More Summer Fun

The boys have been enjoying the warm weather and playing outside. When we were in Illinois, our Uncle Selby and Aunt Terri gave Sean a fun sprinkler that looks like a seal. I never imagined that Ryan would enjoy playing in the sprinkler too, but he loved it. He crawls right up to the water spout and sticks his face in it. It is so cute!

This week, Sean has Vacation Bible School and the theme is "teddy bears" so he gets to bring his Tigger with him everyday. He is very excited about that. I can't believe it's already almost August. In no time, we'll be getting ready to head back to preschool and it will be Sean's birthday.

Smile!

On Friday, we took Ryan to get his pictures and he did great this time! We like to call him "smiley" because most of the time you can find him smiling and he did just that for the photographer! We were worried because when we took him for his pictures at 6 months old, he was scared and cried most of the time. This time he did fabulous and Sean helped us in getting Ryan to smile real big.

Happy 1st Birthday Ryan!

On Friday, Ryan turned 1 year old! We can hardly believe the time has gone by so quickly. Ryan is truly a blessing to our family and we enjoy him everyday! While on vacation in Illinois, we had an early birthday party for him and he had a blast, especially with the cake.

A few things about Ryan at 1 year old:

Not yet walking, but stands on his own and crawls everywhere!

Loves playing in the kitchen cabinets

Can wave hello and bye-bye

Says "mama", "dada", "oh", "nana" and babbles all the time. I'm sure he is trying to say alot more, we just can't make out the words yet!

Is getting all 4 top teeth at the same time - ouch!

Loves to point at things with his index finger

Likes animals especially dogs and cats

Adores his big brother. Sean is the only one who can truly make Ryan belly laugh out loud

Smiles most of the time - people call him "smiley"

Enjoys playing with his toys (and Sean's too)

Thinks it's fun to climb the stairs and have someone chase him

Likes to play with the toilet - eww!

Only likes to eat apples whole (not in slices! - I think this is because he sees big brother eating that way)

Likes to dance

Still has trouble sleeping through the night

Never would take a bottle

Favorite book - "There's a Cat in God's Tree"

Loves water - enjoys taking a bath and playing with the water table. We recently learned he also likes to play in the sprinkler

Is getting better about separation from mommy

Favorite foods - bananas, french fries, baked beans, Nilla wafer cookies, apples, chicken

These are just a few things about Ryan - there are too many to list! :-)

Today, I took Ryan to the doctor for his 1 year check-up appointment. Overall, the doctor said he is in great health. He's on the small side as far as weight goes so we need to work on putting some weight on him! He's had 2 sicknesses in the past few months where he lost weight and I think that has contributed to his low weight. Here are his stats:

18 pounds (2nd percentile)

29 inches (45th percentile)

I checked back in Sean's baby book and at 1 year old he was 20.4 pounds and 29.5 inches. The doctor said Ryan is more lean and long!

We look forward to the upcoming year with Ryan as he begins to walk, talk more, and just be a blessing to our family.

Illinois Trip

Greetings everyone! The Wilson family is back from our trip to Illinois to visit friends and family. It was a very long (did I say long?) drive, but it was worth it - we had a really good time on our trip.

Since our road trip to AZ was somewhere around 13 hours, we decided to break our Illinois road trip into 2 days because it was a 15 hour drive. Ryan wasn't so happy the way there, but was better on the drive home. Poor little guy was still recovering from a week long stomach bug that he was sick with before we left for vacation.

On our trip we spent a lot of time with friends and family. We ate and we ate and we ate - sometimes it seemed like that was all we were doing! Derek wanted to make sure that he ate at all of his favorite places back home. We ate at this one pizza place 4 or 5 times!

We were surprised by the rainy weather and unfortunately it put a damper on some of our plans. There were lots of bugs and Sean was amazed by the lightening bugs. Daddy also caught a couple of frogs. It rained all day long on July 4th. Thankfully we had seen fireworks the night before so we were set! Sean really enjoyed watching the fireworks and Ryan was unsure. He never really cried, but would whine off and on and kept looking to me for assurance that everything was okay.

The boys enjoyed going to the zoo, a farm park, and playing with all of the fun toys at Grams and Gramps house. The first couple of days Ryan was crabby, but once he caught up on his sleep he was a sweet boy. Sean wanted his Aunt Megan to play with him from the moment he woke up until it was bedtime. I'm sure she was tired, but it was a nice break for me! :-)

Mommy and daddy enjoyed several nights away from the kids including dinner and a movie with friends, a really nice surprise hotel stay from Grams and Gramps, and a dinner out to a Hibachi grill with the adults. It was really nice to have some "adult" time and the boys loved staying with Grams, Gramps, and Aunt Megan while we were away!

Derek's sister Monica and her husband Ryan who live in Wisconsin were able to come down the Thursday night before we had to leave. It was nice to spend time with them too!

On the last day of the trip before we left, we had an early 1st birthday party for Ryan at Gram's and Gramp's house. It was so much fun and I still can't believe that he is already 1! More info on that in the next post!