Happy Thanksgiving! We had a nice dinner with some good friends of ours. It was so nice and relaxing. After eating we watched some football while looking through ads for black Friday. Later we went to Fred and Kathy's (our landlords) house for some delicious dessert, and ended the night with some games. Thanks Brad and Jana for the fun day!

(These pictures aren't from Thanksgiving. I forgot to take pictures. These were taken a couple weeks ago.)

I forgot to post these pictures from our Halloween party. We had a great time with some of our friends.

We moved into our new apartment over the summer, and I've finally finished decorating our 1/2 bath. I was undecided as to how to decorate it seeing that the bathroom has a yellow sink and toilet. Anyway, I decided on a "kids" theme so I could incorporate the yellow with the decor. I painted a few zoo animals and have hand towels with lions on them. I'm pretty pleased with the results.


(I couldn't get the whole bathroom in the shot)

Painting children's art has become a pretty big hobby for me, and lately I've been thinking that I may start trying to sell some of my work. Maybe I could post pictures on ebay/craigslist/etsy. We'll see. Here is another set I did. I'm also working on some dinosaur pictures. Let me know if you have any suggestion as to how I should go about starting or other ideas for paintings! If they don't end up selling I can always give them as gifts or just keep them for myself.

Happy Halloween!!

We'll post more details and pictures later...

I THINK I'M CRAZY!!
So last year I made Ryan's little Halloween costume (dyed green tights, hat with feather, shoe covers and all). He was Peter Pan. This year I thought I'd tackle another costume but decided to do something easier and a little less time consuming. I bought some leather-ish material to sew some chaps and a vest; he's going to be a cowboy. Easy enough, right? Well between the pesky material and my finicky machine, I ruined the first set of everything I tried. However, as Ryan is so small I was still able to cut out another set of material to sew. Unfortunately I'm now stuck sewing everything together by hand. I'd have probably quit by now, but I feel obligated to finish this project because I don't want to waste the material. Wish me luck!!

Last Saturday we went to Apple Holler with some friends. It was crazy crowded but we had a good time. Here are some pictures.

May Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

I know this is late, but it was Eric's birthday Sept. 4th. He turned 27!! Happy Birthday, Sweetie!

SLEEPLESS IN MILWAUKEE

After having Ryan's 15-month appointment, I decided we needed to stop letting Ryan drink from a bottle. I know we probably should have done it when he turned a year but I justified it being okay since he was so small and also that he had surgery and needed the bottle as a comfort afterwards. We got in the habit of giving him a bottle before he went to sleep and again if he woke up during the night to settle him back down.

Anyway, I decided to box up all his bottles and put them away so they wouldn't even be around for him to see or to tempt us when Eric and I were desperate. The first night was fine but the second night he woke up screaming. I tried to settle him down but he kept pointing outside his room, into the living room leading me to the kitchen. He knew exactly what he wanted. I knew he wasn't wanting his sippy cup but I grabbed it as his only option. He pushed it away and when he didn't see a bottle in the fridge he had a complete meltdown. Those of you who know Ryan's temperment know he is usually pretty laid back. But he went from crying to kicking and screaming uncontrolably. Finally after a few failed attempts to calm him down I gave him to Eric not knowing what else to do. Eric got him to settle down after a few minutes (thank goodness for a husband).
The next two nights were wonderful, he slept through the whole night so I was hoping we were starting a new trend. However, last night he had another melt down. Will this ever end?

All we have to do is say, "Lets pray" and this is Ryan's response. I love it!



Here is Ryan just being silly.

Here is Ryan all ready for church. He is always so antsy to leave the house ANYTIME!! He uses his little pointer finger to try and pry the door open. Ha, ha, ha.

Ryan had a follow-up doctors appointment with his cardiologist. His heart is doing great, and he has gained about 4 lbs since his surgery! We don't have to go back for another follow-up for two years! However, Eric and I noticed a little bulge under his skin, right where his chest tubes were, a few days before his appointment. They think it's a little hernia and they hope it will go away on it's own. We sure hope so. I just thought I'd post a picture of how great his scar is looking.

I'm finally posting the other finished pictures.... As you can see I decided to do it in three different colors.


Here they are next to each other.

These boots are made for walking...



We found these boots and couldn't resist buying them!!

Last weekend we went to dinner at Schwarz's Supper Club. It is a wonderful steak house that is about 70 miles north of where we live. Eric saw this restaurant on a PBS program and decided he wanted to check it out. It was a beautiful day and the drive was fantastic. We drove on a lot of county roads which took us through some great farm land. It was so fun and worth the drive.

After dinner we drove through town and found some cool old churches and took some pictures of Ryan.

Memories...

I got this from my friend, Monica... Play Along!
1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together (Eric, Kristi or both). It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!
2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you! Reminisce away...

Any suggestions?

I'm painting three pictures for my sister (she is going to have a baby girl). I finished this first picture, the other two are a flower and bird (same style), but I'm torn as to what color(s) I should do with the others. I was planning on just doing the same colors on all three pictures but Eric suggested to do a different color with the brown on each canvas. Like pastel purple, yellow or green. What do you think? Should I mix it up or stick with all pink?

4th of July Fun
I love this holiday!! We had so much fun over the 4th of July weekend. First, we went to our ward party for a BBQ, then we went to Fred's house for Arby's and hot wings...yummy! Later that night we went to Tosa's fireworks show with some friends. We were impressed with how good the fireworks were. Ryan handled the loud noises really well. He just sat on Eric's lap and was in a trance watching it all.

I know, I know; it's been a while. Ryan had surgery last Monday, and I can't believe how well he is doing for just having had open-heart surgery. It's amazing how quickly kids bounce back after undergoing something so invasive.
We took Ryan to the hospital at 7:30 a.m. By around 8:30 the anesthesiologist took him away from us to start surgery. The nurse assisting the surgeon came out a couple times to update us with his progress, and by 2:00 p.m. we saw him in the hall as they were wheeling him to the PICU. About an hour later they had him hooked up to all the needed monitors and we were then able to be with him.

In the PICU right after surgery.

I stayed the first night with Ryan. During the night, I woke up to him whimpering so I quickly got up and saw that he had flipped to his stomach and was ready to crawl off the bed. It about gave me a heart attack! After flipping over three more times and getting on all fours, his nurse finally gave him something to sedate him. Poor kid.

Eric's parent's were able to come help us during this tough time.

Ryan started doing a lot better once they were able to take out the chest tubes, central line, catheter, etc. It made a tremendous difference.

Ready to go to the play room to get some wiggles out.
A clown came to cheer us up. Ryan enjoyed all her tricks despite the look on his face.

We were able to take him home on Thursday. Look how good he looks!