Our Amazing Son

This morning we went to Emily's school for a fun pancake breakfast. It was a beautiful morning and Ryan's first day of freedom (he has spring break next week). Everyone was great, when out of nowhere Ryan began to cry. I could not for the life of me figure out WHAT could be wrong! I kept asking him to try to stop sobbing and tell me what had happened to make him so sad. He finally said "I was just thinking about our cats". Oh, no! I thought he was finally over their deaths; he hadn't brought it up for months and months. Eventually he recovered and we came home..
A while later, it occured to me that our 20 year old cats had died in April. I pulled out my journal and looked it up. They died on April 12, 2007, exactly one year ago today. A chill went up my spine. When I realized that he started to feel sad at the very moment they went down, I couldn't believe it.
There is so much we do not see or understand in this life. Sometimes I wonder what else Ryan can feel or see that I cannot...


FIGARO

.

DINAH

Emma's 5th birthday

Emma is the last baby of her generation in our families. She turned 5 and there was a little party at her house.


Cousins Em & Em



Here is Matthew, one of my nephews, with my mother in law, Barb. Once again we see the TALL gene:



Here is Sam, flying off the swings



Here is MY son's version of flying off the swings. He cracks me up!



Emily & her dad played the hand slap game. Looks like she got him GOOD.



Ryan had a great time with the tether ball. We may have to get one...

PINK ROOM

"see zee room-it is pink now"

  Well, at least the PAINTING is done. Now we move ahead to furniture and all that stuff.........here is our patient, magically evolved girl, dreaming of more pink....she rocks AND she rolls. How could there be a better girl than this ??

Sleepover

A lovely time was had by all.........girls under the age of 30.

  The girls had pizza, screamed, ran around, did makeovers and hairdos, had dessert, watched Nickelodeon, played DS, stayed up until 1 AM, had pancakes and hot chocolate, screamed some more, and of course did a lot of talking about what, I have absolutely no idea.....

EMILY'S VERY OWN ROOM ALL DONE! not

Oh, well!  Slow & steady wins the pink race, right?

David's Birthday Party at Golfland

Ryan is very seldom invited to a party. David Glass asked Ryan to come to his 14th birthday party. There were many interesting boys at the party. I knew I was going to have to be there at the party for the duration; thank God for my extended family: Emily went to play at Aunt Linda's house all afternoon.
Here is the group at the start of the party (Ryan is the copper redhead):


Here is the group after a major Ryan meltdown on the golf course...and before the pizza.



Here is the very happy ending when David & Ryan got to battle it out on Mario Kart at the Arcade. Ultimately, Ryan had a great time. Emily had a blast at her cousins' house. I had a drink when we got home.

Emily & the Jensen Twins

Since Kindergarten, Kaitlin & Jessica have ALWAYS been way too fun...