Changing so fast

Grady seemed to be changing so fast. Seems like each time I look he has changed, so I have to make sure to take another picture. :) Here are a few more of him. I even think he looks different from one picture to another so it's hard for me to say exactly which picture he looks the most like.

The Howe boys catching some shut eye in the hospital.

We got Grady all dressed up and ready to go home from the hospital.



Grady really does have eyes under those closed lids! We get to see them every once in awhile. We are fighting some jaundice right now and I can see it in the whites of his eyes. Hopefully, it'll go away soon.

Love at 10th site....

They are forever bonded and now have each other. Up until last night, Ryane resisted when we'd ask if she wanted to hold Grady. Fine, no problem, no reason to push her. Then, she was up playing on the bed with mommy and took a real interest with Grady and I gently placed him on her lap without really saying much. She couldn't have been happier holding him. Although, I could really only see the back of her head or her cheek, I could see the smiles. Makes my heart feel so good that we were able to give her a sibling.

Birth Announcement

Feel free to check out our pregnancy blog for other pics and stories. I think I am going to move to JUST updating this blog, but be sure check both for a couple days.

Zoo Videos

This first video is so cute. The St. Louis Zoo had a 5-day old baby giraffe. While watching it, we overheard it was only 3 days, but later asked a zoo keeper its age. It was so cute and looked to run in slow motion as it was still getting its grace.
The second video is Ryane watching the King Penguins swimming and standing around. The tanks in front of us were the perfect height to hold her up to and some of the penguins would even splash us as they'd swim by - they knew how to entertain.

St. Louis Vacation

We had a great week last week on our family vacation. We left on Saturday and drove to Columbia, MO to stay with Sarah (Matthew's sister), Bismark, Hannah & Carson. We stayed there almost 24 hours and thought breaking up the drive would be better for myself and for Ryane. We had a good visit with them and headed onto St. Louis on Father's Day.

After arriving in St. Louis we checked into the hotel and thought we'd drive around to find out where Matthew's conference would be and exactly where others things would be. I can say it wasn't much fun driving around streets we didn't know and getting detoured a bit by flooded streets down by the river. One turn took up down the MOST ROUGH cobblestone street there is!! While it would be great if I was actually trying to into labor, it was just really rough and seemed to last forever! :) We finally found somewhere to eat and our way back to our hotel for the night. Monday, Matthew was off to a conference class for the day and Ryane & I were on our own. We enjoyed swimming at the hotel and taking a trip to Union Station to feed the fish, which Ryane loved, and we walked around the mall.

Tuesday, we had most of the day to spend as a family, so we visited the Magic House and had lots of fun and imaginative play there. There was lots of things for Ryane to do there and there was also many things for kids that are older than her. Overall, I highly recommend going! This could be one of my favorite pictures of the trip.....



That night Ryane and I joined Matthew at his Conference's welcome fair that many family's attended. They had lots of stuff for Ryane to enjoy and it was fun to be able to see the many other families that came along for the conference. Later that night, Matthew snuck away with some friends from college for drinks and gambling. He tells me they all walked away winners, so that always makes it more fun for everyone.

Wednesday, Matthew was back at his conference and Ryane and I mainly hung out spending quality time together. Seems like forever ago that I got to spend that many days in a row with Ryane and it was so great. That night, we attended the cardinals game. They were playing the Royals, so we had plenty of opportunties to cheer and watch the Royals win!! It was Ryane's first official baseball game and well, it may be a bit longer before she's really into it. :) Ryane told us she was "Done!" maybe as late as the 4th inning. ha!



Thursday, our last day in St. Louis, after Matthew was done attending conference stuff in the morning, we managed to find the zoo after much looking. I've been the zoo there before, but I can say it was absolutely amazing this time having Ryane and Matthew there. Ryane was so cute to watch and made me feel like a kid again as well experiencing the animals for the first time (as she doesn't remember going to Wichita zoo last year).





I do have lots more pictures from the trip (surprise, surprise!!), but the internet is not being my friend to upload them to a different link. overall, the trip was great. We did have some moments of frustration though with potty-training on vacation - yikes! While at the hotel, everything was good, but when we went out and about (especially the Magic House), it didn't bother Ryane one bit not to tell us anything and just go...then, still not say anything about it. I swear there was a moment I was ready to go buy diapers! But, we all made it through the trip - hee hee - and back home to concentrate on it again.

Summertime, summertime

Matthew got Ryane's pool set up for her a couple weekends ago. I tried putting her in it a couple hours after the water was filled and she wasn't having it. Matthew took her out a couple nights later for another try. At first, she prefered standing on the outside until her daddy got her in there and taught her to splash.

Our Little Ar-TIST!

Ryane loves to "cu-lr" and asks to do it often. We recently bought her some bath time crayolas and she went right to town with her artist skills. Ryane's signature artist skills are making lines - most commonly drawing 3 lines with a crayon or sidewalk chalk, then switching colors.

This second picture I was messing around with my camera with depth of focus (focusing on crayons while blurring the rest). I decided to include it as it was one of the few times I got to see Ryane's face and you can see the crayon marks on her chin - those babies mark easily!