Ryan's Birthday

We had such a beautiful weekend celebrating Ryan's birthday and the March for Babies Walk. I'm grateful that they fall on the same weekend. It really allows us to celebrate an entire weekend.

We all had a wonderful time at the walk. I'll update more on that when I get some pictures uploaded.

On Ryan's actual birthday (5/21) me, Nick and AJ spent the day together. In the morning we went to say thank you to a couple of people that have helped us this last year. One we haven't seen since last May and one is a new friend.

After that we stopped at the store and picked out some balloons to bring to Ryan along with the birthday flag and teddy bear I had picked up a few months ago. We also brought the lantern that Hayden's mom had given us. On the way out of the store Nick was holding the balloons. A butterfly flew and tried to land on the yellow one. Nick moved (he's not a fan on of anything landing on him!) and it tried again. It fluttered around for a few more seconds and went on its way. I smiled. I knew it was him. I knew he was there and I knew he liked the balloons.



The best big brother

The lantern was great. We lit it and it floated like a hot air balloon. After we were sure it had floated high enough and wasn't going to burn Rochester down (!) we watched it soar.

starting to float

there it goes!

glad it kept going and didn't burn anything down!

Happy Birthday Ryan!

an "I'm 1" balloon and of course we had to get a Toy Story balloon!

Later in the afternoon we took AJ to Build A Bear. He had never been. We wanted to take him somewhere special where we would come out with something he could have to remember the day. We looked over the options. They had bears, puppies, monkeys and more. AJ decided that he wanted to make "a froggie". They had the Muppets that you could make. He chose Kermit.

Picking the perfect heart for Froggie

getting a high-five from Daddy after stuffing Froggie

Time for a bath!

All done!

We had a really nice day. It was definitely more happy than sad. I will miss Ryan for the rest of my life, but on this day I got to think about all of the wonderful things that have happened because of him.

I love you sweet boy. Forever and a day.