Lego Mania

We had such a fantastic Lego party!!! I love a good birthday party and everything that comes with the planning, and decorating and enjoying the guests. I do not however enjoy the clean-up after the fun:). Ryan had the best time and he has such sweet friends and family in his life. We are soooo blessed. Thank you all for loving us the way you do.

Turning 5

What an awesome day we had!!! Ryan got to choose breakfast (eggs?), lunch at Mazzios and dinner at Rosa's-Tuesday night tacos-yum!!! And then he got to choose a special activity. He chose to go bowling with my parents. Isn't that hilarious?? Ryan had so much fun...Ally on the other hand was a disaster at the lanes:) She kept running out on other peoples lanes and picking up really heavy bowling balls. Thank goodness my parents were with us to see this little tornado in action!!!

I absolutely love celebrating all birthdays, but especially my childrens' birthdays. The birth of our kids are by far the two most important, significant, defining days in our lives and I love to celebrate that!! Day 3 would have to be my wedding day, and believe me Mark now knows after 9 1/2 years, that is also a day to be celebrated:)!!! Now off to plan the Lego birthday party for this Friday night.

Happy Birthday Ryan!!!

Today's the big day!! At exactly 12:13 this afternoon you will be 5 years old. How can that be??? Breathe... I remember everything that happened on your birthday like it was yesterday. We checked in at Hillcrest Hospital at 6:00AM met the nicest nurse ever, had a super easy delivery and then we got to see you for the very first time. You weren't breathing very good so the Doctors whisked you away to make sure everything was OK.



Four very long hours later mommy got to hold you for the very first time. What a miracle!! God's little gift to Daddy and I. You were perfect. Weighing in at 7 lbs. 13 oz. and 2o inches long. Amazing.




This is your very cute room that we decorated for you. I had a lot of help from your aunts Cary and Kacey!!



I fell in love with you immediately, and I loved your Daddy so much that I thought I might just burst some days. So sweet!!!


You loved your Daddy so much from day one. This was your very favorite place to sleep:)

You were such a good baby that I could take you to work with me and your would just sleep the day away.


Once you started crawling you were like lighting fast and ALWAYS on the move!! This is still one of your favorite faces:).



We were so thankful that you were an amazing little traveler. It was very easy to just pack up and go, and you would be perfectly content in your pack and play.


You got to wear your first tuxedo at 9 months for Aunt Kacey and Uncle Josh's wedding. You cried the entire time, and we finally figured out that you were blazing hot. Once you got that thing off, you couldn't have been happier...an ode to what will come as far as your distaste for "dressy" clothes.

We had a frog 1st birthday party for you and you hardly touched your cake at all...you really didn't like getting your hands sticky...and still don't!!

For your second birthday it was all about the color Blue and big trucks. You LOVED playing with cars and trucks. You would line them up and race them all over the house. We had to make sure and carry one with us at all times.

Eating you blue ice cream and your blue party.

Christmas 2005




Easter 2006...I mean come on, could you be any more precious????



For your 3rd b-day we had a baseball party at Kidzville. You were very into sports and you LOVED Thomas the Train. You could say all their names and would spend hours and hours playing with the trains.




At 3 and a half..you welcomed your baby sister Ally. You are the best big brother.



Ally gave you the only 2 trains that you didn't have and you were extremely excited!!





During year four you fell in love with the Cars Movie, and then NASCAR. For your 4th birthday we had a NASCAR party. I had just had knee surgery so I had a LOT of help with the party, and you had a blast!



Little Jeff Gordon

Falling asleep in your Cowboy helmet...how can that be comfortable??

Playing with your little shadow. Thanks for loving little sis so much.

My sweet Ryan,

Thank you for making us parents!! We love you so much, and we are so proud of you. You are such a thoughtful, sincere and helpful little boy. Have a fantastic day. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!

Dragon Dash

Meet Caden Black. Isn't that face paint awesome!!!. I don't think there is a more joyful little guy on the planet! He is smart and social, beautiful and simply hilarious. He LOVES animals and babies and his little family so much it is adorable to see. Caden is now five years old and was born with prader-willi syndrome. Every year they have a Dragon Dash walk/run to raise money for children like Caden. This year they raised over $25,000!!! All the money will go to the The Foundation for Prader-Willi Reasearch. Let me just tell you a little bit about Caden's mom, Erica. First of all, she is one of the dearest people I have ever been friends with. She is genuine and compassionate and has a really evident walk with Christ. She is an awesome mother to Braden, Caden and Aubrey a loving wife to Brian and she always puts others first. She is one busy lady but she always has time for her friends. Erica is quick to encourage and she's super positive. Caden is so blessed to have Brian and Erica as parents. This weekend I got the privilege to attend the 4th annual Dragon Dash in Dallas. All of Erica's hard work paid off, the event was amazing!!! If you are interested in finding out more about Prader-Willi or donating to a really great cause, just click on the link above. We love Caden and his whole family. Thank you guys for blessing our lives!!!!

Braden, Caden, Aubrey, Erica and Brian Black

The winners of the race-j/k: Jordan, Lee Ann, Donna, Leslie, Angie, Lauren and Erica (Heather and Denise missed this picture)

The List

Ryan's turning five years old on Tuesday...which blows me away. It's so hard for me to believe that he is that old!!!! We really love birthdays at the Wood house and this year Ryan decided that he wanted to make his very own birthday list. So here it is... his sweet handwritten, birthday list. I love that I will always have this:)

What I can decipher

Ryan's Birthday List:
Football Players that you push their helmets down and they kick

Big 10 Football Helmets

Big 12 Football Helmets

Cars Mega Blocks

Philadelphia Football Jersey

Football toys

Basketball Backyardigan Show

Legos

NASCAR Legos

Kung Fu Panda toys

Racer Legos

Bionacle Legos

Monster's INC.

NASCAR Megablocks

Nice to dream big right?!?

Ryan's handiwork

Ryan has made some really cool projects lately. I love that he works so hard to accomplish what he's working on. He will be an awesome employee someday!!! Decoupage anyone?? We hung his map puzzle in his room after it dried, pretty cool!!!

Ryan also LOVES Legos, he spends hours and hours in his room building and rebuilding his Legos. It is really impressive to watch him read the instructions by himself and make these awesome toys. These are his favorite right now.

Ally's sweet little cheek looks soooo much better today, here she is this morning sitting pretty in her Anne of Green Gables t-shirt...love that book and movie!!!

Ally's tattoo

I hesitate to even post this because of fear of being deemed the worst mom ever, or even worse getting turned into CPS for injuring my child!!!! If you look at my previous post you'll notice a really cute picture of Ally and her cousin Wyatt playing and having a blast at the tailgate in Lubbock. Right before we headed to the game I put a temporary tattoo on Ally's left cheek...because let's face it, those things are soooo cute, right?? WRONG!!! She had this terrible reaction to the adhesive on the back of the tattoo, and her face has looked like she was involved in some sort of accident since Sunday morning. It looks so much better today, and hopefully it will be a distant memory by this weekend. Oh my precious angel!!!! Lesson learned, Ally has extremely sensitive skin and shouldn't ever have these again. The things I am learning this year should be in some sort of record book I tell you. Here are some pictures of sweet Ally...I promise she's not physically hurt she's just really into watching Barney:)


Monday morning

Tuesday afternoon, looking better

The Sweet Life

This weekend we got to go to one of my favorite cities, Lubbock. I definitely DO NOT love the drive, but once we get there I always enjoy our visit. I was born in Lubbock and everyone in my entire family went to Texas Tech except my sweet hubby:) One thing to keep in mind is that the Purdy family really, really loves Texas Tech...my dad is one of the biggest fans ever! It's getting harder and harder to find Tech items that my dad doesn't own!!! Here are some pictures of a great weekend seeing our Nana and our beloved Red Raiders.

The whole gang in our TTU best:)

Nana and her grandchildren and great-grandbabies

My baby sister Kacey and Josh are expecting their first baby...a girl named Lila, my first niece!!!She's going to love that I included this picture of Josh making yet another crazy face:)

Ryan, Wyatt and Stacey playing Dominoes at Nana's house

The girls: me, Kacey, my mom, and Caryn

This little cheerleader was way too busy to look at the camera!

Having fun at the tailgate

Jones Stadium

GP and Stacey

Ally and her Wy-dit

Ryan had had enough fun for one day:)

My Little Trickster

Update: First of all let me thank you all for you prayers, comments and phone calls...I really feel like I have THE BEST FRIENDS!!! I am having a much better week and there have been no more debits on our account, we're just waiting to make sure that everything clears to take the hold off our checking. I do have a few tips for you so you never find yourself in this position, click here for an identity theft insurance company to protect your family for $12 a month. This is really a must have. They will fight for you, inform you of any credit applications, do all the research, paperwork, even compensate you for lost wages if you have to spend your own time dealing with this. It protects your whole family including children. One of the big things to do right now is to steal children's SS numbers which totally ruins their credit before they are even old enough to have credit!!! Another trap right now is fake ATM's. These are ATM's owned by individuals not a reputable bank. Anyone can buy an ATM and pay to set it up in a mall, grocery store, or gas station. These ATM's will give you the cash but copy your info, which I think is what happened to me. So always make sure you are getting money from a bank you've heard of. Also, always try to use PayPal when purchasing anything on-line. So there you go, I hope and pray that you NEVER have to experience anything like this:)

On a happier note: Yesterday Ally had her usual Tuesday MDO, and she has been having a hard time lately wanting to go anywhere, but she REALLY puts on a show for MDO. I think that she's cutting a few teeth so we have tried to be extra patient with this sweet angel. But I mean she knows how to be dramatic (another trait that is so unusual for one of my children to have-he he)! Anyway, my mom is the administrator of FWCS which meets in the same building as Ally's class, so if she's having a really rough time Honey will go check on her and a lot of times take her to her office for some delicious M&M's. Ally wouldn't stop fussing yesterday so she was taken to my mom for some hugs and kisses around lunch time. Honey always makes everything better but she just kept on crying and crying so mom called me to come pick her up. I rushed over to the church and when I get there Ally gave me this HUGE grin like she has just really fooled everyone into thinking that there's something wrong...she's a smart one I tell you, the rest of the afternoon she was all smiles. I really think she knew that if she fussed long enough I would come pick her up, little stinker. Fortunately there was absolutely nothing wrong.!!! Good trick, I wonder what she'll try to do next Tuesday??? Here are some pics of her afternoon with mom.