Ryan and Jenay

Reunited at Last: The Three Lovely Ladies

2012-01-13T17:13:00.000-08:00

Yay for cousins!

Dolly from Grandma McLean!

Horsies for everyone from Grandma Law!

Thrift Store Gem

2011-12-19T21:05:00.000-08:00

Found this delicious vintage hand-knit overcoat for $2 at the St. Vincent De Paul a while back, and she finally fits into it! So cute, even when she's giving her shy face (which we don't get to see very much anymore since she suddenly decided she's BFF with the whole wide world.)

More shy face.

And more.

Yep, enough with the picture-taking, Mom.

Just one more, an action shot for good measure (:

I loves me a good thrift store.

Yay for blocks

2011-11-23T05:18:00.001-08:00

Awesome family tradition: wooden blocks made by Grandma and Grandpa

Good for stacking. . . .

. . . and for sticking in your shirt.

Skunk-tacular

2011-11-07T08:21:00.000-08:00

This little girl was very serious about dressing up for Halloween, for obvious reasons. It's not every day you get to be a skunk. Believe me when I tell you she doesn't usually hold still this long.

A posterior shot of the the creature.

Ready for some Trick-or-Treat action. Ryan and I whipped out some glow-sticks and scotch tape and dressed up as programs from Tron. Needless to say, our costumes went over pretty well with the 9-year-old set at the ward party.

Check out our cooking blog!

2011-10-24T08:06:00.000-07:00

My sister, Jamie, and I have officially started our first cooking blog. It's all about healthy meals from scratch. We take turns posting one recipe each Monday. It's been up and running for two weeks now, so that means there's a grand total of two recipes so far, but they're good'uns! Check it out at simplepeasantfood.blogspot.com.

Why We Like Fall:

2011-10-12T20:13:00.000-07:00

1. Pink plaid flannel shirts

2. Bundling up in cute layers to go outside (Come on, you know you like it too)

3. Flowers in the yard are at their biggest and bestest

4. Beanies

5. No more sunburns, so mom takes you to the park any hour of the day! (We have freakishly fair skin)

6. Mittens

7. Lots of yummy things to pick in the yard (although these purple string beans are quite low on the yummy list)

There you have it. Fall is extra-awesome.

A Few Europe Pics

2011-10-10T10:05:00.001-07:00

Yes yes, we got back two and a half weeks ago, but better late than never, eh?

We loved our recent trip to Prague and Vienna. Love love loved. I thought I'd put a few of our many (many many) pictures on the blog and let Ryan put lots more on FB, seeing how it's lots quicker. Here's Ryan looking very dapper in Austria's wine country. Actually, I think the whole country was wine country.

We got to see some pretty amazing museums. You are definitely not supposed to touch the ancient Roman artifacts, though.

One of the days we took a boat way out into the countryside and rode back 20+ miles through the little villages, farms, orchards, and vineyards on these 3-speed rented bikes. Couldn't feel my legs till the next morning (at which point I could really feel them) but it was sooooooo worth it!
A little experimentation with B&W photography here. Dramatic, no? Seeing these Gothic cathedrals in person pretty much changed my life forever. Seriously. I cried.

This is St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague.

We snapped this our first night in Prague. That little boat rental place to the right is where we got the rowboat in the next picture.
Ryan doing his manly duty and rowing our boat. We got some pretty strange looks from old ladies when we switched places and I rowed. People even took pictures of us.

Check back soon, because lots of pictures of Rose are coming up next! She's the one everyone really wants to see anyway, right?

Summer Baby

2011-07-23T08:03:00.000-07:00

We are having an awesome summer here in the lovely Nampa, Idaho. Ryan gets off at 3 every day, so it almost feels like every day is a vacation. Rose gets lots of Dad time these days. I get a lot more Dad time too! Hooray for dads!

This Forth of July started out pretty good this year with a nice jump on the bed and a trip to the park.
But then Mom and Dad had the gall to set off some fireworks in the driveway.

It was terrifying, to say the least.

She eventually forgave us.

SORRY BABY!

She's over it now.

Oh, and Jamie, here's the picture of that delightful meal I promised. It was delish.

And I couldn't help adding this one. I've always had this burning desire to have a little girl and dress her in flowered long johns. Today, my dreams came true. She pulls it off nicely, don't you think?

Goodbye tax season!

2011-04-26T20:29:00.000-07:00

Holy cow I'm so glad I don't have to cook two meals for like ten people every morning anymore! OK, it's out of my system.

But are you seeing this? Look how cute my kid is!

Rose is loving Spring. We go to the park just about every day, where she tries to swim with the ducks and eat the pine cones.

Her hair is finally long enough to clip the tiniest barrette ever made in it. It was a big mother-daughter moment for me when something finally stayed in that wispy blond fuzz.

This is the Seattle Zoo, which is a lot bigger and a lot more jungle-ish than the one in Boise, if you can believe it. Despite the look on her face in this photo, Rose loved it. We did notice, though, that she was just as excited about the ducks as she was about the tigers and gorillas, if not more so. That's my girl. A budding ornithologist.

This picture makes her look very helpful in the garden. Do not be deceived. Mostly she likes to pick my flowers and sneak rocks into her mouth.

Further proof that she does, in fact, have hair and it is getting longer.

Still here!

2011-01-06T11:10:00.000-08:00

Ya, we're still around. We've been traveling hither and thither having a very nice holiday season, but now we're back home and except for the teething drama we've been steeped in for the last two weeks, things are starting to go back to normal.

Let's see . . . news . . . Ryan did great on his GRE last month and now he's pouring all his energies into looking for a different job. Now that Rose is going to bed earlier, he hardly ever gets to see his sticky little princess. He is also still working hard at being executive secretary in our ward.

I'm still at home taking care of the kiddo and keeping pretty busy with my calling in the Young Womens and trying to get my book written. The way it's going, I think I'm going to use a pen name and make people guess which one I wrote (if anyone even wants to publish it--ha ha). I'm not sure I'm brave enough to put my name on the thing. We'll see.

I'm going to be even busier pretty soon since I just took a part-time temporary position to make lunch for an accounting firm every day during tax season. It will only be two hours at lunchtime on weekdays, and I can bring Rose along, so it doesn't sound like too big of a commitment. I hope they're not picky eaters. It's so depressing cooking for picky people. Good thing Rose eats anything not nailed down.

Speaking of my rolly polly Rosie, here are some pictures of her at Grandma McLean's house:

She loved being the star of the show. Any time there was a crowd gathered, she turned on her squishy-cheeked charm.So fun to see Daddy finally!

New jammies from Grandma!
This is us back home having a nice dinner prepared by Dad (Rose's dad, not mine). Rose loves to feed herself these days. It's always a conundrum; do I feed her myself and keep her clean, or do I let her do it so I can eat my food? My stomach usually wins out and I end up washing the baby, the chair, the tray, the floor, the walls, the bib, etc after we're done. Oh well. I'm pretty sure I remember my child development professors saying something about how making messes develops their brain and motor skills. Sounds right. Her brain seems to be doing well.

Milestones

2010-10-04T09:50:00.000-07:00

Rose has been practicing feeding herself. She mastered crackers first, then squished up grapes, and now she does tomatoes and bread. That pancake never knew what hit it. I've been getting the dishes done more often now that she likes to sit in her chair ripping things up and eating them.

Our little baby mermaid has always loved her baths, but recently she has discovered the Big Tub. She thinks it's far superior to the kitchen sink for severed reasons: One, lots more kicking room. Two, she doesn't bonk her noggin so much. Three, you can fit more toys in it. Four, it echos nicely when you scream. The list goes on and on.

I leave for one minute . . .
Ryan is trying to work up to saying "no" to her. He's not quite there. He's in favor of the good cop/bad cop approach in which he gets to be the good cop. All the time. (On a side note, look at those lovely big blue eyes!)

This baby loves to go to the park with us. She gets really super excited about the birds and doesn't even mind when they poop on her head. Really. It happened. Her new favorite thing is swinging on the swings. We're kind of nervous about her obvious addiction to adrenalin. She laughed and laughed when we first put her in, and the higher we pushed her the louder the squeals got.

I should just re-name this blog after our baby . . .

2010-09-04T14:24:00.000-07:00

Camping baby!

2010-06-29T13:22:00.000-07:00

Rose passed her first camping trip with flying colors. We went to Ryan's family reunion up near Seattle, and when we got home I think she was feeling a little picked on that she didn't have the sound of the forest and the waves to lull her to sleep all day. In fact, so did I.

More pictures of our offspring

2010-05-01T15:31:00.001-07:00

Bigger and Better

2010-03-26T14:17:00.000-07:00

This girl is finally starting to fill out, and she's getting squishier by the minute.

We really like her.

Rose loves this little bear suit she got from Grandma McLean. It's so warm and fuzzy she can't help but fall asleep once it's on.

Here's Rose just entertaining herself, which she does a lot.

So, I forgot to rotate this one, sorry. This is her in a very lovely dress made by my mom. She was getting pretty sick of wearing church clothes by this point, so I'm afraid this is the best we got.

This is when Rose was about a week old and very scrawny. Here she is barely filling out a preemie-sized outfit. Fortunately, my milk came in and she puffed right up.

Our baby Rose

2010-03-06T10:46:00.000-08:00

Hello world! Here she is at 7.06 lbs, 19.5 in.

Our pretty little baby is finally here! She arrived right on time. My water broke at one in the morning on her due date, March 2nd. About sixteen hours later, out she came. I made that sound much easier than it was.

Rose recognized Ryan's voice right away. This is them just after she was cleaned up from delivery. She loves her daddy so much!

Sleepy baby.

This is me (wearing a particularly alluring robe) getting to know my baby girl.

That's a big look of relief on Ryan's face. We had a bit of a scare when the doctor realized the cord was wrapped tight around her neck and she was stuck hard in my extra-small birth canal. They had to vacuum her out and give her oxygen, but she came away with nothing worse than a egg-sized hickey on her head and a bruised face. Whew!

Sleepy mom.

Here's a picture just for you, Jamie. This is me feeling really puffy at almost 38 weeks.

Ryan liked this picture, so here it is.

Two years of US!

2009-04-28T13:14:00.000-07:00

In honor of our second anniversary, I thought I'd document our entire relationship from the beginning. Hold onto your hats.

We meet! Actually, this is a little while after we met. The first time we really met was on a plane flying out of Detroit, but we didn't find each other again for about a month after. This picture was taken in December '06, about a week after we started dating.

We didn't dilly-dally. By February, we were engaged. This picture was taken at Provo Temple about an hour after Ryan asked me to marry him. I said yes.

We were married in the Boise Temple on April 28, 2007. This is my favorite picture of our wedding day. We both look so excited we're about to pop.

We honeymooned at Cape Kiwanda on the Oregon coast. We both happened to have the same favorite vacation spot when we were kids, so picking a location wasn't hard.

We've been pretty thick ever since, having good times . . .

. . . and angry times . . .

. . . windy times . . .

. . . having adventures . . .

. . . and generally just enjoying each other's company.

And here we are today!

Our little people.

2009-02-21T16:52:00.000-08:00

Isaac literally loves the four wheeler more than anything, except for Bapa maybe (that's Grandpa).
Serious business.
This is Rob exploring the fifth wheel Ryan and I live in.
What's Rob doing here? It's open to interpretation.
Isaac appreciates the finer things in life.
He is even more smoochable in person, if you can believe it.
We sure like this little fella.
Rob took his costume very seriously.

We find we have plenty of spare time these days. Here are some pictures of our last couple of trips to the Oregon Coast and Seattle.

2009-02-07T18:57:00.000-08:00

We like each other a lot.
I snapped this picture of bright and shiny Seattle from a dock on the waterfront.
This is a beach at Cape Kiwanda, Oregon. It's the same beach we stayed at on our honeymoon.
Yep, we stopped in Forks. This is the high school. The very one.
What a beaut'! Note that Ryan is completely soaked (as was I) from going fishing in that super-duper vessel he's standing by.
This is a gorgeous rain forest on the Olympic Peninsula. This boardwalk is 3 miles long and goes all the way to the ocean.
A pretty impressive squash, no?
We posed with this crispy mummy in a curiosity shop in Seattle.
A walk on the wild side for the McLean family.
Plenty of Jellyfish at the aquarium.
Sharks!

Ryan is in a tube going through the shark tank. He is very brave and impetuous.

This is a tester picture

2008-12-09T20:13:00.000-08:00

Ryan fell down