Since St. Patrick's Day

I'll add another post of our adventures since St. Patrick's Day, to give you guys an idea of what we have been up to lately. Ryan Jr. is growing deliciously fat (as you'll see in the naked baby pictures below), and starting to mature in many ways. He's beginning to discover that he has arms, and he sometimes succeeds in grabbing at his toys dangling from his play mat. He also has discovered that his fists taste delicious, and although he can't quite get his entire fist in his mouth at once, he tries to all the time.

He is super talkative, and especially loves to talk to Daddy:

We went to the outdoor outlets in Leesburg on Saturday, to catch some sales for kids clothes and shop for dress shoes for Ryan. Cecilia loves being outdoors!We had a lot of success! At the shoe store, we had the best luck: we bought Ryan 2 new pairs of work shoes, slippers, and 2 sweaters for myself all for just $70. We saved $400. I was a happy camper. :) Afterwards we ate lunch out at McDonalds and a baby consignment sale. All this shopping and no complaining from Ryan...it was a real act of love on his part. Cecilia enjoying some french fries:That night poor Cecilia woke up crying in her crib while Ryan and I were watching a movie. Ryan ran up to comfort her and discovered that she had thrown up (hence the crying) and she continued to do so for the next couple of hours. Since she didn't have a temperature, we assume it was food poisoning. We had all eaten the same foods during the day, except for one thing: we sprinkled some shredded mozzarella cheese on Cecilia's spaghetti dinner, and we think that may be the culprit. It was a very sad thing to see her so sick; but Ryan rose to the occasion and even kept it together as Cecilia got sick all over him. He insisted on sleeping with Cecilia in her bedroom so he could watch over her and I could sleep with Ryan Jr., who slept through the night for the first time in his life. By Sunday, Cecilia was back to her happy, healthy self. Here she is modeling one of her new clothing items: a cozy fleece nightgown.Another one of Ryan Jr.'s latest developments is that he loves being read to! Here is a picture of the kids' story time before bed:Here he is in all his chubby glory. He's much bigger than Cecilia was at three months!Not sure why the blog decided to flip this one. We love his smile:Whenever Ryan Jr. is on his mat, Cecilia suddenly HAS to have the toys that are dangling in front of him. She pulls them off and runs away with them...so it has begun!He's almost always incredibly happy when he wakes up from naps, as he was yesterday:
Just a quick story to go with this photo: shortly after it was taken my friend Liesl arrived to spend the afternoon with me at our place. She asked to hold Ryan Jr. and he sat on her lap and was adorably cute to her; he cooed and smiled and just really hammed it up. Since my friend is a beautiful blonde, I couldn't help but think that Ryan Jr. was acting that way because he had a little crush on her. My suspicion was confirmed a few minutes later when, after a pause in his talking and cooing, Ryan Jr. tried to impress Liesl in yet another way: by making an enormously loud, incredibly stinky, dirty diaper. Ryan Jr. is known far and wide for his very potent stinkies, so I quickly sprang up to take him off Liesl's lap but it was too late: she had foolishly breathed through her nose already and the damage was done. She got up and ran to our open window saying "I think I'm going to be sick!" Nice one, Ryan Jr. Way to impress the ladies!