Thursday, April 28, 2011

Thomas Hunter Ryan is HERE!!!

thomas 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!!!


Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Spring Break visitors!


We had some fun spring break visitors this past week :)
Nana and papa came and we went to....

nana and papa at the rooster full

The midnight rooster! 

nana and papa at the rooster

WHOA that's a big ole belly!  
There's a PERSON in there, ya know?!

fam pic at the rooster

Cutie patooties...

daddy and benson

And Lash came later on...

lash and benson on spring break

We love Lash!  :)

squeezy

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

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

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.

group pic

I love the happy spring colors in this picture :)

benson with gma and gdad

The originals...

the kids

The lovebirds...

gma and gdaddy

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

lash and chris bw

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

lash and jess

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

helping hold the bebe

The two most precious faces I know...

b and benson

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...

benson 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... :)

hotstuff weedeater

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! :)

Monday, April 25, 2011

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...

by the gate



by the gate sideways smile



sweet smile



my boys



peekin through bw



cutie by the tree crop



in the tree

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

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

Monday, April 18, 2011

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}

100_2333

They were such happy infants.  :)

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

blowin out the candles

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

four in the jeep

 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!! 

ella and t

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

the girls

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.

female driver

And then grandmama found something....

GRANDmama capture

Think you could guess what it was??

pass off

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

so excited

Oh the joys of boys. 
Frogs and snails and puppy dog tails... it's so true. 

froggy

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!

happy birthday to you

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

gibbs

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

safety gear

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!!!!!!!! :) 

jess and b

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?! :)  

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

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...


haulin stuff


wave

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?:

chase

Don't they look like pirates to YOU?!

crazies


benson goggles

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

crashin ships

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

hugs

And I just love watching them play :)
I can' wait to see another little pirate in the mix :)

Monday, April 11, 2011

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:

the tree

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

gmama in the tree

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...

blossom

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...

sweet


slanted profile


sunburst


so fun closeup


crackin up


sweet smile

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

wheeee


whee daddy

Spring is here!! 
And we're looking forward to our little egg hatching and joining the fun! 
It won't be much longer now! :)