Happy Halloween!!!

Happy Halloween from Ryan the Monkey!

We have had a wonderful Halloween this year!

Ryan was a Monkey for Halloween this year! Isn't he the cutest monkey in the world?

He wore all of his costume except the hat. He hates wearing anything on his head.

I love this picture! Matt was trying to put his hat on and Ryan was trying to pull it off!

At least we got one good picture of him with his adorable monkey hat on!

Every monkey gets a little thirsty, ha!

We pulled Ryan in his wagon to trick-or-treat! He was quit confused at first the idea of everyone sitting in their driveway wanting to hand him candy. Every time someone would drop candy in his bucket he would grab it and hold on to it. Already becoming a hoarder, ha!

I think he would have loved to stay home and hand out candy. At one house instead of grabbing the candy from the bowl he tried to give them his candy! Such a sweet boy!!!

Our local Loveland ambulance and ENT's came by to pass out candy to the kids. Every time they would stop kids would swarm them for candy. They were really nice.

It was a great day and we really enjoyed taking Ryan on his first trick-or-treating. He was worn out and went right to sleep when we got home! We can't wait for next year!

Our Guest Room

Today on Kelly's Show Us Your Life we are looking at Guest Rooms! I like our guest rooms and they get alot of use when my family comes to visit!

(I had to share this pic of Ryan! I think it's my new favorite picture!)

This is our guest room! The furniture is my furniture I bought when I moved out of my parents house. I love the furniture and so glad we have it for our guest now.

The closet in this room I use for my off season clothes. I also keep Ryan's clothes he has outgrown in boxes in the closet.

The bedroom suite includes the bed of course, dresser, and nightstand. I'm thinking about changing the bedding soon. I will keep the walls and window treatment the same but change out the bedding.

This is our other guest room. Right now it has Matt's childhood furniture in it. In the future we plan to make this Ryan's room and his current room will become the next baby's room.

We will probably paint the room blue. I already have big boy bedding picked out from Pottery Barn Kids. It's plaid with different blues and green, red and yellow in it. It's so cute and I can't wait for him to have a big boy room!

But at the same time he is just growing up way too fast!

He just started this week blowing kisses to us. It's absolutely precious!

Hope you enjoyed the tour of our guest rooms! We can't wait to have family or friends come spend time with us and stay in our guest room!

Cookies

Today we had a pretty low key day! Ryan ate a whole peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch then took a long nap this afternoon. Then tonight he at a huge helping of penne pasta with tomato sauce. I am so proud of him eating so well the last few days!

As I mentioned in previous post my FIL celebrated a birthday on Monday. We had dinner at their house on Sunday night so I made some cookies to take over! I love the cupcake cookies, they are so cute!

I also made some cookies this weekend for my friend Tiffany who was hosting a baby shower on Sunday. The theme for the baby's room is pink owls so I made coordinating cookies . These owls turned out really cute and I like the candy corn for the little fall touch!

I was glad to get back to my workout class this morning since I was gone last week. It's such a good class and I always feel better after doing it. I got a good workout and bootie kickin!

I love making cookies and cakes! I'm going to start a blog for my cakes and cookies soon. I would love to start making more of them and selling them to friends and family. More on that later to come! =)

Sixteen Months

I'm finally getting a chance to post Ryan's sixteen month post!

This was you one year ago! Where does the time go? I can't believe how big you are now!

Ryan - You are SIXTEEN months old!!!!

What have you been up to this month???

You weigh around 25 pounds

You wear size 4 diapers, size 5 shoes, and 18-24 month clothes.

You are one busy little boy and constantly on the move! You never slow down! You can open and shut all the doors which keeps me quite busy chasing you. You love to get into cabinets and drawers and play anything that will make a loud noise.

Your eating is about the same. The only fruits you like are peaches and pears. You usually eat them just about every day, ha! You don't eat most veggies but surprisingly tonight you decided you loved tomatoes! Your dad and I sat not believing our eyes at the dinner table. We just kept shoveling tomatoes onto your tray, ha! Your favorite foods are chicken (cooked any way - fried, grilled or even in a casserole), applesauce, grilled cheese, yogurt, cereal bars, animal crackers, cheerios, hotdogs, goldfish and your latest favorite...peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

You go through stages of separation anxiety. Right now all you want is momma but they tell me at church that you calm down very quickly after I leave and do great!

You are so funny! You love to make us laugh and you love to be tickled.

You sleep and nap great. You sleep around twelve hours each night (7:30-8:00). You take one long nap every day. Usually you go down around 12:30/1 and sleep til 3:30/4.

You have a little mischievious side to you. You will look back at me when you are about to do something you know your not suppose to.

You are trying to say more words. We do flashcards just about every day. Some of the new things you have said recently... fish, hi, hush, get down (in reference to Gracie on the couch), and baby.

I cannot believe how fast you are growing. You are so sweet and love to give us hugs and "loves". We cherish those special moments. We love you so much and are so thankful for you.

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Today is Ryan's Grandpa's birthday! (Matt's Dad)

My father-in-law absolutely adores Ryan. He just beams whenever he sees him. I am so thankful that Ryan is surrounded by 4 amazing grandparents that love him so much!

Our weekend

Our weekend started off great. Friday night we hosted a tailgating party at our house for our small group. Everyone wore their favorite sports team and brought their favorite tailgating food. It was so much fun and so glad for the fellowship.

Saturday we went to a funeral and celebration of my Aunt Teresa's sweet mom Marilyn. She was such a sweet lady and she just adored Ryan. We are so glad to have known her and we will miss her so much.

Thankfully Ryan's grandparents watched Ryan for us while we went to the funeral. While we were gone Ryan had a blowout of massive proportions requiring both a bath and a new outfit. I think he might have some sort of virus. He hasn't eaten much in the last few days and he has been very clingy. (Hence the reason for the lack of pictures) I'm praying he feels better real soon.

Last night Matt started feeling yucky and ended up spending most of the night in the bathroom. I think he caught some type of stomach virus. I am praying big time that neither Ryan nor I get it! Thankfully, Matt started feeling better by this afternoon. We didn't go to church this morning so Ryan and I played downstairs and let Matt sleep. Ryan decided to dump out a whole box of oyster crackers. Oh my!!! Of course I had to take a picture before I told him we don't dump our crackers on the floor.

I'm hoping by tomorrow that everyone is on the mend and that we can get some cute pictures!

Ryan's Nursery

Today on Kelly's Show Us Your Life we are looking at Baby Nurseries/Kids Rooms! This is definitely my favorite tour. I love to look and see what other nurseries and kids rooms. I had so much fun planning Ryan's nursery. I love love love his furniture and so glad we went with it. Welcome to Ryan's room!

(these pics are old but the room is pretty much the same. We don't have the mobile or bumpers in the bed anymore and there is a fleece cover on the front and sides to keep Ryan from chewing on his bed!)

Since we didn't know what we were having we went with a gender neutral decor. Matt loves australia and I love koala bears so we did the "down under" crib bedding.

I'm so glad we did the striped chair rail and brown and green walls.

Ryan's dresser/changing table is beautiful. He will enjoy this for years to come.

I love Ryan's chair. It's a Best Chair brand and it's soooo comfy. It swivels and rocks. I also love the bookcase we got from pottery barn kids along with the wicker baskets. His bookshelf is full of books now. He loves to go in there and pull the books off the shelf, ha!

Hope you enjoyed the tour of Ryan's room. Can't wait to see all the other nurseries/kids rooms.

Home Sweet Home

Yesterday my parents and I took Ryan to this pumpkin farm about 5 min. from parents house. It was so neat and they had so many things for kids to do. We basically just went to take pictures.

Ryan enjoyed seeing all the pretty pumpkins! He looked like he was playing the maracas with with gourds. He was so darn cute!

Ryan and I made it home to Cincy tonight. We picked up Tiffany and Presley and hit the road early this morning. It seems like the drive down goes by so much faster than the drive back home. We got caught in traffic about 60 miles from home, ughhh! We ended up taking a detour around the traffic.

We had such a wonderful time in Memphis with family but it is so good to be home. Ryan did amazing on the ride home! When we got home Matt ran out to the car to grab Ryan. He smothered him with kisses and didn't want to put him down. It was precious! Feels so good to be home sweet home!

Wicked!

Tonight my mom and I went to see Wicked at the Orpheum in Memphis. It was her first and my third time to see the musical. It is absolutely my favorite musical!

We at dinner at Majestic Grille and it was soooo yummy! We both loved the play! It was so nice to spend time with my mom and have a girls night out. Thanks to my dad and brother Matt for watching Ryan for me while we went out on the town!

Date night

Ryan was checking out the rocking chairs the other night at Cracker Barrel! This one was just his size!

Today Ryan and I had lunch with my friend Jen! Ryan was on his best behavior and so good! I was so thankful! I had a great time catching up with Jen. I miss her so much and really wish we lived closer! She and her husband just moved back to Memphis so I'm glad to be able to see them when we are in town.

Tonight Ryan had a first date with Ellyson, my friend Jennifer's little girl. Of course their first date was at Chick-fil-A, haha! They were so cute and just had the best time "talking" to each other.

"Be careful, you don't want to fall off the slide!"

"Hey, you gotta come up here and see this slide"

We had such a great day visiting with friends!