Kaitlyn Ryan

Sorry for the lack of posts, we have been pretty busy lately. As Sean mentioned, Kaitlyn is now an owner of a Big Girl Bed! She has been doing great sleeping in her own bed in her own room too! She tends to wake up around the 2am hour most nights, but last night she slept in there the whole night! Needless to say, Sean and I have been sleeping better.

And again, as Sean mentioned, her ears are pierced! One of the earrings actually came out the first night in her big girl bed, but thankfully I got it back in. She looks so grown up now!

Her vocabulary is getting bigger too! She really wants to carry on conversations with us. She uses hand gestures when telling us stories, it’s so cute. Her two most recent words are “Ow” and “No.”

Eating is about the same. Kaitlyn likes to munch more than sit down for a meal, but we’re working on it. She is a fan of almost all fruits, rice, pizza, cheese, pretzels, and some not so good snacks.

Hope you all had a wonderful Father’s Day!

Two big events in Kaitlyn’s life, all within the last 48 hours.

Number 1 – She is now sporting a nice pair of earrings! Mom took her on Friday to get her ears pierced, though I do believe it was a bit of a spur of the moment kind of thing. Pictures will follow shortly, but they are pink tourmaline studs (one of her birthstones).

It is definitely weird to see my little girl with earrings. Next thing you know she is going to be going out on dates with the little boy next door. I suppose this is all part of growing up, but – and I never thought I would say this – I like her as she is now. Yes, it would be nice if I could translate “A da may,” which seems to have limitless applications for her, but means nothing to most of us. But overall, I like the little girl, and with her ears the way they are now, I feel like we just took the first step away from that.

Number 2 – She is sleeping in her own bed, in her own room!

For those who don’t know, since she came home a year and a half ago, she has been sleeping in our bed with us. This wasn’t a big deal when she was itty bitty, but being the 24 pound whirlwind that she is now became just about unbearable for Mom and I. So we finally bit the bullet and bought her a nice twin bed and put it in her room.

And as of tonight – at least for the last 2 hours – she is officially sleeping in her own room in her own bed! Pictures will be up of this as well.

Now I know what you all are thinking, that this won’t last. But it will. We have made a commitment to make this work, no matter how difficult it becomes.

And, if for some reason we break down…well, at least we have another bed now!

Yesterday was Anthony’s college graduation! It was hard to believe he was already graduating from college! It feels like he just graduated from high school last year. The graduation ceremony was at the colesium at 10am. We had a nice group of family & friends there to cheer him. After a nice, but long, ceremony we headed back to my house for an after party. We munched on finger food while Dad warmed up the baked ziti… yum! We all just hung out and had a wonderful time. I am so glad all of us got to get together to celebrate Anthony’s accomplishment! Seven more months and we’ll be celebrating his wedding!

So for those of you wondering what Kaitlyn’s Uncle Anthony is going to be up to now that he has that college degree under his belt… he’s going back to school. Yes, that’s right, he is starting to get his Masters degree this fall at The Citadel. He is looking and applying for a job, and while nothing has come up yet he does know he wants to continue his education. Last I heard he plans on becoming a Social Studies teacher. I think he will be great!

And then today… Happy Mother’s Day! I hope all of you Moms had a wonderful and relaxing day. Mine was pretty easy going. I was looking forward to going to the pool this afternoon, but Mother Nature decided otherwise. The afternoon thunderstorm cancelled my hopes of hanging out in the pool with Kaitlyn. That’s ok though, we’ll get our fair share of the pool this summer.

And as I always say, please visit my Flickr site for more pictures from Anthony’s graduation. I hope everyone has had a wonderful Mother’s Day!

We decided to go on another trip to Disney! Mimi, Papito and Aunt Veronica were going to Orlando for cheerleading and said they were going to go to a park one of the days. I had the time off, so I decided to take Kaitlyn and crash the party. I am so happy we went! While we missed Sean, we had a wonderful time! We stayed at the Coronado Springs resort, very nice by the way, and ended up going to Disney’s Hollywood Studios & Epcot! We really lucked out at Epcot! We were walking around trying to find something kid friendly for Kaitlyn, when we noticed Epcot’s character spot with 5 characters there to meet! The line was a little long, but I didn’t want to pass up the chance for Kaitlyn to see Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, and Donald! I wasn’t sure how she was going to act since less than a month before that we were in Orlando and had breakfast with the characters. She was not a fan of getting close to the characters at all! I expected the same reaction, but this time was completely different. Once she saw Mickey Mouse, the first character of the 5 to see, she was so excited!!! She did not want to wait her turn, she just wanted to run up to him. I went up to the first two with her, but she did the last three all by herself! She was so sweet too, gave them all a big hug and a kiss. After that character meet, we ended up seeing Chip & Dale, Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, and the Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. We really lucked out with the characters in Epcot! You can see more pictures on my flickr site (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tori_ryan/).

I know I’m a little late, but I hope you all had a wonderful Easter! We had a very nice and relaxed Easter Sunday. We started our morning off with having brunch with Sean’s parents. We had yummy waffles, hashbrowns, bacon, & biscuits. Kaitlyn decided to try some bacon too, and liked it, but who doesn’t like bacon!

We hung out at our house for the afternoon. Kaitlyn took a nap while Sean and I straightened up the house for dinner. Then that evening we had Easter dinner with my parents and siblings and my grandmother (Kaitlyn’s Great Nana). We had a very nice time just hanging out with eachother.

Kaitlyn is continuing to amaze us every day. Her vocabulary is always growing. She now calls Uncle Anthony her own special way of saying Anthony, she can say Yippee, getting better with saying Up, says Thank You (and we don’t even have to prompt her most times). I really do need to just sit down and write down everything she can say because I can never remember all of her words.

She is still a big fan of music. One of her favorite television shows (no, she doesn’t watch that much) is Jack’s Big Music Show. Unfortunately it is no longer being made, but Sean recorded all of the episodes to our DVR so Kaitlyn can watch them whenever she wants. If you haven’t seen the show yet, try to find it one day. It’s fun!

Kaitlyn is also taking classes at The Little Gym. For those of you who do not know… I work there part time. Kaitlyn and Sean have their class Monday evenings. It’s not only a time for the two of them to hang out together and bond, but Kaitlyn is working on her motor skills and social skills. She does forward rolls with assistance, occasionaly hangs on the bars, and has just started walking on the balance beam. It is neat to see her progress each week.

Well I think that is about it for now. Sean and I are still doing well. Nothing new going on with the two of us, just enjoying our little Princess. We hope you all had a wonderful Easter! I’ll leave you all with a picture from this time last year just to show how much she has grown!

So the last month has been a lot of fun. Kaitlyn has been growing and learning. She is talking a lot more now, while most is still baby talk, it’s cute that she is trying to carry on conversations with us. She calls all of her Aunts & Uncles “NeNe.” She can also say Apple, Juice, Shoes, Bow, Banana, Down, Stars, Bubbles, Ashes (for Ring Around the Rosie), Mickey Mouse… and I know there are more that I am missing.

Kaitlyn is also pretty bossy. Just recently she has started pushing us around, physically. She pushes your legs to get you to move and push you in the direction she wants you to go. She also pulls your hands if you are sitting down to get you to stand up. Kaitlyn also LOVES to dance, so when she’s dancing and you are not, she usually yells at you to tell you to dance too.  It is pretty funny to watch. She definitely has all of us wrapped around her little finger.

The only area of her life that is unexciting is her appetite. She doesn’t seem to really care for any food, or I guess meals. She likes cantelope, honeydo melon, strawberries on occasion, watermelon, grapes (peeled of course), cookies, tomatoes, cucumbers, cheese, green beans, peas, bread, spaghetti, and rice. And like I said for her vocabulary, I’m sure I’m missing some things. Kaitlyn just doesn’t seem to be a fan of what we eat. She drives me and Papito crazy with not eating, but I guess she’ll eat when she’s hungry.

The beginning of this month we went to Orlando for one of Veronica’s cheerleading competitions. We drove down on a Friday, a six hour drive turned into eight, and met Marty and Kimberly at the house we rented for the weekend. Saturday we watched Veronica compete on her dance and cheer team. She did a fantastic job which I guess is why her team won the National title. Sunday we had breakfast with the characters at Ohana’s at the Polynesian resort. She was excited to see the characters and waved hello and blew them kisses, but wasn’t a big fan of them getting too close. The only character she let come close to her was Pluto, she gave him a kiss on his nose. From there we went to the Magic Kingdom. This year was more fun than last year since she is more aware of what is going on. We went on the People Mover, The Carousel of Progress, It’s A Small World, the Carousel, the Haunted House, and Pirates of the Caribbean. She also enjoyed one of the parades they did when we first got there.

Well I think that is a pretty good update for now. I’ll post again soon with more pictures. Don’t forget to visit my Flickr page (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tori_ryan/) for more photos of our little Princess. Oh, and Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

We had a great Saturday! Kaitlyn spent the morning with Papito while I was photographing cheerleaders and Sean was taking a cooking class. After we were all done, we enjoyed meatball subs (courtesy of Papito) and went to the park. The weather was perfect for playing outside, and Kaitlyn seemed to really enjoy herself. She did a fantastic job of walking around the park in the sand. She went down slides, swung on the swings, hung on the monkey bars, and a whole bunch more. I’m looking forward to more warm weather so we can continue to have more outings. Last night Sean cooked us all cheeseburgers with a new recipe he learned at his cooking class. They were yummy! I can’t wait to try a few of his other recipes.

Yesterday, Kaitlyn also decided to say a couple of 2 word phrases. Yesterday morning she said “Dada Bye Bye” to Sean when he went into the other room. Then while we were at the park she said “Hello Dada” (of course her Hello sounds more like Hewwo, but it’s adorable)!

We also discovered last week that Kaitlyn is still teething! When we took her to her 14 month check up, her Dr. said she was getting her 18 month molars in and that she should be done until she is 2. Well, the past couple of weeks Kaitlyn has not been sleeping the best and has been a little fussy, which is not like her. Kaitlyn and I were having lunch with Papito last week when I just happened to look in her mouth and saw a tooth starting to come through. I am not a dentist, so I do not know the fancy names for our teeth, but I think it is one of the K9 teeth. Needless to say we were happy we learned why she had been a little grumpy. She has also been fighting a stuffy/runny nose the past few days. Hopefully it will clear up soon. I hate when she sounds congested.

Other than that, all is well here. Sean is still participating in Beards for Babies. His facial hair is not that long yet, but I cannot say I’m looking forward to seeing how long it gets. We hope you all are well, and please leave us a note if you are still following our wonderful baby girl!

As some of you know, I outgrew my previous laptop. My old laptop served me well over the past four years or so, but the time came for an update. I went back and forth with Sean over which laptop to get, but when I came across a deal on a MacBook Pro I couldn’t resist. So I am now updating everyone on the new addition to our electronic family. The point to this post is that while organizing my files on my new laptop, I came across a few photos that I do not think I have ever shared. They are of Kaitlyn last May. It is amazing how much she has grown! I just wanted to take a moment and share with you all. So here’s a little Flashback Thursday!

Day 1

Sean is participating in a fundraiser for MUSC Children’s Hospital. All he has to do is grow his beard from February 1 thru March 1 and collect donations to benefit this wonderful hospital. As you all know MUSC is important to us since that is where Kaitlyn was born and they did such an amazing job taking care of her. If you are interested in making a donation for this wonderful hospital, please visit http://www.musckids.com/beards_babies/. Click on Sponsor. Put in all the appropriate info, with Sean Ryan as the beard grower. On the next page, when you are putting in your CC info, make sure you change the drop down at the top of the page to Beards for Babies. There is also a place for comments near the top of that same form. You don’t have to do this, but I put “for beard grower Sean Ryan” just to make sure they put it to the right person. We will take pictures and let you know how the growing is coming along. Thank you for your support for this amazing cause!