Fun im Missouri

 
Lisa did all these pictures of the grandkids for my parents for Christmas.

 
Playing at Rutledge Farm Park. For Ashley's Birthday we went to Rutledge Farm. It was such a nice day. I think it was 60. The kids had fun seeing the animals, going down the slides, and throwing rocks into the pond.

 
The Tuesday after Christmas Ryan and I woke up early to catch a 6 o'clock flight home to MO. Ryan did good but the end of the second flight I think his ears were hurting and he started crying and screaming. He was so happy to see Grammy, Stacy, and Issak when they came to pick us up at the airport. We had lots of fun. It was nice and warm most of the days. It was nice to see everyone again.

Christmas Day!

 
We had to wake up Ryan Christmas morning. He was so excited to get his buzz. He kept saying "I love it". I wasn't feeling so great as you can see. For lunch we went to the hotel. It was good and the boys had fun playing with their new toys.

Getting Ready for Santa

 
Ryan was excited for Santa to come this year. To our surprise he sat on his lap and told him he wanted a Buzz light year to the rescue. He put out a cookie for him and some carrots for his reindeer. Last year the first thing he asked when he woke up was if Santa had eaten his cookies. He had lots of fun playing with the wrapped presents before Christmas and one day hid them all from Nate in our closets.

Spaghetti Face

 
Ryan thought it was funny he had a spaghetti mustache and wanted me to take pictures.

Advent Calendar

 
This is the advent calendar my sister Stacy helped me make. I liked how it turned out. The presents under the tree are pockets with little ornaments in them everyday Ry would take one out and put it on one of the buttons on the tree. He also moved Ginge to the next present everyday so he could see when Christmas day was here. We decided not to get a tree this year so we used this as our tree. I hung it up over the presents. It worked out great. We've learned to improvize since we are on the road a lot. This way we don't end up with so much stuff and it's not hard to do without. Especially knowing that we have it all at home and we appreciate it even more when we are there.

Gingerbread House finished pics

 

 

Posing

 
Lisa called to ask if I could email pictures to her of Ryan so she could do a portrait of him for my mom and dad. This is what he gave me. I love his smiles!

First snowman

 

 

Brrr!

 

Fun in the snow

 
Ryan likes the snow this year more than last. He's had fun throwing snow balls and making his first little snow man. He had had a problem with keeping his pants on. He won't have that problem becauese he got a new snow suit for Christmas.

Birthday Ride!

 
For Nate's birthday day we went bowling. Ryan was preoccupied with the motorcyle and car game most of the time. Nate took him for a ride. Nate and I ended up tying with a score of 123.

Museum of Play!

 
In November we went to the Strong Museum of Play. Ryan loved it. There was so much to see and play with.

 

 

Fun with Kyle and Stacy!

 
Kyle and Stacy were here for a few months to work in NY. It was fun having them here. One night while going out for Nate's birthday we left Ryan with them and this is what they were doing.

Love Park

 
You can barely see the LOVE sign but we are at LOVE Park in this picture.

Philly!

 

The first weekend of December we went to Philly for a card show and to see Sara and Jake. It was so much fun! We live about five hours away from them. It was a beautiful drive. While Nate was at the card show and Jake was studying Sara, the kids, and I hung out at Sara's and went to the zoo. The kids had lots of fun playing in the indoor tree house. Saturday night when the guys were back with us we looked around downtown Philly. Sara and I made Philly Cheese steaks for dinner. They were pretty good.

Our Gingerbread Houses

 

Every year growing up we would make gingerbread houses for our teachers at school. I finally decided to do it this year. We all baked our own gingerbread and then everyone came to our Apt. and put them together. We had run out of frosting so Nate decided to make more. He ended up making it in no time and made it better than us girls could. We had problems with the frosting making stiff peaks. Anyway it was fun to see what everyone came up with. Nate made the santa face on the back of ours and snow(confectionors sugar) all around the house. It was all over me and as you can see all over the table. Ryan had fun putting candy anywhere and everywhere all over the house. Stacy and Kyle shingled their whole roof in gum!

Ginger Bread houses

 
Before Christmas we went to the Kodak Mansion. They had all kinds of gingerbread houses on display. Some of them were amazing. Ryan loved seeing the trains and tractors.

Bowling shoes

 
We went bowling and Ryan wore his new shoes. I told him they were his bowling shoes. He was excited to have bolwing shoes. Everytime we go past the bowling alley he says "I go there" and he mentions that he has on his bowling shoes or asks were they are.

Mack!

 
This was Ry's prize for going potty on the toilet. It sat on the shelf in the bathroom for a couple of weeks till he finally did it. I think it was his cousin Issak going on the toilet, and getting candy for it is what pushed him to do it. Mom, Sara, and kids came to see us the middle of November. The night after they left Ryan finally did it. It was so exciting because he would have nothing to do with it before. He had a few accidents that weekend but since then he has been almost accident free. So nice!