Talk about a WHIRLWIND week! In the last seven days we have:

-ate watermelon before it went out of season, (notice that NO HANDS were used)

-giggled a lot,

-watched t.v. at Grammie and Grandad's house, BEFORE we moved;
-ate at McDonald's for Half-Price Happy Meal Night, (a family tradition for years now!)




-packed up and moved from my parent's house into a darling little house a mile away,

-UNpacked and moved into our new little house a mile away,
-the kids discovered the scale at Walmart, they weighed EVERYTHING,

-got REALLY creative with the laundry since I have no DRYER: (ropes, bungees, vacuum cords, whatever I could find!)

-Carter's favorite thing to do is to push a chair up to the the silverware drawer and plays in it! It's so CUTE!

And the highlight of our week:

-Ryan "turned into" a lawyer! He got sworn in on October 1st, it was a real hearing downtown and it was so exciting. I saw some very familiar faces from Moscow and it was wonderful. It really resolved all of the hard work and sacrifices we have been living with for the last....our entire marriage so nearly nine years! I'm so proud of Ryan, he's going to do great things!

The gang
Taking the oath
I found my sweet friend, Alicia!
My dad and Dawson
Look at him show off his certificate from the Supreme Court! Better get that baby into a frame fast!

Garrison was there during the first half before he went to work. Ryanna just loves her uncle!
The kids were happy during the entire ceremony, they had the DS!
Afterwards, our parents took us out for a nice steak dinner! Thank you to my folks and Ryan's!
Whew! I'm exhausted, who is with me?

it's stinkin' cool, batman!

My sweet friend, Becca, made this darling cape for Dawson's birthday. I gave it to him tonight because we've been so busy all day moving and packing and unpacking and moving.


This is all completely candid, nothing of it was staged. It was such a perfect gift for this 5-year-old and Becca did a FABULOUS JOB! There's no way in heck that I could pull that off, especially in the short amount of time that SHE did!!

Way to go, BECCA!!!

He closed his eyes and held out his hands,
He opened his eyes,
And you should have HEARD the delightful squeal! He's showing me the Batman side.

I told him to turn it over and it's SUPER DAWSON on the reverse! He got such a kick out of that!

He's sleeping with it tonight, he already had to same some damsels in distress and help some old man. (okay, he wasn't THAT old, he helped Ryan).

Go, SuperDawson!

bon anniversaire a dawson!

One-thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty Six days ago, I was in labor. I had the easiest of all my labor and deliveries in Downtown Boise. I had painful back labor, but my epidural actually somewhat worked (neither of the other two worked) and I had this blond baby in my arms. He hardly ever cried, sometimes I'd pinch him just to hear him make little babyish sounds. The sweetest little boy was born into our family. He is still my happy-go-lucky kid and is very docile. I am so thankful that he's apart of our special family!

Ryanna loves her younger brother!

Flash forward to today! SUPER DAWSON!

Dawson even helped make his own birthday cake, which he absolutely INSISTED on cracking the eggs!

We had BBQ ribs on the grill and some other yummy food for a very special dinner. (YES, it was my first time making ribs and they turned out quite delish, thank you very much!! Go ME!)

Dawson couldn't wait to open his toys! He could see through the tissue paper, this one is his new Buzz Lightyear, KARATE chop action figure!


Holdaways gave him this awesome tool set, which is quite a HUGE HIT! Carter is green with envy, and Dawson shares with him. It's cute to see them fight over the tools!
My folks gave him this junior sized Rip Stick! The wheels light up and everything.

Happy Birthday to you, my Sweet Awesome Dawson!

Ryan is so sweet. He spoils me. He bought me this yesterday:


(yes, it's SPARKLY PURPLE!!!!! I LOVE IT!)
And put it in this:


So I can capture moments like this:

And this!


Aunt Ash took Carter around on one of the scooters they brought back from China. He loved it!


Until he fell down and Aunt Ash had to make it all better!
We love Aunt Ash for making the scratches all better.

I love it! The best part is, the gigantor of a camera that we bought 5 years ago cost THREE TIMES THE AMOUNT of this little camera and it has THREE TIMES the pixels and gadets! Wow, amazing technology huh?
I have a renewed passion for blogging! I think I will take lots of pictures and bombard my bloggers with all the fun pictures! Oh yes, what shall I capture next?

the longest 6-8 weeks EVER

I've been a slacker about blogging over the last several weeks. I'm playing catch up on this post and wanted to share the highlights over the past 50 days:

-Celebrated my birthday

-Attended my 10 year High School Reunion

-Went to a couple movies

(have YOU seen The Proposal yet??? Stinking adorable...can't wait to see it again)-My parents moved back to Boise from Shanghai, China -My brother, Aaron, left home to start COLLEGE in Eastern Idaho! (He's even in the SAME APARTMENT as I was when I lived in Rexburg 10 whole years ago!!! How cool is that?) -My brother-in-law, Garrison, received his mission call to Meridia, Mexico! Yahoo, he'll brush upon his espanol.
-Oh yeah, and Ryan passed the BAR!!!!! 50 days ago Ryan started an exam that would change our life forever. The dreaded and cursed BAR EXAM. He took it and felt good about it, but the only thing we could do it wait for the results that came THIS MORNING.

This is what he looked like this morning, calm and confident as we awaited the results.

NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT!!!

I honestly couldn't sleep. I didn't even fall asleep until 7:00 am this morning and was up an hour later getting Ryanna ready for school. Ryan left for work at 5:30 am and we were on the phone with each other while the website was being loaded as the results were posted at 9:00am. As I read his name on the list, I screamed, there were tears and a lot of jumping around.

I'm so proud of you, Ryan! I can't believe how successful you have been and can't wait for all the new adventures we are about to embark upon. The first day of the rest of our lives is today. I love you and am honored to be your wife and support. You rock, Man! Even when you're flying through the air since you're kinda delusional and happy right now.

I love you!