Friday, February 27, 2009

yay for the weekend!

so this week has seriously flown by!! not that i'm complaining :) i'm just happy that the weekend is here and hoping i can be productive. tonight i'm babysitting little baby jackson, a sweet little 9 month old so his momma and daddy can have a break. he's coming over to our house so i'm looking forward to seeing how i fare for a little while with a small person hanging around. i'm hoping this is something that i will need to be getting used to since we hope to start our foster-to-adopt classes in may! the informational meeting for the classes are next tuesday night so i'm excited to hear more about the program and get started on our paperwork. lately i have found myself staring into our future baby nursery room (we just call it the "junk room" right now, and for obvious reasons!), and thinking about what it will be like to have a little person to love on and take care of. i can't wait, so i'm excited for any practice that i can get!!!

well, hope you have a more eventful weekend than me! babysitting jackson, helping some friends paint, teaching pre-k class at church, and a b-day dinner with ryan's fam are all that's on the agenda for me. i'll let you know how the babysitting went next week :)

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

24 things...

(spring break our senior year of high school - 2003)

so today my beloved husband turns 24!! i had no clue all those years ago in our middle school youth group meetings that i was the one God chose to be his wife and to see him through all these milestones, but boy am i happy about it :) now, this is his 7th birthday we've celebrated together as a couple and i couldn't have asked for any one different. so, in light of this milestone in his life and our marriage, i present to you the 24 top practical things i love about mr. ryan michael sweeney:

1) i love that he still loves to watch (and force me to watch) his old high school wrestling tapes & tries to coach his former-self the whole time

2) i love how excited he gets when traveling somewhere he's never been or trying something new ("oh wow!" is generally his phrase of choice when he's amazed with something)

3) i love that he has a very specific meal of choice at almost every restaurant we go to and always encourages others to try it "the ryan way" (for instance: Fuji - filet, exchange vegetables for extra fried rice, no soup but double salad, extra salad dressing on the side for his rice and LOTS of shrimp sauce for everything)

4) i love how easy it is for him to start up and maintain conversations with just about anyone

5) i love that he notices the little things

6) i love that he doesn't mind helping unload the dishwasher, vacuuming or dusting -- the 3 things i hate the most, even if it is his day off

7) i love how pumped up and serious he gets about redsox baseball and uk basketball - watching him cheer on the teams is almost better than actually being at the game

8) i love that he lets me tell him the same stupid stories over and over again even though i get annoyed when he repeats stories to me

9) i love him for his dilligence when it comes to taking care of me and our little family unit - he is such a hard worker when he wants to be :)

10) i love that how excited he gets when talking about adopting and the potential to start our family

11) i love the way he treasures his friends - old & new

12) i love his leadership & his gentle way of loving me into submission even though i may be resistant at the time

13) i love the way that he gets on kicks and takes things to the extreme (ie- his current kick is the show the office **note - his current ringtone is the office theme song, kinda annoying after awhile...)

14) i love how sweet he is to me & that he always goes out of his way to make me feel special

15) i love that he almost always lets me choose what we listen to in the car even though we have such different taste in music

16) i love that he is a cuddler

17) i love the fact that he reallys like working in the infant room at church, in fact, it's his room of choice

18) i love that he is concerned with growing in his faith & is serious about developing his relationship with the Lord

19) i love how hard he worked to finish up his degree even though he was working a more than full time job to take care of us

20) i love that he learns from his mistakes and always becomes stronger for them

21) i love how encouraging he is of my dreams & desires even when no one else is

22) i love how even though he hates cats, if we are at someone's house who has cats, he is always so polite & never freaks out even though i know he always wants to

23) i love seeing him interact with the guys on central's wrestling team - he is so encouraging & fatherly even though he's not that much older than them

24) i love how he pushes himself to become a better man than the day before

well, those are just the first 24 that i could think of! i'm sure i could go on for awhile but i'll spare you all the mushy details :) anyways, HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUB! I LOVE YOU~

Monday, February 23, 2009

our life in pictures


(fun dinner date/b-day celebration with some great new friends from church)


(yawkey's darling Christmas card photo shoot pic - yes, i'm THAT girl!)


(fenway's Christmas pic)


(ryan, me & zachary - my little bro in law on Christmas eve...mind you he's only a freshman and is that tall!!!!)

(mikayla & mikenna on Christmas morning...toys galore - don't know whether to laugh or cry)


(jenn, mom & me on Christmas morning...we opted for pjs this year!)



(ryan, me, mom & dad at the hopeful hearts benefit dinner)


(me & the hubs)

Thursday, February 19, 2009

SURPRISE - it's a post!

Well, I wish I could be announcing today that Ryan has finally gotten another job and we are moving on from the wonderful world of HH Gregg, but that would be a lie :( The company that Ryan has interviewed with (twice!) is going through a small restructuring the first week of March, and they want to have him come in around March 4th or 5th to shadow someone and to continue with the job interviewing process. While I'm incredibly excited that he still has this job as a prospect, and a promising one at that, I am sad that it hasn't worked out already! We were really hoping that he could get out of HH Gregg before the sales slowdown that usually occurs in March but unfortunately, I think the slowdown has more than already began!

However, even though the job thing is still on hold for Ryan that doesn't mean that the rest of our lives are still on hold as well! Last night, we went down to the Cabinet for Health & Family Services office to get fingerprinted and have our background checks done so we can be respite workers for our friends doing foster-to-adopt. While we were there, we were able to talk with a recruiter for the foster-to- adopt program and are planning on going to an information session on March 3! I was so excited to finally get some more information and about getting the process started!!

We have been praying about adoption for a long time, but just in the last 6 months began to consider foster-to-adoption, especially as a way to start our family. Since then, Ryan has been pounding the pavement looking for a new job because we both feel strongly about not bringing a child into our family until Ryan can be home more often. His work hours now are so strange that we rarely get to spend quality time together without a bunch of other stuff going on, and know that wouldn't be fair to our kiddos. So we've been waiting until Ryan finds a job to really get started with the program because we don't want to get the cart before the horse. However, we did find out that there will be training classes for the program starting May 16 and lasting until June 13, which should work out perfectly if he gets this job! Granted, we would have to spend our entire Saturdays for 5 weeks at classes, but I think it is worth it :)

So, that is the most exciting news, and really only news, that I've had to report lately! I hope to get a chance to post soon about the amazing journey God has been leading us on to get to this point, but we'll see. I've not been the best updater as of late, in case you didn't notice!

x0x0~