Labor Day Weekend

We had a lot of fun over the long Labor Day weekend! It was so nice to have Daddy home for an extra day! On Saturday, Sean had his first soccer practice. His team is called the "Rowdies". He did a really good job and by the end of practice, he kept saying how tired he was! There are 2 girls on his team and it's funny because the girls at this age appear to be a bit more coordinated than the boys! :-) Sean plays soccer for 6 weeks and has practice and a game every Saturday. We can tell that Sean is already going to be a strong competitor. When the team was taking a run to warm-up, Sean thought he needed to try and win the race!

Derek and I also got away for a couple of hours on Saturday to go to dinner at Red Lobster. We recently received a gift card and a new one just opened up right down the street. We decided to order the "Endless Shrimp" which is basically all you can eat shrimp. Derek ate something like 90 shrimp! I'm surprised he didn't get shellfish poisoning. I ate quite a bit (I didn't count the number of shrimp!) and I felt pretty sick that night. I won't be eating shrimp for a while.

We also went to the zoo this past weekend. It was a lot of fun. Derek doesn't get to go with us very often and Sean was super excited that Daddy got to come! Ryan seemed to enjoy the zoo the most. I've mentioned in previous posts how much he likes animals. We thought that he would be crabby because he woke up really early that morning and didn't get a morning nap. However, we were surprised that he was so excited to see all of the animals that he wasn't crabby at all! He especially loved the gorillas. He stood at the exhibit and watched them for quite a while and just kept laughing and talking. Sean fed some birds and even let one land on his food stick. It rained while we were at the zoo and I got pretty soaked! We managed to find an inside exhibit until the rain stopped.

The picture of Sean in the costume is his new GI Joe costumer for Halloween. All he's been talking about is dressing up as GI Joe! Sorry for the poor picture quality in some of the pictures; not sure why some of them ended up blurry. Don't you just love Sean's cheesy smile in the pictures? I just can't get him to smile naturally!

It's a busy week: Sean starts pre-school, I have a jewelry party on Friday, and it's Sean's birthday party on Saturday! Hope everyone has a great week!

Summer Pictures

Here are several pictures of our some of our recent outings this summer. It's so hard to get good pictures of the boys because they are always on the move! We visited Focus on the Family (a Christian organization which is headquartered here in Colorado Springs) and they have a little kids play area. It was the first time that we took Ryan there since he has been mobile and he was so excited to see the toys and all of the bright colors. He was climbing on everything!

We also had fun with our mom's MOPs group at a local place called "Lil Biggs". It's basically a play room with lots to do for little kids. They have a bouncy house, little kid video games, a huge sandbox, animals to climb on, and several themed rooms. You'll see Sean and his friend Grace playing dress up as Firefighters and Ryan enjoyed the toy room playing with the Thomas the Train toys.

Lastly, we went with some friends this week to a place called ArtsSportsWorld. They have an open gym time for young kids where they can play on the trampolines, jump in the harnesses, and play in the pits of foam blocks. Both boys had a blast!

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!