I love you, Ma.

Gunner before hair cut:

After:

I tried using the picture as a Christmas card but it wouldn't fit in the box...aren't they handsome!

Gunner finally said I LOVE YOU! I have been asking him to say it to me for awhile and he said it...my heart melted! I love it too that he calls me Ma, not mommy or mama...just Ma. When I drop him off in the nursery he is such a good boy and goes right in says hi to everyone, and when I pick him up he sees me and yells, "MA!" and runs to me...I just love it! And then says Bye to everyone! He is sooo sweeeet I just love that buger! He also loves to pretend he is Buzz lightyear and "flies" all around our house with his arms stretched out behind him saying "EEEeyond....Sheeeeww...Shew!" like he's flying.
This is them this Halloween or twice a week...they love dressing up!

This is a picture of them watching Toy story...I think this was early this fall...


Ryder is loving Toy Story!! All three of them! He will quote sayings from the movie all day long, like "There's a snake in my boot" and I can't quite make out one cause he says it really fast and laughs soo hard afterwards...it's pretty cute! Ryder is so independent and is really easy to take care of always has been...I am soo blessed. The stuff he says like, "Can I ask you a question?" And then really asks me a question still kinda blows my mind because he is actually understanding what a question is. John and Ryder got me these beautiful pink daiseys from Target this summer and about four times a week Ryder asks me if I want pink flowers from the grocery store!


I am very lucky today because I heard the baby's heartbeat today and she said everything sounded great! Oh ya, did I tell ya I am pregnant? Almost 16 weeks...and the heartbeat was 145...I'm thinking another boy...but I will be totally suprised no matter what! She/He is the size of an apple right now...no more sickness still kinda tired at the end of the day but not complaining.

Sweet Babies

Ryder-
He had a really fun week this week. John decided to take him the the scrapyard (a plave you can take metal/alluminum for money). He came home and told me all about it, with sparkles in his eyes. All he wants for Christmas is a claws machine...(can't find one anywhere!!!) but he told me that were two machines there and one was green and picked up a car! He called Nanny Vanderpool to tell her about the scrapyard and she wasn't quite making out what he was saying so Ryder decided to spell it out and said, "T-O-Y, scraaaapyaaard!" Something else that is really fun for him is when Poppy Vanderpool comes over...somehow Ryder can find a way for poppy to take him home! : ) Well, Poppy agreed the other day to bring him home with him and said get in the truck. See, we kinda are ghetto and when nanny or poppy take him somewhere they don't always have a carseat, so Ryder knows the standard procedure and gets in the backseat and lays down so the policeman won't see him!! :) Brian (poppy), John, and I were talking and lost control of the time and we hear from the backseat of poppy's truck "Come on let's go Poppy!".

Gunner-
The other night we cut Gunner's hair...it was so sad because that was kinda his trademark...he was adoreable...but still is adoreable and looks like a big boy...we will continue to grow his hair out, not because we don't like the cut, but because he has beautiful hair. Last night I made my favorite Christmas candy (white choc. covered pretzels) both the boys helped, it was a fun night! It was time for bed and I gave Ryder one with some milk and sent him to bed, but I decided to keep the little one up a little longer and hold him and rock him and let him eat a pretzel and drink his milk as I just loved on him! Sometimes, with the second child everything just becomes precedure and a check off list, and sometimes even the big brother gets to do a little bit more than the little one, and I do get to love on him, but last night was so sweet I just love that little angel boy and he is growing into such a sweet boy. He also LOVES ALL ANIMALS! He has been carrying around a little plastic horse and today at lunch he was petting it and trying to feed it a carrot!

Hey all! I haven't written anything for awhile so I thought I would play some catch up! So, I quit my job! HAHAHA! Well, I will say it was the perfect job for me...I loved it...but not so much the hours...I was a tired mess (because I wasn't getting home until 1am some nights and then I woke up at 7-7:30 with the boys) and I felt like I fell off the face of the earth, because I never saw anyone anymore! Mostly my family. So John said I should just quit and I did. #2 I am prego again...kinda another reason I quit, but I am 9 1/2 weeks along and really excited and already getting a belly?! 3rd child not so fun on the body! But feeling good, I am a lucky one (amy grant) that doesn't throw up, I am just ridiculously tired alllll the time and I feel sick until like 3pm and then I get a boost of energy just in time to clean before Johnny boy! This time around no final names yet...I LOVE my girl name and it's warming on John, and we kinda have a boys name, but not final on that either...I will keep you posted. We didn't find out with Ryder, which was a disaster delievery anyway, and we found out with Gunner, but this time we are going to not find out, because we don't care really what it is and since things are now known of when I will deliever and the exact time, we wanted something to be a suprise!!! I know postings are boring without pictures...so I will get some pictures on here soon!

Holy Cow!! I just finished my first two weeks at working full time!! Whoa! And I love it! Seriously, the perfect fit for me. TONS of multi-tasking fitting for me because I get bored real fast! I would tell you more on here of what I ran into these last couple of weeks...but just had orientation and HIPPA laws don't allow it! : )
Anyway...I think I have told you the AUTUMN is my fave! So here are some projects planned for me and my boys!
1. Make a leaf chart....remember in school you found leaves and put them on poster paper and wrote under them what kind of leaf they were?
2. Find pretty colorful leaves and put them inbetween wax paper and iron it and hang them in the window...also you can use that dip too...
3. My mom would take a shoe box and cut out one of the long sides and turn it on its side and I would create a landscape with construction paper...so the bottom of the box is the back and I would put clouds there and on the other long side which is the bottom I would cut out a pond and stand up flowers...it was fun for me!!
Anyone else have fun crafty ideas to do with little ones gearing up for snowy days?!

She works hard for her money!

Sooo...I just got a full-time job. I start next week. At Mercy hospital in the labor and delivery dept. from 3-11pm. Ok, so I am going to talk through my emotions right now about it. I haven't worked full time in 3 years, SO that in itself is going to be a huge change. Who is watching my kids you asked? My hubby John is going to go to work in the morning and get home around 2:15 and then I am going to go to work.

Cons
Some downers about it are...we (John and I) won't see each other that much, for right now anyway (usually he is off in the winter and then I think I will be glad to get out of the house). I won't be putting the kids down for bed, which I never really did before, we don't have a bedtime routine they just go potty and sometimes John reads them a bible story. I won't eat dinner with them. (No more dishes? How is that a con?!)

Pros
I get full time benefits and Ryder will be able to be on the same insurance as us (long story, because of his surgery). You get paid more working odd hours at the hospital!! Yeah! And I still get to stay home with my kids during the day and raise them like I have wanted to and still get to help provide for my family and take some stress off my awesome husband that has worked so hard for us all these years! (big breath) What a fun job too working in that dept?! If I would have gone to school for any kinda "medical" degree it was between an eye dr and a labor and del. nurse. So I am kinda close to it...I think that I will learn a lot and maybe down the road I will use my tuition reimbursement! Oh and I get a 401K thingy!!

State Fair 2010

Ok, I wish I could honestly say "I LOVE THE STATE FAIR!" I can't. I think I just kinda like it! I feel like I have to go because I'm an Iowan, I mean I am really proud of the fair, but it can get overwhelming. John doesn't love it either, but we like to take the boys and they have a blast and that's all that matters! We usually go in the evening during the week and half off. We go to our usual and the best homemade lemonade stand and grab a corn dog while we are there...then walk around the the birthing center and the boys just run around and laugh, they loved it!


Then we walked around and saw the animals as usual, John took Gunner down the big slide...Ry was too scared. We saw the heavy machinery, something my boys are obsessed with. And played on some equipment that was set up for sale. We finished with a wonder bar for my Johnny and cheese curds for me! It really was a great time.

Deal

So my little Ryder is throwing up right now. It is the saddest thing to watch! I hope Gunner doesn't get it!! Anyway, I love it when I find great deals and its sooooo cute! I like to look at jcrew magazines, and others to find outfits that I can put together that I already have in my own closet. Anyways, I saw some shoes that I loved from jcrew that were like $200. I was like...WHAT? So I have been checking out other cheap stores and not finding a thing! And then...I took something back at TJ MAXX, one of my faves, and decided to look at the shoes there. There I saw them the ones that looked almost identical to the jcrew ones and better yet on clearance! So hear they are for a whoppin $15....Don't you love my model?? (I know there could be problems later on in life, but he's sooo cute!!)




Here is my other cute shoe model...and more appropriately...well kinda..