sweet

i caught ryan hugging em without me even telling him to. most of the time he really loves her, and she loves him so much.

big girl

she has been trying to a few weeks to climb into this chair, and she finally did it and was so proud of herself.

playdough

ryan has really been loving to play with his playdough and the other day he came running to me saying i did it i made a gingerbread man. he is pretty creative and quite the little artist too. i love how he even did the little eyes.

me too!

em really wanted to help decorate cookies too, but she was content watching and eating the cookies.

making cookies

this was the first time he got to help me make cookies. he had so much fun frosting them and then putting on the "sparkles"

so proud of himself

Finally

I guess it's about time i do one now! I love looking at everyone's pictures and hearing about what's going on in your lives. It's so hard to be so far away from everyone. Ryan really has a hard time. Every single day he asks where someone in the family is and what they are doing. Good thing for my job (i guess i should say my employer). I have to work my first 3 day trip this weekend. I am flying with Melissa so that will be fun. I am getting really sad having to leave Ryan and Emily. At least I have been able to go this long without working a trip. And it is nice having a little extra money. Speaking of money, I don't know if I have told everyone, but Darrel just got promoted to assistant supervisor. And, he got a nice little raise. I think he is pretty excited about it, but he doesn't like to toot his own horn. I am happy for him, but now he thinks he has to work even more overtime than before. He usually works 8 to 10 hours extra a week. If it weren't for the weekends we would never see each other.