We're Home!

Wearing same thing as Tucker when he left... Gotta love Florida. It was a gorgeous 80 degree day here in December! Kyle and I left the hospital and went out to lunch with Mac before we picked up Tucker at school. His teacher and friends got to peek at Mac in the car. Apparently, he was beaming all day talking about his little brother. Who would have guessed it?! And when we got home he was HYPER and excited about him. I'm thinking more and more that the hospital just freaked him out.

We have this EXACT picture of Jackson sniffing Tucker when we brought him home three years ago. I have no doubt Jackson is thinking "Great... even less attention for the dog."

Helping Daddio bring him in.

Little kiss.

I wish we would have set these up better for the Christmas picture :)

Getting a little TOO helpful..

Introducing

Sweet John McCormac Ryan

December 8, 2008

8 pounds, 4 ounces 22 inches

These are completely out of order, but above is Tucker coming up right after he was born in his PJs to meet his little brother before he went to bed. He was not that interested. More interested in the hospital bed that goes up and down.

To try to peak his interest, the nurse let Tucker help her cart Mac upstairs to the recovery room. He was ALL about that part.

Minutes after he was born...

The new "car wash"

The bounce house.

Tucker has switched his scary obsession to bounce houses. Ironically (much like car washes at the beginning) he refuses to get in 90% of bounce houses. He only likes the toddler/small ones. But that doesn't stop him from talking about them incessantly and playing bounce house through most of every "nap time." He uses the small portable vacuum as the pump and his down comforter as the floor that is supposedly being blown up. When I won't let him run the vacuum anymore, he uses a large bag of Huggies as the pump.

Last night the San Marco Square had the Holiday Party when they close down the square and have carriage rides and Santa and... a bounce house. Tucker only wanted to look at it, but had nightmares through the night about us leaving the bounce house. He kept crying out "I don't want to leave, Daddio" in his sleep. Sad.

Polar Express

This morning at school Tucker got to wear his PJs and slippers to school for their showing of The Polar Express. They sent home a slip in the mail last week about Movie Day and Tucker has been asking "Is it Friday yet?" since last Wednesday! He was really, really, REALLY excited for today. Last night Daddio read the book to him. This morning he brought the book to school with him. They watched the movie and drank hot chocolate and had cookies. A fabulous day at Southside Methodist Preschool...

Back to Halloween!

Our camera is back! With pictures intact! Just in time for the baby that is STILL NOT HERE. ugh. Waiting to go in to labor is bizarre... but for now, Halloween pictures. They are in reverse order -- so we begin with how the evening ended up. The tiger out cold from a full evening of festivities...

Halloween included trick-or-treating with friends Tucker Sharp & Vinnie Venus -- then going to the Bolles playoff game and cheering in costume in the press box.

For those of you keeping track, this was Tucker's second year as a tiger. He didn't want to be anything else because he already had this costume and it still fit.

Below: Mimi's Prudential Halloween party. He loved the attention, the food and being with his Mimi. He did not love the adult man real estate agent who came to the party as a pirate. "I like pirates, but not men pirates. Only boy pirates." There you go.

He was very proud of his pumpkin this year -

Bolles Game

Bolles played the first round of the playoffs last night. After going down by 6 points, they proceeded to score 70 straight on the poor team from Orlando. For us, it was freezing - thankfully we were in the press box warm most of the night. These are some of Kyle's Bible Study guys - "Tut" above and with Davis in the prom pose below. They'll love that picture. #18 in the last picture is Tyler. They are such great guys and they played an incredible game last night. We are borrowing Carolyn's camera, and I just realized I need to figure out how to get the date off all these. ugh!



We still need to post our Halloween pictures, but they are on the camera being fixed. Hopefully they will come back to us.

And... I'm still not in labor.

Day at the Farm

Kathryn had her 2nd Birthday Party at a farm outside Jacksonville. Tucker was in heaven! Hayride and petting zoo and pony rides... and most importantly, cake.
Kathryn & Tucker checking out the chickens.

Riding the tractor his only question was "Daddio, where is the cup holder?"

Riding "El Diablo"

Heard Walking

The Ryans' great, nice Nikon SLR (our only camera) went down just in time for a baby arrival. Not good. So it is off at the shop and we don't really have pictures to add to the blog, but I did just have the most hilarious series of conversations while walking with Tucker this morning.

First of all, he is fascinated with heaven. He has been asking MANY questions - mostly very hard if not impossible to answer. For example:

-"Mama, are there carwashes in heaven?"
-"Are there gas stations?"
-"But Mama, does Jesus drive a car?" (I say no. Jesus walks around.)
-"So there are sidewalks in heaven?"
-"How do we get all the way up there?"
-"Does Jesus come down to Jacksonville and get us?"
-"Does God eat food?"
-"When do we get to come back home?" (When I say we stay forever, he does NOT like that.)
-"Will there be trains in heaven?"

We have been talking about this a lot over the last few weeks and it keeps coming up because he is not satisfied he gets it. It doesn't help to tell him that heaven will be perfect and wonderful and fun, but it is a mystery exactly what it will be like... today, like usual, we get done with this long discussion and he says "But Mama, will there be carwashes there?" Back to the beginning.

So sweet.

He is also fascinated with the baby inside my belly. Our favorite quote was asked again this morning while walking -

"Is baby Mac going pee pee in your tummy?"

Oh to be three.

Pumpkin Patch Part 2

Reason #384 Tucker is like Kyle. I excitedly told Tucker he was going back to the Pumpkin Patch with his class for school today and all he could say is "I already have a pumpkin." Like his father, if he has one of something, that is all he needs. For example, "Kyle, we should get this shirt for you." Kyle's response: "I already have a shirt." Like his mother, he did pick out his second perfectly symmetrical pumpkin. We don't want any lopsided pumpkins ruining our display!

The beloved Ms Jennifer approving Tuck's choice in pumpkins.
Classic! The boys in the class terrorizing a poor lizard. They are all deciding whether or not to kill it or let it go as I captured this shot. They later decide to let it run and it ends up climbing up one of the other boys - they all started screaming like little girls!

He's worried about the lizard.

They also had story time and lunch time out there.

Kyle in Chi-town

Kyle took a trip up to see his Dad, Stepmom & brothers this past weekend. They had a blast hanging out. Above: Sean (in middle - 71) at his football game Saturday night.

Kyle & Patrick

Field & Science Museum

Fall

We have been really busy around here - preparing for baby and preparing for Halloween and chasing a 3-plus year old. Above: This is the outfit Tucker came out of "nap time" (i.e. supposed-to-be-napping-playing-in-bed time) in yesterday.
Me with 6 weeks still to go. Ugh.
Remember this cute dog? Kyle took a picture of him b/c it has been so long since he has had any recognition as part of our family. Poor Jackson!
We have actually had some Fall-like weather here in Jacksonville. It has been awesome! But I am glad it will be in the 80s again this weekend. I want to get another beach trip in while Kyle is up in Chicago for the weekend. On Sunday Tucker's school had a Fall Festival complete with train rides, 5 bounce houses, climbing walls, etc. Tucker would not try ONE thing because he was too scared... not out of the ordinary, but we did pick out some pumpkins and at the end he wanted to go back to the train. Unfortunately the line was way too long and we had another party we were supposed to be at. Kyle decided it was a good time to teach the life lesson "You snooze, you lose" to Tucker as there was no line for the train earlier in the afternoon when he was scared. I don't think he got it.
This is Kyle counseling Tucker. "You can do it buddy. It's not scary. It's just a little bounce house. All your friends are in there." Nothing worked. So, back to the pumpkin patch...

Playing school and cooking show in his giraffe tent.
Leading Jackson out of the park after a big dog party.

We're heading out to Wal-Mart because Tucker doesn't think we are ready enough for Halloween. He says pumpkins aren't enough and he wants spider webs with spiders on our door. That doesn't really jive with my fall wreath idea, but I guess this is the time to spook it up for his sake! I guarantee you that as soon as we put the spiders on he will be upset that it is too scary and want me to take it down! Oh well.

Shoes

Tucker LOVES my shoes...

And Daddio's boots, too, on occasion...