Ayda was very excited to take family pictures!
Our family, May 2008
I love this shot; too bad my hair looks like Ryan's mullet!! Ooops - we will use a different shot to enlarge!!
So precious.
There are good ones of Jared facing the camera, but I absolutely love this shot.

We had family pictures taken a couple of weeks ago, and they turned out really well. Here are a few to give you a taste. I put more on facebook.

We are getting down to the grind with getting ready to sell the house. I think this weekend we will get someone to watch the kids and I'll pack up stuff we don't need right now while Ryan works on more finishing touches.
Poor little Ayda was not feeling well yesterday - she had a fever and her eyes were red-rimmed and really watery. I was putting on a shower for my niece, so I couldn't even just cuddle with her. Luckily a good friend of my Mom's walked with her for at least 45 minutes while she screamed and cried, and then for another hour while she slept fitfully. God bless Ivy! When we got home, she just cuddled right up to me and fell asleep. My precious angel. She is going to be sitting on her own really soon!! Yikes - she's growing up way too fast.

Jared has decided to add about a hundred words a day to his vocabulary. He has always been really vocal, but lately, man. I really have to keep on top of his new words so that I know what he is talking about (since the words aren't always prounounced quite right!) but there are times when I just have to say, "I'm sorry Jared, but I don't know what you are saying." But overall I love it, because our conversations are getting more and more complex everyday.

Of course, he is challenging at times...He took the screen off of his window this morning and bent the crap out of it while I was getting breakfast ready. Then he came downstairs (no gate, because Ryan is painting the stairwell) while I was dressing Ayda upstairs and turned on the Xbox, chucked the DVD that was in there behind the player and was trying to get to the one he wanted to watch. He knows he is not supposed to touch the Xbox. The other day he cleaned out the little overflow hole in the sink with his toothbrush - wonderful. The first place he heads when outside in any capacity is to the front gate to see if it is unlatched and then takes off down the street if it is. And he is fast. If he gets any sort of head start, you really have to hoof it to catch him. Also this morning, he was drinking out of a water bottle in our bed, and proceeded to pull it away from his mouth without tipping it upright. On purpose. There was pretty much an outline of his upper body on our bed made with water. He was propped up on Ryan's side. :) Ahhh, our lives. I really do love him so very much, don't get me wrong! And while it is really frustrating at the time (especially if we are trying to get out the door), looking back it's pretty funny!

Ryan's been working really hard to get the house ready to sell - hopefully this month...