Weekend in Cleveland

Friday afternoon we made our first trip to Cleveland as a family of five. Unfortunately we had to do it in two trips, Rylan and me in my car and Chris and the boys in his car, because Chris had to stay until Monday evening and Jake and Brenden had to be back for school and I needed to back to coach on Monday.

The weekend overall was very low key, just a lot of relaxing and spending time with Chris' family. We got visits from Jim, Aunt Susie, (Aunt) Meredith, (Uncle) Todd, and Dylan. We arrived Friday evening and the kids and I left on Sunday night at bedtime. The kids got to go on an adventure Saturday morning to Chagrin falls with Grandma and Grandman. Chris got to spend some time with Jim and see lots of people at the Browns game on Sunday. And I spent most of my time laying around with Rylan, which was very nice. All in all, a very good weekend.

We had a very nice time with everyone, but I would have to say our visits with Meredith and Dylan were the highlight. Dylan was born last year in late October and I have been a very bad Aunt and just got to meet him for the first time on this trip. It was so nice to finally meet the little guy! The boys had met Dylan a couple of times on visits to Cleveland with Chris and were eager to see him again. On both Saturday and Sunday Jake was so eager for a visit from "Aunt Mer and Baby Dylan" that he kept asking me over and over when they were coming and what was taking so long, he's not very patient - probably gets it from me:-) Once they arrived it was a lot of fun to watch all of the boys play together. Jake and Brenden had a lot of fun crawling around on the floor with Dylan and Dylan had a lot of fun trying to get the boys. They were all very good to each other, I wish the boys were as nice to each other as they were with Dylan. I think the three of them will have lots of fun together as they get older. We also introduced Rylan to Dylan, but not too much playing since she's only a month and Dylan doesn't quite understand being gentle just yet. Overall, a very good time for all of us!

Here are some pictures of the boys playing and of Rylan at 1 month old:

Rylan in her Michigan gear getting ready for game time

Just for fun

I thought I'd put up pictures of each of the kids at about one month old:

Jake

Brenden

Rylan

Kindergarten

My little boy is all grown up! Ok, he's not all grown up, but he's getting big and last week he started kindergarten. There were no tears, from either of us, only excitement.

The week before his first day we went to his school to meet his teacher and find out more about what is going on with the bus. At the open house to meet his teacher, all the children sat down for a story about starting new things and how they can be scary. Of course Jake chimed right in to inform his teacher and everyone else that he was not afraid to start kindergarten - made Chris and I very proud. At the open house we were given a small list of items that Jake needed to bring in the first week. We promptly went back to school shopping the next day. We got everything we needed including a very nice Transformers backpack that Jake picked out and he could probably fit inside of :-)

The bus was scheduled to pick up Jake 11:27am and Jake was outside by 11am ready to go. My mom and Chris were able to be here as well to see him off on his first day. When the bus came a woman got off to explain to Jake where to wait for the bus and when he should get on. He listened very well and got on when she was done, he looked so tiny walking up the steps!

After school Jake takes the bus to his old preschool for after school care since I am still coaching when he gets done each day. I picked both him and Brenden up after coaching. Jake told me he had a good day and kindergarten was easier than he thought because, in his words, "we got to play the whole time". I came to find out later that they had had art class as well as play time and he even drew a picture of the whole family at the pool.

He's continuing to like school. He has had 2 homework assignments, gym class, a picnic for all the kindergarteners and their families, and much more. Hopefully this love of school will continue for at least a few more years!

FOOTBALL!

As most of you know Football season is here! And that makes the Eby family quite happy! Chris grew up in Cleveland and is a huge Browns fan and I of course grew up in Ann Arbor and am a huge Michigan fan. We are both very happy when fall rolls around and we're able to watch football all weekend long.

This year Chris was given tickets to the Browns/Lions preseason game from a customer. Since kids of all ages need a ticket to go to an NFL game none of the kids has been to a Browns game. Since Chris was given two tickets and it was a preseason game Chris decided to take Jake to his first Browns game. Of course Jake was very excited and Brenden was very disappointed. Brenden was assured though that he would get to go to a game when he as a little older. Jake and Chris had a good time at the game, but Jake was very displeased with the amount of noise. Apparently he yelled at everyone around him to be quiet, which seems odd to me since he's very loud most of the time :-) Here's a picture of Jake in his Browns jersey, he was ready to go by 10am and the game wasn't until 5pm!

So with the Michigan opener scheduled for September 4th and Rylan's due date September 5th we had been hoping that she would come early so that we could all as a family go to the Michigan opener which was also the Rededication of the Stadium with the construction complete. I was so happy that we were able to make it work and all go to the game. Somehow we all made it down to the stadium and we some how were able to get to our seats right as the game kicked off. The boys even got to see the jets fly over before the game started - very cool for them! Unfortunately I was unable to stay for the whole game, but I was able to get home in time to watch the entire second half. Jake also came home with me, he was very upset with all of the noise, he even started cheering for UConn because "their fans aren't loud". Brenden and Chris stayed through about 3/4 of the game and had a great time. I was unable to get a group just because Jake wouldn't cooperate, but my mom did get a few shots of Rylan in her Michigan gear and one of Brenden at the the game:

So that's been some of our excitement over the past month. I headed back to coaching about 2 weeks after Rylan was born and have had one meet. She's been doing great so far being at the pool everyday, she sleeps the whole time:-) The boys are busy with school. Chris has been busy working and keeping the boys out of my hair so I'm not too crazed all the time. He has also been able to have a break and he's playing Ultimate Frisbee a couple of nights a week since I haven't gone back to coaching at Legacy just yet. Overall we all seem to be adjusting well to being a family of five!

Busy, busy, busy....

I'm finding out very quickly that there is very little free time with three kids! We've been very busy since the arrival of Rylan a month ago, but enjoying (almost) every minute :-)

Where to begin? Well, we've had lots of visitors. My mom flew in from Arizona the day after Rylan was born and stayed for 3 1/2 weeks. She rented a cottage on Portage lake where Brenden had lots of fun getting away from the craziness and he got a chance to be the center of attention for a change.

A few days after Rylan was born Chris' mom and dad came for a visit. They were only able to stay for one night, but the boys had lots of fun playing with Grandman and Grandma got to enjoy some quiet time with her granddaughter. Didn't get any pictures, but we're heading to Cleveland for the weekend tomorrow and I'm sure we'll get some pictures while we're there.

Our next visitors were Pam and Sarah. For those of you that don't know, Pam is my birth mother and Sarah is her daughter and my half-sister. Pam's dad passed away earlier this summer and the family had a service planned back in Michigan for late August. Fortunately for us, Pam and Sarah were able to plan their trip back with a little extra time to come see us, and lucky for them Rylan came early so they could meet her. It was really nice to see them, it had been since Jake was born that we had seen them. Their flight coming in was delayed so we only ended up being able to spend a day catching up and visiting, but it was a full day and it was nice for the boys to be able to meet them. Once again though my camera seems to have been MIA from the visit.

Of course we've also had all of my family that lives here over as well, my brother, dad, aunt and uncle, and grandma (Bama). When Bama came to visit we were able to capture a 4 generations picture:

Its been great to see everyone and have some extra help over this first month. As I said earlier we're headed to Cleveland for the weekend to introduce Rylan to a few more people. She also got to meet a lot of my friends this past weekend at a baby shower for my friend Molly. My mom will be coming back to Michigan in a few weeks, lord knows she can't stay away too long! And I'm sure there will be lots more people to meet Rylan in the coming days, weeks, and months!