6 months already?? Almost 7!!

Hi there! Sorry my mom doesn't write on here very often...I keep her pretty busy :)

Ryan celebrated 6 months on February 27th, and she had her 6 month doctor visit the following day. The baby next to us in the waiting room was only 2 days older than Ryan, and the two little girls enjoyed looking at each other and reaching for one another. Ryan weighed 17lbs, 12 oz and was 26 inches long. I was surprised....she is a little chunker, and I was expecting 19 or 20 pounds, but what do I know?!

She got 3 more shots. It was not as bad this time as it was the first or 2nd time. She was fairly happy and alert the day of the appointment, and she only cried as she was being stuck and she was pretty much fine after the stick. The doctor is always totally enamored with little Ryan (it is understandable - she is irresistibly cute) and this time was no different. When we told her that Ryan has started having tantrums when a toy is taken away or falls out of her hands, the doctor lit up and exclaimed "That is GREAT!! That is a 9 month milestone!!!" I am happy that she is "advanced"...but come on....of all things to be advanced at, she chooses throwing fits. How nice.

Don't get me wrong, Ryan is still a happy baby. But for several weeks there, she was teething, and was basically a completely different child. She was extremely fussy, and completely pitiful. Her poor gums were hurting her so badly, and she didn't understand what was going on. I try to be completely patient with her and do all I can to make her feel better, but a screaming inconsolable baby can really take a toll on the nerves!

She has 2 teeth now, the bottom middle two. After she cut those two teeth, we started to see her coming back around to her happy, playful self. She started refusing food at one point, which was completely frustrating and heartbreaking for me. I had force feed her through screams and tears several times, but gave that up in a hurry. I figure she won't STARVE, and there is no point in making mealtime a miserable experience. She still took a bottle, so I knew she was at least getting the nutrition she needed.

What? No food??

I suppose that she was not eating due to her teeth hurting her, however - I started making all of her baby food with all organic fruits and veggies. I don't think that is why she was not eating, but perhaps the change in flavors made her uneasy. I have been reading and researching a lot on health and food lately, and without getting on a soapbox here, basically we have decided to eat as organically as possible. I just want to have as much control over the things we are eating as possible and not eat a bunch of junk food with ingredients that we can't even pronounce. We are transitioning slowly - it will be years before we are ultimately where I would like to be, but I can already tell a difference just in the past several weeks. It helps out at the grocery store too! Since the healthy and organic food is more expensive, I am much more careful about what I buy and don't make a bunch of impulse buys. I just get what we need and that's all.

Ryan's favorite foods so far are bananas with berries, and squash. I have been trying to get her to 3 spoon meals a day, and then bottles after and in between. I found some organic baby crackers that basically dissolve in your mouth, and she LOVES them. I love them too, because they keep her VERY happy and entertained in her highchair, giving me a window of time to do dishes, cook, clean, etc. It is adorable and amazing to watch her look for the cracker pieces on her tray, reach for them, wrap her little hand around a piece, and put it into her mouth. She is very smart, and figures these things out in no time flat!

Ryan likes to play with her toys, but she seems to like to play with things that are not meant to be toys even more. Her absolute favorite thing is paper. She loves to crinkle it and tear it in her little hands. We have to really watch her if she gets a piece, because everything goes straight into her mouth, and paper will get soggy and eventually fall apart and could be swallowed. She likes to chew on rubber spatulas, and mommy's phone is especially captivating.

Did I mention how EASY sitting up is?? Why does everyone think it's such a big deal?

Ryan has discovered how to bounce in her excersaucer. It is SOOO cute. She gets the biggest grin on her face and jumps up and down, bouncing away. She will do it for about 10 to 15 minutes before she gets tired of it and wants to be picked up. She knows what the word "bounce" means, and if you tell her to bounce, she gets really excited and jumps, jumps, jumps!

Me and Brother Grimm...he's so handsome!

Ryan had her 6 month photo shoot a few weeks ago. I took her to the same girl that did her newborn photos. I know that I could have just done them myself, but this photographer has TONS more studio supplies than I do, and I really just wanted to sit back and let someone else do it anyhow. My friend, Brianna, went with me. I invited her because she is an aspiring photographer, and I thought that the experience would be helpful for her. She ended up being a HUGE help - getting Ryan to smile, holding her for me when I was busy fetching something, helping pick outfits and backdrops....we had a lot of fun. Ryan was "okay" during the photos....not GREAT, but not horrible either. She doesn't LOVE the camera, which is unfortunate for me, since I take a zillion pictures of her.

A few of my 6 month photos

My photography business is starting to get more and more attention. I have had several people book sessions, and lots of emails inquiring about my services. I have been going out and shopping for supplies for my studio - I have backdrops, flooring options, and lots of cute headpieces for babies. It has been a lot of fun gathering these things, and Ryan has been modeling for me so I can test everything out.

Modeling for mommy

On March 6th, we were "Welcomed Home" at our church. We have been going there over 6 months, but it was never officially announced that it was our home church. Over the past month or so, we have had new members declare it as their home church each Sunday. The pastor would call them to the front to welcome them home. It is kind of a new thing I guess, and since they never officially did it for us, they did it then.

Dave is working a lot, as usual, but he is finally in a position that he really enjoys. I am usually starting dinner when he gets home, and he spends time with the babe while I finish that. Then we eat together, and then it is time to start the baby's nightly routine - eating spoon food, a few minutes of playtime, bath, bottle, and (hopefully) bedtime. There is so much going on all of the time that the days seem to fly by.

Still no sleeping through the night. She made it from 11-7 one night last week, but then she was up once every hour the very next night. We are frustrated about it, but we will make it. It's hard because I have tried everything I can think of...we started her back on cereal in her bedtime bottle, and she will take it now. (she refused it when we tried a while back). We make sure that she has a super full tummy by bedtime. We wear her out completely - she is almost falling over asleep at bedtime some nights. We have tried different types of outfits for her to sleep in, thinking maybe she is uncomfortable, hot, cold, etc. I prop a toy up next to her to trick her into thinking that it is one of us laying with her. We have had her in the crib and in our bed. We have a humidifier, a fan, a white noise machine....she just can't quite make it through the night. She sleeps good in the morning, however. She will sleep from 4-10am most mornings. We just need to back that up a little...10-6 would be just about perfect.

Guess what? I'm gonna be crawling ANY day now!!

Ryan is READY to crawl. She wants to SO badly. She pushes up on her hands and knees and tries SO very hard to move, but just can't quite figure it out. She does the "inchworm" and wiggles on her belly to get around. She will also roll across the room to get to what she wants! (usually Grimm's tail!)

Right now, Ryan's thing is "ROAR!" Daddy like to lay with her and make lion and dinosaur sounds, and she will do it back to you - completely intentional. So, technically, she is kind of "talking" already....her first non-official word is ROAR. Sometimes it is a little scary in the middle of the night...she sounds a little possessed, quite frankly.

I started giving Ryan apple juice in a sippy cup. The first few days I would hold it for her and show her how to use it, then I started just putting it on her tray in front of her. She grabs it and gets it to her mouth, no problem, but she can't quite yet understand that she has to tilt it UP to get the juice out. She is getting there though!

"Walking" to my bath!

She is out of her baby tub and onto the regular bathtub! Baths are SO much quicker and easier now! Dave and I don't have to traipse all over the house collecting bath supplies anymore. It is all in one place and can stay there. She can splash all she wants, and it doesn't make a huge mess across the kitchen floor. We have a couple of bath toys for her, but after a week or so, I took them away - she throws one hellacious fit when it is time to get out and you have to take her toy away, so to solve that problem, I just don't give her a toy in the first place :) She entertains herself by splashing. She stills loves her bath! It's the "afterbath" that she hates...especially the nose cleaning!

A few more shots that I just LOVE from Ryan's 6 month photo shoot

THE END!

It's been a while!

Well, it has been a very long time since I have paid any attention to this poor blog. Understandably, I have had my hands full! Taking care of our little Ryan is a full time job! So much has been going on, that when I do get a free minute or two, blogging is the farthest thing from my mind.

Ryan had her first Halloween. She was a skunk, and it was absolutely adorable. It was so much cuter in person than any of the pictures can possibly show. I could just imagine her getting up and scampering around like a little Pepe LePew, complete with fun sound effects, but unfortunately she can't walk yet and it never happened...it played out many many times in my head though. We carved pumpkins like we do every year, gave out candy to trick-or-treaters and had some home made vegetable beef stew at mom's house. No big annual Halloween party at the Sullivan house this year. Too much going on to throw something like that together. We did, however, get half of our pumpkins stolen from the front yard, leaving me FUMING. We took Ryan up to a pumpkin patch to get some pictures in her skunk outfit as well.

Daddy carved Ryan her very own punkin...

At the pumpkin patch

My Halloween outfit

Ryan also had her first Thanksgiving. We did it at mom's house this year. We stripped her down, sat her in her highchair and plopped some mashed potatoes on her tray for her to play with, but she never really took to them. We would put some on our fingers and put it in her mouth, but most of the potatoes ended up on her chest. She really liked the gravy however. She was a good sport about all of it and let me get some super cute pictures.

Playing with my food

Bashful

Thanksgiving nap after all of that food!

Thanksgiving ended up being a really horrible day for Dave and I. We found out that a good friend of ours died in a horrible car accident the day before Thanksgiving. We went to his brother's house that evening to hang out with friends, and to offer support to the family. It still doesn't seem real. I won't get too into it, because I want this post to stay positive...

Black Friday was also a hard day. We didn't get on the road until later than I would have liked, and ended up getting to the outlet mall around 1:00. I have never had a bad experience on Black Friday, but my nerves were shot and people just seemed 1000 times more rude to me because of the baby stroller. I ended up crying on Dave's shoulder in the middle of the mall.

Our tradition is to stop at the Christmas tree farm on the way home from the outlet mall on Black Friday to cut our own tree, but it was cold and rainy, the baby was tired and I was fried, so we just came on home. I never really got in the mood to get a tree, so I sent Dave out on his own to get one....that's right...I didn't go. He picked one out all by himself. He did a really great job too. All of the tree lots around here only carry Douglas Firs, which aren't my favorite, but as far as Douglas Firs go, Dave got a good one :) It took a couple of days to get it lit and decorated, but the task was finally completed, and Ryan just loved to look at it.

Ryan got a package in the mail one day with a sweet little sheep ornament in it from Aunt Heather, Uncle Shaun, and her cousins Seth and Brady. She "put it on the tree herself".

Ryan was baby Jesus in the Christmas Program at our church. She LOVES going to church. She really likes the music and singing, plus she gets to wear fancy dresses and she LOTS of attention. Dave and I were Joseph and Mary in the Program. I sang a solo and Dave just had to gaze at me and the baby lovingly :) Ryan was SO good the whole time! During the first 4 songs, Jesus hadn't been born yet, so Dave had her in the back of the church. Them the 5th song was my solo I sang as a pregnant Mary and a lady in the church held Ryan in the back while Dave came out to get me to take me to "give birth". At the end of my song, I walked out of the sanctuary, took my baby bump off, grabbed the baby Jesus, and we had to walk up the aisle as a family while the choir sang. Ryan had fallen asleep while she was in the back, and she slept through half of the play. When she woke up, her eyes SHOT open and she had an extremely mad look on her face...she had slept though her 2 favorite parts - the angels dancing in their flowy white gowns, and her friend Mr. Moe singing a solo. She was visibly upset, but she contained herself and never cried. She was awake for the rest of the Program, and she was perfect the whole time (fitting, since she was portraying Jesus, haha). After the Program, I think that every single person in attendance came up to see her and tell her how good she was! Lots of people said that she was such a good baby, and the best baby Jesus that they had ever seen! Several guests asked how old "he" was, and they were surprised to learn that this Jesus was a girl!

Ryan got to go see Santa at our church. She sat on his lap and let me get a few pictures...

Ryan had a good first Christmas. Daddy got us an ornament that is a little silver shoe with Ryan's name, birthday, birth weight and length on it and it says "Baby's First Christmas". We will keep it always!

We got up on Christmas morning and had Ryan open a very special present first thing...it was a pink Bebe Pod seat, which helps her sit up by herself! She sat in her seat for quite a while and opened some gifts and watched us open a few. Ryan enjoyed the shiny bows on packages the most. I tried to put lots of curly ribbons on her presents so she could grab at them with her hands. She would actually rip the wrapping paper herself, but we had to help her get the gift out. Besides her seat, she got the book Goodnight Moon and a few toys. She got lots of clothes and toys from the Illinois and North Carolina families.

New seat!

New penguin friend!

New whale friend!

My Weebles!

We went to my parent's house in the afternoon and Ryan got more gifts there. Her favorite so far is a little mermaid girl that was in her stocking. We gave her a sample of baby food at dinner - peaches, of course, for a little Georgia Girl! She did okay eating it, but again, her favorite was the gravy. I didn't give her very much as to not upset her little tummy!

Merry Christmas from the Sullivans!

It started snowing in the afternoon on Christmas, and left several inches on the ground the next day. We suited up the baby in her little snow suit and went outside for 10 minutes or so, just to snap a few pictures of Ryan's first snow day!! She didn't love it, nor did she hate it...she just cooperated for the pictures, never really smiling, never crying.

Me and Mommy

My brothers are so handsome!

My Daddy is handsome too!

Two days after Christmas, Ryan had her 4 month visit at the doctor. She has grown so much!! She was very good for the doctor, but she had to get 2 shots, and of course she did not like it. It was much easier than last time, though. She cried for a few minutes, but was pretty much okay by the time we got in the car, and she was out like a light after we got on the road. She felt fine for the rest of the day, maybe just a little worn out from the crying. The doctor said that she is pretty advanced and is doing a lot of things that are considered 6 month milestones.

Ryan is getting so big. She weighs 15 lbs, 11 oz. She is 24 inches long (that's 2 whole feet!) And her head was 42 cm around.

The doctor gave us the green light to start cereal and baby food. I mixed up some cereal for her, and there really wasn't much to it and she didn't really like it. She didn't get upset about it, she just wouldn't swallow it. The directions on the box have you thin it out with formula so much that it is basically like trying to feed her formula with a spoon...it ended up all down her front side. Dave and I made her some cereal 2 more times, but we kept getting the same results.

Cereal is not very good

So after some poking around on the internet, we decided to go ahead with baby food and just skip the cereal phase...lots of people on the internet said they did the same thing and that cereal really doesn't have a much nutritional value anyhow, it is just filler and apparently a lot of babies don't like it.

We stripped Ryan down and sat her in her Pod seat, since she is still small and kind of slumps over in her high chair. We gave her sweet potatoes, and she could not eat them fast enough!! She LOVED them! (I didn't think they were so bad either, haha!) She would actually grab the spoon out of my hand and SHOVE it in her mouth! The first time she ate baby food, it went everywhere...she likes to stick her hands in her mouth while she still has food in there, so it gets all over her hands, and from her hands it goes to her eyes, cheeks, legs, hair, chest, and Pod seat! We are all starting to get the hang of the baby food now, and the ratio of food IN her belly compared to the food ON her belly is much, much better now! She has had sweet potatoes, peaches, and peas....and can you believe that PEAS are her favorite, and PEACHES are her least favorite?!?! I think that the peaches are a bit sour for her. But she sure does love her peas! Hardly ANY peas get spilled or spit out! This makes me so happy that she likes her veggies!!

Sweet potatoes!!

Yes, they are good!

Ryan is so much fun and can do so many things! She is using her hands - she can grab a toy in front of her and shake it or bring it up to her mouth. She can also move a toy from one hand to the other. She still doesn't have a lot of interest in rolling over (I think she could if she wanted to though) but she can lay on her tummy and lift herself all the way up with her arms and hold her head up and look at you. She will sit in her highchair for a half hour or so and play with a toy on her tray. She will look at you when you talk to her and she recognizes Mommy and Daddy's voices. She giggles and "talks" a lot. She will lay in her crib and have an entire conversation with her hands. Oh, and she sucks her thumb...great. I am not very happy about that, but we will break her of it before she gets too big! She drools constantly, so she has to wear bibs. She likes the sound of laughter, and she is still in LOVE with music! She still likes Justin Bieber, but she likes bluegrass now, anything with a BANJO!! She still loves her bath time, and we had to take out the "baby bumper" in the bottom, so now she just sits in the whale tub with no seat. She can stand up from a seated position all on her own, you just have to hold her hands for balance. She loves to stand - she is SO strong, she just doesn't have the balance down yet, so you still have to hold onto her.

She likes beards - she likes to touch daddy's beard, and our friends Mikey Sullo and Mike Conkin both have some facial hair and she just loves to look at them and smile. She can focus on objects. She likes to look at the dogs, Brother Grimm will let her pet him on the head, and Brother Tonka still gives her lots of kisses. She is going through a "Daddy Phase" right now, where if she is upset, nothing will do except Daddy. She goes to sleep on him much faster than she will on me. She typically wakes up pretty happy, and when you walk up to pick her up, she smiles, smiles, smiles when she sees your face.

She is in 3-6 month clothes, but will move on to 6 month clothes very soon! We had to do an emergency trip to the store the day after Christmas because she woke me up in the middle of the night and she was VERY upset about something. I took her to change her diaper and her back was soaking wet! Her diapers were just too small, so we had to run out and get the next size up.

After her nap one day several weeks ago, I found her with her head squished up in the corner of her cradle with her little body all cock-eyed staring at me as if to say "GET ME OUT OF HERE!" So after that, I went straight to the store to get her some sleep sacks and I put her sleep positioner in the cradle. I am petrified of SIDS, so no more blankies in the cradle with her and she has to sleep in her positioner, which keeps her from rolling over or wiggling around too much in her sleep.

For Ryan's first New Years Eve, we stopped and got a few sparklers and some Megamillions tickets (Dave informed me that we did not win by telling me that he would be going back to work next week...boo) The 3 of us went out to eat with our friends Mike and Jayme Conkin, who will have a little one of their own next year for Ryan to play with!! Hooray for playmates! After dinner, we came home and lit a few sparklers for Ryan - she liked to look at them, but didn't quite know what to think. She just stared blankly, never smiled, never cried. She fell asleep around 10:30, but Mommy and Daddy stayed up to see the ball drop, and went straight to bed after midnight!

Hmmm...what is that?

Sparklers!

Well, that pretty much brings us up to date. Here are just some fun pictures...

Mommy, Ryan, and the boys

What a face!

Checking out her crocheted dress from Grandma Judy

We have had Daddy home from work with us since Christmas Eve, and he goes back on the 4th. We have LOVED having him home and are going to miss him horribly when he has to go back :( He has been a big help around the house, and we have gotten a lot of things done that have been on our "To-Do" list for a long time now.

~the Sullivans

What a Weekend!!

Oh my goodness! I have had the most wonderful, crazy, busy weekend and I just had to blog about it because I don't want to forget it!

Friday, mom, Ryan and I went to the Country Living Fair held at Stone Mountain Park. It was far and away the very best festival we have EVER been to! Pretty much every tent was offering something really amazing - so much so that we didn't know what to spend our money on. They were having classes and demonstrations all day long, and we sat in on a class about rug hooking. It was awesome! Rug hooking is something that I have wanted to get into for a very long time, and I always figured that it was pretty much the same thing as needlepunch, which I am really good at, but turns out it is actually much different. I learned so much and got literally ALL of the information that I need to start doing this as another hobby (and for profit...have you ever SEEN how much people charge for a hand-hooked rug?? Let's just say that the going price is SEVERAL hundred dollars!) Also, the lady teaching the class, Leslie Mccabe, sat with me and showed me how to do it, then she let me practice on her equipment! I think that I totally showed up the other ladies who tried it (both were over 50 and claimed that they had been hooking rugs for years!)

Leslie Mccabe and I!!

Mom and I both got some fantastic "treasures"...I got some handmade pottery dishes for Ryan's primitive kitchen, a great primitive crow stitchery, and some funky "Trophy Wife" tags for me and mom. There was also an artist there that mom and I both really admire - her name is Jeri Landers, and she does paper cuttings as well as write children's books and illustrate them. We have seen her at festivals before and we always buy from her. She is local, and a really nice person, plus her work is beautiful! She has started to do soldered charms, like the ones that mom and I both collect, with her paper cuttings in them. I got one with bunnies in it, as well a copy of her first book, which she signed for Ryan and wrote her a special note in the front cover.

My treasures from the first day!

We also saw Sue Whitney at the Fair - she is "famous" in our little world - she is frequently in magazines we like and she has written several books on Junk Market Style.

Sue Whitney!!

Mom got her picture taken with the "Ask A Country Vet" Doctor! He was extremely nice, and talked to us for a long time. As I was taking Sue Whitney's picture, he asked "is that lady famous or something?" haha. He seemed really underwhelmed that he wrote for Country Living magazine! He just kept saying "I'm just a vet from Ohio!"

There was bluegrass music floating through the trees and pumpkins were everywhere. The weather was gorgeous and I just wanted to live there, it was so perfect! I literally could not sleep Friday night because I had so many ideas running through my head of things I saw at the Fair that I wanted to make!!!

Friday night, my parents took us to try a new Mexican restaurant that I had heard good things about. It was good, but not as good as "our" Mexican restaurant in Loganville.

Saturday morning, I had a photo shoot for a little boy's first birthday, as well as some shots of him with his parents. They picked a great location and the pictures came out really nicely. I had a lot of fun shooting them - I am loving my "job"!!

After I got home from the shoot, there was a festival going on up in Snellville, so we went to check it out. Mom and I had initially wanted to get a booth at this festival, and we really should have because it was really horrible and we could have made a KILLING!! We would have been the BEST booth by FAR!! But Beren's Frozen Custard was there and Dave and I got some custard, so it wasn't a total waste of time!

Saturday night, Dave and I volunteered to be chaperones for the church youth group's trip to the corn maze. We had a really good time there as well, and got to know some of the youth a little better. There was an amazing sunset that night and the sky lit up with gorgeous colors of orange, red and blue. Then when the moon came up over the maze, it was peeking in and out from behind feathery clouds and looked as if a witch would fly in front of it any minute! It was so pretty!! Oh, and I got to pet sheep and goats, so I was one happy girl!!

Sunday morning we had a great guest speaker at church, and we really enjoyed his sermon. After church, mom, Ryan and I took Dave to the Country Living Fair so he could enjoy it as well. We had a great time, but we were a little disappointed because we didn't get there until 2:00 pm and even though the Fair wasn't over until 5:00, many of the vendors were beginning to pack up their things! The Fair was like a ghost town - there was almost NO people there and we pretty much had it all to ourselves! I am so glad that we had gone on Friday as well, because I would have been much more underwhelmed if Sunday had been my only experience there. Ryan got a TON of attention in her fabulous orange Halloween tutu. We could hear the "ooo's" and "ahh's" and the "look at that baby!'s" from 20 yards away. She was definitely the Belle of the Ball!

I bought a paper ribbon handmade from vintage papers and antique ribbon - it was one of the things that kept me up Friday night thinking about it, so I figured it was well worth the price! I am SOOO happy that I bought it...it may seem like junk to many of you, but I was so taken by it for some reason. It is my favorite treasure from the entire Fair. Oh, and did I mention that I can not WAIT to try and make one myself??!!

Other than that, we have just been chugging right along! Ryan is growing like a weed...I have already had to sort through her clothes and put away lots of things that she has outgrown. She is very alert and aware now. She holds her head up SO good, and a few nights ago she rolled from her belly to her side all by herself (she couldn't make it all the way over, but I thought it was a pretty big accomplishment for such a wee little girl!) She has a pretty good grasp on the difference between day and night. She still gets up twice a night to eat, but typically goes right back to sleep for us. She stays awake most of the day, with a few naps here and there. She has gotten to taste a few new flavors...just things that we may be eating that are mushy, I will put just a dab on my finger and let her taste...she has had vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry frozen custard, pumpkin cheesecake, and the inside of a peanut butter buckeye. Mom will let her suck on a Twizzler now and then, and she got a little bit of diluted apple juice one day. Sometimes we will put some milk in a saucer and dab our finger in it and let her have it that way...she typically cries when we stop giving it to her...I imagine that it is way better than formula!

Ryan has had lots and lots of visitors as well. Here are some pictures of friends and family that came to see her recently...

Ryan and grandpa

Ryan and her Nini

Ryan on her farm with her friend Melody (our friend Ami's baby) - she is just 2 weeks older than Ryan!! She is SO SO stinkin' cute!!

Ryan with her Auntie Katie

And here are a just few cute pictures of Ryan...

sleeping in daddy's spot :)

riding brother grimm!

Papa helping Ryan model another really cute outfit

I found the punkin I want, Daddy!!

Have a great week!!

~the Sullivans

Daddy's thoughts

So here it is...five and half weeks into being a daddy and I thought...Ryan might like to hear what I have to say as well!

Today is our 3 year anniversary and we are blessed to have a larger family this year (Grimm doesn't quite agree yet but he'll come around). I have to stop and think about how the past few weeks has gone and when I've really come through for Robbi when she needed me to as well as when I didn't. It is so easy to get caught up in the motions of what you "need" to do during your everyday life that sometimes you forget what you should be doing. Cutting grass because it needs it vs. playing with your daughter because well...she's your daughter and nothing is more important right now. Robbi has to keep me in check because honestly I'm not as creative as she is so the constant talking and storytelling is surprisingly weird for me. I stare at Ryan's pretty face and make small talk but don't know what to say. I don't love her less, I just need some work :) She will straighten me out I'm sure...

So today of all days, I should be praising Robbi and how hard she works to take care of us all. There is one obvious response that I am fatter because she is such a good cook and loves doing that for everyone around her to enjoy. I think you probably don't realize how much she enjoys using that talent for everyone's enjoyment. There are also those things that you don't normally think of...She is the one who remembers the birthdays (Sorry Nick, she was busy that day and didn't remind me), she is the one who thinks about savoring the important memories with trinkets and stories that have never been important to me as a man that historically starts over a lot. She calls me out when I'm being stupid and we make fun of each other lovingly. Those moments of fun and friendship are constantly mirrored by the moments when she makes me feel like no one else exists in her world but me. She may reach over to hold my hand when she is sleeping in the car on a long trip or she may just look a me and say something cute but I recognize that I couldn't live without those moments in my everyday life. Those moments that show me that she wants me to be the partner and friend that she shares everything with regardless of where it takes us. We talk about raising Ryan and other babies to come and what we want out of life in 5, 10, 25 and 50 years. I have never had someone in my life that I even thought about those things with.

I heard yesterday on the way in to work this song that a guy was dedicating to his wife of 25 years and between thinking of Robbi and Ryan, I couldn't help but getting water in my eyes (from the humidity I'm sure)...I've heard it before and thought it was pretty but never really cared about the song until this morning...sorry if this is cheesy...

I WILL BE HERE by Steven Curtis Chapman

Tomorrow morning if you wake up
and the sun does not appear
I will be here
If in the dark, we lose sight of love
Hold my hand, and have no fear'
Cause I will be here

I will be here
When you feel like being quiet
When you need to speak your mind
I will listen
And I will be here
When the laughter turns to cryin'
Through the winning, losing and trying
We'll be together
I will be here

Tomorrow morning, if you wake up
And the future is unclear
I will be here
Just as sure as seasons were made for change
Our lifetimes were made for these years
So I will be here

I will be here
And you can cry on my shoulder
When the mirror tells us we're older
I will hold you
And I will be here
To watch you grow in beauty
And tell you all the things you are to me
I will be here

I will be true to the promise I have made
To you and to the One who gave you to me

Tomorrow morning, if you wake up
And the sun does not appear
I will be here
Oh, I will be here.

I know sappy right...I felt pretty dumb for getting all emotional about it but it is what it is...

So...Robbi my looooove...I would not be able to do anything without you in my life. I didn't have a purpose, I didn't have goals or dreams, I didn't have a desire to make myself better. I was just here until you came into my life. Even now everything I do is to only provide for you and Ryan. I don't strive to make myself better for me but for you two. I love you and I love our baby that you made for us. Thank you for everything! You are the reason for me.