Jeremy Ryan and family

Here are some pics from Jeremy's first week of life. Ummm....it's hard to get a good picture of a newborn, so mostly its just of Jeremy joining the family.



Jeremy Willmann literally only a few minutes old.



Mom and the boys during Craig's first visit. He did ok in the hostpital. The best part was during his final visit he grabbed Mom's hand, lead her out of the room and to the elevators and pressed the down button. His way of saying "You're coming home with me!"



Jeremy in the Willmann take-home-outfit. This outfit was used to take my father home from the hostpital, myself, my sister, Craig and Jeremy. Maybe more, but those are the ones I know off the top of my head. It was made by my Great-Grandmother.



The new addition ready to come home.



Mom helping Craig hold Jeremy. Craig has been great with Jeremy. He gives Jeremy kisses and wants to hold him alot. He likes checking him in the crib and is always willing to offer you a diaper during a change. Sometimes 5 of them.



This picture is beautiful. (it wasn't posed!)



Craig holding Jeremy solo. It lasted for 25 minutes until Jeremy needed a change. Craig pouted when he had to give him up.



Daddy and Jeremy watching the Olympics. We are still adjusting to a newborn's feeding schedule, but each day seems easier than the last, which is about all we can hope for!

The Eagle has landed.

Jeremy Ryan Willmann was born at 10:30pm last night, August 14th 2008. He is 7 pounds 12oz and 20 inches in length. I can't upload pictures yet, but I can tell you he looks much like his older brother Craig exept Jeremy has a much more pronounced chin (at least at the current time.)

The labor and delivery went well (I would say, but I think Tania agrees). We got to our room to be induced at 1:30pm (due to high blood pressure and history of pre-eclampsia) and were expecting to be delivering at 1:30am. Well, Jeremy tried his best to see Michael Phelps because Tania dialated from 5 to 9 inches in just over 1 hour. Tania only had to push twice and Jeremy was born right smack in the middle of the Woman's All-Around Gymnastics final. He scored an 8-9 on his APGAR....why I don't know. I didn't really care. He was finally here.

Of course, leading up to the birth we made things interesting. Tania and I both got poison ivy!!!!! We were doing some yard work last Monday which involved cleaning off the vines from our fence. Those vines were fine. It was the giant hairy vine on the tree in the corner that got us. Only after getting itchy did I find the dreaded leaves-of-three on the vine. Craig is itch free, but I am in long sleeves and pants for the rest of the week. I am also on steroids, the only reason I am not the Olympics. (Failed drug tests look bad........) ; )

So I will get pics up when I can, but for now know that baby and Mom are great. in fact they are both sleeping right now......

Grant's Farm

Earlier this summer (before InBev) we took a trip to Grant's Farm. There are lots of cool things to do, but the highlight for a toddler is feeding the goats. A quick thought on those goats: They are needy little fellas. They have one job: drink milk. Everyday, all day, they drink milk from bottles presented by humans. Despite this occupation they treat every bottle like it is the last bottle on Earth. They certainly try to jump up and get the bottle before the other ones. But they will even head-butt other goats to get milk. They need to take lessons from the penguins. "Cute and cuddly boys. Cute and cuddly."

Here is Craig with the goats. He is certainly not afraid of them.



DANGER! Surrounded by goats with no milk!



Dad shows him how to do it.



Now he is a professional goat feeder.

Picnics, weddings and more.

I finally downloaded our pics from May and June. First was Tania's cousin Timmy's wedding.


Tania and I looking crooked at the wedding.



Tania and her sisters.



Craig on a carriage ride at the St. Anselm Parish picnic.



Craig had the entire Moon Bounce to himself for close to 30 minutes. He would have lived there if given the chance.



Here is Craig eating Cheerios off the end of the crayons he gets at restaurants. This is much better than when he eats the crayons and spits them out because they taste bad.



Baby, you can drive my car.



Here's Craig helping us paint his room. The room turned out great, but alas I didn't take any pictures! Next time I suppose.



Craig has figured out his Little People and loves them. Although he tends to put too many cars on the track causing it not to rotate. Whatever, that's traffic for you.

I will get the July pictures up soon as well. Unless we have the baby, then I will have lots of new baby pictures to put up! We are 4 weeks away from the due date, so it really could be any day, although I'm betting on the second week of August.

Mid Summer update

Wow, summer is flying by. Here is what we have been up to:
- Ricky spent a week on Christ Power and is focusing on his Wed Night prayer group at work.
- Tania is enjoying her summer as a teacher and likes all her Craig time
- We are both still unpacking and preparing for the baby. We have been putting up storage shelves and even painted Craig's room last week. We still have to actually finish the baby's room.....
- Tania is due August 21st, which puts her somewhere in her third trimester. She is feeling it, both from being tired and the baby kicking.
- Craig is picking up words and wants to be either a)watching PBS(Curious George especially) or b) playing outside. Outside trumps PBS. He loves water and any pool as is noted in the picture below.



That's about it. We have a wedding we are a part of next month, but otherwise we are focused on our new arrival.

The St. Louis Zoo for Mother's Day

For Mother's Day we went to the zoo (on Saturday) with Grandma and Grandpa Willmann and Aunt Maureen. Craig has been to the zoo a few times and already has his favorites. It was crowded and had the threat of rain so we couldn't see everything. Here are some photos of the day.

Grandpa and Craig with the giraffe.



Craig loves the bird house at the zoo. Whenever a bird calls, Craig calls back. We couldn't get any footage of that, but we did get a picture of a bird that jumped on a railing about a foot from where Tania was standing.



Craig is very good at holding your hand while walking....until he sees something interesting, but overall he is quite good.



I believe we are examining the prairie dogs in this picture.



Here is a video of Craig feeding the ducks. The highlight of the day. We left right after this and good thing we did because it stormed on the way home.

He's gonna be a soccer player!

I just took inventory of my pics and videos, and I am excited about the next few blogs. First I have some documentation of our back yard. Craig loves it. He feels he should spend every moment of everyday outside.

The video is Craig playing soccer on his own. Even back in high school everyone had a suspicion my children would be soccer players. Don't worry, I have all summer to work on baseball too.