Surgery Update

We're home! Ryan's surgery was a success! It was fast. Ryan's surgeon felt totally confident that he was able to fix the exact cause of Ryan's pain. Thankfully they were able to do most of it laproscopically. They did have to do one extra small extra incision, but I don't think it's going to make recovery more difficult.  They gave Ryan a lot of local anesthesia so they went light on the general anesthesia. He woke up pretty quickly and is feeling pretty good right now. Of course he's got some pills to keep him happy and pain free. Thanks for praying for him! Praise God for answered prayer! Now we've just got to keep Ryan pain free and I need to convince him that he will NOT be driving anytime soon (doctor's orders, but Ryan seems to have other ideas).

Ryan

McKenna adores her daddy! Of course she does, he plays Candy Land with her and wrestles and they both love to make silly faces together. In fact, she prefers it when he puts her to bed!

I'm at the hospital right now and Ryan is about to head into surgery. Our big prayer request is that the doctors will be able to fix everything laparoscopically and that they won't have to actually cut open his shoulder. The doctor thinks it can all be done laparoscopically, but Ryan has signed off on the fact that he can slice him open if necessary, so we'll see what happens! I'll keep you posted. Thanks so much for praying for him!

Warning....this is gross

Nice huh??? I've gotta tell ya, Ryan is a great husband, father and boss. He's one of the wisest people I know. I love sitting and talking with him on the couch once all the kids are in bed. It's funny how they head to bed around 8pm and before I know it, it's past 11pm. Love him. I tell him all the time that marrying him was the best thing I ever did! But he's got a little flaw. (((gasp)))

Are you ready for this???




He still thinks he's 24!!

He hasn't seemed to realize that a decade has passed him by and he just might not be able to play ball or lift weights the way he did a decade ago. And that is why he's going to be having shoulder surgery tomorrow. The surgery should be pretty routine (but I would still love it if you would pray for him that things go smoothly and that there are no surprises), but I'm dreading the recovery. His right arm will be in a sling for quite some time which is rather inconvenient since he happens to be right handed. He's not going to be able to play ball or pick up Will for quite some time.

Oh and are you wondering what caused that bloody mess on his arm?? Shards of flying rock. You see we've got some rocks in our backyard that poke up just enough that we have to mow around them. Ryan's been wanting to take a sledge hammer to them to get rid of them. Naturally a good time to get rid of those rocks is when your rotator cuff is torn and hurting like all get out. Never mind the fact that those rocks will still be there next spring, they had to go now. See just a little flaw :)

I can't believe he did that....

Ryan took Christian to Hershey Park today!

They pretty much had the best time ever!

Christian keeps telling me how "awesome" it was!

It's a good thing I didn't go....

because Ryan let Christian ride on this.

Ummm...yeah....it's a REAL roller coaster.

He loved it!

MRI

If you're not busy around lunch time today, 12:30 EST, could you say a quick prayer for Ryan. He will be heading into the dreaded MRI tube. You know that one that squeezes your shoulders and is about an inch from your face! It's not a pleasant experience, even for a tough guy like Ryan. I'll be standing by as his ride home just in case they need to give him a little Valium :) I'm sure he'll be fine, but he could use an extra measure of peace!! This MRI is going to determine if Ryan needs shoulder surgery or not. He most likely needs it and I told him to get it done soon since thanks to Will we've already met all our medical deductibles for the year.

Wordless Wednesday!

10:26pm Friday night

I just survived what is annually known as the longest week of my life. The week before the fourth of July. For those of you who don't know, my hubs works for TNT Fireworks. Needless to say, this is a busy week for him. I think we might have seen him a total of five hours this week. Tough on everybody, especially since "fireworks season" actually starts in early May for us. So I wasn't heading into this week feeling all that strong. I started out this week with a horrendous sinus infection and a baby who still likes to hang out with me a few times a night.

I went with a different strategy this year and thought that maybe if we were really busy the week would go by quicker. So we tackled swim lessons, soccer camp and the end of the t-ball season all in one week. Next year I might try the stay-at-home-all-week strategy and see how I like that. Or maybe I'll try the give-the-kids-to-grandmom strategy. That sounds even better.

All in all, I think we ended the week strong.

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  McKenna now thinks soccer is the greatest sport on earth because girls get to wear big pink socks.


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  Christian learned some really good lessons about the fruit of the spirit after having multiple hours long time-outs in his room :) His room that is apparently super small with nothing to do in it even though it's covered with legos.


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  Will did sleep for a seven hour stretch one night. Please, please pray for a repeat of that!!


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  Christian can swim for real without holding his nose and without wearing goggles!!


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  Will smiles at me every single time I look at him. He can be sobbing and then look at me and give me the biggest grin. Oh my gracious he is the most precious thing.


• 
  
  And this is terribly sad but also so sweet. McKenna and I were talking today and I mentioned something about daddy and the next thing I knew she was sobbing. I mean like serious tears streaming down her face. She cried and cried because she missed her daddy. And when I asked her what she missed she said "he snuggles me." And it's true...she loves to snuggle her daddy. She's not so big on snuggling with me, which makes me so sad sometimes, but she's just a daddy's girl. Both of my boys are snugglers with me, so I guess that will have to do.

So go buy some TNT Fireworks!! Go HERE to print a coupon for $10 off a $50 purchase if you have a TNT tent near you!! Have a fun weekend celebrating with your family!!!

Father's Day 2011

This Father's Day was an especially special day for two of the guys in my life!! Will was dedicated to the Lord and Ryan celebrated his first Father's Day as the daddy of 3 precious kiddos!
Aren't they so handsome!

We did our best to get a nice family picture after Will's dedication. This one was by far the best. You should see the other outtakes!

The boys in our family! I'm so thankful that Will gets to grow up in a family with a Daddy who works hard, loves the Lord and who is a man of integrity. And I'm thankful too that Will has a big brother who loves him to pieces and who loves Jesus too!

Celebrating Ryan!

May 12, 2011 we celebrated Ryan's birthday!
Christian & Grandmom made these cupcakes earlier in the day and Christian creatively decorated them ;)



Someone asked me what we were going to do for Ryan's birthday and I said "We're going to Christian's t-ball game and then we're having ice cream cake." Nothing super exciting, but honestly that's probably all Ryan wanted out of the day. He's so easy to please and loves playing ball with Christian. And he loves ice cream cake too!!



Christian was cracking us up photographing everything with his DSi. He loves to take pictures and takes about 20 pictures of the same thing.

Christian showing Ryan one of his pictures he took!

It was a fun family night as we celebrated our favorite guy!

Every Night

This is the scene in my backyard every single night.
What an awesome daddy...he plays ball before he even eats dinner.

And McKenna's been known to hang out with a few snacks while watching the game from her slide. The nights are starting to get darker earlier and pretty soon these precious father/son times will be over until next season.

Family Fun

Let me give you a little background information here. You see there's been a big, big change in our house. Christian doesn't play with trains anymore! Shocking isn't it! I knew it would happen one day and I was so sad when I realized about a month ago that Christian never touched his trains anymore. So I packed them up (we're still keeping them) and we'll get them back out in a couple months, maybe when the weather gets cold and we need something different to play with. Christian even gave up his train table. It now houses McKenna's Dora house and it's in the playroom, not in Christian's room anymore. So what does Christian do with his time these days???

Christian is obssessed with Cars. Lightning McQueen to be exact! He got a Cars Wii game for Christmas and that was it! He plays with Hot Wheels and Disney, Cars all day long. He pretends to have races in his room. He talks about cars all the time and he loves to watch Nascar, which is a little shocking to us since Ryan has never paid attention to it!

So we thought that taking Christian to ride go-karts would be the best surprise ever!

He was delighted for about one minute.


And then this face showed up. And every time he would go around the track he would stop when he got to us and ask us if he could "please, please be done." Huh?? What on earth.

He did NOT like it, which was a little disappointing since I had just paid a bunch of money for him to do this several times. We let him get off and come to find out he was afraid he would hit the side and catch on fire like they do in Nascar. Ummm...no. That's not going to happen, but we couldn't convince him of that.

So he rode on the big track with Daddy! And his smile returned!

Ryan is such a fun dad!

I bought a ticket for McKenna to go in one of those bounce houses and she would have none of it. She just wanted to play on this little playground. So we wasted a lot of money on stuff the kids didn't want to do and the girl at the ticket counter probably got tired of me trying to trade my tickets in for different things that they weren't intended for!

And then Ryan took a spin by himself. Wait a minute...is he by himself?

Nope...he just had a very short passenger who LOVED it! Isn't that hilarious!

And we did get some use out of McKenna's bounce house ticket when it was all said and done.

Rewind - Ryan's Birthday

Christian and McKenna were very excited about Daddy's birthday! I had purchased an ice cream cake, but Grandmom let them make a cake too! And Grandmom lets them do lots of things that mommy doesn't :) like eat the icing!
They were so proud of this semi-Christmas cake. They needed sprinkles and I only had Christmas ones.

Daddy thought the cake was great.

In case you're wondering, he's wearing his church softball uniform. We haven't made it to one of his games yet (sometimes they don't even start until 8pm) but we can't wait to go to one that's a little earlier. He takes all sports very seriously, including church softball! So we have to go cheer him on!

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Happy 33rd birthday Ryan!

Thanksgiving Day 2009

Thanksgiving always starts out early for Grammy Mary Ellen! The kitchen is usually smelling pretty good by the time we wake up! Then Aunt Angel arrives and seems to know just how to jump in and help with the cooking!

Aunt Angel with Gracey & Ella.

The siblings! Ryan's the middle child. Angel is the oldest and Robert is the youngest.A rare picture of Ryan and I.

Uncle Bob and Aunt Karen joined us for Thanksgiving dinner.

Aunt Ang and Uncle Beez

Aunt Lindsey and Aunt Angel with cousins Gracey and Ella.

Probably my favorite thing about our week in Illinois was watching these two play together. They love each other and have the best time together. And Gracey doesn't put up with Christian's moodiness for one second (I love that :) I heard her tell him at one point that Santa wasn't going to bring him many presents if he kept being so fussy!

Cousins Emma and Ella

Gracey, Christian and Zavier

Aunt Ang brought her laptop to show Grampy how high speed internet works.

Love this picture of Uncle Ryan and Gracey!

Just the girls! (Taken by Christian)

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving Day! It was actually rather relaxing (other than chasing McKenna around to make sure she wasn't getting into trouble). Grammy and Grampy work so hard to make our visits so fun and easy! Grammy is completely organized and has everything planned out. She had actually found one of Christian's gloves that he left there last year and remembered to give it to me, even with everything else going on! So anyway, it was a great day. We missed seeing Bill and Becky and their families, but we still had a wonderful day.