Date Night and Clean Water

We promised ourselves we would keep up date nights once Ronan was born.  We would try so hard to beat the cliche.  I thought we were doing pretty well until I realized Valentines Day was the last time we went out alone!  Almost 7 months!  We enlisted the help of our super-awesome-willing friends, the Boone's, dropped Ronan off for the evening and headed downtown for dinner.  We had a gift card to PF Changs -yum, perfect. We sat outside, enjoyed a drink, had a long, relaxed dinner- it was beautiful.  There was an 8 month old at a nearby table. It was a little distracting at first (he sounded just like Ro), but then we were thankful that we were not the ones responsible for feeding and entertaining him :)  It helped me enjoy the night even more!  Our waiter teased us for taking SO long to get through dinner. But he understood :) 

After dinner, we just walked around, hung out, grabbed a coffee and sat outside at Starbucks. It was wonderful to just sit and talk with no distractions.  Ronan's a great baby, but it's just different you know? :)

Ronan did awesome.  I'm so thankful he's a happy baby.  We really don't worry about him with others and I knew he would have a good time with the Boones.  Rachelle and Josiah are patiently awaiting the day they get to bring home their babies from Ethiopia (you can read their story here: http://treasuresovertherainbow.blogspot.com/) and I know they loved the chance to love on Ronan and get a little practice in :)

When we picked up Ronan (sound asleep!), Rachelle was working on bracelets similar to this picture.  They are really cute!  Rachelle is raising money for charity : water to fund clean water projects in Ethiopia.  Let me know if you want to buy one. They are only $10 dollars and ALL of the money goes to charity : water!  Also, Josiah has a charity : water campaign online. You could win an iPad 2.  For just $5!! You better check it out because, what if you won? And what if you could help fund a well for a village? How awesome would that be??? http://mycharitywater.org/josiahscharitywatercampaign

Thank you so much Rachelle and Josiah for having fun with Ronan!!!



10 Months!

10 Months!!!  Well, it has come and gone already and we're on our way to 11 months.  Ronan had a great doctors appointment - totally healthy baby boy! He's on the smaller side now: 50% for height and 25% for weight.  I was worried because he dropped so much in percentile, but the doctor assured me there is nothing to worry about.  I always have a slight twinge of fear before we head to the doctor. "What if today is the today we find out something is very wrong and our lives are forever changed?"  Silly thought, but it does happen.  I know better than to dwell on the unknown and unlikely, but in those brief moments I am reminded of what a blessing our health is.

Anyway...what a fun month this has been!  Patrick has been around all month and Ronan loves the time he gets to spend with daddy.  We've been spending lots of time out in the sunshine and with friends. 

• Ronan spends hours exploring his world now that he is cruising around on all fours. He is surprisingly fast sometimes! Now that he can crawl, he likes to be right at our feet.  So sweet.
• He especially enjoys his new views while standing with the support of furniture.  He has even ventured to take a couple of steps along a piece of furniture. I'm amazed at how quickly he learned to pull himself up and how well he controls himself to sit back down.  We still have "bonks" every day, but not as many as we expect.  I am still surprised sometimes to look across the room and see my little baby standing.  I think about who he was 10 months ago and now he has crawled to his desired location, pulled himself up and is dancing to the music! Craziness.  What a fun and amazing year of learning.
• He's starting to enjoy walking with our help. It's a little awkward, but totally adorable and he is so proud of himself :)
• Now that meat and cheese has hit the scene at mealtime, veggies have gone by the wayside. We make sure to get some in each day, but he really is not interested.  Time to get creative.
• Speaking of food, Ronan likes stuff I can't even handle.  Sauerkraut? Spicy hummus? Spicy anything? Seriously.  Ro also likes anything someone else is eating. Does not matter what it is or if he just ate a huge meal 3 minutes ago. He has serious food envy.  His food envy elicits serious grunts and arm waving and if we do not respond, he throws in a little temper tantrum. It was pretty cute when he chased down a 3 year old with a Popsicle at the splash pad, but I imagine it will not be so cute we're at a restaurant and he wants the neighbor's food.  The upside to this little issue is that we get to feed him what we eat. I think it makes life a little easier that he actually wants to eat what we eat.
• Ah, the temper. have I mentioned it before? Well, it came out in full force this month. Ronan is generally a very happy camper, but if he gets frustrated or does not get what he wants, the temper flares. It is quite amazing to witness something so innate and so innately bad. He really has not had the opportunity to learn this behavior and so it reminds me of our sin nature and how gracious God is to rescue us from our sin and provide us with the opportunity, through Christ's sacrifice, become more Christ-like and have the fruit of the Spirit in our lives (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control).   I foresee many years (18ish for us, 80ish for Ro) of working through his temper and learning how to get it under control. It will be character building for all of us, I remind myself :)

Ronan really doesn't like to look at me when I'm trying to take photos, so I enlisted the help of dad. That is the only way we got a couple of shots of his face.  For this month, we'll go with side and back shots because that's just real life :)  And Mr. Monkey came outside for the side-by-side comparison, but before we took the photos, we went inside and promptly forgot about him.  Kohly thought we finally bought him a friend. Luckily I rescued Mr.Monkey before Kohly gave him too many "kisses" though now he is in the laundry.  So we'll get back to those photos this week...

A couple of funny faces

"Get me off of this thing!"

A common crawling face

Favorite Places

These days Ronan is crawling everywhere and pulling himself up on everything.  Through some baby version of process of elimination he has apparently decided there are 3 places in our house deserving of the majority of his time.  These places are fun to stand at, have interesting things to look at and are good for dancing. :)  Unfortunately the first is the bathtub (of course).  It is always the first place he makes a beeline for. I'm not sure what the draw is. Maybe he takes after his momma and loves all of the daylight? Or maybe it's the awesome echo the porcelain surfaces provide? How about that it's just somewhere we don't want him so it's all the more tempting?

Busted

When we've eliminated the bathroom as an option, the stereo is always the next stop. He love the buttons and seems to understand that music comes from that general area.  Once I turn it on, he starts to boogie :)  He also likes to kiss the speaker. They're friends I guess.

Last but not least is the front door.  He loves watching cars go by and finds it a suitable place to shake his booty.  I think he'll love it even more now that the neighborhood kids are walking to school.



Labor Day Weekend

We had a fantastic Labor Day weekend! With Silverwood on Thursday, trying to recoup on Friday and then a full 3 day weekend, it seemed to go on forever! My parents came up on Saturday and Sunday so dad could work on the basement with Patrick.  It was such a HUGE blessing! Serious progress has been made! Both main rooms are painted and the hall/laundry/stairway is so close! It's awesome. Patrick has been working so hard and really appreciated to extra help. While the guys were working, the gals + Ronan shopped.  Yes, life is not fair sometimes :)  We had a great time in Couer d'Alene Saturday, then Spokane on Sunday.  The highlight though, was our family picnic in Manito.  It was fun to share this awesome place we have in Spokane! Unfortunately, mom has all of the pictures from the weekend...

Monday we met up with friends and spent an awesome day at the beach and then had everyone over for a BBQ.  I love entertaining in our backyard!  A big thanks to the Stitts for coordinating and helping us get ready :)  We are so blessed to have the friends we do.  We have tons of fun living life together.

The beach was HOT.  So we took a little shopping break :)

Seriously, I do not know...

A stop at the sweet shop

A little volleyball








We worked up our appetite for a great laid back BBQ. 





And then my camera battery died... But you get the idea. It was a great day and a great weekend!



Silverwood!

Have you been to Silverwood this summer? If not, you better go! You have a few weekends left and you will have so MUCH fun! A group of us headed up there yesterday with Ronan in tow (and a lot of stuff - I'm not sure if it's possible to over pack with a baby. ok, maybe it is).  The weather was a little cooler, but that didn't stop us from staying the whole day. We even braved Boulder Beach for a few rides (new raft ride is totally worth it!).  Cooler weather meant shorter lines :)

Ronan was amazing!  We all rotated watching him while the others went on the ride (thanks everyone!). He took a short little power nap at lunchtime-perfect- and was an amusement park pro the rest of the day.  He loved all of the craziness and people watching - except for the Aftershock roller coaster.  I think he could hear the screams and thought something was wrong.  He seriously did not cry once until the last ride we stopped at and I think it was only because he could see me the whole time. 

I'm pretty sure we were the oldest group of kids running around the place. My husband may not have believed me when I said I love roller coasters, but now he does. :) He thinks I'm a little crazy.  What's crazy is how much pounding your body takes. My bones and muscles are definitely 10 years older than the last time I went. Boo.  It made me feel old, but didnt stop us from having a late night night movie outside when we got home.  Super fun, but exhausting! Somebody forgot to tell my 10 month old that we were sleeping in. Oh well, you only live once right?  And that's what coffee is for ;)


Chilling, waiting for our first ride of the day



Watching the roller coaster. Luckily this one didn't scare him even though it went right over our heads

The gang making it back safe

Auntie Kelley taking a turn

Ready to get wet?!

Poor Bekah got cornered into the water guns. She got soaked!





Met a new friend at Boulder Beach

 We ended the day with a few more runs on the Panic Plunge. It's an addictive ride, plus the easiest one to catch pics of :)  Our last trip up gave us a birdseye view of a gorgeous sunset.  Perfect way to end!