Santa and new shoes

My mom came to visit in early December and has been able to be with is for a few weeks. We have been having so much fun. I love having her here with us.

Here she is in heaven with the babies

Enjoying Christmas at the botanical center

Gabby with Santa..shes not scared just yet

Ryker with Santa at the mall...he was NOT into it as much as Gab was

Grandma and Ryker

Since Ryker has now started WALKING!!! We decided to get him a good first pair of shoes to walk in. We made a trip to the stride rite store to buy some kicks.

This was the pile of snow in the mall parking lot.....and it keeps on falling..

Here is Ryker WALKING!! He started when he was 13 months old..it has been about 2 weeks since he started and he is already starting to RUN!

Taking a break for a photo opp

Ms. Mandy being o so girly and wanting her picture taken as well, she did this one for us.

Winter 2009

This winter has started out with ALOT of SNOW SNOW SNOW.

We took some of the downtime to take some fun winter pictures

Mandy trying to get out of the garage...we had to shovel a space for her to get through.

This is outside our front door..about 3 or 4 feet of snow blocking the door.

At the start of the large amount of snow...so pretty on some of our lights.

Daddy and Ryker playin

Heres Gabby being o so cute with her Santa hat on.

And..of course...Mandy was in on the photo session

On the day of our worst blizzard in 30 years, while the winds died down we wanted to test out Rykers new snow suite.

He was having lots of fun with Mandy out in the snow.

It was cold..but we made the best of it.

Growing babies and haircuts

Shortly after Ryker turned 1, My very good friend Ashley came over and gave Ryker his first "big boy" haircut. He looked sooo handsome.

Here she is cutting his hair. He got special treatment and had a stylist come to his home and give him a cut while watching Baby Einstein.

Here is Gabby and Ryker...growing like weeds

Sporting the "serious" faces

Loving Fall

After our trip to Night Eyes. We saw a park and a TON of leaves. We absolutley HAD to go play and explore.

Cheesing it up as usual

This is the...hmm what can I get into? face

Beautiful Iowa leaves

Rolling and laughing...what a wonderful fall day

Throwing leaves with mom

Halloween 2009

This year was very fun for Halloween. We went with Brandon, Megan, and Gabby to Night Eyes at the zoo in Des Moines. We had bunches of fun and got several pictures. Here are a few from the evening.

Ryker was a rockin Guitar

Ryker with precious cousin Gabby as a cute cat


Ryker and mom...we love our Halloween


We are pretty cool


Happy Halloween from The Spihlmanns!!

It's been a while

We have not been able to catch everyone up on things in a very long time. Our computer crashed a few months ago leaving us no way to update our friends and family.

One of the first big things that has happened is that our little Ryker turned 1! We had a great big party with family and friends at Brandon and Megans house on October 10Th. (his actual birthday is oct 13th) Ryker had LOTS of fun with everyone who came to celebrate the big daywith him.

The catipillar cake for the guests

Some of the food

Getting ready to eat some cake

The plate Grandma Williams made for Ryker to eat his cake on every year

Rykers very own special cake

The aftermath of the cake experience, he did well.

We cant believe our little baby is 1 already. They really do grow up SO fast.

October 11th, 2009

While some family was in town, we decided to go to the pumpkin patch where we went the day before Ryker was born. We picked out our pumpkins from the patch, and even though it was cold, we had a great time.

Ryker checking out the animals

Fun at Howell tree farm

He loved riding around in the wheel barrow

Grandma Williams and Grandma Spihlmann

Ryker also got a new "big boy" car seat for his birthday. He loves it!