Bonus Post

Just wanted to share a few more cute shots from the last month - I can't help myself!

Emily now rolls over proudly and enjoys her tummy time (for a little while at least). Here's big brother keeping her company while she practices lifting up that precious dome of hers. Ok, so maybe he just wants to play with her toys...but still, cute photo, right?
Ryan had a ball "helping" with the leaves this year. I made him a massive pile and he had a blast perfecting it and then running full speed into it over and over.
Wheeeere's Ryan?
We also welcomed another cousin in late November -- Kellen David! Here is Ryan meeting him for the first time.
Ryan recently fulfilled his "doodies" to get his much-anticipated scooter. :) Here's a shot of him taking it for his first ride.
Last, we also finally put one of his birthday presents to test...his froggy rain gear. He had a blast splashing in puddles and tromping around in the rain this weekend with daddy.
Now, onto Christmas season! We've already decorated our tree, hung our lights and I'm hosting my annual cookie exchange this week. It's crazy how fast time flies. We are looking forward to spending Christmas with grandma and grandpa Trammell and are sure to have more fun to share here soon! Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Thankful

This year we have so much to be thankful for -- 5 new healthy babies and papa's health stick out especially, but we are so blessed with such a supportive, loving family all around...we are so thankful for each and every one of you. :)

We celebrated Thanksgiving this year with the Mungenast clan in sunny Florida. We had gorgeous weather, a wonderful home to stay in and pristine beaches to explore...who could ask for anything more? We survived the 13.5 hour drive each way, (kids were ANGELS, amazingly), though without an inch to spare in the MDX, and spent a week enjoying family and beach time. Of course I have photos to show you...enjoy some of the highlights of our week.

Emily enjoyed her first trip to the beach thoroughly. What a sweet little beach bum she was:
Daddy and Ryan spent a lot of time with Papa, Haedyn and uncles Josh, Tom and Tommy building various forts, castles, tunnels and creatures in the sand. Here's one of my favorites:
Ryan also loved being buried (what 3-year old wouldn't?):
Though it was warm enough to play on the beach, the ocean was chilly (it was November, after all) but that didn't stop Ryan:
Thankfully, the pool was heated, so Ryan got in plenty of quality swimming and jumping time too:
Nana and papa rented a few bikes and even a bike trailer for the kids. Ryan had a blast being towed around the neighborhood:
She may not have worn it to the beach, but Emily sure did look cute in her swim getup (thanks Aunt Kelly & Uncle Josh!)
And finally, here's our group of pilgrims and turkeys on Thanksgiving. It's not easy to get 5 kids under the age of 4 to sit still...so this is as good as it gets. :)
We are so thankful. Cheers!

Busy Fall

September and October are always busy months for our family. We celebrate 2 anniversaries, 9 birthdays (including Ryan!) and Halloween. It all adds up to a lot of excitement when you add in the "typical" fall activities, and this year Ryan started preschool as well! Here's a few highlights in photos.

This is the only picture I could grab of Ryan on his first day of school. He was so excited I couldn't keep him from running in and playing...well, until the second, third, and fourth weeks, when his teachers had to tear him off of me sobbing...but by the fifth week we were back in action. He loves school now and it's so much fun to hear about his experiences separate from me. He's growing up so fast!
We paid a visit to Manchester Homecoming - and Ryan had a ball. He got to ride a ton of rides, and even rode his first ferris wheel! (He was super excited he could see his school from the top.)
Emily even had her first ride as well, though she was asleep in our Ergo carrier, so she doesn't know it yet.
Thanks to daddy's work, we got the opportunity to once again visit the Great Forest Park Balloon Race in style. It's now something that Ryan really looks forward to each year.
Of course, we can't get through the fall without a trip to Eckert's for apple picking, and Ryan had a ball picking his own apples, especially the ones hiiiiigh up on the tree via a lift from daddy. Yes, that's Emily again - asleep in her carrier. Thank goodness she's a happy, low-key baby. :)
What's that? You want to actually see Emily? Lucky for you she's pretty photogenic. Isn't she getting so big?
Ok, I can't resist. Here's another shot of my little sweetie.
Ryan just celebrated his third birthday with a Cars party and got two of his favorite things for his birthday treat - cupcakes and "frinkles." Here's Ryan helping decorate them.
My little dude on his bday.
Last, I leave you with a shot of our Halloween fun last night. Ryan, after declaring early on that he wanted a "Ryan costume to jus' be Ryan" for Halloween, settled on a fireman, while Emily made a pretty cute jack-o-lantern sidekick. Ryan loved trick-or-treating so much, and of course, we'll be eating his loot for months to come.
Next up, the holiday season! Bring on the fun!

Emily's Baptism

Emily is now 8 weeks old and this past weekend we celebrated her baptism! The day was great, although H-O-T (100+ degrees), and we feel so fortunate to have had so many members of our family there to witness the event.

Here's a shot of Emily pre-baptism. She's getting so big already!

Here is Emily with mommy and daddy. Emily is the 12th person in my family to be baptized in this gown. It is gorgeous and it made the day so much more meaningful and beautiful to know that Emily was wearing the same gown I wore (as well as my dad, his sisters, my siblings and cousins).

Here's our little screamer in the midst of the act of being baptized.

Here you have Uncle Tom (godfather), mommy, Emily, daddy, Aunt Karyn (godmother) and Father Mike Esswein, who performed the baptism.

I love that my sister caught this moment between my grandma, Virginia, me (Carrie Virginia) and Emily Virginia. Simply beautiful.

By now you must be wondering where in the world Ryan was during the baptism since he hasn't been in any photos thus far. :) Well...I won't leave you hanging. He spent most of his time either a) trying to splash in the baptismal font...

or b) opening and closing doors (a favorite pasttime).

That's just the way it works with an almost 3-year old. :) If you ask him about the baptism, he'll tell you that he got to blow out her candle after the ceremony was over, and that we had cake. (Two critical facts from his point of view.)

What a wonderful weekend! More to come soon on non-baptism events over the past few weeks!

Emily Virginia is here!

We welcomed Emily Virginia to our family at 1:50 a.m. on July 11th and she's the most perfect, adorable little baby. We are so happy, so blessed and so grateful for her health and her sweet, calm little personality. Life at home is great so far -- big brother Ryan is loving having her around and already proving to be quite helpful with diaper changes and showering his sister with love.

Below are a handful of photos from the past few days -- enjoy!

The new family of four.

Ryan meets his little sister.

Our sweet little Emily.

Tweet tweet - isn't she precious?

We love our pink, and our giant headbands. :)

Don't you just want to kiss that little face?

Many thanks to our family and friends for all the love, prayers and help -- we appreciate all that you do to support us, more than you can ever know.

All our love to you!

New cousin!

It's a banner year for babies in our combined extended families. Ryan welcomed new cousin Everly Rose from afar in early May, and this week he got to welcome Leighton Elise in person.

The whole way to the hospital I was peppered with questions like "Can I sing to Leighton? Will she like my do-do-do song? What about twinkle twinkle? Can I hold her? Can I snuggle her?" Clearly we've been prepping for a baby in our house too. :) Here's a shot of the proud cousin and his new little friend.
We're hoping to add little sister to the mix here very soon, and cousin "Buddy" soon after that. This fall, Ryan will get yet another little cousin -- so that makes 5 new babies in 2011, and a whole lot of fun! Fingers crossed that our next post will be to introduce you to our new addition!

Fireman Ryan

About a week ago, Ryan got to experience something pretty amazing for a 2.5-yr old. My uncle and godfather is a firefighter and paramedic for the city of Creve Coeur, and Uncle Russ (& Aunt Gayle too) gave us the tour of a lifetime.

Ryan has a play firehouse in his room and plays with his firemen and fire truck every single day, so what a treat it was to see the real thing up close! Every single person at the fire house was so kind to us and went out of their way to make Ryan's evening there special -- the people of Creve Coeur are truly lucky to have such wonderful men taking care of them!

Here's a shot of Ryan in his new fireman hat and badge in the garage of the fire house.

Uncle Russ let Ryan explore every inch of the fire truck and ambulance. Ryan is just old enough to ask a zillion questions, so here's Uncle Russ explaining "what does the orange 'clock' do?" (a.k.a., gauges):

It took a little while to warm up to the idea of actually getting in the fire truck, but once he did, the only thing that got Ryan out of the driver's seat was an actual call where the truck was needed.

While Uncle Russ was out on a call, Fireman Scott continued the tour, even putting on his full fire gear for Ryan. (And believe me, it was H-O-T that day, so this guy is dedicated.)

Scott also helped Ryan explore the firetruck and its equipment, including an axe that was bigger than Ryan. :)

A second call came in while we were there, and Scott even let Ryan "help" push the button that activated the alarm/signal on the street to stop traffic so that the ambulance could turn out of the station. It is literally the stuff 2.5-yr old dreams are made of! Ryan also got to watch firemen slide down the pole and was even able to climb the training tower at the back of the station and look out over the city at the top (I think he would have climbed those stairs all day if we'd let him.) To top it all off, once Uncle Russ was back from his call, he took us inside and showed us the kitchen, lounge, sleeping quarters and gym.

We are so blessed to have family who share their time and talents with us, and as you'd imagine, "Uncle Rust" (as Ryan calls him) is a frequent source of conversation at our house these days, and all his firehouse goodies have been keeping us busy ever since our visit. We hope to soon deliver some sweet treats to the firemen as a thank you for letting us invade their station for so long that evening.

Until next time!

Catching Up

Despite our lack of frequent blogging, the fun at our house never seems to stop (ok, ok - except during marathon tantrums, daddy's business trips and the awesome times when Ryan chooses to "scold" me out of the blue at the supermarket loudly). Seriously though, we have been busy (with fun things, more often than not), and I thought I'd share a few quick photos from recent months.

Ryan's taken a big interest in helping with anything and everything - laundry, cooking, yard work, you name it. It's great - but you have to be willing to accept his style of doing things...like how he sets the table. Interestingly, he sometimes ends up with three place settings and Stephen and I lose out, especially if pancakes are at stake, as they were here.
We took a trip to Ohio in April to visit grandma and grandpa Trammell and Ryan had a ball, of course. We even visited the Columbus Zoo. Ryan is at the blissful age where he knows no fear, so he even enjoyed petting a snake at the reptile house with zero hesitation (sorry Aunt Kelly).
This Easter marked Ryan's second time dyeing eggs, and even now, a month later, he's still asking to do it again. He loves coloring, painting and stamping, so we've been making messes in our kitchen on a regular basis. Here's a shot of the proud lil guy with his freshly dyed eggs.
Ryan has always loved ice cream, especially if it has whipped cream or sprinkles on it. Of course, he also loves going to our local custard shop - Fritz's. In fact, every time we pass the street it's on, he calls out loudly "that's the way to the ice cream place!"
Last, but not least, we hit another fun milestone this weekend. Nana and I took Ryan to see his first real movie in a theater - Rio. Ryan danced to the music and watched every second of the whole film, which is not something I could have pictured him doing until very recently. He really is growing up so fast! Here's a shot of him in his big guy movie seat.
We're ready for summer and little sister to join us soon. Until next time!

Need a giggle? I've got plenty...

One fun part of being a parent is gathering a zillion music-playing, spanish-speaking, wiggling, and/or motorized toys. While incessant playing of these toys can sometimes grate on one's nerves (especially if there's more than one going at once), kids love them, and watching their faces light up and hearing their giggles makes it all worthwhile.

Yesterday our neighbors gifted us with our latest and greatest singing/dancing character - and well, I could describe it...or I could just show it to you.




See how much Ryan loves it? How can I not love it too? What I would give to be 2.5 again for a day, just to feel that simple joy and laugh myself into a fit. Cheers!

Ryan & Haedyn's 1st Circus

We may not have elephants and men shooting out of cannons at our house, but to me, everyday life with a 2-yr old often feels like a circus. When I heard that the real circus (Shriners) was coming to town, I decided that it'd be fun to take cousin Haedyn and Aunt Kelly with our family for Haedyn's birthday gift.

While I was a little nervous about the kids' attention spans, they both were entertained through to the very end (or at least, really close to it). We got them the most obnoxious light-up toys in the arena -- and it was awesome to see them enjoy all the music, animals and performers.

Here's the cutest shot ever of the two cousins during intermission - precious!

Here's a glimpse at the cheering coming from our row -- it was so fun to watch them get excited about each little thing:

Here's my best attempt to show you the awesomeness that is our new circus souveniers (read: obnoxious, strobing light sticks). Yes, the pic is super blurry, but they are also that disorienting. Come visit us and Ryan will shove it in your face, I promise. :)

Poor Aunt Kelly - she had that light stick in her face (courtesy of my son) for most of the show, and even let Ryan play with her jewelry throughout the performance. She's a darn fine godmother. :)

Here's a cute parting shot of Haedyn with her uncle Stephen.
Until our next adventure!