34.5 Months

Well, Grand Rapids has been hopping the last few weeks with lots of cool things. Among our favorite is ArtPrize returned for it's third year. Its the largest open art competition in the world and our entire town gets over-run with art. Over 1500 artists took part this year.

On top of that, football is entering into week 8 this Friday. Though the team started the season with 4 wins, the last few weeks have been tough since the scheduled is stacked with state champs. This weeks game against East Grand Rapids looks promising, so if we make it with a win, we have a good shot at State playoffs for the first time in school history.

Last Friday marked the end of my extra-curricular activities for Fall. The inaugural Derek & Dylan Taatjes Golf Memorial turned out great. We had 128 golfers and many additional dinner guests. We raised over $10k for the family, had an amazing auction (I actually won something...ok, so I actually won two packages!), but most importantly, we were able to honor Derek & Dylan and spend time together doing so. Honest to goodness, two rainbows appeared as we finished play, one on either side of the sun...though it was 82 and perfectly sunny with no rain. This weekend a group of our friends, including Charity, are running in a marathon in memory of them as well. Hard to believe it's been 6 months tomorrow. You can check out more about the event, including a video I put together of the boys at http://livelikederek.com/ddtg-golf-outing/

Ryan is coming out of his night terror phase. In fact, he's completely amazing us on a daily basis. He's now full time preschool and loving it. His language skills are taking off (he likes to critique things and say "that's cool" or "is that a good idea?") We're into the third week of swim lessons and he's jumping off the side, swimming in my arms and putting his face in the water. He can even pull himself in and out of the pool on his own and move along the entire perimeter of the short side of the pool without me. We have a fish on our hands for sure! 

We've taken full advantage of the weather to play outside as much as we can....however, we're definitely into fall. Ryan's already has had two colds and currently has a nasty cough. Tonight he told me that watching a "movie" (it was a documentary on how cities deal with massive snowfalls) would make his throat feel better. Somehow I was convinced. His funniest trait right now is his ability to tell very long stories, with great detail, and back up every fact with an over-animated expression. He gets so excited to tell every detail of emergency response vehicles, police cars and construction vehicles out on 10 mile (our main road into our neighborhood is under massive re-construction. We hate the traffic jams, Ryan loves them since he gets to watch the workers!)

That's all for us for now. Hoping fo r a win this weekend and more of this great weather. Love to you all,

Courtney, Max + Ryan

Ryan at ArtPrize posing at the biggest mosaic mural I've ever seen. 

Ryan and Max during ArtPrize. I have a similar picture from last year of them doing the same thing. Amazing how much Ryan has grown.

We were able to surprise my dad with a retirement party at the club right before they left on a much deserved vacation. Ryan held his own in a room of 40 grownups for the entire night...of course the raspberry chocolate mouse helped.

Ryan's latest obsession, artwise, is Playdough. Here he is with his cheeseburger birthday cake. We play birthday a lot and talk about what toys he thinks he'll get. We're working on "want" versus "need."

One of our most frequent activities is playing zoo or making a nest. Ryan is baby polar bear and I am momma polar bear. He's been super cuddly lately and actually very clingy to me in particular...not that I am complaining though. I'll take every minute of it (to the point I've been late to the office since I was trapped in a "cage.")

Rockford celebrates three weekends of Harvest Festival. Here Ryan and I are making our annual scarecrow. If you live here, it's basically a requirement. Our is currently wearing my college train conductor overalls complete with hole in the butt, has one fushia arm and one florescent orange arm, with a red plaid shirt. Ryan did the dressing.

 

 Here I am with Amirah (co-chair), Nicki (amazing centerpieces and more) and Robyn (coordinator of registration extrardinaire). We had so many amazing volunteers. And best of all, I get to call them friends!

Ryan was AMAZED at the pink sunrise the other morning when we were headed to Milestones. Here he is shushing me so he can watch the sun come up.

Here Ryan and our neighbor, Hayden, are making a "pretty storm" as they called it. They wanted to be sure they used every color of chalk in the bucket. Not only did the sidewalk get covered...so did they!