Capturing the Kerrys: 8 Months

The theme of this post is moving. Everything around us is in transition and changing...But we're ok with it all. Lots of it is great. So many firsts this week:
- Ryan crawled Sunday for the very first time. Ok, so it's more of the army crawl from Platoon—grunting and all—than a true crawl. But he's mobile!
- He said "Da-Da" Monday for the first time in response to Max.
- Friday he threw a toy a far distance on purpose. Of course it was a perfect spiral.
- He waved today (at a GIRL! Little stud)
- He went to his first Northview football event: the Red & White family picnic.
- He's sleeping in his room now in the crib rather than beside us in the bassinet. He wakes a lot, but the transition is going ok. It's been two weeks and we hope it will continue to improve.
- He's eating lots of different foods and likes everything. He started meats this week. Mangoes are a favorite.

In terms of transition for the adult half of our family, that continues as well.
- We are looking very seriously for a new home now. Tomorrow we're looking at 8 properties in the Forest Hills, Northview and Rockford areas. We dropped our price and will list with a realtor soon if it does not sell.
- Max started true practice this week with "two-a-days". Team looks good and the kids are working hard.
- I have made a change at work. Prior to last week I was the designer on a big client for ddm, Stryker ($80 billion medical device company. We work on their minimally invasive spine solutions). However, while we were in Ithaca, my partner on the account quit to take a new position. The solution was to have me step into her Account Executive role since I had been working in tandem with her on strategy for the past 2 years and I function as an AE on several other accounts. This change requires me to work a lot more. (Two hours into the "new role" a media crisis happened and I worked 14 hours that day!). I hope to maintain 30 hours a week in the office and work flex hours if I need to the rest of the week. I am excited for the opportunity to continue working with such a wonderful client. But I would be lying if I did not say that I have been mourning the loss of the time and flexibility with Ryan. We are so grateful to have a network of people that we trust to watch him, so he'll either be at home here, with my mom, or in my friend's home with her 1.5 year old son.

I think that's all that is going on with us these days. We're ramping up for Kirstyn and Eric's wedding. Ryan had his tux fitting last night in fact. SO CUTE! We hope each of you are having a great last few weeks of summer. We're certainly milking it for all we can.

Love to you all,
Courtney, Max & Ryan

Ryan and Erin behind him. His first wave was to a GIRL he never met before! Flirt!

Ryan practicing his best look of intimidation for the gridiron. Check out his tiny NV wildcat shirt.

The coaches and their boys. Ryan and Brady are just a month apart.

Ryan's got amazing foot / hand coordination. He traps the ball with his feet, passes it to his hands and then throws it off the wall and kicks it. No Joke! Max may not want to believe it, but he's got all the moves of a soccer player.

Ryan celebrating his crawl.

Kirstyn and I at her Bachelorette party. We did a martini tasting and dinner first with her 10 closest friends. Then moved on to a dueling piano bar where we met the rest of the party (25 in all!). From there, dancing till 2am at a club. I realized I was too old for all this when I had to use my breast pump in the bathroom of the bar and could hear a 21 year old getting sick in the stall beside me.

Yes, Kirstyn is wearing a white tube top I made her with an embarrassing picture of herself on it. And cowboy hat. And a boa. (PS I now have bangs.)