Thomas Hunter Ryan is HERE!!!

We are so thrilled to welcome Thomas Hunter Ryan to our family!!
He was born on 4.28.11 at 6:41pm... 7lbs, 6oz... 19 and 3/4 in.
Thank you, Lord for such a precious gift!!!

Spring Break visitors!

We had some fun spring break visitors this past week :)

Nana and papa came and we went to....

The midnight rooster! 

WHOA that's a big ole belly!  

There's a PERSON in there, ya know?!

Cutie patooties...

And Lash came later on...

We love Lash!  :)

Thanks for visiting guys :) It's always great getting to spend time with yall! 

Easter Eve 2011

We had a little different Easter this year than we have in the past 28 years.  The only time that we've NOT spent Easter morning in Pageland was April 3, 1983 when I was born.  But there is a time and a season for everything and this year we changed things up a bit.  Instead of going to Pageland on Easter morning like we have in the past, we celebrated "Easter Eve" together at my Grandaddy's nursing home.

It's really not WHERE you are, but who you're with that really matters anyway... and we all had a great time being together in Cheraw.

Here's our family Easter picture... In all honesty, I think we had a few people who were kinda hoping for ANOTHER "Easter Baby" but it didn't happen.  Maybe he'll come on Papa's birthday (April 29th!)
The fact that this baby is so happily staying put, really is quite humorous.

I love the happy spring colors in this picture :)

The originals...

The lovebirds...

MORE lovebirds...
(counting down the days until July 23!)

Silly Lash, already lovin' on her nephew...

And Benjamin, helping support my ever-expanding gut...

The two most precious faces I know...

After we left the nursing home, we went back to grandmama Hunter's house
to help her with her "honey do" list.
The boys worked outside cutting grass, painting, cleaning gutters, weed eating etc.
The girls worked inside.  Except me.  I was cooking.  A baby that is... :)

Benson took off his shirt like the rest of the guys and was really "helping" BIG time...
Then he celebrated his hard work with bubbles...

And I'll leave you with this little morsel of hotness...
B was in charge of weed-eating, but didn't have any long pants, and all he could find was my grandaddy's rescue squad outfit.
I think he really rocked it... :)

It's pics like this and about a million other reasons why I love this man so much :) 

 And what keeps his BROTHERS reading the blog for ammo with which to rag him! :)

Easter Morning 2011

We spent Easter morning in Hartsville this year.  After church, we headed over to Kalmia gardens and snapped a few pictures.  I'm savoring the ever fleeting days of knee socks.  :(   My baby boy is growing up too fast!  I'm excited to have another BABY boy ANY DAY now!  He's still just-a-bakin' away in there... we are anxiously awaiting his arrival!  In the meantime, we're enjoying the ever fleeting days of having just ONE little doodle to dote on...

Praise the Lord for an Easter Sunday where we are free to celebrate His resurrection!

More pics tomorrow of "Easter Eve" with the Hunters :)  

Will is FOUR!

We were able go to Will's Fourth Birthday Party this past weekend!

Now that I've been released from bedrest and meds (as of last Wednesday/36 weeks), I'm just gallavantin' all over! :)

Will's birthday party marks the beginning of "birthday season" around here...
He just turned four, which means HANNAH is about to turn four and then...

sniff sniff...

my itty bitty baby boy is going to turn four.

It seriously hurts my heart to think that these BABIES are turning FOUR!!!

 Will {two months old} Benson {two days old} and Hannah {one month old}

They were such happy infants.  :)

It's such an incredible and special GIFT that they have each other!!! 

And Addie Grace is right in there with 'em...

 And I'm sure it won't be long before Ryan Elizabeth starts showing the newbies around... It's truly unreal to think that THESE babies (that are still in the oven) are going to grow up with the blessing of cousins the same age, too!  It looks like these babies are only going to be a couple of WEEKS or DAYS apart!  I guess they COULD even be born on the same day!!  Now THAT would be something!

Susie's due May 1 and I'm due May 12... it should be interesting to see what happens over the next couple of weeks!! 

My "sisters" :)  

We are so excited to welcome Brittany RYAN to the gang! :)

These two enjoy each other so much...
Hannah COULD NOT wipe the smile off her face, driving this little tractor around...
and BENSON had the white-knuckle-grip and his "worried" face on the whole time.

And then grandmama found something....

Think you could guess what it was??

Well.  I'll tell you this..  It was EXCITING!

Oh the joys of boys. 

Frogs and snails and puppy dog tails... it's so true. 

Roll your mouse over the picture below to see what happens when you give three, four year olds small amphibians. 

Happy birthday dear Willlllll,  Happy birthday to YOU!

The Gibbs.  

I almost didn't recognize Ryan Elizabeth!  Why do babies have to grow so FAST?!!

Benson was being a little overly cautious of the play weed-eater...

Mrs. Lula snapped a pic of me and my hunny :) 

We're about to have a baby :)  n 'case ya didn't know. 

And we CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!!! :) 

We have a doctor's appointment Tuesday (tomorrow) morning at 9am. 

(36 weeks and 5 days --off bedrest and meds for 5 days -- and Monday (today) was the first time in 20 weeks that I've not received a progesterone shot!

So SURELY SOMETHING has to be changing right?! 

I'm so going to go to 42 weeks and have to remove the child by crane, after all this.) 

Every day for the past ten weeks I've thought, "this could be the day!"  But there's a pretty good chance that SOMEtime over the next three weeks, it really is going to be THE day!
Wonder if it will be tomorrow?!!  :) 
I'm looking so forward to meeting this little fella who's been kickin' me in the ribs!!

**Update: Our Doctor's appointment went great!  Everything is still the same.. NO CHANGE!  We're two days away from FULL TERM!  Praise the Lord!  Maybe he'll be an Easter Sunday baby like his mama?! :)  

Haulin' Stuff and Pirate Ships

On GG's last trip to the ville, she let Benson borrow her little electric John Deere Tractor to play with...
He has driven a gazillion circles around the empty lot beside our house.  I think he thinks he's helping maintain the grass.
Using the kubota that cuts the empty lots in our neighborhood and has cool attachments that go on the back as inspiration, Benson decided to rig up his own tractor for Haulin' stuff...

It wasn't too long before that got old. (imagine that!) And he wanted to play pirate ships with daddy.
Playing pirate ships involves dressing up like pirates.

See?:

Don't they look like pirates to YOU?!

When you play pirate ships, you ride around the driveway and crash into each other.
That about sums up the rules.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Benson's daddy is SUCH a GOOD SPORT!!!

And I just love watching them play :)

I can' wait to see another little pirate in the mix :)

Climbing Trees with Grandmama

Benjamin had a conference in Columbia last week, so we were able to go and spend a few days at Grandmama and Grandaddy's house.  I had to lay low the whole time we were there, but Grandmama had plenty of outside adventures with Benson so he got to enjoy the beautiful spring weather.

At one point, I looked out the window to see this:



And I just couldn't help but get outside and capture the moment...
Benson and Grandmama were climbing trees and having so.much.fun!



Benjamin's Grandmama Ryan (Mary Lib), who passed away before I met Benjamin, but whose legacy I've loved getting to hear about over the years, gave this pink dogwood to Mr. Tom and Mrs. Lula almost thirty years ago.   Seeing it bloom around Easter is such a sweet reminder of the cross, the death and resurrection of our Savior and of the life that is to come...



Don't you know Mary Lib would have loved to see her Great Grandson playing in her dogwood?!
She loved babies!  :)  I wish she could have met this little one...

And then daddy came home from work and joined the fun...

Spring is here!! 

And we're looking forward to our little egg hatching and joining the fun! 

It won't be much longer now! :)