Ryann turns 4

Why do I feel like I am writing these birthday posts WAY to frequently. It only feels like a few months ago I wrote to you for your 3rd birthday.

Today Ryann you are 4 years old. Still my baby, you ALL are my babies. But you are growing fast and mommy doesn’t much like it. A lot has happened this year. I’d say your biggest milestone was learning how to swim. One day in June you just decided all on your own “I want to swim with no floaties.” And swim you did. So now mommy has 2 big swimmer girls. Every milestone is bittersweet for me.

This was a special year for you and me. We got to spend a lot more time just the two of us while Micaila was in pre-k. With you being my 2nd baby we have never really had our special time together. How cool that we had that before “the baby boy” came. 🙂

Since mommy was pregnant through out your 3rd year a lot of our life revolved around that. It has been so fun going on this journey of having another baby with my girls. Y’all have definitely made it interesting. You didn’t ask quite as many questions as your big sis. Your main concern was “When is the baby going to be here?” You did, however, love to rub and kiss and love on my belly, a lot. You loved telling me how much you loved “the baby boy”. And now that Caleb is here you have proved to be a great big sister. You especially enjoy holding and feeding him. You are finally calling him by name after weeks of calling him “the baby boy”. It’s going to be such a treat watching you grow up with your brother and sister.

You are growing fast, no doubt, but who you are is much the same. You don’t mess up quite as many words and phrases but you are hanging on to some and that’s fine by me. A few of our favorite Ryannism’s are aminals (animals), rinoculars (binoculars), hanitizer (hand sanitizer) stinky stunk (skunk, however in all honesty stunk actually makes sense to me!) toilet picture (not sure how we confused toilet paper with that one). You still enjoy going to places like Chick-fil-a, Chuck E. Cheese, and of course the pool. Your Aunt Karen has taken you to the Zoo and Florida Aquarium a time or two and you really love that. Your favorite foods include cinnamon raisin english muffins (still), pancakes, eggs, tomatoes (you LOVE tomatoes) and strawberries. You really like activia vanilla yogurt too. You are very good at playing by yourself. I just love listening to you talk and sing with your “aminals” and baby dolls. I don’t think I have ever documented how clumsy you are. I’ll do that now. Girl, you have 2 left feet. You have fallen down the stairs a handful of times, giving mommy a near heart attack. You always have at least 4 bruises on those cute little legs and a scrape or 2 elsewhere. I hate it, but at the same time, your clumsiness says a lot about your zest for life. You get excited about everything so you must run (and then fall) to whatever it is that has you excited. Despite this clumsiness you are a very fast runner. Maybe you’ll make it to the Olympics…. (and then be that girl that falls, hehe, just kidding…) And let’s not forget, you still, will fall asleep anywhere. You are my sweet girl, maybe a little whinier on occasion, but hey, no one’s perfect. You are fun loving, silly, and sensitive by nature, and I can’t wait to see how God uses those qualities through out your life. I pray you will see how fulfilling it is to partner with the Lord in His work.

You are a gift, a precious treasure, to your daddy and to me. We love you so very much. Happy 4th Birthday Ryann Elizabeth.

Returning home

Over the last 9 days me, the girls, and baby boy have been visiting family and friends in Florida. I’ll be honest, I feel pretty awesome having made the trip with all 3 by myself. This is like a HUGE accomplishment in mom world. The drive down took us 9 and a half hours. This is normally a 7 hour drive for us when we have daddy. We did encounter some traffic delays and of course it was a learning experience juggling all 3 children, timing the potty breaks, feedings, and gas fill ups. The way back we cut our time by an hour and a half. We managed to stop once and do all we needed to do. Girls were very helpful to me and I just am proud of them and myself for managing this long trek.

Okay enough bragging. 🙂 Ahh home…… I have two homes. Florida, the home where I get to be surrounded by my family and dearest friends. I enjoy my trips back to this home. It’s always enlightening. I feel like every trip to FL God reveals new things to me or reminds me of things I may have forgotten. I love the time with my family, especially mine and Jason’s parents. I had such good talks with my mom, dad, and Jason’s mommy Linda. What good honest relationships we all have. Even in the midst of conflict (however major or minor it may be) I love my family and I’m learning to appreciate conflict. Good thing to keep in mind is to view conflict as opportunity to be open and honest with people. An opportunity to love them and look beyond our imperfections as humans. This is how relationships should work when functioning properly. This is when it is just so good. We have few close friends in Georgia so I seldom have conflict with anyone. It’s nice, yes. But there is something very rewarding about overcoming conflict and being downright honest with the ones we love. Just a little eye opener/reminder I had this past week.

This trip was quite busy. My purpose in coming down was so that I could throw my best friend Kaitlyn a baby shower. Yes, after having Caleb I thought to myself “Can I really pull this off?!” But I had help from many different people, Linda and Karen (Jason’s mom and sis) Caila and Ashley, (some sweet friends) and even Kaitlyn contributed some food. (I hope I didn’t leave anyone out) I am grateful for the joint effort and it was a lovely shower if I do say so. So excited for Kaitlyn and her hubby. Can not WAIT to meet that beautiful baby.

I also did not anticipate how difficult it would be to visit people. Silly me. I thought the hardest part was going to be driving down. Ha. After the first few days of dragging my children around and nursing on the go, Caleb made it very clear to me that we needed to STAY PUT. He didn’t so much care where he just was sick of GOING. There is a part of me that wants to please and accommodate everyone and feels guilty saying “no” or suggesting an alternative. I HAD to put my little guy first though. Not to mention it’s not like he’s sleeping through the night and we’re all fine and dandy on 8 hours of sleep everyday. Good golly he’s one month old! Why I thought I could fly around town no problemo is beyond me. So stay put we did. In my parents cute little condo. Yeah the girls watched too much tv (not much to do in 1000 sq. ft.) and no I didn’t get to visit with friends as much as I liked to, but it was just what we had to do. It made for a much happier baby and mommy in the end. Fact is I am NOT super mom, (what? are you sure?) as much as I’d like to be. 🙂

Ahh home….. my Georgia home. Where my handsome hubby anxiously awaited us. It’s GOOD to be back. I missed Jason. I missed my house and everything in it. It’s nice to be here and relax with my baby and nurse with no cover! haha! I mean seriously, these are the things I appreciate these days. And going back to Florida is always a bitter-sweet reminder that we are supposed to be HERE. The Lord has already been revealing to us many reasons for why he brought us to Georgia, but we’re confident that he hasn’t revealed it all. I love coming back to our home here to wonder and embrace what all the Lord has in store for us.