Anna's Bday Party and Date Night

     Yesterday my niece, Anna turned 10. We went to a party for her at her house and celebrated the anniversary of her birth. She and all her friends had lots of fun splashing on a slip-n-slide and throwing water balloons. We had fun watching them. Rylee had to say "what's that?" at least a hundred times. She was so interested in everything they were doing. After the kids got done playing outside we went in and allowed Rylee and Kaden to roam around. Rylee ate her first Cheetos. She loved them. Then she and Kaden were crawling around playing with a balloon and Kaden tried to stand up on the balloon and fell and busted his lip on the hard floor. Poor little guy, but after some love form his parents and a little orajel, he was acting good as new.

     After the party Ryan and I headed to Memphis to visit Melanie, since we were already in Atoka for the party. We haven't had a date night in a WHILE so we decided to go see the final Harry Potter. It was realy good. Rylee had tons of fun playing at her Aunt Mel's house. She passed out asleep on the way home from having way too much fun! :)

One Last Shopping Trip

     Today, Liz and I went to Dyersburg for one last shopping trip. She starts work back on Monday, so we had to do something for the end of her summer break. We began her summer break with a shopping trip to Dyersburg, so we though it was fitting to end that way, too! We went to the mall and got some clothes for the kiddos and picture frames for the beautiful pictures that were taken last weekend. And we went to Walmart and got some new sippys for Rylee and a new toy for being such a good girl and finally taking a sippy cup!

     After, we went out to dinner at El Patio. Since Rylee is a big girl now and she takes a big girl cup, I ordered her a big girl meal. She got grilled cheese and curly fries. She ate over half of the food on that big plate! She took the other half home to eat tomorrow night. I can't believe how grown up she is now! But I am loving how much personality she has and how smart she is. Her vocabulary absolutely amazes me. She's already says her first sentence: "What's that?" and then when you tell her what it is, she says, "Ooooooh." :)

Summer Pictures

     Rylee had her summer pictures done on Saturday by my amazingly talented sister, Elizabeth Jones. They turned out a million times better than I could have even imagined! It helps that my kid's freakin' gorgeous, but Elizabeth has a knack for finding the perfect background and perfect angles to capture people in the best possible way.

      You can't tell from these shots, but Rylee is NOT a fan of photo-shoots. She'll pose for the first shot or so, but then she gets impatient and either cries or tries to crawl away. The thing that is most amazing to me is that both of these shots were taken while Rylee was just playing on the porch. She didn't have to sit still and pose. It makes me happy that she didn't have to be miserable for me to get some good pictures of her!

An Interesting Week

      This week has been pretty typical, but it did involve a few firsts. Rylee colored for the first time yesterday!! I haven't trusted her with crayons yet because I was scared she would eat them, but she didn't even try to put them in her mouth! She actually made marks on the paper by banging the crayons against the paper. Of course, her first masterpiece found itself on the fridge!

      Unfortunately, another first this week was her first big accident. Of course she's had minor scrapes and bruises that come along with her becoming more mobile and bumping into things. However, this one was a bad one. When she first started pulling up on things, she would always try to pull up in the bath. Of course, I discouraged this, and she really hasn't tried to stand up in our bath tub in over a month. I left the bathroom for less than 30 seconds to run and go warm her milk for her bedtime bottle, like I do every single night. (I know I'm not gonna win any parent of the year awards for being so careless. I understand that it only takes a second for an accident to happen, and believe me, I feel completely awful and will NEVER leave her in the tub again.) Then, I heard the worst thing I could possibly hear, a crash, a splash and her flailing under water. I run into the bathroom as fast as I can and she is face down in the water struggling to get up, and there is blood on the rim of the tub! I completely FLIPPED! I pulled her out of the tub and thankfully she hadn't aspirated any water, she wasn't coughing or anything, but she did hit her mouth on the rim of the tub when she fell and it was obviously pretty sore. She was screaming and shaking, she was so scared! My poor baby!!! I gave her some orajel and a baby lotion massage and then she calmed and went to bed. I felt absolutely HORRIBLE. I cried from the time she went to bed just before 9 until after my husband got home just before 12. It just completely frightened me how quickly things can change, and I couldn't bare the though of her hurting because of my stupidity.

     But a good thing about this week is that Rylee got to have lots of time with her Aunt Mel!! She got to see her Monday for the Fourth, Tuesday for a visit, and most of the day today! Today we went swimming early in the day, then tonight the 3 of us went to dinner at El Patio. Our server was absolutely amazed that Rylee was eating salsa by the spoonful. He actually asked me if her father was Mexican because she took spicy food so well. Haha! After dinner, we went to the mall for a second to check out a pretty cool store, Burke's Outlet, and Rylee was such a good girl that I hadda get her some dessert! A very small piece of chocolate fudge! Yum!

Fourth of July Weekend

      On Saturday, Ryan and I were pretty lazy. We sat around the apartment mostly. But we did go over to his parents' house and help his dad set up his father's day gift-a new grill. Rylee was glad to spend some time with her Nonna and Pop-pop because she hadn't gotten to see them very much lately because the week before last the were on vacation all week, and they spent last week getting back into routine.

      On Sunday morning, we went to church. It was our pastor, Bro. Dennis's, last sermon. God is calling him to preach elsewhere, but he will surely be missed. On Sunday night our church had a Fourth of July celebration with grilled hamburgers and hot dogs and a fireworks show. It was great. It was Rylee's first time seeing fireworks and she absolutely loved them! :)

      On Monday, the fourth, we went over and spent the day at Nonna and Pop-pop's. We started off the day by swimming with Aunt Liz, Uncle Brandon, Kaden, and Aunt Mel. Then Aunt Mel and I went and picked up lunch for everyone, Subway-yum! Then we spent the day playing around and talking. We went on a four-wheeler ride. Then we fired up the grill and grilled some Ribeyes-double yum!!

     And then we started to shoot off some more fireworks!! :) Rylee only made it about halfway through the show. She was tired from such a long, fun day, so she had to go inside and lie down while we finished watching the fireworks. It was a truly wonderful weekend spent with amazing family, and I wouldn't have it any other way!