Weekend Pictures

Yet again, a Kruger towers over a Rudd. I think Melissa was taller than me when she turned three.


They just wittnessed their moms guzzle down coffee...wonder if coffee affects babies the same way it affects the general public. Wonder if Abby and Ryan are trying to tell us something. Do we listen?!


The "men" protecting Ryan from becoming a "Pretty Boy". We (women) are not allowed to say that he is "soooo pretty", "such a pretty boy", or "pretty baby".





What's the rule??? No bumpers, no large stuffed animals in the crib??? No worries, he was just in there playing while mom cleaned up his room. (The kid got all his toys out and didn't put them away).

T! News Weekend

Weekend Updates!
-The parents of Baby Boy Tootle have realized that their son drains their bank account.
-After a hard day's work of killing weeds, it rains.
-Waffles have proven to pack on the lbs...even in a breast feeding mother. Will she ever learn? Stayed tuned....
-Papparazzi continue to follow the baby boy. Ryan should just accept this new lifestyle. He asked for it. Any cute baby with the most precious eyelashes will get photographed.
-Baby's daddy is sick in bed after his weekend. Reps tell T! News that he devoured a bag of Cheeto Puffs, and "other" junk food over the weekend.
-The mom of Ryan has fully admitted to the use of Gain detergent for Ryan's clothes. After being confronted by his maternal Grandma (a.k.a Nama) she has realized she needs to get off the Gain and back on Dreft.
-The family's rep has confirmed that the parents have not worked out in over two weeks. Sources close to the couple fear for their son's safety....worried they may sit on him.
-That's all for T! News Weekend. Stay tuned for the Weekend Pictures in Review!

Five for Friday...and a Video

1. Rod just called to tell me he drove off with the gas pump still hooked into his car. There was about nine feet of hose trailing along his car. He had to pull back into the gas station, and give the hose back. hahaha! I thought that only happened in the movies. Apparently not.

2. I'm obsessed with the show "So You Think You Can Dance"...well, the group is coming to SAN ANTONIO! So, here's where I'm evil...I'm going to rat two of my friends out. Casey and Nerissa are just as obsessed! And, the three of us are going to see them! Nerissa hasn't said yes yet, but I know she's in. I'll have my poster made with "I Love Sabra". She's my favorite. I also like Lauren.

3. My son hasn't done his "doodie" in over 48 hours now. He seems fine, but mommy and daddy can't imagine the feeling. :)

4. Ryan now sleeps 8 to 8.5 hours!!! Life is good. Not sure how this started. Maybe mom is sleeping harder?!?! Whatever works, right?! :)

5. Something pathetic to tell y'all... So, every Saturday, Ryan and I've been heading out to the coffee shop to have waffles and the most delicious Chai tea. Why pathetic...every Sunday (the next morning) I start thinking about "Waffle Saturday". (And, for some reason, I can't figure out why I'm not losing weight since breastfeeding burns 800 calories a day).

Video: I was catching the precious moment Ryan and Jenny were sharing in the water....moment interrupted.

Three Pool Trips in Three Days!!!

Check out our little swimmer!!!

The Poor Man's Kiddie Park Ride

Look at the excitement on Ryan's face. This ride is out of control! Ryan ran out of quarters, so Dad stopped the ride early.

Big Boy in the Bumbo

My friend Courtney was talking about how her son uses the Bumbo all the time. So, I started to wonder if Ryan was ready for his Bumbo debut. Looks like it! He was sooooo funny in it. Does it get any cuter?!?!

To My Auntie Tallie

Courtesy of Auntie Tallie

I've got THE prettiest Aunts EVER! I love them to pieces and can't wait for their hugs and kisses.

I wore this to bed, and all day yesterday. (Mommy doesn't change me too often...especially now that she's working from home.)

Ryan's Close to My Heart

I'll now have this necklace on me to help with my first few weeks back in the office. This is a gift from one of my childhood, and close friends Brooke! If you can't read them, one strip says "RYAN" and the other says "DONOVAN". I . THANK YOU BROOKE!!! I LOVE them!

Ten for Tuesday

NOTE: This is a 6M outfit. I had to go into his closet and re-evaluate.


Ryan and I went to Happy Hour and met up with Marisa. Don't worry folks. Rod picked him up after his golf game. Mommy got to enjoy a good beer and live music, while enjoying some HYSTERICAL conversation.

1. Ryan slept SEVEN hours last night. It was wonderful for Mommy! Hopefully, we're working our way to something good.

2. Looking forward to my slumber party with Casey, Marisa and Susan when Rod goes on his canoe trip. Yummy food by Chef Casseb.

3. We appreciate my mom's help with our house and getting it back together after the sewage flood.

4. We're looking forward to dinner with Grandpa and Grandma Tootle tomorrow night!!

5. The new carpet is WONDERFUL! We feel like we're in a new home. I feel much better about Ryan being on the floor now.

6. Ryan played in his Jumperoo for the first time. Okay, so maybe Nama and myself played with Ryan in the Jumperoo.

7. Lately, it seems that everytime my mom and I try to plan for a shopping trip, we get completely POURED on by all the rain. We tried to drive out to the San Marcos Outlet Malls to go to the Potterybarn Outlet, and we couldn't make it. Streets were flooded, and you couldn't see 20 feet in front of you. So, we turned around. TURN AROUND AND DON'T DROWN....(Cheesey, San Antonio saying that is becoming all too familiar).

8. Ryan's ready for his buddy Hudson to get here. Come on Hudson! You have a lot of people here who love you already!

9. Ryan and I got to see my cousin Mary and all her zillion of kiddos. Unfortunately, my webcam was not working, so they couldn't see Ryan.

10. Working from home has been going well. Nama has been over both days this week to help me keep Ryan on a routine. Its great! I feed, hand over to Nama and she'll burp and change him. Back to work I go. When cooking dinner, I put Ryan in his bouncy chair and he'll watch his momma whip up a four course meal. Ha! Okay, so they've been one course meals.

BONUS TIME!

11. The sewage smell is coming back into our house. The cap is off in the backyard so we shouldn't have another flood, but unfornately we're getting a pretty yucky smell roaming the bathrooms. I sprayed and sprayed air freshener and poured tons of toilet bowl cleaner in the toilets.

Ryan's First YouTube Experience

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ_t6997I5g

My Heart Continues to Melt

I actually put make-up on today! Worried that Ryan wouldn't recognize me, I went over to play with him in hopes I'd get one of these......

A SWEET SMILE!

Ryan is SO Loved!!!

Ryan, Mom and I visited Jenny at the coffee shop, and found some of our friends from our Small Group! Can you say "babysitters"? Nama and I got to eat waffles, carry a conversation, drink chai lattes, and gain five pounds all at the same time. I'm multitasking with the best of them.

Hard at Work

Hi Guys! Its me, Ryan. I'm back to work. It's hard working from home in your pj's. Mommy makes me look at this computer screen with her. After I put in a morning's worth of work, I head to the living room and watch my Baby Einstein DVD. Which by the way, I've seen over five times. I think its time for a new one. Amanda and Kristen bought me plenty of Baby Einstein DVD's and for some reason, Mom keeps putting the same one in...all the time. She's even slacking on "tummy time"...which is fine by me.

My legs have healed after the torment my mom and my doctor put me through. And, I think my new reflux medicine is working. Its "supposed" to taste like gum. I DON'T THINK SO. This stuff tastes like the numbing medicine you get when getting a cavity filled (so my mom says).

That's all I got for now. I'm off to the swing to take a nap, and let mom finish working.

Ryan's Two Month Growth!

Here is Ryan at two months old. We're using this chair to chart his growth on a monthly basis. Ryan at two months.

Ryan at one month

Two-Months Old Means Too Many Shots

Today was a big day! Ryan got four shots, two Tweety Bird bandaids, and a new cry...a more mature cry. A cry that I'd like to forget. A cry that brought momma to tears. I immediately went straight to my momma's house, and got my coke float. (Its all about me). :)

My idea was to take a before "shot" and after "shot" of Ryan's "doctor's visit. Well, I got the before picture, but couldn't bare to let go of him after his shots. So, I didn't snap an after shot. Nama did take one of us when we had calmed down from all the excitement.

As far as his reflux, we're trying a new medication. I weaker one, but some parents swear that this medicine worked over the Previcid. So, its worth a "shot". Ryan still seems bothered with it. Although, he's gained plenty of weight so the doc was happy about that.

Here are Ryan's two-month stats:
Weight: 11 lbs, 3 ozs
Height: 22 inches

BEFORE

Back home in the House of Nama

Chunky-monkey's first band-aid.

Our Little Male Model

Here are Ryan's pics. These were taken maybe three weeks ago. He's doing great! Cooing, smiling, AND I've caught him laughing in his sleep, twice. It was just about the cutest thing I've ever seen him do. The laugh is hilarious. I wonder if that will be "his laugh"?!?! Ryan's also growing like crazy. He weighed 11.5 lbs according to my Dad's scale. We go to our two month appointment on Monday. He'll be getting his shots. :( To make it up to him, I'll eat some ice cream to help soothe the pain. :)

http://www.lauraharrisphotography.com/ then, click on "Client Proofing", and then type in "ryan" for the password. If you decide not to use the automatic slide show, be sure to click the arrow so that you can see all 50-something of them. Otherwise, you'll just see 10.

Rod is heading to Houston today to look at a carpet store that is owned by our brother-n-law's friend. And, hopefully we'll have some carpet this weekend. We're still in the same situation that we've been in all week. Waiting to hear from SAWS. They have 30 days to answer a claim. State Farm denied our claim with them. They don't cover sewage problems. (of course not). So, needless to say, my insurance-husband is sending us to another insurance company to write our insurance.

Here are some more pictures. They just don't do this whole mess justice. Notice the toilet paper lining Poo River. This is not the same picture as the one in the previous post. Awful. Rod talked to a co-worker in his office, that is a lawyer. He said that SAWS will probably NOT be liable b/c this problem was most likely caused from all the rain, and that its happening all over the city. My thought....that's crazy! They need to figure out their sewage system so this does not happen to people (all over the city).

Oh, and another note, this river is flowing directly into a storm drain. Now, doesn't that just sound lovely?!?! That storm drain goes to our water system.

SAWS was pretty responsive once Rod told them we have a two month old that has not had all his shots yet.

Well, its now over 24 hours since "poo-maddness". I just got a call from Rod, who was at the house and found that the river is running again. So, he called SAWS and they're sending "haz-mat" out to our house to clean up all of the inside, and shut off the poop-shooter. As soon as the river stops, they better get to the backyard and clean up the toilet paper that lines the "flow". I'll have a picture of that as soon as I get back from the house. If anyone from San Antonio can remember which news channel it was that covered the story on this same situation, please let us know.

Nothing like waking up to a fresh cup of SEWAGE! That's right. What you see is poo-water. I woke Rod up and "kindly" asked him to quit passing gas. Asked if he had PF Changs. And, he kindly replied "no", and went back to bed. It didn't take long for us to realize something was really wrong.

We had four people bailing out poo-water with trash cans and buckets out of the bathtubs (both, mind you). And, we still couldn't keep up with the flow. Mom came over and picked up Ryan to protect his innocent nostrils. I got the poo in my eyes and mouth. SICK!





A little river in the yard...purely natural. No man-made nothing....well, sort of. :) We figured out the problem at 7:30am, and its now 9:35 and STILL flowing out.

Look at Our Little Charmer!

I left him here for play time (a.k.a. to do laundry), and came back to check on him. He was smiling!!! Makes me wonder what I had been missing before this.

A natural bouncy-chair bouncer

Melting Mom's heart....



Uh, oh.....

And, we're over it!

The Baby that Goes With the Room!

NOTHING LIKE A CLEAN DIAPER!!

Ryan's Room

Playdate was at my house this week. With that, I decided to pretend like I was one of those organized moms. In order to pull off the appearance, I had my mom come over and babysit Ryan while I whipped my house in shape. And, did I have a whoopin' of a job ahead of me. Here's a little of my "to do" list:
-laundry
-sweep front porch
-clean sinks
-bake chocolate chip cookies (aka. eat some dough)
-vaccum
-pay bills
-finish Ryan's room (still not done)
-empty boxes from the move in 2006
-The list goes on and on.....


I'm glad my day for playdate was moved up b/c I really needed to get my list worked on before I head back to work. I'll be officially back in the office on August 6th, but start back part-time from home, July 9th. Hopefully, I'll be able to work and take care of Ryan. We'll see!

Here are some pics of Ryan's room. And, just some random pictures I thought I'd share.

Memory box of Ryan's Birth

This unit was built by my dad, and Rod stained it. The "T" you see here is now on the wall above the changing table. (see picture below)


Wasn't Rod a cutie pie?!


Sweet Mandy was in San Antonio for a conference. I took her to Jacala for a little San Antonio flavor!

Mom's Day Out!!

Today was spent running errands, drinking caffeine, and getting an hour massage! Rod spent the morning, and early afternoon with Ryan. I fed, clothed, and kissed Ryan goodbye. See the onesie I left him in. :) (Just in case).

After I had the day to myself, the three of us went to Sonterra for dinner. Afterwards, Rod and I decided to enjoy ourselves with a cocktail as the sun was setting. Ryan's first touch of the greens!