Behind...again

Ever feel like no matter how many things you get accomplished, the list never gets shorter???  I constantly live with this struggle.  In fact, it always seems to get LONGER with each thing I mark off.  Maybe I'll figure it out one day and not let "the list" have such control over me.  Until then, I'll just stay behind I guess. 

Anyway, on to more important things...

Yesterday was a special day in the Hadley house! 

We celebrated 3 years with this sweet and sassy little girl...

And 9 months with this adorable little man...

More to come on each of them, so stay tuned!

We love you so much Miss Allison!  Happy 3rd Birthday!!!

And Ryan, I think the calendar is lying to me, because there is no WAY you can be only 3 months away from your first birthday! 

Happy 9 months cute boy!  We love you!

Thanks for the pictures Vanessa!

A Lonely Father's Day

Poor Billy is working out of town and had to celebrate Father's Day on his own. We miss him so very much and wish we could have given him lots of kisses and hugs today. But since we couldn't, we created a special card for him.

Just so you know, we really DO have a gift to give you when you get home.

And don't worry, we will keep the candy SUPER safe for you!  :)

The kids also made cards at church for him...

This is the front of Tyler's card.  It says "To Daddy."  I'm not entirely sure how he pulled off the mirror image though!

The picture is of Tyler and Daddy playing "4-wheeler-eeler" game on Play Station together.

Tyler has caught up on his Daddy time by having two long phone conversations with him over the past couple days.

Allison really missed her Daddy today.

She was crying for him after church so I asked if she'd like to call him.

Still crying she says, "Noooo.  I want him to come hoooooome!"

Ryan obviously can't make a card, but he also missed his Daddy a lot today.

I had to teach my class at church, and Billy usually takes care of Ryan during this hour.

Someone else had to help me out with him today and it was really tough for poor Ryan.

Happy Father's Day Daddy!!!

We love and miss you SO much!

A Month of Discoveries

Well, he's 8 months old.  Can you even believe it?!  I can't!  Ryan was actually sick the day he turned 8 months. He had been running fever for a few days so I decided to take him to the doctor. It just turned out to be a virus, of course. But my reason for telling this is because they weighed him at his visit, and he is now 20 pounds!  He has no teeth yet, but I think the two front ones on the bottom may be working on breaking through soon.
Ryan's past month has been full of discovery after discovery.  He's at the stage of finding and getting into EVERYthing!

Ryan made his first big discovery just a few days after turning 7 months old.  After venturing past his normal crawling zone, he just happened upon Riley's dog food bowl.  There has been no keeping him away ever since!  No matter how many times Billy and I removed him and took him back into the sunroom, Ryan was crawling right back around the corner at full speed to go straight back! I finally caved and let him explore. This time, he approached the bowl very cautiously. He'd crawl a bit closer, stop, and peek his little head around the corner to see if he could spot it.

Once there, he enjoyed raking the food out onto the floor. Amazingly enough, he didn't splash in the water even once. This shocks me because he LOVES splashing in the bath tub. I guess the dog food was way more intruiging!

Then a couple days later he found the stairs. All of a sudden I hear Tyler announce, "Moooooooooooommy! Ryan's climbing the staaaaaaairs." He had only made it to the 2nd step and I pulled him away. About a week later, Ryan made it all the way to the top while Daddy followed along behind to spot him. Lucky for me, our stairs are in a pretty inconspicuous part of our house, so Ryan doesn't locate them on a regular basis.

His most recent discovery was the tissue box....

Can you tell he was having himself a good old time?!

Ryan has also been "cruising" along the furniture for a couple weeks now.  And lately he's even getting brave enough to let go of what he's holding onto in an attempt to stand up all by himself.  He isn't quite coordinated or strong enough to do it just yet, but it doesn't keep him from trying!  (And at this rate, I'm sure it won't take long!)

There really is NO holding this kid down.  He's deteremined to be up and at 'em!  Remember the highly secured seat we transitioned to???  Uh, yeah...

We were eating dinner the other night, I took like 5 steps to the kitchen and back, and found him doing this!
I guess he's getting strapped to the chair now.

Chocolate Chip Sprinkle Cookies

Billy likes chocolate chip cookies.

Tyler and Allison like sprinkles.

I like to bake.

So we made some chocolate chip sprinkle cookies this evening!

Apparently, Ryan likes sprinkles too...

Yes, I knew he was playing with the bottle of sprinkles.

And no, I have no idea how the lid came off.

Some things we may never know...

Mother's Day Love

Remember these two sweethearts that I promised I was still taking pictures of?

They picked dandelions, wild strawberries, and berries as we played outside the past couple days. As each item was gathered, the collection was given to me as one of my Mother's Day gifts (totally their own idea!).

While picking the strawberries (on Thursday), I was told it was a surprise and that I wasn't supposed to look at it until they were finished. The word "strawberries" slipped from Tyler's mouth at one point and he said, "Oops! Mommy, did you hear that?!" I responded with, "Nope. What did you say buddy?" "Oh. I'm not going to tell you because it was about your surprise and I didn't want you to hear it," he says. SO cute!

Here is the pile I was presented with...

Today, we were discussing Mother's Day again and Allison says (in the most precious voice you can imagine), "We gave you strawberries for Mother's Day." Melted my heart!

Then this afternoon, I was given a pocket full of berries (the kind that come off a bush in our yard). They would pick the berries for a while, come running to me with little handfuls, and then deposit them into my pocket. This happened over and over until my pocket was rather full. "We're giving you two Mother's Day presents," they told me.

Honestly, I wouldn't be the slighest bit disappointed if these were the ONLY gifts I received this Mother's Day. For me, these moments are the ones that make all the tough moments of being a mom fade into the farthest parts of my mind. I feel so blessed to have these three precious little munchkins to call my own!

And I'll treasure my Mother's Day berries FOREVER!

7 Months Old Today!

I realize that it seems as though this is becoming Ryan's personal blog, but the months are just flying by and my little guy is growing right along with them.  In his (and my) defense, Tyler and Allison both had their own websites when they were babies and got to be in the spotlight.  So since I never started a website solely for Ryan (because quite frankly, keeping up with just this blog is challenging enough for me), I have to make up for it on here.
With that said, I DO still take pictures of Tyler and Allison, and I'll try my best to do some posts that include them as well!  Until then, here's what Mr. Ryan is up to at 7 months...

• He's a crawling maniac!  Going any and everywhere, especially wanting in on whatever Tyler and Allison are working on.

• He's starting to pull up.  He's been working everyday to pull up to things that are close to the ground, and he's getting stronger and stronger.  Now he just has to figure out how to get back down once he's up, because the falling method isn't making him very happy.

• He's eating solids.  I'm mostly only giving him veggies at this point, but he does get a fruit with his rice cereal in the morning.  He LOVES carrots and won't even touch peas.  If I sneak in a bite of peas in between bites of carrots, he immediately clamps his little mouth shut and turns his head away.  It cracks me up! Ironically, peas were the very first one I decided to give him, and it didn't go over so well!  Other likes include sweet potatoes, squash, bananas, and applesauce.

(You'll have to click to read the captions.  I was having issues.)

• He has a favorite toy.  He's enjoyed other toys, such as his froggy pull toy and his musical Baby Einstein light up toy, but has just recently discovered the toy that MUST go with him everywhere.  You can not even pry it out of his little hands most of the time!  What makes it even more special is that it was mine when I was a baby.

• He likes his back scratched.  Ryan is a pretty active little guy who doesn't like to sit still (even when nursing).  But if you scratch his back, he'll lay on your chest rather still the whole time!  It makes for pretty special cuddle time that's hard to come by with him!
• He is still such a squealer.  It's mostly a happy squeal these days, but he'll still use it when he's tired and upset too.
• He is such a happy baby and loves to smile.  There's rarely a time when you can't get a smile out of the little guy.  Even if he doesn't feel well, he's got smiles to give out.  I get people commenting all the time, "He's such a happy baby!"

6 month portriats

To go along with the previous post, here are the portraits my sister took for Ryan's 6 month photo shoot.  It was a spur of the moment decision, and I am happy she offered to do them.  They turned out adorable!

Not a huge fan of the grass at first.

Alright, I'll be okay if I just keep my arms tucked in...

...and Mommy keeps me distracted.

Thanks Vanessa!

See more of her work and book a session of your own...http://photosbynessa.blogspot.com/

Already Another Month Older!

Since Ryan turns 7 months in a couple days, I decided I better get this one taken care of...FAST!

Going back a couple months to March, when Ryan was 5 months old...

• He was rolling all over the place.  He rolled from his back to his tummy right after turning 4 months old, so he had been getting better and better at it throughout his 5th month.
• He learned how to escape from the Bumbo.  Then we tried the Bebe Pod.  That lasted like 2 whole days and he escaped from that too!  So we went on to something with a strap to hold his little booty in place!  Thanks for saving the day once again Auntie!

• He was becoming eager to go places.  Once Ryan learned how much he enjoyed tummy time, he starting working right away to pull himself up onto all fours.  By the time he turned 5 months, he was able to tuck his little knees up under his tummy and was working on the arm strength to push himself up!
• He started to enjoy spending time in the Johnny Jump Up.  Thankfully, it was able to occupy him the day I was decorating Kayden's Spiderman cake.  He hung out, played, and jumped his little heart out while I worked.

• He discovered his feet.  He's really not interested in putting his toes in his mouth (either that or he can't because his little chubby legs won't allow it), but once in a while he'll play with them and pull off his socks.

• He learned to work his vibrating car seat pull toys.  And once he got it, he didn't let go.  He would pull it over and over and over.  It was so great to watch the excitement in his eyes as he realized what he was doing!  Priceless!  (He's 4 1/2 months in this video.)
• He started to show great interest in food.  I decided not to officially start Ryan on solids until he was 6 months old.  But this kid LOVES food and gets rather beside himself when there's any in sight.  So up until that "official" day, I just fed him tastes of things here and there.  There really wasn't anything he'd turn down.



I love my Mum Mums!

• He started to show a great attachment to his Mommy.  He began to get very excited to see me come into sight and started to lean out of someone's arms to come to me.  He also started reaching his little hands out to touch my face and try to get my glasses!

Then six months rolled around...

• He decided he was going to get the hang of the whole crawling thing!  Just after turning 5 months old, Ryan was scooting himself around the floor.  Most often he scooted backwards, making himself very frustrated when trying to get something just out of reach in front of him!  By the end of the first week in March (he was just over 5 months old), he finally got up on all fours and was rocking forward and back.  At this point he was able to get to the toys he so badly wanted by lunging forward and then getting back up on all fours until he made success!  He worked so hard and his persistance paid off.  On April 2 (the day he turned 6 months), he was crawling!  He is one extremely happy, crawling baby these days!

• He learned to sit up.  This came right along with the crawling.  Within a couple weeks of learning these new skills, he could go from crawling to sitting and back to crawling again.

• He loves bath time with the big kids.  Putting a baby in the bath with older siblings could potentially be a nerve racking experience.  So, I probably wouldn't do it under normal cicumstances.  However, we have made this a multi-purpose seat, and it works wonders!  He loves to splash and kick his little legs in the water.  He doesn't even cry when Tyler splashes water in his eyes or Allison pours a waterfall over his little head!

And a few more cute pictures because I just can't resist...

This was a facial expression he practiced for a couple days.   It cracked me up, and I'm glad I snapped a picture of it since it was so short lived!

And here's the laughing video I promised to fix.  He's 4 1/2 months in this one also.