Clemson vs. Virginia 2009

That's Uncle J, Not Benjamin-- I did double takes all day...

Hugs for Hannah

I'm not sure this is what the guys had in mind for a fun day of "corn hole" playing...


Clemson's recruiting her hard...


cute. :)



half time show: here they are playing the drums...

and tooting their trumpets...

Another fun day in Tiger Town!

No, She's Not Engaged :)

But I seriously teared up when I saw her in this dress!
Ash (or Lash as Benson refers to her now) was in the Vista Lights fashion show modeling wedding dresses for Bella Vista. She did so great and we had so much fun being downtown on such a beautiful night!

Benson had a great seat...


"Lash" looks like Cinderella in this one...


'Tude on the runway...


Sitting. On a brick. By bricks. Oh the things that entertain...

Chris (Lash's boyfriend) and Benson

This was as close as Benson was interested in getting near Santa--

And here's my pretty sis working her magic on the runway... They told her NOT to smile... which, if you know Lash, is VERY difficult for her (Best Smile Superlative winner and all...) But she did great! :)

Megan "Lael" Ingram is here!!!

I got the call Tuesday morning at about 4:45 a.m. that Kell's water had broken and they were on the way to the hospital! I hopped in the car and headed to Greenville-- Kell did amazing and ended up having her at 4:39 p.m. Lael weighed 7 lbs. 10 oz. and was 19 inches long and you should SEE how much HAIR she has!! It's longer than Benson's-- and I'm not kidding! And it's black as black can be! She looks JUST like Kell when she was born! Blessed girl!! :)

Kelli and Trey were so gracious to let me be a part of such a special day! I was able to witness the little sweetie come into the world and it was such a precious moment in time-- Thank yall so much for letting me be there- it's a memory that brings tears to my eyes!

Here's the precious family minutes after Lael made her debut! How many people agree that Kell does NOT look like she just went through labor!? It's true-- I witnessed it with my own eyes! She's seriously the prettiest post-labor girl I've ever seen!!

The first of many pictures with Lael and her "aunt Jess :) "

look at that little foot pokin' out--- She is the SWEETEST THING!!!


I LOVE this one! She has the sweetest little expression on her face!

Sweet baby girl! We're so happy you're here!!!

When I came home, I told Benson "Megan Lael is here! She came out of KK's belly and she's a baby now, can you BELIEVE it?!!"

and he was just grinning and shaking his head and said...
" I DOOO Believe it!!"

He's been asking all day if we can go see her yet- I can't wait for them to meet!

Happenings...

Aunt Becca came over to spend the night and we made s'mores in the microwave. Um.. the bomb. I, without fail, think of my freshman roomate, Stephabulous, when eating microwave s'mores- we had some good times making s'mores in our contraband microwave :)

We went to see Snow White at the Columbia Marionette Theater this morning. It was cute-- but I would say that it wasn't as good as pinocchio. They had some parts with the evil queen and a dragon that were a tad bit scary-- but we used it as a springboard to talk about how "that queen wasn't talking very sweet" and how "she made Jesus sad-"
Probably wouldn't reccomend this one as readily as the last though :)
The seven dwarfs were really cute...

After the show Benson wanted to stand on the stage...

My little puppetier...

And Grandmama and Grandaddy Hunter stopped by for a visit today! We enjoyed getting to see them so much! Benson loves them to pieces!

Snip. Snip.

Yes, folks, we did it.
At the age of two and a half, our son has received his first "hairs cut." His hair has finally started to come in, but it is doing so quite unevenly! Apparently he has over-active hair follicles over his ears, because while the rest of his hair is a solid 1.5 cm long all over his head, the hairs over his ears are like THREE INCHES! So we snipped em! Snip. Snip-- And here's the photo documentation- I think I should receive some sort of award for having the ability to turn two snips into an 11 photograph montage. :)

Here's our little client, gettting an explanation of the "procedure"...

Of course we had to wear the cape. Daddy always wear the cape when he gets HIS hair cut!

ooooo-- look how long it is!

Combing out all the hairs for a nice, even snip...

Mr. Tom has suggested that Benson's hair situation bears a striking resemblance to Grandpa Munster.

How did we let it go this far?!!

Gearing up for the first snip...

And... ACTION!

And it's gone!

Other side... steady now...

Upon my request, Grandaddy bunched these hairs into pinch so I could save them for the baby book so we could remember what color his hair was-- My mom did that for me and I think it's so neat to look back on...

Inspection by daddy..

All done! Our big boy hair cut! :)

You'll note that Mr. Tom is the barber of choice for Benson's first hair cut-- that's because he cuts all of the boys hair-- Benjamin has NEVER been to a barber shop. I cut his hair ONE time, under Mr. Tom's watchful eye, but he (Benjamin) hasn't ever let me do it again- it's Dad or nobody :) (Although it did NOT look bad!!!)

And just for fun...
Let's say that over the years, the four Ryan sons have needed a haircut once every month (just for easy calcuations) and we'll start them at one year old--

So the total number of haircuts would be roughly:

Thomas: 372
Benjamin: 312
Jeremy: 264
Jonathan: 192

For a total of: 1,140 haircuts

Now, the cost of a hair cut varies-- but lets just err on the side of EXTREME cheap and say they may have paid $10 at a barber to get a haircut.
For 1,140 hair cuts, they would have paid: $11, 400!

Most likely, a good hair cut PLUS TIP would have been more like $20, which would DOUBLE that to $22,800.

That's almost $23,000 they've saved over the years.
And Mrs. Lula cuts Mr. Toms hair! So add that in there!
But the girls did pay to get theirs done-- i mean, they weren't crazy or anything! :)

And another one has been added to Grandaddy's clientelle! He's got quite a business going!! :)

Howdy Part'ner!

This little cowboy had the time of his life Saturday night!
And this time, he had his chaps on :)

His little vest and chaps were made out of a brown sweatshirt and sweatpants that I trimmed the sleeves and bottom out of and glued red felt on-- He didn't want to take them off!!


We went to the "Pumpkin Patch" that my mom puts together at her church! I think it was bigger than ever this year-- they had about 1,500 people there! It's really amazing what a great job she does and how many people are blessed by having a fun, safe environment to bring their kids to on Halloween night. Way to go, Mama!

Aunt B was there!

Here's a little video of Benson and his "line" for the night, which it took us about a week to perfect...

I like his hand on his gun in this one :)


Here we are on stage for the costume contest.

Benson won first place in the 2, 3 and 4 year old division!!
Benjamin said that next year he thinks we'll have a TLC camera crew following us around with Cyrus Frakes directing us how to be King of the Crown! :) This costume contest thing was a little bit too much like a beauty pageant for his liking :)

Benson's Great Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Buddy were at Pumpkin Patch!


Leaving pumpkin patch and onto the next stop!

Cowboy Kisses for Nana!!

Nana had the little cowboy a fun little sercy when we got there... this little doodle pad that he LOVES! She's so thoughtful! :)

I mean, MELT.MY.HEART!!! :)So Sweet!! :)

And then we were on to our NEXT stop-- Grandaddy and Grandmama's house... Most kids trick-or-treat at strangers' houses, but by the time we hit all the grandparents houses, Benson's candy bucket was FULL!


Joy. On every face :)