okay, okay, i'll post

Warning - there is a whole lot of cuteness going on in this post! :-)

First of all, for those who may or may not know what has been going on with me for the past couple of weeks, just know that I'm staying at my current job and all is right in the world.

Second, can I just say how excited I am that it is finally time for this?? Mom and I are going Friday...I can't wait!

Third, how did this kiddo get to be such a big boy so fast?

Wearing his cute raincoat for the first time, helping Dada fix the fence after Ben dug out of it AGAIN and broke 5 more planks. Anyone want an almost-6-years-old beagle/lab? ;-) The matching hat didn't fit on Ry's big ol' head, so he had to wear a beach hat.

Call me a terrible mother who doesn't teach her kid manners if you must, but I found this hilariously adorable. Last Sunday, I really wanted to go to Flap Jack's for breakfast, but we had gone on Saturday and I felt guilty going twice in the same weekend. So I sent Tony off for donuts. Except it was the first time in 2 years and 4 months that Ryan had let us sleep in (he slept until 9! I woke up at 8 - grr), so Hilligoss was already out of the good stuff and Marsh had not much left. Tony was able to find a few goodies for us and luckily he and I grabbed our's before Ryan got up because, as you will soon see, Ryan decided he needed to try each one before settling on a winner.

I'm not sure if a winner was ever declared, but the chocolate icing on the Bavarian was about the only thing he ate.

We might actually get our garden planted this week! The weather has been so insane lately that we've been too scared to plant yet for fear of one last frost. Tony (and Ryan) tilled up our newly expanded garden area last night, and I think they may be planting this afternoon. We planted my strawberries and blueberries last weekend on the side of the house - hopefully they will live! Not a great selection this year.

Anyway, here is Ryan playing with his dump truck in the garden...

Chasing Mama with a worm...

"Tilling" with Dada....

And a lovely dirt smile. Okay, it's a fake smile. He won't smile at the camera, but if I say "show me your teeth!" it kind of looks like a grin. I'll take what I can get.

outtakes

Our family pictures on Saturday turned out FABULOUS! It was SO hard to narrow down which ones we were going to purchase - luckily one of the great things about Portrait Innovations is that they give you a CD with all of your photos on it - not just the ones you purchased. :-) Thought I'd post a few of the outtakes from our session...see the little slideshow below.

We had a dreary Mother's Day here, as far as the weather went, but we had a great time hanging out with family! Hard to believe it was my 3rd Mother's Day already!

the weekend - finally!

Okay, so its Thursday and I'm just now posting about the weekend - it could be worse, right? I didn't want to post until I had pics ready, and I just pulled them off the camera this morning.

Friday ended with dinner at Nana's (Chicago's Pizza - took 90 minutes and then the order was wrong! Grr.)...where we got to meet Nana's new puppy, Tillie Mae!

Here Ryan is telling Tillie to look at the camera - too bad he rarely does when I tell HIM that! :-)

Here they are wrestling over the soccer ball.

Okay, this is not posed, I swear! And I'm totally getting one of these for my house (kidding!) because Ry just crawled right in and stayed for like 10 minutes!

Saturday morning we did some garage sale-ing with Sandy, then home for lunch and a nap. Tony and I went to a party that night for Erika and Erin's (twins) 30th birthday, and Ryan spent the night at Sandy's for the first time.

Sunday we headed to the zoo for some shark-petting, giraffe-feeding, choo-choo-riding fun. Here we are waiting in line for the giraffe feeding. There was a very, um, frisky male that day attacking all of the ladies! They just kept running from him - ha!

Who needs the stroller when Dada is around?

Ahh...the choo choo. I hate this thing. It used to be cool because it took you all around the actual zoo. Now you get to go "behind the scenes" and see the...are you ready for this...maintenance facility! Whoo-hoo! Oh well, the kid loves trains, so what can you do?

This weekend calls for a possible day off tomorrow, and dinner with Nana at Los Toros tomorrow night, family pictures at Portrait Innovations on Saturday morning, a hog roast at Bob and Addie's Saturday night, and Mother's Day activities on Sunday. Hope all you moms out there have a fabulous day on Sunday!