August

The last stretch of summer is here. 

We have been:

frequenting the parks (here with cousin Kelsey who starts high school TODAY!)

enjoying a backyard wedding.  Our former neighbors' son got married to his sweet new wife, Jessica. 

My favorite part of the day?  When their little boy went flying into the limo with the newly married couple.  It was such a sweet moment and he is one very loved little boy.

soaking in the beachfront in our new town with Grandma Barb. 

Okay....maybe it is just a small lake in a nearby RV park. 

I am easy to please and it really is a nice, clean place.

 becoming a climber and rider.  Well, Grady has been anyway.  His climbing makes me a nervous wreck and his dismount off of items needs some work.  His poor head!

picking raspberries and picnicking!

and catching up with friends after a crazy couple of months.

Fair 2012- Take 2

We headed back to the fair later in the week with Ryan by our sides.  Ryan loves the fair and the baked potatoes and Layla really wanted to go on the "Kerris Wheel" with him.  After two days of rain, we finally made it out for a fun day with the four of us.  Layla loved her first time on the Ferris Wheel and Grady loved his first spin on the merry-go-round (although the picture looks like he is not so happy with the idea).  Oh, and our kids do not like ice cream.  Nope, not at all...

Sweatshirts!  On Tuesday, we were sweating like crazy!  Friday...a little chilly.

A new find at the fair this year!

"I have figured out if I scream loud enough, they will give me the cone!" 

Layla loves her ice cream...can you tell? :)

Fair 2012

Layla, Grady and I spent our annual day at the fair with Ann, Joan, my mom, Cassie, Shea and Liam.  I look forward to this day each year.  And Layla is quite the super fan too.  She comes by it honestly.  Ryan and I both grew up with this fair being a highlight of our summers.  Grady was a good sport in the stroller this year but he will learn to love the animals, games and rides too. 

To give you a little taste of our fair experience this year, our day was filled with:

lemon shake-ups and cherry limeades, stroller switching, eating, sweating (or maybe we were glowing?), coin purses, spray bottles, toy horns, rides with Ann, losing items in the strollers, laughing, aggressive goats, seeking shade, a hunt for shade horses, more lemon shake-ups and cherry limeades, balloon characters, games and inheriting an unexpected pet (Mr. Oats).

Meet Mr. Oats, a "gift" from a Michigan college student :)

Thank you Ann and Joan for making another great memory with our kids. 

What a fun day we all had!

Olympic Fever

We have officially caught it.

Just wait for Olympics 2028....

we have some serious sprinters, soccer players and swimmers coming your way :)

And....a little boy who is fantastic at splashing water!

USA! USA! USA!

Grady- 14 months

Grady is...

no longer crawling.

walking exclusively on two feet.

trying to figure out the art of running.

enjoying stair lessons from Layla.  There are lots of fun stairs in this house!

getting his 12th (and very possibly 13th) tooth.

sleeping pretty well.

a good little dancer.

quite possibly going to turn into a watermelon and mac and cheese.

a dipper.  He likes his ketchup and syrup.

a thrower when he is done with his food.  He knows the sign for "all done" but I think he feels the throwing gets his point across a little faster.

so cute when he waves. His wave looks like he is milking a cow. So. Cute.


a fan of blowing kisses. 

throwing mini fits when things get taken away that he somehow manages to get his hands on (phones, screwdrivers, baseball bats...you know, the usual).

saying more words (Blue, kitty, doggy, uh oh, mom, Layla, hi....and combined "hi kitty" one time.  Poor "dad" is still emerging.  Dad is currently "ga").

always on Layla's trail.

quite the charmer out in public.  He loves to get random people's attention with big smiles.  He zeros in on certain people and works his smile until they respond.

still obsessed with his lovie.  He will not go to sleep without it.  I hope we never, ever lose that sweet bear blanket.

making sure we are on our toes with baby-proofing the new house.

into whipping things over baby gates.

working on the placement of his nose.  When we ask, Grady likes to point to his eyes and head first.  Then he sticks his fingers in his nose and claps.

starting to sit a bit better for stories.  He now pretends to read his favorite book, Peek a Hoo.  By "reading," I mean that Grady just lifts his voice up and down while turning the pages.  It is still pretty funny stuff.

loving his rocking chair these days.

Who wants a kiss?

Oh, Lay-la!  Where are you??



Mission accomplished! Jar of playdough in hand.

This is a busy stage, but I am loving it.

Minus the throwing of things into the toilet and garbage part.
We are almost positive he thinks they are basketball hoops :)  

A Week

This past week was a week. 

The move-

We moved out of our house into a house we are renting and hoping to buy.  We started unpacking the basics.  In case the house deal falls through and we have to move again, we don't want to have to pack everything again. 

Layla-

Three days after moving in, Layla was admitted to a children's hospital for a pre-scheduled 24 hours of medical testing. 

Moving friends-

We then said good-bye to good friends who are moving far away.  In our move five days prior, these good friends had become our neighbors.  This made it even tougher to say good-bye.  

Our old house-

Next, Ryan prepped our old house for renting and we then said another good-bye to our first house and our sweet neighbors.  It was a week.

But on the bright side...

The move-

We moved into a house we love.  We had an incredible amount of help from friends and family with collecting boxes, packing, moving and caring for our kids.  Thank you to my mom and dad, Cathy and Verlyn, Kelsey, my sister and Jamie, Joan, Dean and Jeanine, Millie, Kris, Brody, Matt, Pete, Scottie, Gus, Alex and Drewe.  We hope we get to buy our new house, but if we don't the worst thing we have to do is move again.  It will be a pain, but we are very aware that there are much worse things that could happen.

Our moving director :)

Boxes, boxes, everywhere!

Grady loves having access to the washing machine.

Layla-

Layla was a rock star with her testing.  She had three doctors on her case and very attentive nurses, EEG techs, a child-life specialist...and many more.  The hospital treated Layla very well.  Our friends and family treated Layla to many gifts, treats and well wishes prior to the appointment.  The preliminary results came back very much in Layla's favor.  The neurologist felt so confident in the results that he even reduced Layla's dosage of medicine and there are serious talks of weaning again.  We feel very blessed by this unexpected news. 

Moving friends-

Our friends, Meg and Pete and family, are moving to the fabulous state of Florida.  If you were playing a trivia game and the question was...."Which state are Kristin and Ryan most likely to visit?"  Well, the answer would be Florida.  We know we will have pool play dates in our future :) 

This picture was from a girls' weekend in the spring. 

Our first house-

We know we are very lucky to have the opportunity to move.  Not everyone is able to get out of their housing situations right now.  We will miss the house and the memories, but it treated us very well for seven years.  We already miss our neighbors.  We could not have picked better neighbors for ourselves.  They took such good care of us for seven years and taught us how to be good neighbors.  Thank goodness we are always just a short drive away!

A final porch picture!

Layla and our neighbor, Millie.  I need to get a picture of Dean and Jeanine too!

And...one last run through the empty house!

And so you see...it wasn't such a terrible week after all!  

I will say that we hope next week is a little less exciting :)