Bye Bye baby

For 4.4 years, we have been in baby mode. We have had diapers, wipes, onesies, footies, nose suckers, cribs, and bottles coming out our eyeballs. For most of this time I have felt like I have been in survival mode because we've had a lot of illnesses during the last 4.4 years. I think that made it go by extra fast.

At one time we had a newborn and a one year old. Yikes.

At time we had a crib in Rylan's room, a crib in Max's room, a bassinet in our room, and a pack and play in the living room. So we could lay a baby down or change a diaper in any area of the house. Somehow with all those beds, we got very little sleep.

Rylan had to move out of the crib a little after his second birthday because he weighed 36 pounds and I was post c-section, post Death fever, and MAH BACK HURT!!!! Max, on the other hand, weighs 26 pounds, dripping wet, at 2 years old. Plus, I haven't recently been invaded by tick fever OR given birth. I vowed to keep Max in his crib until he went to college.

Until Saturday.

I put him down for a nap and went out to the kitchen. Where Max joined me 5 minutes later. And gave me a heart attack. I thought it was a fluke and put him back in bed. I checked on him a couple minutes after and caught him perched on his crib rail with all four limbs like he was fixing to stand up and do a tight-rope walk. 

No more crib. Bye bye baby.  This dad gum kid is bound and determined to grow up! Its so rude! So, here is a trip down memory lane. From sweet baby to Mickey Mouse loving, sassypants, running 80mph little piece of crazy.

Oh Max......we were just starting to sleep again.........

So, what do you call the mode after babies where you get woken up with a 2 year old in your face saying "mickey mouse playhouse mommy!!!!!!!!" 

Branson! Days 2-3

What???? Blogs 2 days in a row? People that have all but given up on this blog are going to have like 20 blogs to read when they finally wander back over in this blog's general direction.

The second morning of our trip to Branson, the kids tried out the indoor pool on the grounds of our house. So much fun. Well, for 3/4 of the kids. Max spent the pool time like this:

3/4 fun

"no I will not look at your camera, MOM."

Yeah, that's right. Our house came with shuffleboard.

Yep, if you guess that I spent the entire hour saying "every day I'm shuffling," you'd be right. I know for a fact I wasn't annoying.

And then? It was time for "ILVER OLLER CITY." What? You don't speak four year old? That's Rylan-ese for Silver Dollar City. Because he can't say "s?" No, he says CITY, he just doesn't have time for s's for the whole phrase.

Rylan and Zoe are somewhere in one of those butterflies

My sister Angie and her cutie Zoe

My cutie Max. Its official, they are all sick of looking at my camera.

This falls into the "sacrifice a child if you took a good picture yourself" parenting advice of yester-blog

Thank you, Zoe

Zoe is manually pushing Rylan's face to look at me. She can't control his eyes, thought

The Christmas parade.

SANTA!!!!!!!! I know him!!!!!!

Day 3 involved more shuffleboard ("everyday I'm shufflin, shufflin") and a trip to Branson landing for Texas Land and Cattle and shopping.

View from Texas Land and Cattle, wish I'd taken a pic of my steak sliders. Cause they were BOMB. (On a side note, diet and exercise regime went out the window with blogging, whoopsie)

And then this reindeer gave birth to 4  Rohr grandchildren

And then 3 of them smiled at the camera

When it was time to leave, things go really sweet

Really cute and sweet

And then Max took the sweet and cute and it turned on us!

We had two sleeping babies before we got back on the highway. Loved this long weekend and I think the kids loved it more. Our "Iller Oller City" tickets are expiring this month and I'm in mourning that weather and illness prevented a third trip before our season passes went bye-bye, but I"m so thankful for the two amazing trips we had.

Ry's Bday!

Around the time of Rylan's birthday, life became........very full. I felt very blessed because we were running our tails off, but it was a good kind of stressed. Lots of birthday plans, lots of playdates with friends, and lots of therapy appointments. Blogging had to go bye bye for a bit. I feel terrible, because I didn't blog on Rylan's birthday. I've never skipped a birthday. I am sure he's noticed.

I have a giganticly annoying minor case of OCD that isn't the kind that results in a clean house, but results in me not being able to skip 1.3 months of blogging and just say "okay, we had a good November/December-here's January." So, we're backing up. Have Fun!!!!

We had huge plans for the weekend after Rylan's birthday, so for the day of his birthday, we went to a playdate with our playgroup and took cupcakes. Then, we made whatever Rylan wanted for dinner, which was ham and pineapple pizza and applesauce and cupcakes. Kids got good taste.

Then we opened presents. I pushed this ABC puzzle on him because he needs ABC help with his Developmental therapy. Then he got a TON of legos. He loves legos*** Loves them. Really loves them.

Putting the ITTY BITTY TINY PIECES TOGETHER

For both kids birthdays, we kept it semi small (read: bought way too many presents but didn't have a party) because we had a trip to Branson planned to go to Silver Dollar City and stay at a nice house and celebrate their birthdays with their cousin, Zoe, that has a birthday in between Max and Rylan's.

Here are some pics of Max (2), Rylan (4), and Zoe (6) opening presents. No chaos. None at all.

Grammy made a dairy free cake and it was delish. All of the presents were so nice and we loved our cozy house that we rented. Loved it. Stay tuned for Day 2!

***I am not emotionally ready for legos. They are so freakin small and all really wants is the little lego men.

Tragedy in Connecticut

I apologize for the blog break. Blogger is telling me my pics are taking too much space and trying to charge me. I'm back and forth between trying to fix it and completely forgetting about it because we've all been sick.

My heart is completely broken for the parents in Connecticut that lost their babies. We've had a tough time with a bossy 4 year old and a hitting 2 year old. This morning that all seems like a benefit in life and I'm very grateful. Its 6:20am and I'm watching the news and for once in my life as a mom, I'm counting the minutes until my babies are up because their soft,  sweet cheeks are proof of all that is right in the world.

Every Wednesday and Thursday I take Rylan to therapy at the local elementary school at 8am. Every time I go, they make me sign in and get a "visitor's necklace". Every. Single. Time. I am always late for this therapy. Always. I am always pissed that they make me stop and sign in and tell them why I'm there.  It makes me later. Today? Not so pissed. I'm happy that they have their eye on who is going in and out of that school.

Praying for the family, the friends, the teachers, school nurses, and all the surviving kids whose lives are nowhere near normal and won't be for a very long time.