Blond Hair, Blue Eyes: Take 2

I've been wanting to do this for a while now--compare Baby Ryan pictures with Baby Jake pictures side by side. They are a little over 8 years apart and sometimes memory fails, but I'm always calling Jake "Ry-Ry" because he so reminds me of Ryan as a baby. And people who didn't know me when Ryan was little (and still blond) ask how Jake could have blond hair, and I say, "It's just a repeat of baby Ryan..."

They do look distinctly different, but yet so much alike. I sometimes think of them as twins separated by 8 years...what do you think???

Sydney's Easter Dress

Well, FINALLY, here are some pics of Syd's Easter dress (and her hair) from this year. This is actually from the week after Easter, since we didn't have to wear church clothes on Easter due to Conference. She looked super-cute (in my opinion). I especially love that she is missing two teeth.

Who knows how much longer I'll be able to tell her what to wear and dress her how I want...hopefully forever, right?

Mad Hatter

Sometimes Jakey just makes me smile...o.k...he almost ALWAYS makes me smile. But these pictures here are just too much.

He found Sydney's dog ears from her Littlest Pet Shop party and loved wearing them. Thank goodness I thought to grab the camera!

Then the other day when Tim was getting his hunting things together, he found this camo hat and thought he was HOT STUFF! He was right! The picture in the center is my favorite--I think it's the eyes...and the fact that he didn't quite get his hat on just right...

I was just thinking today how fun it has been to have our "what's one more" baby, as I usually refer to him. To once again get to go through all the fun stages that were just memories before he came along. He is definitely a handful and I rarely accomplish much during my days with him around, but it's just as it should be and I'm so glad I listened to those feelings a couple years ago. After all, what's one more? :)

Easter Sunday

In Bryson family tradition, the Easter Bunny left baskets full of presents for the kiddos. Brandon got a new MP3 player since his old one won't turn on anymore. Sydney got lots of Littlest Pet Shop pets. Ryan has really been wanting a new alarm clock so he can wake himself up in the mornings, and his wish was granted. And Jake got some toy balls and a new book. Mostly he just wanted the Tootsie Pops. :) They had a lot of fun finding all the candy, too.
After the 2nd session of conference, we went out to Grandma's house for dinner and the annual egg hunt. Again, it was pretty cold, but not nearly as bad as the morning before. Again, Jake got like 5 eggs and thought that was fine. Sydney and Ryan, on the other hand, filled their buckets to the top and had a ball! Brandon decided this year to help hide. It's funny to see him older and no longer egg-hunting. Sydney was thrilled to find the "silver egg" that Grandma always provides. It had a $2 bill inside, which she has already spent at the school book fair.

After the hunt, Grandpa brought out 2 lab puppies that they were watching for Uncle Kip. Sydney immediately fell in love with the black one! She begged for the rest of the night for us to let her keep him. She kept saying, "But he loves me!!" She was really trying to work it, but no luck. Hopefully we can breed Molly soon and then she can have her puppy fix for a while.

Ward Easter Hunt

Saturday morning was our ward's Easter egg hunt. It was CRAZY-COLD!!!!! Brandon got to help hide the eggs, and the other kids hunted (picked them up off the ground). Jake couldn't understand what the point was, but he was obedient and put some in his basket. I think he ended up with like 3 or 4 and that was plenty! It lasted about 10 minutes, and we left immediately after to go home and watch Conference.

Sydney all bundled up!

You can tell Ryan's thinking it's just too cold to be outside!

"Mom, can we go home yet???"

Brandon trying to be cool. Haha!

Handy-woman

Every now and then I surprise myself. For years I have been thinking that it would be awesome to have shelves in my laundry room above the folding counter. But all I do is think about it. And Tim is always so busy that I hate to bug him to do it. Well, a couple weeks ago I went ahead and bought the shelves at Lowe's and had Tim cut them down to size for me, since table saws scare me. Then last week, I put them up all by myself while he was at work. I was so proud! I know it's just a little thing, but it's made me so happy! Now I finally have my sewing machine and serger out of my closet, and a place for scrapbooking supplies, which I haven't used in way too long, but that's another story... I also put a rod along the bottom for hanging shirts to dry, which has already been SO nice! I'm pretty happy that I still have room to put more things!

Sometimes it takes so little to make me happy...now on to other projects!

Wahooz Pictures

O.K. As promised from an earlier post, here are pictures from our trip to Wahooz during Spring Break. We had a ton of fun on the go-karts. Brandon was the only kid tall enough to drive the fast ones by himself. Jake couldn't go on at all, and Sydney was just big enough to be my passenger. Ryan, his friend Kendrik, and his sister Kaytra were all big enough to drive the mini go-karts by themselves, but they were SO SLOW!!! Ryan kept trying to make a pass, but just couldn't get any speed. He had a good time, though.
My friend Annette bought each of my kids their own bag of cotton candy, and Jake was pretty much in heaven. While the older kids played laser tag with the dads, he was more than happy to have a seat and stuff his face! We also gave him a ride on a Tonka truck, which he wasn't too sure about. I think he would have liked it better if it didn't move.

Brandon's glasses

Well, not surprisingly, we have realized that Brandon needs glasses. He is, after all, half-Woodman. :)

I think he was hoping that the near-sightedness in our family history would somehow skip his generation...maybe he thought that since I paid oodles of money and got my vision corrected several years ago, that would mean he would inherit my paid-for perfect vision. No luck there! The funny thing is that apparently he's known for a while that he wasn't seeing too clearly, but didn't want to say anything to me because he didn't want glasses. But the truth came out when he had to have a physical in order to run track for the school and he couldn't read the vision chart too well...

I think he looks awesome in them, though, and sadly, even more grown-up.