Happy Birthday Daddy!

Happy Birthday Daddy! I'm glad I got to celebrate your birthday with you after you and Mommy got back from Vegas. Wasn't the Baked Alaska cake Mommy and I made for you delicious? It was so good that I didn't want to stop eating to pose for a picture. I love you tons, Daddy!

Love, Rylan

Happy 2nd Birthday Rylan and Ava!

We had a joint birthday party to celebrate Rylan turning two and Ava (Rylan's cousin) turning three. Their birthdays are just two days apart, so we thought it would be fun to celebrate together. It turned out so well, and we all had so much fun, that we've decided to make it a tradition (or at least until the kids decide they want their own party)!

We invited all our family over to our house for a pizza party. Here are all the cousins, plus Auntie Bre, enjoying their dinner.

It was so fun watching the birthday girl open her presents! She was so excited!

Rylan was thrilled with his presents too! In fact, he loved every present so much that we had a hard time getting him to open the next gift...he was too busy playing with the one he just opened.

Grandma gave him a whole bunch of new cars and this big mat that he can drive them on. He loves it and plays with it for hours every day.

Uncle Jerimiah, Auntie Jenna, Jada, Ty, and Ava gave Rylan this slide. This has always been one of his favorite things to play with at his friends' houses and now he finally has his own. I can't even begin to count how many times he went down this before he was ready to open the next gift. =)

Mimi, Papa, Aunti Bre and Uncle Jeff got Rylan a new winter outfit (he was too busy to try on the snowpants and gloves). Now he's all ready to go play outside in the cold, wintry weather. Doesn't he look so cute in this outfit?

Rylan and Ava shared an icecream cake...one side was decorated with tools and the other side with princesses. It couldn't have been cuter or more delicious!

Within seconds of putting the cake in front of the two birthday kids, Rylan was dipping his fingers into the frosting and eating it while Ava was sitting there patiently like a princess until we cut her her own piece. What a doll! These two are such good buddies that they even decided to hold hands for this event.

Rylan's birthday was on a Tuesday this year, so we threw his party the Saturday before. The day of his real birthday was pretty low key. We had our friends, Brian and Lara, and their two little ones, Blake and Claire, over for dinner. Blake is one of Rylan's best buddies. We had hotdogs for dinner (Rylan's favorite meal) and then Rylan got to open more gifts. Thanks for the fun new toys Blake!

Mommy and Daddy got Rylan a new train set. It makes noises and has flashing lights and came with lots of train to drive around the track. He's loved playing with this every day.

We ended the evening with Rylan's favorite dessert; chocolate brownies with icecream. Can you tell he's just a little bit excited?

Happy birthday sweet boy! It is so fun to watch you grow up!

Birthday Cake and Dandelions

Over Memorial Day weekend, we celebrated my sister Jenna's birthday. It was a beautiful day and we all enjoyed the warm, sunny weather. We all got together at my parent's lake cabin and enjoyed a feast of spaghetti and meatballs and chocolate cake for dessert. Thanks mom for the delicious meal!

Here we are relaxing out on the deck with the birthday girl. Awe, what a life!

Rylan has been on a big chocolate kick lately. So, needless to say, he was ecstatic when we served him up a piece of chocolate cake and ice cream. It was certainly one of the highlights of his day!

Rylan just adores his cousin Ava! These two are going to grow up being good buddies.
Rylan and I go on walks together every day and one of his favorite parts of the walk is picking dandelions along the way. So, when Rylan saw all the dandelions at the lake cabin he decided to take Ava on a little walk to pick "flowers". They each had quite the bouquet by the time they were done.

"I don't know what was more fun; eating cake or picking flowers!"

I'm looking forward to many more fun days at the lake this summer!

Happy Birthday Jenna! We love you!

Happy 1st Birthday Rylan!

Rylan turned 1 year old on October 13th! I can't believe it has been a year already! I spent a lot of the day thinking about exactly what I was doing at specific times just one year ago. Here are just a few of the special times I enjoyed reminiscing about: 7:00am-started feeling contractions, 3:00pm-arrived at the hospital, 9:30pm-he arrived! Oh, it brings tears to my eyes!

We celebrated Rylan's birthday by having a party with family and friends on Sunday (Rylan's actual birthday was on Monday). I must say that the party was a success! Most of our family was there! We also invited several of Rylan's little friends and their parents too. It was so fun to see all the little ones playing together. Rylan has been really into cars and trucks the past several months, so we decided to have that be the theme of his party. Everything from the cake to the balloons to the party favors was cars and trucks related. Even some of the food was served out of dump trucks. I had a fun time planning and decorating! Thanks Suanne (my mother-in-law) for all of your help too!

Here are just a few of the guests chatting away and enjoying some of Rylan's favorite foods that we served at the party.

Rylan is getting a little extra help from Kariya on opening this present. She was pretty good at ripping that paper off. She must have had plenty of practice at her first birthday party. Thanks for jumping in there Kariya! You must have known that Rylan wasn't extactly sure what to do! What a helper!

"Oh boy! A new fire engine that I can actually ride! I only dreamed that this existed! Thanks Grammy and Grampy!"
Mom and Dad, I want you to know that Rylan plays that song on his new fire truck so often that I find myself out in public singing "I see a firetruck, a big red shiny firetruck. I see a firetruck coming down the street." At least I can count on Rylan enjoying my singing.

We got two cakes for Rylan's birthday; I made him his very own personal cake (backhoe loader) with the help of my mother-in-law and a Costco cake for everyone else to enjoy. Oh, I guess I should mention that Bryon and his step dad Mike did help out a little bit with the homemade cake. Using their knowledge of backhoe loaders, we were able to assemble the cake to look as real as possible. Thanks for the advice guys!

Here we are singing "Happy Birthday" to Rylan! If I were to guess what Rylan was thinking at this moment, it would be..."I don't care about that stupid song everyone is singing. Just put me in my high chair and let me dig into that cake already!"

And...what you've all been wondering. Did Rylan like his cake? Of course he did! I thought I'd show you some sequential pictures of this glorious event! So, here's the before picture. Rylan is about to dig in!

During: "Forget the spoon...that takes too long. It's much faster to get this delicious cake into my mouth by using my hands! Oh, so tasty! How did my parents know I'd want chocolate cake with cheesecake filling, and buttercream frosting and Birthday Cake ice cream to top it off? I'm in heaven!"

After: "Whew, I'm stuffed! I know I'm an eater, but this time I really outdid myself. I ate that whole piece of cake and all that ice cream all by myself! Aren't you impressed? Is is time for a nap yet?"
I have to tell you that Rylan actually did start to nod off shortly after finishing. He laid his head down on the tray of his high chair and was ready to take a snooze and probably would have if I hadn't startled him by turning on the camera. I hate it when I miss good photo opportunities like that!

On Monday (Rylan's actual birthday), our family of three celebrated again! Daddy made him a really yummy breakfast of eggs, sausage, toast and fruit, he got to open more presents from Mama and Dada, and he got to eat his truck cake. You can tell how much he likes it from this video! What a fun birthday! Thank you friends and family for joining us in celebrating Rylan's first year of life. It meant so much to have you all there! We hope that you'll be celebrating his birthday with us for many years to come!