Happy Easter!!

I didn’t do as much as I had planned to help Bennett understand the real purpose of celebrating Easter, but I was glad that I at least was able to go to church on Sunday. Our ward has a “clean room” set up for moms of new babies to be able to listen to Sacrament meeting on speakers and take the sacrament without exposing the babies to too many germs. I was actually the only one in there for the first part, so it was nice to be able to just focus on Easter and not be distracted by Bennett and all the other people (it was a little awkward singing the hymns by myself though!)

We had a fun time celebrating Easter while my parents were here – my mom had stayed for a little while to help with Ryan and my dad flew out for my brother’s BYU graduation (congratulations Dave!). For Family Home Evening last week, Bennett “helped” my mom make sugar cookies, which we painted with colored evaporated milk. Bennett had fun cutting out the shapes and then painting the cookies later – especially with orange :)

On Saturday, we planted some wheat grass – I had wanted to do it earlier but by the time we got all the supplies we needed they didn’t have time to grow before Easter. Oh well – it is still fun to watch them come up this week. I told Bennett in the morning that after I showered we would go plant grass in the buckets, and I didn’t think he really understood but he kept telling Nate he wanted to go get the dirt and he was carrying around his bucket and shovel, and he was really excited to start on it. (The third picture below is what he has been doing lately when we ask him to smile – he just opens his mouth really wide)

On Saturday night, Bennett had his own little private Easter egg hunt in our backyard, courtesy of my mom (and Nate helped hide the eggs). Most of the eggs were pretty easy to find. He “found” all the orange ones first, then moved on to the other colors. He thought it was pretty fun to open them and find the candy / treats that were in them. Apparently he didn’t like the jelly beans because he gave them away (mostly to my sister’s fiance).

(once again, the “smile”)

After the little egg hunt, we dyed eggs with Dave & Liz and Cam & Bryce and my parents. We first did some with crayons on hot eggs, then did the traditional dye. It was pretty fun, even for the adults :)

And finally…a couple of Bennett seeing what the Easter Bunny brought him on Sunday.

Happy Easter!

Brothers

We’ve been trying to figure out if Ryan looks like Bennett did when he was born. I definitely think he looks similar, but there are differences too. Ryan’s hair seems lighter than Bennett’s did, but his eyes seem darker to me – I think they’ll probably turn brown like mine or hazel like Nate’s. They were both decent-sized babies – Bennett was 8 lbs 15 oz, 22.5” long, and Ryan was 8 lbs 10 oz. and 21” long. Here are some pictures of Ryan (on the left) and Bennett (on the right) at the same age.

 

 

 

the same post-eating  comatose pose :)

  

So far, Bennett seems to be handling everything ok. The other day Ryan was in his bouncy seat and Bennett went over and laid on his belly right in front of Ryan and just looked at him. Unfortunately, our cameras weren’t nearby and he moved by the time we got them, but right after he put all his doggies (and other animals that he likes to take to bed with him) with Ryan in the seat. Hopefully that’s a sign that he’ll be willing to share his toys :)

Introducing…Ryan Daniel

After a couple weeks of thinking and hearing “any day now”, our little boy Ryan was born on Friday evening, right on his due date. It was a fast delivery (more details on that later, for those of you who are interested) and we were grateful to have a healthy little boy – 8 lbs 10 oz and 21 inches long. Bennett has been a great big brother so far – he was excited the first time he got to hold him and keeps asking where the baby is if he can’t see him. He was talking to me today about mommy going to the store to get baby then coming back. Apparently he doesn’t understand this is the baby we kept saying was in my tummy? We didn’t fill out the name on the birth certificate form until right before we left the hospital, but it is now official Ryan Daniel Packer (Daniel after Becky’s dad). Here are some pictures from the hospital (there are a lot of them…mostly for the family :)

I made Nate take one final pregnancy shot for the record books when we got to the hospital…and here’s the little guy – he definitely came out screaming (and didn’t stop for a while)!

 

Bennett giving kisses, and Ryan finding his thumb

The proud daddy, and Ryan relaxing after his bath

 

   

A big yawn…and all ready to go home!

Stay tuned for more posts and pictures – we’ll see how ambitious I get in the next couple days.

Decision Time

This is all that’s left of our baby countdown chain—due date is tomorrow! Based on how far I’ve progressed, for the past couple of weeks we have been expecting that the little guy would come anytime now, but we’re still waiting. Bags are packed (partly due to an unproductive trip to the hospital in the middle of the night a week ago), diapers are set up by the changing table, car seat is in the car…the one thing left undone that makes me a little nervous to go into labor is that we haven’t decided on a name. We have a list of possibilities – so now is your chance to give input! We’ve added a poll on the right-hand side for you to cast your vote (we're planning on the middle name being Daniel, and obviously it has to go with the last name Packer :). Despite many people’s suggestions that we name him Jimmer, we didn’t add it to the list because we already have a nephew named James. I know a lot of people say they have to see the baby before they decide on a name – I haven’t ever felt like that, but I’m hoping that seeing him will help us decide!

Happy Birthday Nate!! (and a little weekend update)

We had a pretty low-key celebration for Nate’s birthday on Sunday, but it was nice to have him around all day and we did do a little bit to celebrate. We went out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse on Friday night, and Bennett was actually really good – he helped us eat all our food and even pulled out his dance moves when they turned the country music up and the servers were line dancing.

We spent most of Saturday and Sunday watching the LDS General Conference at home. The weather was great on Saturday (mid-70s) so we went outside in between sessions and Bennett started out riding his bike, then switched to pushing his car around. He looks pretty cute with the new helmet we got to go with his bike. Our next-door neighbors were outside with their 3 boys too, and after playing with bikes and cars for a while, all the kids switched to golf / football.

Sunday was a different story – it got really windy and stormy Saturday night, and we had about 4 inches of snow in our backyard when we woke up. Bennett convinced Nate to go outside with him for a little while, and I thought a got a picture of them together but apparently I cut Nate off.

We had a yummy raspberry-filled and vanilla syrup-topped ebelskiver breakfast, then had fajitas for dinner and Nate requested a fruit tart instead of cake for dessert. I was happy to oblige as fruit tarts are one of my favorite desserts! I didn’t think it could handle 29 candles so we improvised a little bit. My sister and her fiance stopped by to say happy birthday, but I didn’t finish the tart until Bennett was in bed and they had left, so I’ll have to remember in the future that it’s kind of lame to sing happy birthday by yourself :)

Nate was hoping for a little baby to share his birthday, but no luck! Overall, it was a great day (at least for me, hopefully for Nate too :)