Mother's Day Weekend

 

    On Saturday, we spent the day at Ryan's parents' house. Rylee loves to be outdoors, so she had a blast!! She is so independent! She loved sitting in a chair by herself, but we had to keep a close eye on her. She's a brave one, and she kept trying to stand in the chair!

     We took Rylee on the 4-wheeler for the first time, and she LOVED it! She said,  "Weee!" the whole time! 

      And, of course, Rylee always has a good time goofing off with her granddaddy! She couldn't stop staring at his hat so he decided to let her try it on! :) Rylee loves her nonna and granddaddy so much. It is absolutely precious!

     On Mother's day we went to church and spent the day with family. There was some family issues going on, but Mother's Day went from bad to good very quickly. It was wonderful. Rylee makes me so proud.

     She is the best Mother's Day gift of all time!!

Easter and the Storms that Followed

     We had an amazing Easter service at church. Rylee looked so beautiful in her Easter dress, and Bro. Dennis preached a very powerful message. After church we had an amazing Easter lunch at Ryan's grandparents' house.

     After lunch, Ryan's sister Melanie and her boyfriend Josh came over. Ryan and Josh had a lot of fun playing video games. Melanie and Rylee took a nap, and I had a good time listening to the boys carrying on. Then we had a delicious Mexican dinner at LP.

     After Easter, we had some pretty intense storms. We were under tornado watches and warnings Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. We decided to be safe rather than sorry and Rylee spent a lot of time in the interior hallway.

     We didn't end up getting hit very hard, but a lot of people did. It's scary and tragic how quickly things can change. Now a lot of people are watching out for some flooding due to the rising river levels from melting snow and lots of rain. I'm praying for everyone who has been and is being affected by all of this chaos.

She Can't Really Be 10 Months Old Yet, Can She?

      I'm sad to say it's true. My little baby is now 10 months old. I'm having a really hard time with her growing up on me. Probably because she's changing so fast! She wears size 6-9 M, size 3 shoes, and size 3 diapers. She has 5 teeth: 2 on bottom, 3 on top.

      Her favorite thing to do? SLEEP! She usually sleeps from 8:30 PM to 8:30 AM every night and takes at least two one-hour naps a day. That's at least 14 hours of sleep per day!

     She's becoming increasingly more mobile and increasingly more exploratory. She loves to go from room to room to find things to get into. Her favorite place to go is into the bathroom to get into her bath toys.

     She also LOVES to eat. I give her bits of table food here and there if she shows interest in something I am eating, but she mainly eats baby food, yogurt, and baby snacks still. She sure can put it down, though! She loves to chow down!

      She is also obsessed with books! She loves to look at them and point to things on the pages. She'll sit down and open one up and "read" it by making cute little baby talk noises and turning the pages.

     She is so very precious and her personality is infectious. She loves to rough house and wrestle. It's adorable! She'll come up to you and hit you when she wants you to tackle her and play. It's pretty amusing! I can't believe how fast she has grown! But I do believe she gets more and more beautiful each minute. :)

Pawpaw's Birthday

    Tonight we had a cookout for Pawpaw's birthday. Pawpaw is Ryan's grandfather. He's such a sweet man; I love him like my own! :) Sadly, since Ryan works second shift he wasn't able to come, but Rylee and I sure had a good time!!

     Ryan's dad cooked some hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill!! The hamburgers were sooo delicious!! I don't really eat hot dogs very often, so I'll just take everyone else's word that they were good, too! :)

      Rylee loved all of the attention that she got!! She especially likes to talk to her Nonna!!

     Everyone kind of fought over who got to hold Rylee, and she loved every minute of it! She loves being the center of attention!! :) She really likes to soak up some love from her Auntie Vicki! :)

      At the end of the night, it was finally Granny's turn to spend time with Ryles. Rylee really loves her Granny, and Granny definitely loves her Rylee! Granny was trying all night to get a chance to hold Rylee, and she was glad when it was finally her turn!!

     Rylee had so much fun, she got totally worn out!! She was passed out by the time we made the ten minute drive home!!

Best Friends

      Rylee and I LOVE Fridays, because on Fridays, Kaden comes over and spends the day while his mommy is at work! Rylee and Kaden are more than just cousins; they are definitely best friends!

      Rylee always has to be near or touching Kaden when he's around. She's like, "He's small like me! I want to be friends!" :)

      They have some pretty intense conversations. I wonder what they're talking about, or if they can understand each other.

     I can't wait to watch them grow up and see how their relationship develops. They have no choice but to be close, they're always together!!

A Good Check-Up

     Rylee watched cartoons this morning and patiently waited for her mommy to get ready to take her to the Dr. for her 9 month check-up. She weighed in at 18 lbs and 9 oz today (50th percentile). She was 30 in long (99th percentile)!! Oh, and she now has 4 teeth, her 2 bottom center teeth, one top one in the center and one top one on the side. :)

      They pricked her finger to check for anemia and lead poisoning today. She didn't cry when they pricked it, but she hated when they started squeezing it to get the blood out! But she quickly calmed down when she got her colorful bandaid! :)

      When we got home she wished her daddy a happy birthday and then in was time to play! As soon as she saw her toys, she was good as new and her pain was long forgotten!!

      She's so grown up now. Last week she and Ryan were paying some bills and waiting for me to get down tanning, and Ryles decided she was gonna take the wheel! I swear I'm gonna wake up tomorrow and she's gonna be 16!! Ahhhhhh!

     One last wonderful thing to share! Last Sunday, Brandon got saved!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Liz and I have both recently rededicated our lives to the Lord and have been working on making some changes and some spiritual growth. And we oculdn't be more excited that he decided to commit himself to the Lord as well! :)

9 Months Old... Already?

    Today is Rylee's 9 month "birthday"!! Ahhhh!! Where did the time go? She's such a big girl now; she doesn't look like a baby at all anymore. :( She wears size 6-9 M clothes, size 3 shoes, and size 2 diapers. She has 3 teeth.

     I could've sworn this was just yesterday!! She was so tiny then, 7 lbs 15.5 ounces and 20 inches long. We got the tape measure and measured her today: 30 inches long!!!! She's grown almost a full foot since she was born!!!

     She's such a good girl. She spends most of her time playing independently. I couldn't be more proud of her. She's learning new things everyday. Just yesterday she learned to wave. Her second cousin, Emilee waved at her, and she just waved back like she'd been doing it forever!

     Her absolute favorite time is bath time. I started putting a little bit more water in there so she as more to splash around in and it stays warm longer (I keep a close eye on her of course!), and she loves it!! She splishes and splashes for as long as I let her (usually about 20-30 mins). When daddy's home, things get a bit messy, though. :)

     One more shot from her 9 month photo shoot this morning. She's just so cute!! Even her un-photogenic faces are photogenic!! Lol!!

St. Patty's Day

     I'm usually in charge of taking photos of Rylee for holidays and birthdays and such, but this morning she was asleep when I headed to school so it was up to Ryan to capture the perfect photo for St. Patrick's Day. 

      And because Rylee is used to playing for Daddy and not posing for Daddy, this is the best he could do! Don't get me wrong, she's cute and all, but this just isn't a holiday picture!!

      Then Rylee went over to Nonna and Pop-pop's to spend the day because Ryan had to work overtime and I was still at school.

     And Nonna captured this beautiful photo of my sweet girl!!! :) Her baby book is saved by a beautiful holiday pic to go under First St. Patrick's Day!! :)

Family Time

     We had an amazing weekend! Rylee had so much fun that she got completely worn out and slept until 9:30 today! I was glad for some extra rest, too!

    We started out the weekend by going over to Ryan's parents' Friday night. Rylee loves her Nonna and Granddaddy! And they surely love her so! She also has such a good time playing with their dog, Hollister. She plays with him like he's an equal, a friend rather than a pet. :)

    EARLY Saturday morning, we traveled to Middle Tennesse to visit my parents in their new house!!

    Rylee had such a good time being spoiled by her Ma and Pa!!

     We thought that driving 200 miles with two babies in the car would be a nightmare, but we were so proud of Ryles and Kaden. They were such good babies all weekend long!!

    I had an amazing time relaxing and playing with all my favorite people. Kaden got a bit spoiled cuz I couldn't keep my hands off of him!!! :) We came home Sunday night, happy and worn out.

    Monday, Liz and I spent the day shopping!!! When we got home, Mary, Alex, and Bailey came to visit!!! Rylee had fun playing with Bailey in between trying not to get run over by her!

     Uncle Brandon wasn't able to come on the trip this weekend so he spent some much needed quality time with Ryles Monday night!! :)

Being a Mommy Makes Time Fly!

     My sweet princess is growing up so fast!! I can't believe that in less than 2 weeks she'll be 9 months old!! She's almost been in the real world longer than she was in my tummy! :( It doesn't seem right. But I am soooo proud of her. She is so smart!! She learns so fast, and she spends a lot of time just sitting still observing the world around her. It's so precious, like she's trying to take it all in. She is absolutely rotten, but I love it. It lets me know she knows she's loved. Even though sometimes it does get a little old when she wants my attention constantly and I am busy, it's okay. I want to cherish every minute with her because she changes so quickly, I don't want to miss a thing!

     She has learned to shake her head "no" especially when it comes to eating something she doesn't like. She's such a picky eater!! She must take after her daddy! She also has learned to say "yea" and "mama" So now she knows 4 words. :)

       Right before her 8 month "birthday" Rylee learned how to crawl thanks to some coaxing from her Aunt Liz!! Now there is no stopping her!! She's all over the place, but she's still really clingy so she doesn't like to crawl anywhere unless someone she knows is nearby. So that makes it easier to keep an eye on her, and I'm thankful for that!

    And now she has a new skill that she's been working on for a little while, but she just mastered yesterday.. She pulls herself up on everything!! I hope this doesn't mean she'll be walking soon! I want her to be at least 1 or close to it before she walks!! I swear this kid changes every time I blink!! I want to go back to the day she was born and relive that day, because I seriously can't clearly remember her ever being a newborn! She's all over the place now.