Crib Bumpers

Ryan has been using his chompers lately to put nice teeth marks in his crib. Sharis went out and bought a rubber guard that sticks to the crib to protect it. Well, Ryan figured out how to peel the bumper off when we didn't come in and get him in a timely fashion from his naps. But the bumper doesn't come off nice and easy like it is advertised. It peels the paint off with it. So what would we rather have, teeth marks or chipped paint?

So Sharis took an idea she received from one of my cousins and made her own bumper. She went to Jo-Ann Fabrics and bought a piece of quilting. She then sewed the quilt into a bumper and put red fire truck buttons on it. I think it turned out very nice don't you? Functional and stylish.

The elephant likes it too.

Click on the picture to be taken to Flickr.

Ryan's Friends

Ryan had some friends over on Saturday morning - actually we were watching the neighbor's little girl while her parents moved.  This is the same little girl that Ryan had his first kiss with.  She is so calm and subdued compared to Ryan.  She was a very good girl all day and hardly said a thing.  She even fell asleep for a nap when Sharis had her and Ryan out on a walk.  

A Boy and His Elephant

This is how we found Ryan and his elephant one day last week after his nap.  He somehow finagled the elephant to hang from the crib on its own.  

Captain Cranks

We feel we have been very lucky and have a very good little boy. But we have started to see his wild side lately. He has a thing for yelling or screaming lately. Sometimes there seems to be a reason - like when he wants his food - but other times there doesn't seem to be a reason. We get a little worried that the neighbors can hear it. And Sharis has to bring food with her to the store so she can keep him from doing it in the store. We thought he was teething for a while but we haven't seen any new teeth yet. It is so hard to deal with because we can't discipline him yet. He's still a good Little Man.

Favorite

This is one of my favorite new pictures of Little Man.

10 Months Old

Ryan is 10 months old today. This is what he looked like 10 months ago today. He's so tiny! And he might have had more hair then than he does now.

Yapper

Ryan loves to talk to his grandparents over Skype. It's really nice that our kids have the ability to see their grandparents from 500 miles away. It also keeps the grandparents from moving right next door.

Reading the Newspaper

This is Ryan reading the newspaper on a Sunday morning. I think he is reading the box scores and can't believe the White Sox beat the Twins the night before.

Scheduled Post Publishing

Blogger (the site that hosts this blog) now gives bloggers the ability to schedule our post publishing meaning I can write a blog tonight (Thursday, 9:55pm) and not have it published until Saturday afternoon at 3pm.   This is a fantastic feature because  a lot of times I have a bunch of ideas for posts after I take a weekend's worth of pictures off my camera.  I end up not doing about half of those posts I have ideas for because I don't want to put them all up at once, I get too busy and then I have new material and the old material is stale.  A side effect of this is the blog will have holes in it for weeks at a time when we get too busy.  So when I DO have time, like tonight, I can write 3 or 4 posts and spread them out accordingly for the next couple of days.  Love it. 

An Extra Hand

Ryan has figured out that he can crawl around the house with his toys by storing them in his mouth.

Fish Face

This picture is unfortunately out of focus but Ryan has been making this new face quite a lot lately.

Mama and Her Son on Mother's Day

Happy Mothers Day

It has been over a week since our last post. Sorry for the dry spell. I have quite a few excuses if you want to hear them:

1 - It is very difficult to get over the fact that we showed the world how our son poops.
2 - It is very difficult to get over those moves Sharis calls dancing. And that song, can anyone get it out of their head?
3 - This is a Mother's Day post and I am usually a day or two late for most Birthdays, Anniversaries and Holidays so why should this one be any different?
4 - Everyone does posts ON Mother's Day. I wanted ours to stand out from the crowd.
5 - We have been swamped here with Little Man, 3 of Sharis' most important holidays of the year over 4 days (Birthday - 30th no less, Anniversary and Mother's Day) and starting a new business.

We had quite an enjoyable holiday even though it was without both of our Mothers.  Sharis wanted to go hiking on Saturday so we found some trails about 40 minutes outside the city where there were actually a couple trees and some undulation to the landscape. We spent about an hour and half walking a little over four and a half miles. Ryan loved the long walk even though I carried him the whole way. He had his first encounter with horses and was mesmerized by every horse dropping on the trail.

On Sunday, I brought her flowers, the paper, a coffee and a breakfast sandwich from one of our favorite spots. Ryan and I can't really do the breakfast in bed thing for her yet. He's a little too young to help me cook eggs (trust me, I need the help). After Mass we went to brunch at a place where Moms' meals were free. Unfortunately, it took about a half an hour for anyone to even come to our table and it was all downhill from there. Drinks were slow, it took forever to take our order, they took their sweet time with our meals and then we couldn't even find our server to get the check because we never had a server focused on us. The good part was that we only ordered one meal because we were both a little full from the breakfast sandwiches and it was free because of the Mom deal. So we ate for free. Aaaand, we had a lovely time as a family.

That night we ordered in because Sharis shouldn't cook on Mother's Day and it was a better meal than if I had prepared it.

Thank you to all you Mothers out there for all the hard, unappreciated work you do. If anyone has time, I would like to remind everyone of a story that Sharis' sister Marla put on her blog a number of months back.   It is one of my favorite stories about Mothers.  

The one word I would use to describe Mothers is selfless. It is impossible to be a good Mother without being selfless. And I am very thankful that I have 2 VERY selfless women in my life - my Wife and my Mother.

Sorry to keep you all waiting...

Here is the video version of what Ryan was doing in the pic. Now you should all be able to tell that, in fact, yes, my mom was correct and he is pooping. Though, I should have put a block on immediate family votes b/c I think all have seen his poop face. Seriously, how funny is this?! He's going to kill me when he's older.

Tricks (@ 9.5mo)

WARNING: This video is not suitable for the faint of heart. Be advised prior to viewing. Honestly, I can't even believe that I'm posting this.

Ryan has been so much fun lately. He is really starting to imitate us alot. He makes sounds that mimic certain phrases that we say to him all the time too. It's pretty cute.

The last portion of this video is a little short on showcasing his dancing and cuddling with "puppy", but I hope to get more of this captured and up soon. He loves that big dog and ALWAYS cuddles with it (I was inspired to capture his cuddling from my friend Kelly-who mentioned she never wants to forget these moments...ditto).

Cousins

Ryan and Andrew got together a couple weeks ago...as you all know from the Star Wars pics. We had a comparison of sizes at the end-lil' D will pass up Little Man any day now!

Guess What I'm Doing...

Originally uploaded by flowmug

You have 24hrs to post a guess. Then I will reveal the answer.

Kitchen Pictures

Originally uploaded by flowmug

The other night I was playing around with a new flash I purchased for my camera a couple of weeks ago. It's amazing how a good flash can fill in the light on and around your subjects even indoors. I am a big fan of trying to shoot without a flash but after seeing the results of this flash, I might not be as afraid to shoot indoors.

Sharis was out galavanting with the girls so I followed Little Man around the condo as he ripped all the towels out of the drawer behind him, was quite enamored with the strainer, climbed up to the toilet to check it out and was a big fan of how the bathroom door worked. It was quite a night.

Click on the picture to be taken to all the pictures which are the start of the Ryan Month 10 set.

Leslie and JB's Wedding

We spent this past weekend in South Bend at Sharis' dear friend Leslie's wedding - Leslie was in our wedding. She married JB who is a fantastic guy. Sharis was in the wedding so Sharis had duties all weekend. Luckily Sharis' Mom came down to help with Ryan (twist her arm). You are probably all thinking what my problem was - Why couldn't I take care of him? I didn't go down until Saturday morning because I stayed back to work. And she took care of him during the reception for us. It was very nice of her.
This was the first time we had Ryan to wear a tie. He wasn't as uncomfortable in one as I am - I guess I will have to teach him that.