The Ryan's: November 2008

Monday, November 24, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving 2008

We celebrated Thanksgiving with the Ryans on Saturday. We had quite a crew! I think it was 23 people! Here we are piled in the living room watching the Tigers whoop up on Virgina!

Mr. Tom's brother, Gregg and His family (Wife Karen, daughter Tori, Daughter-in-law Leigh, Son Zeb and granddaughter Gracie) came to celebrate with us! It was great having them there!

We celebrated Gregg's "29th" birthday since we were all together...
Benson and Gregg have the same haricut...

And we also celebrate Jeremy's 22nd Birthday since we were all together... Benson really enjoyed helping him blow out his candles...

Benson loved playing with the babies...

And his friend-sized cousins...

And I just love this picture of cutie patootie Addie Grace... I think her eyes are going to stay blue!

A few snapshots of lately...

We went to Petsmart to get peaches a treat and Benson LOVED looking at the fish with Aunt Ash... this aquarium with a million gold fish, was his fave.

Kelli's husband, Trey passed the Bar exam and so we had a little get-together to celebrate! We're so proud of him!!!

Can you tell we really like homemade pizza around here? Here's Benson eating the cheese for the first time... he loved it before it was cooked, but refused to eat the pizza that had the cheese cooked on it... persnickety..

Counter Talks...

We don't make a habit of letting Benson stand in chairs...
There is, however, this one chair that he's allowed to stand in... It's the one on the other side of the counter where the sink is...
When I'm washing dishes, he'll stand in the chair, peek over the counter and we "talk."
For those of you who know how much I ABHOR washing dishes... you will understand that this really helps the time pass quickly while doing a very un-fun chore.
Well, lately, my silly boy has developed this new "thing" he does while we're "talking" over the counter... We'll be chatting and then all of the sudden he'll disappear.. and then re-appear.. which he thinks is hilarious.. and I find adorable... I was able to capture it here on video... oh yeah.. the word he is saying at the end.. for those of you who don't speak Benson-ese is "water..."

Benson's got a "Tick"

With every new word that he learns, Benson becomes slightly obsessed with saying that word... over and over and over again...
Right now, we hear a lot of "Hot," "Fire," "Bird,"and " Tractor." Currently, whenever he sees a clock... he'll point and say "Clock".. although he can't really say the "l-sound"... Much like he always says the word"Hot" with "Fire", and "Tractor" goes with "Grandaddy", Benson always puts a "tick" with "clock"... but he can't quite understand it also goes "tock"..."tick...tock..." he does his head to one side and says "tick" but won't go to the other side and say "tock!" He's so silly.. he really cracks me up...

Happy Birthday Bryson!

Our Friends Jessica and Chad have a little boy, Bryson, who just turned three (and another boy on the way- due in March!!) They invited us to Bryson's birthday party at a little place here in Lexington called Monkey Business. Benson had a blast.. as you can see...

They have this ginormous slide that I think Benjamin enjoyed as much, if not more, than Benson :)

I love their faces here..

Here's a little video of them coming down the super-duper-hu-mong-o slide...

Cake (the real kind) and Ice cream for the first time.

And here's a quick little video of Benson eating ice cream for the first time... not really a fan...

This is Bryson and his cousin Logan and Benson attempting to go down kiddy slide (not the ginormous one) together.. we had been sending Benson down it by himself and taught him to lay down so he'd slide without toppling.... when we put him up there and he laid back, the other boys were like, "Umm...What's up with THAT kid?"

Bryson, the birthday boy and Benson...

Thursday, November 13, 2008

The Zoo

Will spent the Day with Grandmama on Monday, so the four of us went to the zoo and had a BALL!
I love the zoo. I've always loved the zoo, but now, to watch Benson discover all of God's creatures and how amazing they are-- it's so much fun!
You can see all of the great pics here
Here are (quite) a few of my favorites...
The elephants...

The Gorillas...

Benson was more fascinated with the bolts than he was the Gorillas...

The Giraffes...

This is probably my favorite part... and Benson's too... I can't believe we got to feed real, live giraffes!

Look at his tongue!!

I think he's got the cutest, humblest face...

The farm... Petting the real cow...

Milking the pretend cow was so much fun!...

The Lorakeets.. Again... how cool is this that they will come and sit right on your arm! One landed on Benson's head at one point and he didn't like that very much.. But one of his favorite words right now is "burrrd" so it was perfect timing for this experience...

The carousel...

As soon as we got in the car, the were both OUT... how cute are they here with the little Giraffe's Grandmama got them as a sercy...

The Third Annual Ryan Family Marriage Retreat

I have the best in-laws in the world! I am so very blessed to be part of such a wonderful family. This past weekend, Mr. Tom and Mrs. Lula held the Third Annual Ryan Family Marriage Retreat.
The whole family gets together and goes to Maggie Valley and we have a fun-filled weekend where we play games like "the Price is Right" and "The Newly-Wed Game" and have "sessions" where Mr. Tom and Mrs. Lula encourage and impart wisdom to us on various topics such as communication, biblical roles as husband and wife, how to glorify the Lord in our family and this-year's-main-topic-- Child rearing.
We are so blessed by their experience and transparency. They are able to encourage us in things that "worked" for them as parents and things they have learned in recent years that they look back and would have liked to have implemented.
I'm so grateful that the Lord has laid it on their hearts to develop such an enriching experience for us- we have benefited greatly from it!

Bed-head Will