Ryan's going to be a big brother!

We discovered a couple weeks ago that I am pregnant! We are thrilled and can't wait to find out more information on this little "cricket." Next week I will know exactly how far along I am and when my due date is. Right now I've calculated somewhere close to the end of May. I would love to have a May baby!

Last week we took Ryan to the local pumpkin patch to pick our Wassmer's Pumpkin for the Fall. We had fun, and we went with our neighbors Chris, Katie and little Conor. He's about 6 weeks younger than Ryan. They are sippy cup buddies.

Ryan's 1st birthday

Well, since Ryan started walking he's been all over the house. He loves to explore, and he's good at it. I just have to be careful when throwing out our trash, you might just find a toy that was placed in there during his curious moments.

Ryan turned 1 year old on July 15. I can hardly believe it's been a year, but at the same time I am proud of this mile stone. He's such a big little boy now, weighing 24 lbs 12oz, and is 32 inches tall. We celebrated with a party in NJ and another in CO so that all the family and friends could enjoy this big moment.

We had a wonderful time in New Jersey for our vacation. We enjoyed fishing, sailing, going to Point Pleasant Boardwalk, going to the beach and eating a ton! It was fun and we didn't want to really come home. I guess the world must go 'round.

I attempted a monkey cake for Ryan's party here in CO. It was supposed to be a whole 3D monkey, but half of the cake settled and fell apart, so we salvaged the other half and I was still able to decorate it. It turned out pretty good for only half a cake.

I guess the next question is "when's the next one?" Well, if I had an answer, that means we'd probably be trying! Don't worry, I'll be sure to let you know once we know!

One small step for Ryan, two giant proud parents!

Ryan officially started walking the other day (june 24, 2010). He's taken a few steps before, but this time he just kept going! I couldn't believe what I was seeing. He truly is becoming a small boy. In almost two weeks he'll be turning 1 year old - I cannot believe he is not an infant anymore. I have a toddler. It almost breaks my heart in a bitter sweet way because I really tried to cherish every moment I had with him as an infant. I have sweet moments, and moments that felt like pure torture. I look at Ryan and beam with pride, and I am glad he sleeps through the night, but there's a part of me that hurts because I already have to let that part of our lives go. I know that Ryan will always be my baby, sometimes I just wish I could hit the pause button.

Work

I guess I forgot to mention that I got a great part-time job as a Medical Assistant at a local family practice! It's only 2 days a week, but I get to do everything I was taught in class. I work with other MA's in the back office taking vitals, drawing blood and giving injections. I really do enjoy it, and I like the fact that I'm actually using the education I received. Ryan goes to a home daycare on the days I work, unless Tom is home. It's a nice small group of kids, and Ryan gets along just fine. So far it's worked out quite well. Praise God such small blessings!

Heading towards our first year

Sorry for the delay in updates! It's been quite a busy time in the Wassmer household. Summer has arrived, so we're spending more time outside. I've been working a few days a week, which has been really good. I enjoy it, I enjoy learning more - it's "me" time. However, with one of the doctor's I've heard I'll be working with, it might be more about "her." Not looking forward to that, but we'll see.

Ryan had his second swim in a pool ever this past weekend. The first time he was only a month old, and was in the water probably a total of 2 minutes! He's getting big so fast. We've officially switched to the big boy car seat, Ryan can climb up on the couch, can go easily up the stairs and is showing the signs of wanting to walk. He can stand and is getting bolder day by day.

We will be in NJ in July to celebrate Ryan's 1st birthday. It will be a fun shabang! Ryan will get to play in the sand and enjoy the sun with Grammy and the rest of the Wassmer/Hillman gang. We're really looking foward to it.

Ryan's Easter and trip to Stillwater

Ryan's first Easter was great. The Easter Bunny left many chocolates (which Daddy will eat!), and we had all family that was in town over for dinner (my parents and Chris). We also had a March snow storm that brought about 2 feet to our area in a matter of hours. It melted off the next day! That's spring in Colorado for you! But I wasn't going to miss the opportunity for Ryan to play in the snow one last time before summer hits. Nana came over (no school that day) and we made a snowman and enjoyed the time with Ryan.

Now that Ryan has been crawling for a month, he's already ready to move on. He's trying to walk as much as he can. He'll walk along the couch or use his "walker" toy (seen above - it converts to a walker). He's not really close to walking yet, but I don't think it will be long. He loves crawling everywhere and standing as tall as he can, reaching to objects I thought were safe! He's goes in for his 9 month check up and vaccinations this Friday. We'll see how much he weighs and how tall he is! He's such a big little boy!

We recently traveled to Stillwater, OK to visit Ryan's great-grand parents. They are my grandparents on my mom's side. Roger and Freda Hobart. It was nice and warm while we were there, a tad windy, but lots of fun. We spent time outside planting flowers, and Ryan picked out some hyacinths for Great Granny. It was good to see them and have them meet Ryan for the first time. He's always such a ham!

Sickness around the house!

Ryan not only learned to crawl a couple weeks ago, he's now pulling himself to a stand, walking along the couch and just crawled up his first stair yesterday! Oh my. Nothing is safe anymore! And with this new found exploration has come a cold. Ryan's first cold is pretty nasty. It started with a cough, and now he's got a ton of phlegm and a runny nose that won't stop. The poor kid HATES the bulb syringe, but I've got to do what I've got to do. I'm not sure any baby likes a suction device stuck up their nose.

Ryan also just celebrated a 1st birthday party with his local friend Samuel. Samuel turned 1 this past weekend, and Ryan got to have some cupcake and pizza! He did well in eating it, but I didn't let him have much. I'm saving the big ol' chocolate cake experience for his 1st birthday.
I do have pictures, however, our computer is seems to also have the "flu", so downloading pics take forever. So, they're not up yet.

Payton is also sick. She's been ill for a while now - just not eating much and some vomiting. Poor girl. In fact, she's outside right now eating grass. Soon she will be inside to puke it up. She was on antibiotics last week, but now that those are gone it's like she's not feeling well again. I guess it just takes time and puke to acclimate to Colorado. I'll be sure to keep you posted on her status, and Ryan's, as time goes on!

Ryan Crawls!

Ryan made his first moves toward crawling a few weeks ago, but he finally figured out the coordination and moved forward just the other day. March 1, 2010 was the day he truly made progress! I was able to catch it on video, so enjoy!

Now, only a few days later, he is able to crawl all over the house. He's made it the front door, into the kitchen to Payton's food bowl and he's been scouting out the baby gate keeping him from falling down the stairs. When he was about 5 months old I predicted he'd be crawling by 8 months! He's a little early. So now I need to make a prediction on when he'll walk, but I still have to observe him a little bit more before making that guess.

He makes us so proud as parents. We love our little Ry so much!

7 Months Old

At the Home & Garden Show, and this is how I found Ryan after I went and checked my email. He had scootched backward under the couch.

Ryan turned 7 months old this past week! I can't believe how quickly they grow. We are always told, "it goes by so fast," but how true it is! He's actually at the age where you start thinking about the next one - but that's all we might be doing. There aren't any plans yet. But it's never too early to be praying for wisdom and when to plan for the next one. Ryan can now successfully roll from his back to his tummy, crawl (inching around) backward, and I now often find him in his crib having rolled to his tummy and moving around the crib, blankets askew and Curious George faithfully soaked from drool. It's quite humerous, however, I still want my baby to fall asleep. I'm not quite sure how I could teach a 7 month old not to party... I might have to go back to swaddling!

We also got some work on our house done. We exchanged the sliding glass door for a set of french doors, and we switched out our front door for a new one. They look nice and are much more energy efficient and block out a lot of the road noises. So far we have enjoyed hosting a couple of dinners already and look forward to having more friends over! We love our house and I can't wait until we can paint the walls and do all the upgrades we hope for. That will be years, of course. Enjoy the pics!

Welcome to our new home!

We have a home! This is a very exciting time for us. We are so happy and relieved to be done with moving for a very long time. The Lord has been so gracious to us while searching for a home, during three moves, and also in getting this house. We loved it when we saw it and afterward nothing else quite compared. It's 2300 sq ft, the lot is .26 acres (HUGE compared to California), it's a tri-level, 4 bed/2bath. We have many plans for updating and renovating, but those jobs will be done a little bit at a time and for years to come. Below are some started pictures that I took during our initial inspection. All the Wassmers were there for the occasion.

Above is the formal living room and our backyard view from our dining room

This is the upstairs bathroom and kitchen (the downstairs bath has the same beautiful green laminate floor that isn't square to the wall ;). We have since replaced the lid on the toilet to one that matches its color.

Sometime later we will be sure to post pictures that have any updates! Until then we will enjoy our home and our neighborhood. We live a couple blocks from the elementary school and a couple of parks. I also found out I live just down the street from an old high school friend.

Happy 6 Months!

Ryan turned 6 months old today! He's growing up so fast! He can now sit well, he likes to stand and try to walk with help and he's able to hold himself up on all four's. He's not crawling yet, but I assume in a couple months he will be scootching along! Here are a couple of picks for your enjoyment!

Santa's Visit to the Kacz home

Pictures from Christmas 2009

He loved all his new hats too!

Here are a few videos from Christmas... since the move from Evergreen, we've been busy packing, unpacking, and are now getting ready to pack again as we received news that our loan was approved for the house we are trying to buy. We should close next week! Praise God! Pics from the new house will come once decor is done!

This is a video of our Christmas tree which was cut down from our backyard. Ryan was getting geared up for Santa's visit.

Here Ryan is presented with all his presents on Christmas day. It was a joy to help him open all those gifts! Having the whole family was such a blessing and a joy!