Easter....with Daddy!!!!!!!

Words can not even begin to explain how happy everyone was when Daddy was approved a day off and it being on Easter made it even better! John had not had a day off in 38 days (and probably won't have one until we leave for vacation on May 15) so it was much needed for everyone!


The Easter Bunny paid a visit and the kids hunted for eggs in the morning and then we had pancakes with Daddy.

Peyton went off to school and her teacher planned an egg hunt and crafts for them there. I thought it was really sweet of her to do especially since in her culture they don't celebrate Easter so she had to do some research and planning on what to do. I am appreciative that she took the time and effort to do something for them. While Peyton was at school, Graham got some alone time with John and then when Graham napped we were able to get some stuff done around the house that I haven't had time to do or we needed to talk about.

We had lunch at the Carlton Cafe outside and enjoyed the beautiful day overlooking the water. John and the kids played in the grassy area and were able to have some quality time while we waited on our food. That afternoon we spent more time together and then headed out to a garden center to buy some plants for our yard, some pots and start work on getting our front yard how we wanted it. We haven't done anything for a whole year so it was kind of a mess from just letting our gardener do whatever he wanted! We had him move plants, I moved plants and then John and I moved plants at 9:00 PM. We also had someone come out and put down some pavers to widen the driveway since the grass refuses to grow there anyways. We have a couple more plants and pots to buy, the grass needs to grow back into some spots but we are making progress and I am liking it a whole lot more!

Graham LOVED the garden center and is enjoying walking around everywhere.... 

Easter Egg Hunt at the Hobby Farm

As soon as we got back from our trip we were busy with Easter parties and gatherings. Peyton's friend from school had a fun party on Wednesday (I forgot to take my camera) and then on Thursday I got tickets to an Easter Egg Hunt, cookie decorating and activities hosted at the Hobby Farm. We headed out and had a good time with friends. Sorry for the pretty bad and lack of pictures but I had a hard time managing both kids and taking pictures! 

Graham was all about holding his bucket and trying to walk. He didn't really have a good idea of what he was supposed to do but he was adorable. I can't get over him walking....so strange but so cute!

After the Easter Egg Hunt, I took the kids to a grassy area that I saw a long time ago and have been wanting to take them to do some pictures. They were moderately cooperative and in the end we just played and had fun together. Graham LOVED walking around and exploring. Excited about Spring and the return on nice weather....not looking for the gradual increase in temperatures but we should be gone before it is unbearably hot...hopefully :)

Christmas 2010

What a wonderful Christmas we had! It was so nice to spend it with family and I loved seeing Peyton's excitement!

We started out meeting at my parent's to head out for Christmas Eve Service and for some pictures. The service was great as always and Peyton actually attended the big church service as opposed to her nursery because she did not want to leave her family (Granny, Papa, Auntie Ashley and Auntie Shannon). Since we all drove to church together and walked in, Peyton was not happy about everyone going into church and her having to leave them and threw a temper tantrum. Instead of trying to force the nursery who I am sure were already pretty full, we let er come with us and she was perfect. She didn't try to talk or do anything and exceeded my expectations and I loved having her there with us. Pretty emotional singing Christmas carols holding your precious toddler, feeling your unborn son kick and having your Godly, loving husband put his arms around you....oh and looking down the row and seeing your family....I didn't loss it but was close!

Following service we all went back to my parents for our Christmas Eve tradition of TONS of snack food (cheese, canapes, meat balls, egg rolls, shrimp, dips etc) and spend the time hanging out and playing games. We finally realized it was getting pretty late and finished up the evening with our other tradition of reading the Christmas Story and then the Night Before Christmas before writing our note to Santa and putting out his cookies and milk.
The next morning (John, Peyton and I....and our dog....oh and my sister and her dog which equaled three dogs in one house....spent the night) we all woke up and put on our matching PJ's which is pretty amusing since growing up we NEVER had matching PJ's on Christmas but this year my mom decided she wanted us to match and get a picture. It was cute and I loved having fun new PJ's to wear on Christmas but I just thought it was funny that this many years later she wanted to do something like this!

We then read the letter back from Santa and checked out the empty plate of cookies. Peyton was not really into the whole morning until she realized all of the cookies were gone. She was a little confused then and I could see her starting to think this whole Santa thing through more.Then it was stocking and present time and she loved it! Like last year she wanted to play with everything as soon as she opened it and would ask to "open it" constantly. She wouldn't push it much more when I told her she had to finish opening the rest of the presents and she would just head back to the tree and grab anything to open so we had to make sure to keep an eye on her. She did get tired towards the end and couldn't open her remaining four presents so we took a break, played some and then finished up! She had a wonderful morning and was very blessed by all of her gifts from family and Santa.

Probably one of her most favorite toys of the year was her Thomas the Train track. Santa knew she loved them everywhere we went and she was excited to finally have her own. She played with it multiple times during the day and would just sit there for a long time pushing Thomas around the track. I am excited to get her more of the different expansion packs and seeing her build more complex tracks. I was glad it was a hit!

John's favorite present was a gift certificate that my mom got him and my dad for a class at a local shooting range. John has always wanted to own a gun which I am totally against and so he never goes shooting. So, when my mom called and asked if I thought he would like that I knew it would be a hit. I am excited that they get to go do some guy stuff together and John can fulfill his shooting/gun need without owning a gun!

Some of my favorite gifts this year (I didn't get any pictures of me opening presents) was my new Skip Hop diaper bag! It is super cute and I am excited about using it with Graham. I had bought a gender neutral manly looking one with Peyton so John would feel comfortable carrying it but quickly realized especially when I decided to stay home that I am the one using it all the time and I wanted something cute this time. So, this one looks like a big purse and is a pretty charcoal color! I also got some nice cake stands, a really detailed and interesting dessert cookbook, a shoe mount flash for my camera and lots of other goodies! I was very lucky this year!

We ended the day with Christmas dinner at my parents where John's mom and his brother joined us and as always my mom prepared a delicious meal complete with chocolate fondue as the dessert!

It was a great Christmas and we were all very tired from all the business and excitement of the day. I am so very blessed to have the family that I do and love spending the holidays with them....crazy to think that next year we will have another one for Santa to visit!

Christmas Week

We were so lucky to have daddy home all of last week and are pretty sad that he has to return to work tomorrow. We very much could have him home for another week. I have enjoyed the extra set of hands and additional naps I have been able to have and Peyton has loved hanging out with daddy. Besides the excitement of potty training (still doing really well) we managed to have some other fun activities considering most of the time we were restricted to the house.

The nice weather allowed Peyton and daddy to play ball outside a bunch! I love hearing them play together outside because he is so much more wild with her than I am and she loves it!
They worked together to build a Gingerbread Train....Peyton actually kept eating the icing as John would put it on. It was also highly amusing to watch them work together as they are both very opinionated, strong willed and have strong engineering/methodical tendencies. They ended up with an impressive train and a very sugar high toddler!

Since John was off we took the opportunity to drive out to see his mom about a hour away and celebrate Christmas with her on the 23rd. Peyton hasn't been to Grandma Martha's house very much as she always comes to see us and was very excited about going there and just thought it was the best thing ever!
Today Peyton and I used my new doughnut machine that I got for Christmas and made mini doughnuts. She loves to bake and is such a good helper. We had lots of fun and the doughnuts turned out pretty tasty. I do need to work on the icing/glaze a little bit but they turned out fine for our first time and Peyton loved them!

We had lots of fun playing games with my family most nights, watching movies, cuddling as a family and just enjoying the relaxing week. I was so happy I had all of our Christmas shopping done awhile back so we could just enjoy time with Daddy. Tomorrow it will be back to reality.....

2010 Highlights

I thought it would be fun to look at the past year and put together a little overview of the highlights. It was kind of crazy to look back and see how much we have done as well as how much Peyton has changed.

January- I run in the Houston Half Marathon; February - Peyton and I go to the Vancouver Olympics and she attends the women's Gold Medal Hockey game and my Grandfather passes away; March- Peyton gets a big girl bed and also her first haircut

April - We celebrate Easter; May- Peyton has her baby dedication and Mommy and Daddy escape on a 5 night cruise to Mexico minus Peyton; June - It is summer time full of playing outside, trips to the Children's Museum and swimming lessons

July- John turns 29, and Peyton and I escape to Canada for a two week vacation at the cottage and Peyton LOVES it!; August- Mommy goes to the Lady Gaga concert, Peyton starts at a new school and we find out we are expecting baby #2!

September - Peyton turns 2 and celebrates with a Shrek themed birthday party and we find out that Baby #2 is a Boy! ; October - I turn 27, we celebrate our 4 year wedding anniversary and we enjoy the Halloween festivities with Peyton who was a cheerleader.

November - We take a trip to Austin to take Peyton to her first Longhorn game; December - We have loved celebrating Christmas with Peyton and she is loving all of the cookies, Santa's and the season!

We already know that 2011 is going to a busy year full of changes and exciting but scary things to come! We will be expecting Graham Ryerson in March and will be adjusting to being a family of four! We are excited, nervous and ready to lean on God in seeing what 2011 looks like for our family! Praying many blessings for all you and your families in 2011!

Christmas 2010 Ornament

Growing up one of the MANY Christmas traditions we had was an ornament for each year. Typically it was just a ball type ornament with the year on it and then some years (Baby's First Christmas etc) there were themes. Well when John and I met, we knew early on that we would be married at some point, and I figured if it didn't work out I could just toss the ornaments, so we decided to start the tradition of year ornaments from the very beginning in 2003.

Here is the progression of our ornaments...

2003- Our First Christmas; 2004- Christmas in Paris (ball) and Germany (Nutcracker) with my parents; 2005- Cross because that was the year that we both felt like we grew the most in our faith as individuals and as a couple; 2006- We got married!; 2007- Our first house; 2008- Peyton's first Christmas; 2009- Picture of us as a family (actually we haven't printed and put the picture in there yet so as of now our family was Hispanic and had two boys in 2009).

And this is the one that I ordered for 2010 off of Etsy! I was looking for a pregnancy one but at the same time I wanted one that included Peyton. I looked and looked and didn't know what I was going to do and decided to browse Etsy one day and found this woman's shop. She has a bunch of various ornaments for different occasions and does different finishes. I am in love with it and think it is my favorite one so far. It should be here today and I am so excited!

Sugar Cookies with Extra Flour

Every year as a Christmas tradition we ice sugar cookies as a family. It always turns into a contest between the kids and is something we look forward to every year. Since Peyton LOVES to bake, my mom thought that it would be fun to include Peyton in the baking process and invited her over and she sure had fun!

Here they are at the start...notice the progression of messiness!

She got the hang of rolling pretty quickly and would follow Granny's instructions and did a great job! Her favorite part however was the flour and dumping it all over the place.And every helper needs to enjoy her work at the end and she thought they were delicious and would ask for more cookies. She even told me to put them "in my mouth"! She had a blast and was such a mess! Good Christmas memories!

Now we get to decorate on Monday night and more fun will be had I am sure....and more messes!

Peyton's Busy Social Calendar

It seems like Peyton has had the busiest social calendar of all of us and the past couple of weeks have been filled with Christmas activities and we still have several more this week!

We started with a family Christmas party for Peyton's school. I tried to get her to pose for a picture before we left and this is what I got...what a ham!



We got our pictures taken with Santa and she was very excited about seeing him. The whole way there she told us she was going to a "Santa Party." We got a nice family picture and one of just Peyton but the school gave us hard copies and I haven't had time and I don't see myself having the time to scan them. After our pictures we did the craft tables around and made various things including a picture frame, nativity scene out of stickers and of course a cookie! At the end they had a kid geared play of the Christmas story which Peyton loved and kept telling me what was going on at various parts!

Throughout the week we have had lots of fun Christmas crafts and activities at home. We made sugar cookies and decorated them a couple of times, made Christmas cards for family including the pets and did various reenactments of the Christmas story and other fun crafts. Then last night we took Peyton to the Dickinson Festival of Lights and she LOVED it! She was having a hard time finishing dinner and I told her we couldn't go see Santa and the lights if she didn't finish...well she finished quickly and was so excited to go see Santa!

The line for Santa was super long so we just waved at him from a distance and instead made some sugar cookies. She made one for herself and one for mommy. She is getting to be a pro at icing cookies and is probably wondering why we do that so much lately!

And keeping with the cookie decorating theme...we had a cookie decorating play date at a friends house this morning and we made more and more cookies. She LOVED the gum drops but was really sweet about listening when I would tell her that was the "last one" for each cookie and listened well when I told her it was her last cookie to eat. She had tons of fun and made cookies for Granny and Papa....when I asked her if she was going to make one for Daddy she told me, "No...all mine." Hmmm.....sorry dad no cookies for you when you come home!

This week we have another Christmas themed play date, Peyton's class party at school and a party at gymnastics and then I think her parties are done and we head into the week of Christmas with just family get togethers! And Daddy is off all next week which I am so excited about and it also means that since it is a calm week next week,we aren't really going anywhere for Christmas and John will be home for help......we will be starting the joys of potty training! Fun!