Father’s Day

“Daddy’s Little Buck” and “Daddy’s Little Doe” would like to wish their Daddy a VERY Happy Father’s Day today!  We are so lucky to have him in our lives.  The kids are probably too young right now to realize that, but one day they will be so thankful for the man that he is.  Seeing the bond that he has with each of them makes me fall more and more in love with him if that were even possible.  He’s committed to these kids and so involved in their lives…and he puts up with me and my nagging!  What more could we ask for?!

A very special memory that I know Alan will never forget and that Ryder will love to see one day…

My flash doesn’t like moving objects at night time, but as you can see Ryder got to take his very first ride on his Daddy’s motorcycle last night!!  It was just a short trip from our house to Poppy’s house, a few streets over, but they were both as happy as could be!

Hope everyone had a good Father’s Day!!  I know we did :)

Another Busy One

Another busy weekend, come and gone!

Friday after work me & Ryder dropped Maisy off at home with Daddy and headed into our town for their annual festival!  This weekend is a huge deal in our tiny little town, they do the Fireman’s parade one night, a huge parade with floats the next day, fireworks, a carnival, all that fun stuff! 

So Friday night we headed to the Fireman’s parade.  We had the hook-up and got great parking and great seats (thanks cousin Joni!!) and absolutely enjoyed ourselves.  We got there a little while before the parade was going to start so we walked down to the carnival.  Ryder played the balloon/darts game and won a stuffed turtle, then played the little rubber duckie game and won this huge hammer!

We stopped for ice cream on our walk back to the parade from this awesome fire truck ice cream shop…

Then it was time for the parade.  I brought Ryder’s Monster Jam ear muffs because I figured the sirens would be super loud…which they were but he LOVED every second of it and didn’t want to cover up the noise (only every now and then with his hands!). 

He was excited to see his cousin Jamie go by in this fire truck…especially because Jamie has taken him to the firehouse and let him get on this truck before.  Ryder told me to watch for the yellow truck because that’s what color Jamie’s was…he was right!

The Fireman’s parade was so cool and I loved having the one on one time with Ryder doing something he enjoyed.

The next day Little Sis wanted in on some fun, so the 3 of us (Daddy was doing a side job) headed back for Day 2’s parade.  The ice cream truck was parked not far from where we were sitting and Ryder spotted it immediately, so him & Maisy got to enjoy some ice cream on this hot summer day (is it summer yet??). 

Me & Ryder sat on the sidewalk for this parade because as the floats went by they would throw candy out to everyone.  Ryder got to hang with his oh-so-cool cousin Cameron while Maisy enjoyed her spot in the shade.

 

As part of the festival they do a beauty queen contest, and as the winner rode by on her convertible I had to get a picture of Cameron’s face, he was saying “oh yeah, this is nice, she looks good, we got good seats!” LOL

Luckily Ryder was more into his Nerds candy than any pretty girls going by!

Maisy joined us on the curb for a while, she loved the floats that played music and was dancing her little butt off.

(Look how light Maisy’s hair has gotten!  Sorry, just now realizing that.)

After the parade Ryder wanted to show Maisy the carnival, so we walked there and Ryder got on this train…his very first carnival ride!

And this would be them 2 seconds after getting buckled into the car!

We headed home for nap time, but the day wasn’t over yet.  When they woke up we headed over to Poppy’s for some good old fashioned playing in the dirt!

(That is blood all over Ryder’s shirt!!!  When we got in the car to head to Poppy’s he said “Mommy a bunch of ketchup is coming out of my nose!” and I turned around to find him covered in blood…so bazaar!)

Today Paw-Paw came to Church with us then came over to play with the kids for a little while.  Then we left and headed to Mikayla’s 4th Birthday Party!!  :)  It was at the bowling alley so of course the kids had fun celebrating with her.  Unfortunately my camera battery was dead from all of the prior action it got this weekend so I don’t have any pictures from today. 

Oh, but one more thing, Maisy’s 2nd tooth popped through! 

Shew, if only we had one more day to sleep off all of the action! 

This Little Momma is Walking!!

My mom suggested I put shoes on Maisy because she thought it’d make her more stable so she’d walk better.  I rolled my eyes.  Vicki agreed with my Mom.  So I packed a pair of shoes for Nana’s today with a “I’m telling you guys she’s going to hate having shoes on her feet, everything online says to let babies learn to walk barefoot now, you’ll see” look on my face, and guess what…these Grandma’s actually know what they’re talking about!  We picked her up today, she had shoes on her feet, wasn’t screaming about it, and she was WALKING!  Imagine that!  (okay okay I’m sorry for rolling my eyes.)

Oh my goodness she is such a Daddy’s girl, can you tell?!?!  On top of being a Daddy’s girl, we realized today that she is a little Momma!  We got her baby doll out and she was being so nurturing!  Patting her, rocking her, kissing her…it brought tears to my eyes…all I kept saying was “awwwww she’s a Mommy!  Look babe, she wants to be a Mommy!”  Then I hear Daddy hugging her saying “you’re going to be a good big sister, yes you are…”  ummmm, wait, wait, wait, wait, I don’t know about all that!  ha.

CIT Week 3 & The Cast is Off!

Week 3 of having the cast on flew by and before we knew it the time came to take it off!  This week we tried to focus specifically on his hand and fingers.  I did a lot of textures with him, trying to get him to use his pointer finger to touch different things…he only seems to have control over his thumb on that hand, so he mostly used his thumb.  I’m not sure what kind of feeling he has, as he gets older I think it will be easier to figure out if things feel different on his left hand than they do his right hand.  Trying to get his pincer grasp working is one of the toughest challenges…but even being able to grab something as small as a penny is a huge accomplishment for him!

I definitely feel that this therapy works wonders for him…even though it might seem a little like torture.  If we didn’t challenge him with things like this, his body would just shut that side down and he’d live in a one-handed world forever.  So anything we can do to help right now while he’s young, we’re up for it! 

I think he is starting to understand why he has to go through some of the things he does. He still manages to keep his silly side through it all.  Here he is telling me to take a picture of “his balancing!”  Miss Stacey would be happy to see that he was practicing his PT skills during his OT visit!

We rode over to his Orthotic Doctor and Dr. Jim was so kind to take his cast off for us.  This worked out great because Ryder is used to Dr. Jim molding his legs and then sawing off that cast when he needs new orthotics, so this was no big deal for Ryder (abby says her saw would have traumatized him for sure!).  I love when God sends little blessings down to us, like Dr. Jim offering to do this at no charge at all, just because he wanted to help out.  Afterwards Ryder felt free as a bird, literally, he kept flapping his right arm and even said to me “Mommy, I’m flapping so hard, will I fly away???”

So this weekend we’ve just been enjoying having 2 hands!  He has resorted back to fisting Lefty a lot BUT when he needs two hands for something he has been doing such a good job of remembering to include Lefty.

We are SO SO proud of him, he really has come so far.  Abby really wants to enforce his new skills and put the cast back on in a week for another 3 weeks.  Right now we’re fighting really bad eczema all over his arm, I think he had an allergic reaction to the casting material, so we’ll see if we can get that cleared up in time.  Keep ya posted :)

What Is That??

Maisy – What is that grumpy face for??

Why have you had that grumpy face on all week??

Oh wait…what is that I just felt in your mouth??

Could it be??  Could it really be???  A TOOTH!!!!  It finally came through!

Maisy you are 11 months old and your first tooth just cut through your gums today…HOORAY!

      

Now we’re happy :)  This is the face I get when I say “Maisy let me see your teeth!”