Ryan turns 1!

It does not even seem possible that Ryan is a year old already. It has been a wonderful year with our little guy. There have been hard times with his diet and he still doesn't sleep through the night, but those are extremely minor complaints compared to all the wonderful joys he has brought into our family.

At a year old Ryan:
-Learned to walk on his birthday! Steve was really hoping he would do it and tried to encourage it all day long. Finally after dinner Ryan saw a ball Steve was holding and since he can't resist playing with balls, he walked right over and got it. Then he was on a roll. He practiced walking the rest of the evening until bedtime. And he has been going strong ever since.
-Is still the cuddliest little baby. I can't even begin to explain how much I love this attribute of his. My kids have all been snuggly, but Ryan especially loves to lay his head on my shoulder or come sit on my lap.
- has an extremely happy personality. He is constantly lighting up the room whenever he's around. Although, he does not perform for strangers! Ryan is the one that keeps me laughing.
- is able to eat a lot more food now. I saw the allergist and he didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, but just encouraged me to keep adding new foods to Ryan's diet. So, we're still avoiding preservatives, onion, garlic, strawberries, and egg whites (the one allergy he tested positive for) and so far he's doing well. There's a little bit more eczema, but otherwise he's definitely enjoying his new diet!
- is definitely growing. He's now between 18-24 month clothes (at least on top) and is thinning out a bit. Oh- and he's actually starting to grow some hair! It's amazing!
- has 3 words that he uses consistently: "hi," "dis" and "dad". When we go to get him from his bed he always greets us with that "hi". (Steve gets the "hi dad")
- plays very well with his sisters. Katie likes to harass him and Ryan likes to harass Sarah, which I must admit is really quite amusing. He loves chasing them around the house- definitely a favorite game right now.
- loves, loves, loves balls. On the first day he started walking it was that ball that motivated him. And then he continued to walk over and kick it.

We had to postpone his birthday party because of bad weather, so on Saturday we had my parents as well as Dick and Sybil over for dinner and cake. Steve was the artist yet again on this cake and I must brag that it turned out great! We let Ryan eat as much as he wanted (I actually found a recipe that didn't use egg whites that was very tasty) and he even got to eat some of the ding-dong tire, which was his favorite.


A bit later he decided to show off his walking on the table and tipped over into his cake. His demolition was quite impressive.
Ryan was extremely tired by the time we did presents and insisted he sit in my lap. He loved the cars he got (even knew how to make the car noise... how do boys always know?).


Mom blew up a lot of balloons (at the girls' insistence) and Ryan has been thoroughly enjoying them with the girls.


And here's a picture taken today of the girls. They all stayed home from church with Steve today (all were sick in one way or another) and Ellie requested this picture be taken.