The update

Since Ryan graciously offered to put Cecilia to bed so I could do some Blogging, here is a little update from the Virginia Tompkins family. I haven't posted since Cecilia's birthday, so I'll back track to my birthday which was a couple days later. Here is a slideshow of pictures from my wonderful birthday weekend, which began with a trip to DC on Saturday, and ended with the birthday cake celebration on Sunday. Thank you to everyone for your phonecalls and messages, they really helped to make my day special and I really appreciated it! As for the pictures, I didn't give them all captions but you'll see some from our trip to the American Art museum, including a picture taken with Annie Oakley in honor of my dad, and our special dinner out to Fogo de Chao's, the most incredibly amazing dining experience I have ever had. There is a picture of Cecilia from our way home from Mass that I find particularly adorable; she was starting to fall asleep in her car seat, and Ryan began loud/obnoxious/ridiculous singing in an attempt to keep her awake until we got home, and it made her smile the sweetest, sleepiest smile. The pictures from the birthday party also have some good ones of Cecilia, especially when I am blowing out the candles, you can see how much she enjoyed that.

Here's a slideshow of our activities leading up to/including Halloween. We also made a trip to a pumpkin patch, and Cecilia responded with just about the same enthusiasm as Sofia did to her trip! :) She didn't like seeing the animals so up close and personal, the goats especially made her freak out, and she refused to show any interest in the other activities. Even I, who love pumpkin patches (and any Fall activity, really) did not enjoy myself; the bitter cold high winds that were blowing unceasingly while we were there kind of put a damper on the outing. The high winds made it really hard for Cecilia to walk, and so after trying a few times and getting knocked over, she became really frustrated and wanted to be held the entire time. We did manage to get some cute little pumpkins while we were there, which turned out to be made of granite, or steel, or maybe diamonds, because even Ryan's strong muscles could not carve them when we tried. Halloween itself was really enjoyable for all of us, though. I switched my costume at the last minute from the Dragon Tamer's Wife (I was having some sizing issues) to a ladybug, and my nephew Peter decided to help himself to putting some finishing touches of fabric paint on my t-shirt. This was of course devastating to me (I take such pride in my work) but Ryan and Cecilia helped cheer me up and we went off to trick-or-treating with the Kazas. Ryan stayed in character as Sir Gilbert all night, and I can't help but think all the women couldn't stop staring at his legs as he trotted around in my maternity leggings and slouchy black boots. Cecilia cried at the first few houses, as she would instantly scream in absolute terror at the sight of strangers opening their doors and saying hello to her. But once we gave her a few bites of candy, it all clicked: these strangers were not trying to hurt her, or snatch her away from her parents, they were just giving her candy! Then, she LOVED it. She would kick her feet and sing happy songs to herself as we walked from house to house, and then would growl on demand at each door when we asked her to say what sound a dragon makes. She would of course ask for "MORE!" candy and went especially crazy when we finally got home and all the kids dumped out their bags of candy to start trading. She went around to all their piles of candy and collected all of the lolli pops, and literally would have eaten everything in her path if we had not stopped her and put her to bed. We think it was a very successful first Halloween for Cecilia, and can't wait for next year's when we will have Ryan Jr. to dress up as well!

Now for the month of November, which has been lovely so far except that we have not found a place to move into as we had hoped to by now. Our search has been very frustrating since the market here for rentals is very competitive, and there are not a lot of new places being put on the market at this time of year. We are seeing a few new openings tomorrow night, and we hope they will yield some results. We are so anxious to find our own place before Thanksgiving, so we can settle in and start preparing for the birth of baby Ryan! Please pray for our housing situation, we really appreciate your prayer support. As for the slideshow, we have some pictures from Ryan's birthday-- can he really be 25? It's hard to believe! Since it fell on a Tuesday we couldn't do anything too crazy, but we managed to fit in some low-key, laid back, Ryan-style activities. Cecilia and I packed a picnic of Boar's Head deli subs and met Ryan at work for his lunch hour. We love doing lunch dates whenever possible during the work week, but it was especially nice to do for Ryan's big day. Ryan requested breakfast for dinner, which was followed by a cake celebration with the Kazas. Afterwards Ryan and Cecilia had some play time together while I prepared for his second party, which we had later on our own once Cecilia went to bed. For his present I gave Ryan a bunch of books on Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, recommended to me by Joseph Pearce, to help him in his endeavor to write his own fantasy story. We had thought that we might want to go out on a late-night date to finish off the night, but, being the old married couple we are, we were too tired and opted to stay home! Ryan said he really enjoyed his birthday, and he felt very loved to get so many phonecalls and messages from everyone.

Lastly there are some pictures from this weekend, which had some good highlights. After a failed attempt at getting family portraits taken on Saturday, we had a fun-filled Sunday. We wore our Bucs gear and met up with Tom DeCaro at the sports bar to watch the Bucs vs. the Falcons. While we were of course upset that the Bucs couldn't come away with the win, we had a good time regardless.

And finally, for those of you still reading, a quick pregnant lady update. :) I am now 34 weeks, and very impatient for Ryan to be born. We are very blessed that all our pre-natal tests and sonograms show him to be developing perfectly, and all of his measurements are just right. He is an incredibly active baby (I swear sometimes he never sleeps!) and takes after his father in that he has very long legs. Last night Ryan and I were watching a movie together, and I had the hardest time getting comfortable because Ryan Jr. kept kicking my ribs. What the heck is he doing in there, handstands?? He never ceases to amaze me with the acrobatics he is doing. All. Day. Long. We think he's going to be a really fun baby and can't wait to meet him face to face!

Well now that Cecilia has been a asleep for a while, and Ryan is waiting for me to get off the computer, I better wrap this up. Christina, we are sorry to hear about your having the flu (while pregnant-- that's the worst!) and we will be praying that you recuperate quickly and that no one else catches it. I hope this post finds the rest of you well, and that more blog posts keep coming. We love you and miss you!