New Things

A few new things Ella Reese is doing:
-Walking longer stretches, last night she walked from the fridge, all the way to the living room and turned around.
- says "B-B" for belly button. And when I ask her where her Belly Button is she looks down her shirt or lifts it to see it.
- Sometimes I promise she is singing, or trying to . It is cute.
- Run around the house with her walker
- Will copy me when I moo like a cow. She'll say "mmmmmow"
-Has always like music and dancing. She will lift both hands in the air and watch one of her hands stretched out while she dances. There is this short rubbermaid bin that she likes to get on and dance. We call it her stage.

Baby #2 is a Boy!

I went to my full anatomy ultrasound last Thursday and they confirmed that it is a boy! I am 19 weeks and one day and he is measuring a week larger. So we may have another early baby. But, he still has a lot of growing to do, so that may change.
But all looks well and he is healthy!
It is so amazing when you lay there and see the baby on the ultrasound machine. You become so aware of the miracle of life and the gift it is from God!

Playing in the Yard

Ryan gets home from work at 3:30 everyday( he goes in at 7am). So you will find us eating our dinner anywhere between 3:30 to 4:30. I know, it's early..but we do love having dinner done and finished around 5ish and the rest of the evening to spend together. Yesterday after dinner, Ryan pulled some weeds and cut the grass. Ella Reese and I played in the grass while he worked on the yard.

I was taking pictures of her and all of a sudden she heard the lawn mower and was curious as to what it was...they turned out unexpectedly very sweet....



...looking over my shoulder as she watched Ryan mow....


You can really see in this picture the color of her eyes. They are kind of hazel and dark green. If the light hits just right you can see it. Otherwise they just look dark, but not brown or black.

Squeezing these toes into a size 4 these days.


We played in the van while Ryan mowed where we were sitting...

Playing airplane with daddy


the Prince girls

"London isn't in England Anymore!"...

...is what Ryan said to Ella Reese when we were driving to the hospital to see Melanie and Jonathan's new baby. Well, he actually said, "London isn't in Paris anymore, she's in Tennessee", but I knew what he meant.
So she is finally here! A few days late, Melanie had a wonderful natural birth and they are both so overjoyed to finally have London here!
She is so beautiful and sweet! I forget how tiny they are at first. Here are some pictures I took that night of sweet London....

Update from the Prince Home

Last Tuesday Ryan and I were invited to an Appreciation dinner at Blackberry Farm. Ryan has been doing some work with them on a new restaurant/wine cellar that they just finished. It is a pretty amazing restaurant. They took down an old barn in Philadelphia and moved it over here to Walden, TN where Blackberry Farm is. Blackberry Farm is this posh bed and breakfast where the cheapest room you can get is $900 a night! Crazy huh? It boggles my mind that something can be so expensive and people actually pay it!
The dinner was quite the experience! It was $150 a plate- we ate for free of course- I looked at the 6 course menu and said to Ryan, "Well, I don't know what half this stuff is, but I am sure it is going to be good!". And it was!


I thought those things on the table that are round and silver were bells. Like the kind you hit at a service desk. Well they actually are covers for dishes of butter.



This was before our desert. The first thing on the left is cheese that they make there at Blackberry. It looks gross but man was it good cheese! I love that hard salty cheese. Ryan didn't like it and I reminded him it's probably because he is use to the soft sliced cheese from Walamrt.

The resturant/barn we ate in is behind us in this picture.

This is a cottage that has 4 units to stay in. Ryan worked in it and said that it costs $4,000 a night! I can't image what inside there could make it so expensive! Maybe the walls are coated in real gold?



Hard working Hubby
Ryan has been busy doing house repairs and projects lately. He just got some tools that he has needed to finish all these projects and he has been really diligent about it. This past week after work he fixed our dryer and put a new tube thing under the house that sends the hot air from the dryer to outside the house. And when he wasn't doing that he worked on some quarter round that needed to be put down. And this weekend he worked on staining the outside of our house....whew! I am so thankful for him that he works so hard at work AND at home! I felt bad for him when he was staining on Saturday in the hot sun as I sat in the cool indoors folding laundry. Ladies we should all be so thankful for our husbands who work so hard for our families! I felt so bad for him that I took Ella Reese outside and we ate ice cream while we watched him stain. What a bad wife!

Teaching Art
I am going to be teaching an 8 week art class beginning this coming Monday! I am so excited! It is a co-op with my church and it will be two classes with 21 students total! I am so excited I cannot even tell you! I has been alot of work preparing for it,..but I am thankful for the opportunity to be teaching Art again and also for the financial provision it is! We are going to use the money I make to pay for our big hospital bill when Dean comes (that is what we are naming him!. P.S. I go to have my full anatomy ultrasound next Thursday!). So please pray for me with this class. It will be a challenge getting things prepared for the class and having dinner ready once I get home. Thank you for everyone who is watching Ella Reese for me!

( I love this picture. She just woke up from a nap, hair sticking up and cheeks red)

Update on Ella Reese
About a week or so ago she has started to slowly make her way to walking. She started taking a few steps here and there at first then yesterday she walked to me and I counted 12 steps! It was so exciting. I threw her in the air and cheered, and she clapped her hands and said "yea!". (Her new thing as of two days ago...to say yea). So last night Ryan and I made her walk back and forth to us over and over. We were so excited we didn't take any pictures or video!

Head-banging. For a month or so now she would always bounce her head on us and hum. She especially does it when she is sleepy. Well recently here she has started banging her head into our heads. And sometimes she misses my forehead and gets my eye or brow and it really hurts! It is so funny! It is always our night time ritual to all lay on the floor with her blankie and she crawls over us and preses her head into ours, or head bangs us while she hums. But often times I am left with brutal scars like a watery eye, or a red mark on my forehead from the little booger. But it doesn't bother her at all!
Banging her head into her favorite toy...

Well, since then she has started banging her head into the wall when she wakes up, on doors, whenever she sees Ryan through the glass door she'll do it and hum at him. She has a puppy doll that sings and talks and she does it to his head too. We think it is her way to say she loves us. It really is hilarious, but very sweet.
So if she does it to you, or bangs her head on your body- like she does her uncle nick- she like you.

Kissing Ryan through our glass door...


She loves accessories. She has a fondness towards Ryan's clear safety glasses. She'll put them on her face, then want us to put them on our face. It is so funny. Soon she started going after sunglasses in the house. She likes shoes and bows, but once they are on, she takes them right off..then tries to put them back on again.
She loves to wear her swimmer diaper on her head. For a girls who loves accessories she sure does love wearing this diaper on her head. I have numerous picutres of this. It is pretty funny. She'll bring it to me, I put it on her head, then she's off playing for 20 minutes before she takes it off. Silly girl.





Figuring out lids...I've been using soap that started drying out her skin, so I started putting Eucerin cream on her. She'll sit there and put the lid onto the Eucerin, then take it off, put her fingers in the cream, wipe it on herself then do it all over again. It is so cute! This is the only thing that keeps her still when I dress her after bath.
She also discovered her belly button in the bath one night and sat there touching it and trying to look at it. You always see pictures of babies doing it, but when it is your own kid, it is the sweetest thing ever!

Sorry this was so long! Thanks for hanging around to read it all!

Ahhh...A Little Retreat

Ryan had been planning a small retreat for us for this weekend and we had such a blast! We had Marriott points from our Visa and Ryan wanted us originally to stay in Gatlinburg, where we got engaged, but that Marriott would not take a free nights stay. So we stayed dowtown here in Knoxville. Which actually worked out great with Boomsday and all, plus we got to spend more time doing stuff and less time traveling. Ella Reese spent the night with Lon and Sharon and we headed down there right after church.
With it still being hot, we hit the pool at the hotel then headed downtown for the evening.
Ryan took me to Nama's, a Sushi resturant that I have been wanting to go to for a long time. It was absolutely delicious!!! As you can see...Don't worry, I stayed away from fish... Yummmm!!!

I know this looks really disgusting but it is the best thing I have ever had. On top of the rolls is Nama's famous seaweed salad that is to die for. Even Ryan who is a meat and potatoes guy loved it!

We ate to our hearts content and rang up a pretty high bill. But it was so worth it and later that night we wanted some more. THankfully Ryan really does love Sushi too. He even wants us to start a tradition of having Sushi nights at home from now on, instead of how other family's may do pizza or taco night. It is pretty easy to make your own.

So dispite this photo, he really does love it! We talked about how good it was for the rest of the night.

We walked so much that night! It was a bit muggy downtown with all the traffic and people everywhere. We sought air conditioning and a place to sit at the Downtoen Grill and Brewery. It was packed of course, and seats were scare, if none. We found one lonely stool and I sat while he stood.
Here is me drinking my water..no beverages for me thank you.

As we talked, I laid my head on him and smiled saying, "Even thought we are in the corner of this bar, I am having so much fun with you!". We laughed, because we really were in dirty ole corner of the room.

For the rest of the evening we walked around while Ryan kept making me laugh doing his usual silly stuff. We went down that crazy steep hill to all the venders, if you went you KNOW what I am talking about, and on our way back up the hill Ryan announces that he needs to stop and stretch before going up. And in front of a large amount of people parked in their charis and blankets, he begins to stretch his legs.
I died laughing of course because he was stretching and also because he had an audience. For the rest of the night he entertained me doing his skater moves off poles and car meters, Mel you know what I am talking about. And at one point he was walking around like a thug with his shirt pulled up to his armpits. I just laughed the whole night!
Since finding a seat anywhere was impossible, and we were totally unprepared with no blankets or chairs. We went back to the hotel and went to their pool area where they had this huge fenced in area of grassy lawn. Ryan pulled two lawn chairs to the grass with a perfect view of the fireworks! It was so nice, with no people around and we didn't' have to sit on the grass. It was great! It really felt we were in our own back yard. Of course without the pool...

I haven't been to Boomsday in so long I forgot how cool it is! The fireworks were very impressive!

But the BEST part of the whole night was after it was over we got to just walk up straight to our room and not have to fight a sweaty crowd or traffic! As I collapsed onto the cool sheets and crawled under them, we watched the movie "Hitch". Laying in bed waiting for a pizza we ordered from the room I thought, " This is so Awesome!". I had so much fun with Ryan and it was so nice to spend the evening with him without having to stop and care for Ella Reese. It was such a treat! I had so much fun I was sad when it was 1 am and past time to go to sleep. I didn't want the night to end!

I woke up the next mroning at 6:32 am , like clockwork, and instead of tossing for an hour trying to go back to sleep I got up, showered and headed down to the pool to spend time with the Lord, this was one thing I was very much looking forward to.
Sitting in their wooden pagoda thing, drinking coffee and watching the sun rise, I sat thinking of this past year praising God for all he had done in my heart and in
my marriage. I was so humbled and thankful as I recounted my conversion and GOd's provision for me in Ryan. As I poured out my gratefulness and praying for this coming year, I thought to myself " Why Lord would you love me and draw me!?". It was SUCH a sweet time with the Lord!

(Funny story, as I was sitting there reading the Bible, a pool guy comes out to lay towels on all the chairs and cleaning the pool. Then exactly at 8:00 he turns on music that plays out of the pool speakers. It was quite funny trying to mediate on the Psalms trying to tune out this really loud cheesy Jamacian music. So I packed up and went inside the lobby where cheesy elevator music played isntead, but it was easier to tune out.)
After two cups of coffee and a half eaten apple, I went up get Ryan up around 9am. I was hungry!


For a man who, I think is half bear because he doens't just sleep- he hibernates, he was not very excited to get up. I even brought him a cup of coffee. And at one point I look up to see him drinking the coffee with two pillows still clutched in his arms, then turns to fall back onto the bed. So about 10am we left and went to our secret favorite breakfast place, Waffle House.

If you have never been inside the Marriott , it is really cool inside! Here is a pic from the 5th floor looking down. The lobby is entirely open and enormous.

From the lobby looking up.
Thanks Ryan for planning this getaway for us! I had such a blast with you! I love you..
And thanks so much Sharon and Lon for watching our little booger! It was such a blessing, you have no idea! It's so funny when you have kids, or a kid, that you realize how precious it is to have uninterrupted hours together as a couple...
Thank you, We love you!

Coming soon...pics from a dinner we are invited to attend at BlackBerry Farm! I can't wait!