't as successful as I always hope. 

The other night instead of asking Ryder to say his prayers, I asked him what we needed to thank Jesus for. He said, "I don't know" and I explained to him that we needed to thank Jesus for all of His blessings because there are lots of little boys and girls that don't have a bed, a house, food, clothes or toys. This really disturbed him and he seemed to melt right away. He got this high pitched voice and repeatedly told me that he would let them sleep in his bed, and he will give them his toys and that they can have some food in our refrigerator. Then he continued to talk about how some little boys and girls don't have this and that. I don't know that he fully understood what I was telling him, but the fact that he said all on his own that he wanted to share with these children was enough for me. I didn't tell him that is what we are supposed to do, but he just knew. Sweet child, that Ryder.

And then, I was most pleased when he told me about his cross that he painted.  He said "Jesus died on the cross so we can be happy."  And he added, "And then he came back alive."

I can assure you I did not know that at age 2.  I am so proud of him and my biggest prayer is that we can raise our children to know and understand Christ and what it all truly means.