I'm a Bad Blogger!

I admit that I am a very bad blogger! Things have been crazy and I just haven't had the time to update my blog! I'm making up for it with lots of pictures and videos! :-)

I can't believe that summer is almost over! Sean starts preschool next week and all of the regularly scheduled activities resume! We've enjoyed summer and spending time outside with friends.

I recently became a lia sophia advisor to earn some extra income to help me continue to stay at home and I've been busy working on getting everything started and I'm having so much fun. If you think about it, check out my website: www.liasophia.com/jesswilson. If you want to join me on Facebook, just search for "Jessica Wilson, lia sophia advisor" and become a fan of my business page.

Ryan started walking last week. It's amazing how quickly he went from just taking a couple of steps here and there to walking most of the time. I've had a hard time getting pictures or a video of him because he is always on the go now. He loves to play with his big brother and just wants to be with Sean (Sean isn't always so fond of that though!). In just the past couple of weeks, he has developed a lot of skills. He is starting to say words other than "mama" and "dada" such as "ball" and I thought I heard him say "cracker" the other day. I caught him trying to color a picture with a marker today. His favorite thing to do is dance and it is so cute! See him in action in the videos!

We often find Ryan looking at books, especially picture books. He really gets excited when he sees a picture of a cat or dog. We've been thinking about getting a dog and a couple of weeks ago we were at Wal-Mart and someone was selling Siberian Husky puppies. We stopped to look at the dogs and Ryan was so excited and laughing. He even got down on the ground and played with the puppies and let them nibble on his hand. He just thought it was great. When we left (with no dog!), he cried the whole way home. He didn't just whine, he screamed and kept pointing at the dogs! I've only heard him cry like that a couple of times. I guess he's a dog lover!

Ryan also loves Mickey Mouse and watching the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse show. Whenever he sees anything with Mickey Mouse he points at it and says "ooh". It's really cute. I'm trying to find him some Mickey Mouse pajamas, but haven't found any in his size yet. He also enjoys going through Sean's pajama drawer and pulling out any pajamas that have a character on it. For example, he likes to carry Sean's Handy Manny pajamas around the house like it's his blanket! On the other hand, Sean refuses to wear them anymore because he is only into big boy things like Star Wars and GI Joe. He doesn't fool us though; he still likes to watch Handy Manny on TV!

Sean is doing well and excited to start school with his friends. He will be 4 years old in just a couple of weeks! :-( He thinks he is a G.I. Joe and runs around the house after bad guys all day long! It's funny to watch him and his best friend Grace play outside. He's running around with a gun and she's running around in her princess dress-up! Derek bought the old G.I. Joe cartoons on DVD and Sean loves to watch them.

We're still trying to work with Sean on riding his bike, but without much luck. He'd rather ride on his Power Wheels. Of course, it's much easier with no pedaling!

Sean starts soccer pratice tomorrow and it should be interesting to see all these 3 and 4 year olds running down the field trying to play soccer.

Hope you enjoy the videos!

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!

Summer Fun

Now that the weather is warm and sunny, we have enjoyed spending most days outside! The first half of June was cool and rainy most days and we were even wearing long sleeve shirts and jeans on some days!
Sean just finished swim lessons. We had lessons Monday - Thursday for 2 weeks for 45 minutes. It was a tough schedule between Ryan's morning nap, the swim lesson, my afternoon work schedule, and the boys' afternoon naps - I found it very hard to get much of anything done especially running errands. This is the first year that he was in a class without me. He did great. He is pretty brave when it comes to the water (scary for me!) so on the first day he decided that he would just stray away from the wall on his own and he made it out to the middle of the pool area and the teacher had to rush and help him because he was falling underwater. He learned his lesson because he didn't do it again! We'll probably take lessons again the fall and spring so Sean can progress to the next level and learn to swim more independently. I wanted to take pictures, but I forgot my camera every single day!

We spend most days outside. Daddy found a great buy at a garage sale and bought Sean a Power Wheels 4 wheeler and he LOVES it! We have a smaller Power Wheels car that a friend gave us and he enjoyed riding it, but this 4 wheeler is much more powerful. He rides it all around the neighborhood when we go for walks. Now if we can just get him to learn to ride his bicycle. Ryan still enjoys being pushed around in his plastic car.

We also bought a used outdoor playhouse that my friend was selling for a pretty good deal. Both of the boys love playing in the house. We recently took out the water table and Ryan just loves it! He has the biggest smile on his face when he plays with it.

Ryan really wants to be like his big brother. He wants to eat whatever Sean is eating and play whatever Sean is playing. He has recently decided to be pretty vocal when he is not happy.

I'm still trying to get Sean to cooperate in taking pictures, but he's not really fond of staying still long enough for my camera delay! That's why there aren't too many pics of him. The rest of the summer: heading to Illinois for a road trip, Ryan's 1st birthday, vacation Bible school, and sign-up for fall soccer!

Pictures of the Boys!

I forgot to post these pictures taken when Ryan was about 9 and a half months old. Since Ryan was camera shy (okay, camera terrified) the last time we went to have professional pictures taken, I decided to ask my friend to take pictures of him for his 9 month pictures. We will hopefully try the photo studio again when he turns 1 which is just around the corner! :-(