Love for the Babies

Ryley and I just returned from a wonderful trip to Texas to see my brother’s family and attend my twin nephews’ baby dedication. We’ve been looking forward to it for so long that it’s a little sad to get back into the rhythm of things here at home! :-(

Denver and Dallas are very different cities. Sometimes it’s especially depressing to come back to our cold and still-winter-dreary city and  “older,” cluttered Denver home when everything in Dallas seems spring-like and new, and Justin and Aly’s house is super cute and clean!!! But Ryan had cleaned the house thoroughly over the weekend, and it was so nice to come home to cleanliness!!! He’s a wonderful husband. :-)

Ryley is ready to up and move to Dallas, and the beautiful 70-degree temps there this weekend did not help matters any!

But here’s the real reason she wants to move (or at least half of it!):

Jack loves his cousin Ryley! He’s so handsome.

Oh, you want more pictures? Ok. Well, maybe just a few… :-)

Ryley with Aunt Alyson and Jack….Ryley was such a big helper to Aly this weekend. She fed lots of bottles, and she was always ready to hold one of the babies!

She learned pretty quickly that babies like to hold on to hair! She ended up doing ponytails and pigtails for much of the weekend!

Pappaw holds a happy baby Jack!

Look at his dimple! They both have that cute dimple!

Pappaw holding Will, and me holding Jack

Will is indeed pretty awesome, just as his shirt implies!

Cousins watching Baby Neptune, our favorite! Their little feet would get moving so quickly to the beat of the music. It was so fun to see their different personalities emerging, even now!

Hanging out with Will

I love this pic of Mammaw and Will! He loves to chill outside on their patio swing!

I love this one too! He was chewing on Mammaw’s fingers!

Ryley and Jack

During bath time, Jack tagged his daddy! That was a first!

Game time after the babies were in bed!!

This is a very typical scene in their household….one baby in one recliner; one in the other!

Pappaw and Will

Steiner men…Three generations!

William John, Ryley Elisabeth, Jackson Paul…

We tried so hard to get a good pic of the three cousins all weekend, and these were the best we could get.

Pappaw showed Ryley how to make paper airplanes, and she had a lot of fun with that! She even threw them into the yard from the window of the upstairs loft, where we slept.

On Saturday night we headed to Justin and Alyson’s church to dedicate the babies to the Lord! This was a special time, especially because of the long, sad journey to parenthood that’s finally behind them. These babies are miracles, and they are God’s!

There was a reception afterwards, which was really nice!

 

I absolutely love the picture above!!!

Mammaw the English teacher shows Ryley what she did wrong on her pronoun homework!

Grandmas feeding babies!!!

Sunday afternoon chill-time

Mammaw and Ryley

Ryley with Mammaw and Pappaw

We had such a great time; thank you, Justin and Aly, for your hospitality!

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Other things we’ve been up to in recent weeks:

My friend Sarah is a 1st grade teacher, and her class hatched some baby chicks! So she was sweet enough to invite us down on a Saturday morning so Ryley could see them!

And of course, there was the school’s spring choir concert last week….Ryley’s class performed a piece based on Aesop’s Fable “The Fox and the Grapes.”

She was a grape.

I can’t believe school is almost over, and summer is just around the corner! Crazy.

Happy Trails.

Ode to Motherhood

In honor of Mother’s Day, I am posting pictures of my own beautiful mother and grandmother….I am so blessed to have such a wonderful heritage of strong, godly, beautiful women!!! :-)

Four generations: me, my mom, baby Ryley, Honey, and Grandpa

Honey holds her great-granddaughter Ryley

Mom, Ryley, and me in Montana

Me and my mountain baby

Mammaw and Ryley blow bubbles!

Ryley and her great-grandma Honey make cookies!

Enjoying a beautiful day on the boat in Mexico with my mom

With my mom in Puerto Vallarta

Ryley and me at Easter

Yay for motherhood! Happy Mother’s Day to these beautiful ladies and everyone else as well! :-)

Learning “Ryley-speak” and Loving My Job

So it’s taken me seven and a half years, but I am finally realizing that everything is easier when I speak Ryley’s language. Yes, her very own. “Ryley-speak.”

Scenario #1

Me: “I could really use your help today getting the house clean. Do you think you could help me?”

Ryley: “Yes, just give me one second….”

She comes downstairs wearing a blindfold around her eyes. She is now Blind Ryley (pictured in previous post).

Me: “Oh, I don’t know if being blind is the best way today. It’s hard to help clean the house when you can’t see. Maybe you can be deaf? Or maybe you can’t use one of your legs?”

Ryley: “Deaf!” (And she runs off to find more scarves to block off her ears and mouth.)

As I look at the finished product, I’m realizing it’s going to be hard to communicate with my little “helper.”

Me: “Maybe we shouldn’t do deaf after all. What else could we do instead?”

Scenario #2

Me: “Ryley, will you please take all these shoes upstairs and put them in your room?”

Ryley: “Yes, let me just put all the shoes in a fairy bubble first to keep them all together.” (She waves her hand over them and around in a circle). “And let me just sprinkle some pixie dust on top…”

Me: “Oops, we lost one. Put this one in your bubble too….”

Later….

Ryley: “Oh no! My fairy wing broke when I was coming down the stairs!”

Me: “Oh you’re kidding! Will it be ok?”

Ryley: “Are you making fun of me? Because your voice sounded like you didn’t really mean it.”

:-)

Everything has to be a game. Sometimes she wears a bonnet and carries a basket. Whatever the notion is for the day, I’m learning that if I want her to buy in to whatever the task is, it’s best (and more pleasant in the long run) to play along. We can’t do anything normally, you know.

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Ryley performed “Fur Elise” in her school’s talent show this week, and we were so proud of her!

There were two performances, and other than having “ants in her pants” (her words), she is really quite fearless. I personally hate performing!!! She said she prefers playing the piano to singing because she doesn’t have to look at all the people. :-)

Her daddy brought her a bouquet of roses! He gets so nervous on her behalf; it’s really sweet. He loves his little girl and thinks God gave him a performer for a daughter on purpose! Ha!

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Monkey Ryley!

I’m not sure what kind of mother this makes me that I let her do this!  She just shimmied right up! I guess she’s been doing this all along, and this is the first I’ve seen it.

(notice our mistletoe that’s been up there since 2009….we just see no reason to take it down!)

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Quote of the week (as we were watching the Royal Wedding):

“Do you think anybody in the world watching this just fainted, because it’s so romantic??”

Oh, she ate up every single second.

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And Michael Scott stole my thunder on Thursday night when he said something along the lines of, “When you get down to it, your best friends are really the people you work with.”

I had just been thinking about that all week long…that I spend more time with my co-workers than I do with any of my real best friends. And as time has gone on, we’ve developed our own little inside jokes – our own little All in One “culture.”

You’ll never believe this, but we speak “gangsta” to each other, quote Office Space and Anchorman all day, sing along to AutoTune pop culture videos,  text each other phrases like “Honey Badger Don’t Care,” and generally nerd out around one another. It’s a fun group, and it makes our work environment more enjoyable.

We get all our work done, too, lest you be concerned. :-)

I mean, think about it. We have roughly seven hours together each day, so there’s plenty of time to squeeze in a little humor here and there. I’m hoping our joyful atmosphere can hang in there, even when it starts getting busier again this month!!!

So when we got to create and host a booth at a tradeshow this week, we had a blast. It was hard work, but it was rewarding too.

 

That’s Leahh. Luke is sitting, and Joel is talking to a potential customer.

We’re hoping we can do more events like this, maybe even the Colorado Home and Garden Show!

We all work well together, and we all live by the same quotable mantra hanging above my office door, courtesy of the movie Office Space:

I’m grateful for a good job right now. I’m grateful to be working with pleasant, fun-loving people at the moment. I’m grateful for the fact that I finally feel productive, appreciated, and proud of my work, even though it’s not in an industry I ever imagined.

Not only is it good for the company, it’s good for Joy. :-)

Stay classy, San Diego.