Happy Birthday Ryan!!

I can never celebrate a child's birthday without thinking back to the day that child was born. When Ryan joined our family, we already had one little girl and were very excited to get a baby boy. So excited in fact, that in my eagerness to deliver, I went to the hospital in false labor. Afterward, my husband joked that he wasn't taking me again until he could see the head.

Funny joke.

A couple days later, around 11 at night, my water broke. Not being too concerned, I went back to bed and waited for the contractions to start. An hour later they did. I didn't want to wake Wes too early, so I thought I would wait until they were a little closer together. But by the third contraction I was in a LOT of pain. Twenty minutes later I was in so much pain, I told him to call the doctor and tell him to come to our house because I was not going anywhere!

Of course, he didn't do that, much to my dismay. So I allowed him to help me out to the car and to our friend's house to drop off Camille while we went to the hospital. I asked my friend to please call the hospital and let them know we were coming so they could have a wheel chair ready for me.

She did and they did.

But when the nurses tried to get me out of the car and into the wheel chair, I told them to wait because I was having a contraction.

They waited and then once again tried to help. But no sooner had the first contraction ended, than another started. Once again I asked them to wait, but one nurse said to the other, "Her contraction are 90 seconds long and on top of each other, we need to get her in now!"

They wheeled me in, ripped off my clothes, put me in a bed . . . and then EVERYONE left me! My husband was sent to sign me in and the nurses left to get the delivery room ready (that was the last time I used a regular delivery room).

Lying there alone, I could feel the baby coming. I tried not to panic. Finally they came back and took me into the delivery room, where thirteen minutes after arriving at the hospital, and just one hour and forty three minutes after going into labor, Ryan was born!! (None of my others were that quick)

And he has been a blessing in our lives ever since!!

So tonight we celebrated that birth. He and his sweet wife Kali came for dinner. It was so nice to have so many people sitting at our dinner table!! I love that!!


Kathryn and I made very yummy homemade salsa earlier in the day and then we picked up some delicious tacos and enchiladas from Ramirez on the corner of 83rd Avenue and Lake Pleasant Pkwy.

After dinner we brought out the cake and ice cream. Unfortunately Kathryn had bought some trick candles so it took quite a while before Ryan could get them out as they kept coming back to life.

And then everyone posed for a picture outside. And yes, there really were four dogs at this party--three of theirs and our one --that Ryan gave to us last summer.

We then continued our family tradition and brought out a pinata filled with treats and toys.

Unfortunately the rope we usually use to hang the pinata was busy keeping a tree straight in the back yard, so we improvised. Wes and Kathryn took turns tossing the pinata back and forth while Ryan swung at it.

Good job Ryan at breaking it!! Here Michelle runs to get the candy, Ryan saunters, and I am not quite sure what Kathryn is doing. It looks like an impersonation of an umpire calling someone safe. :-)

Everyone filled their bags and we called it a night.

It was so much fun to have them visit with us.

We love you Ryan!! We wish you a wonderful new year of life!!

And may the new year bring . . .joy to your journey.

Thank Goodness for Boys!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RYAN!!

Ryan is our only son and if we could only have one, we are glad it is him!

Friday night we celebrated his birthday in our traditional way. We went out to eat dinner and then returned home for cake and gifts.

Gifts were followed by the breaking of the piñata. Everyone took a turn, but we left the actual breaking for the birthday boy!

Michelle getting ready to hit the Superman pinata


Watch those pieces fly!!!


There are many things we love about Ryan. Here are a few.

1. His faith. He has always had great faith, even as a child. When he was about three he heard on TV about young boy dying of kidney failure. Ryan begged me to call the family and tell them about priesthood blessings so the boy could be healed.

2. His enthusiasm. Every year on Christmas morning (even after he returned from his mission to Australia) Ryan was the first to awake. He would then wake up his sisters and visit with them in the basement until 6:00, when they were all allowed to come upstairs to open presents. Ryan was also known to wake up his sisters at 2:00 a.m. to hunt for Easter baskets.

3. His ability to remember everything sports. Wes was so excited to have a boy in the family to play basketball and talk sports with. Ryan was not only a great basketball player but he can also remember the name of every athlete in any professional sport, along with all his career statistics. Pretty impressive!

4. His generosity. Ryan will probably never be wealthy in a worldly sense because whenever he has money, he spends it on someone or gives it away. One example is when he was in Brazil with Alliance for Youth Services. They were there to help build a school and he soon realized they could be much more effective with better tools. So, Ryan emptied his bank account (money he had been saving to attend school in the fall) and used the money to purchase tools that were left behind to benefit the villagers.

5. His tender heart. I have two stories for this one—one of which is my favorite story about Ryan. When he was three, his older sister, Camille was five. Camille had gone next door to play with her friend, Stephanie but Stephanie didn’t want to play so Camille came home with hurt feelings. Upon seeing Camille crying, Ryan went over to Stephanie’s and soon returned with her in tow. I had to laugh as they walked through the door, however, and I heard Ryan say, “Just a minute and I will get you your penny.” Apparently he had bribed her to come.

My next story is about Ryan as an adult. His wife of five months, Kali, told us she is going to put his picture up at the humane societies in AZ to warn them not to let him through the door. Kali had a dog when he and Ryan were married, so Ryan wanted to get one of his own. He did. But then he saw another dog he felt needed rescuing, and then another . . .

Here is a picture of Kali's dog Daisy (the toy poodle) and two of the three dogs
Ryan has rescued.

We Love You Ryan!

And We Are So Glad You Are Part of Our Family!