Fall Fun

      Fall is finally here! Technically, it has been Fall for a month now, but the leaves are just now changing and everything is beautiful. Friday, after work, we took Fall pictures. They turned out amazing! We got some GREAT family photos, which is what we needed. My sister is so talented. She got some really great shots.

       This weekend, my mom came down for a visit. She got to be there for the behind the scenes picture-taking action (haha) and spend all day Saturday with us and our babies. She doesn't visit all that often, so when she does, we try and make every moment count!

      We took the kids to Pumpkins, Pines, and Ponds Saturday morning, and they had a blast! They slid down a huge inflatable slide, got their faces, painted, went on a hayride, and went through a corn maze. Last night, we all went out to dinner together and just enjoyed each other's company.

     Visits and family time are a lot of fun, but today I plan on just focusing on the 2 I love the most before I have to start another work week. :) Here are a few more family shots from the Fall photo shoot. I feel very blessed to have such a beautiful family. <3 p="p">

 

 

Fall Break

      This week I have been on Fall Break from work and it has been absolutely wonderful! I have loved spending all day everyday with my little princess. I love her so much!

     We were lucky that Mel and Austin came to visit this week, too. We started off my break by spending Sunday evening with Nonna, Granddaddy, and Austin. Rylee is sweet with her baby cousin. They had sun playing outside in the leaves.

      Monday we had a play date with Aunt Liz and Kaden. The kids had so much fun together. Aunt Liz's house is one of Rylee's absolute favorite places to go!

      Tuesday night, Ryan and I had a date night. It was refreshing to spend some alone time together. I love my husband so much! I am one blessed lady.

     Wednesday and Thursday nights Nonna, Grandaddy, Mel, and Austin came over. The girls LOVED making Mel read them story after story after story. Austin had fun playing with all the toys over here. Our girls are very spoiled!

      Friday we went over to Nonna and Granddaddy's and had a fire. Rylee was timid around the flames, but Bailey was obsessed with throwing sticks into the fire pit. We had a really fun night over there!

      This morning we headed to the park to play for a little bit. The kids had a lot of fun. They love going to playgrounds and parks.

      More than anything else I have enjoyed my time with Rylee this week. She is the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I love every single minute with her. She has gotten a bit spoiled this week, and daddy's gonna have his hands full next week when I go back to work and Mary starts a new job and Bailey goes to daycare. It'll be just them 2 all day every day, but I think they'll enjoy their alone time. I know I'm jealous! ;)

       My goal for this week was to get Rylee pretty much potty trained, and it worked. She is wearing big girl panties now! She's averaged 1 or less accidents per day since Wednesday! I am so proud of my big girl! She's growing up way too fast.

If I had a super power..

       I would want the ability to travel through time. I wouldn't want this power in order to change anything, I would just go back and relive certain moments over and over again. I want to go back and hold Rylee when she was still a little baby. I can't believe how quickly she's grown up on me!

       This is Rylee around this time 2 years ago. She was so much fun at this age. She loved tummy time, and she babbled all the time. She loved to talk! She was such an early talker, and now her vocabulary is so extensive, it astonishes me at times.

          This is Rylee around this time last year. She hadn't started walking on her own yet, but she was very mobile. She was still a "baby." She loved to snuggle with me. She still ate some baby food, and rice cereal for breakfast every morning. She still did things that babies do, even though she was approaching toddler-hood.

       This is Rylee now! Definitely not a baby anymore! I love everything about this child. She is so smart, curious, and determined. She learns so quickly. She knows so many things, and she learns new things everyday. She is becoming more social and less timid. She has her own opinions about what to wear, what to eat, and what to do. She makes choices for herself. I just can't believe how fast this has all happened. I love every minute that I spend with her, and I love her big personality.

       But sometimes I just want to go back for even just an hour or so and spend some more time with my little baby. I want to snuggle her and hear her little baby babble. I want to feed her a bottle, change her, and swaddle her up in a little blankie. I love my big girl so much, but I do miss my baby!

A Rough Week

      This week was a bit more difficult than usual. Last weekend I didn't feel well, and I still wasn't feeling 100% this week. On Sunday as we were leaving church, Rylee started to run fever and she just wasn't feeling well at all. Monday night Rylee woke up crying at 1 AM and her temp was 104.6. I tried not to panic, and I stripped off her pj's, gave her a Popsicle, and gave her a sponge bath with cool water. We checked her temp again and it was 102.5, so I laid her in her bed with no covers except for her silky and let her go back to sleep. I stayed up all night worrying about her and checking on her, making sure she didn't get that hot again. I didn't want to risk her having a seizure or anything like that from a high temp. Since I didn't sleep at all, I took a personal day from work on Tuesday, and we took Rylee to the doctor. She had a double ear infection, a viral infection, and a bacterial infection in her tonsils. My poor baby was sick! The doctor gave her an antibiotic, but warned that she'd probably continue running fever from the viral infection until it ran its course. As of last night, she was still running a low grade fever, but it never got up that high again. Thank goodness! This week Rylee has been a handful. She has been throwing a lot of tantrums and crying a lot. I can tell she just really doesn't feel well. On top of that, she hasn't been eating barely anything, so I just pray she feels good as new soon!

      Work has been kind of crazy, too. When  I returned on Wednesday, I found out that my first planning and instruction evaluation will be on Monday. I am so nervous! I love my job, but some days it's a lot harder than I ever imagined it could be. I just hope it shows how hard I am trying and how much I care!

Finding Nemo

      Today, Ryan, Rylee, Mary, Bailey, and I went to the movies to see Finding Nemo in 3D. Bailey had been to the movies once before, but this was Rylee's first time. We were all so excited, and had a blast!

      The girls did really well with sitting and watching the movie. Rylee only wore her glasses for the first 5 minutes, so I'm sure it was blurry to her the whole time, but she still sat pretty still and watched the "fishies!" We had a couple of times were the girls wanted to get up and play, but they did way better than I even thought they would.

      After the movie ended, the girls had pent-up energy from being still for so long, so we took them to Poplar Park in Munford. The girls had a blast sliding, swinging, and climbing. They played and played until it was time for dinner.

    We almost didn't go today because Bailey got food poisoning or something yesterday and was pretty sick last night, but she woke up good as new. Thank God! Then, I woke up with body aches and a 100.1 fever, but I didn't want to miss out, so we went anyways. I'm glad we did! I still don't feel 100%, but I had a lot of fun! :)

Safari Park

      Yesterday we went to the Safari Park for the first time. We had a blast. Rylee loved looking at all the animals. She was a little timid of the ones who wanted to stick their heads through our window, but once I rolled our window up, she really enjoyed it! There are so many different animals there. It is really an amazing experience. Rylee's favorite animal to see was the llama. She said it was "so cute!" Haha!

       After we drove around and looked at all the animals twice, we stopped and let the kids play a little and look at the animals in the walk-through section of the park. Rylee has so much fun playing with her cousins! And we have so much fun watching them play together. It's hard to believe how grown up our babies are already.

      Our favorite part of the walk-through section was the giraffe. Rylee and Kade even fed it. I was proud of Rylee for being brave enough to feed it a carrot. She laughed when its tongue touched her hand. She is really opening up more each day, and I am so proud of my precious baby girl!

Rylee's Big Girl Room

      Yesterday, we gave Rylee's room a makeover. She got a twin size bed, and we put an easy removal border up, that wouldn't mess with the walls since we are renting and do not own this house.  Her room is done in pink, black, and white: her new bedding and border are pink and black and all of her furniture is white.

      Bailey helped Ryan put Rylee's new bed together. It only took him about 8 hours to get it all together. Ha! Rylee spent the day with Granny to spend some quality time.

      When we finally got the bed together, Rylee was SO excited! She climber up on her big bed and started jumping on it.

      I was excited that I could get in bed with her and read her bedtime stories.She liked that, too!

        I was worried that she wouldn't sleep well at first in her new bed, but she slept soundly all night long and even slept in a little later than usual this morning. I'm so proud of my baby girl. She adjusts so well.

      These are some other views of her big girl room. I just love it, and she does, too! She keeps going back in there to check on her big bed. She is so proud that she is a big girl now. :)

     And here's a shot of the playroom! At the apartment, we had to try to fit all of these toys in Rylee's room and there wasn't any room to really play. Here, this whole room is just for playing. Both girls spend most of their time in this room. They love it!

Changes

     A lot has been going on lately, and I haven't had a chance to write about it yet. About 2 weeks ago, Mary and Bailey moved in with us. Last weekend we moved out of our apartment and into a much more spacious rental house. Everything has changed, but everything has been really good so far. :)

      Rylee and Bailey have already gotten to the point that they act like sisters. They want to do everything just alike. They love to play together, but they fight like sisters, too. They each have had moments where they've gotten tired of sharing or just wanted some personal space, and tantrums have followed, but altogether, they've both adjusted to the changes very quickly and very well. They are learning so much from each other, and they sure are cute together!

      The new house has 4 bedrooms and 2 baths. It has a deck and a large backyard. Both girls are thrilled about all the space to play! We are thrilled with the space, too. Things were getting a little cramped at the apartment. Here we have a playroom that is just FILLED with toys. The girls love it! It helps them to share all toys instead of worrying about which toy belongs to whom, and now Rylee's bedroom is much less cluttered. I'll do a whole post on her new room once her new "big girl" bed comes in.

     Kade loves the new house, too. He has been over to play 3 times since we've moved in, and he has been playing nonstop every minute that he's been over here. I think he's excited to have two of his cousins here to play with now. These 3 kids are such a mess together. I love them all so!

Air Show 2012

       Today we went to Wings Over Halls to see the air show, and we had a blast! We took Rylee last year, but she was still a bit young to be really interested, so we were excited to see how she would react this year.

      She liked it a lot. She and Kaden had to get up and play a little, too, I wouldn't expect a toddlers to sit still for over an hour, but they both seemed to really enjoy it.

      Nonna and Granddaddy are keeping Austin for the weekend since it is Josh and Mel's first anniversary, so we got to see him at the air show, too! I just love my little nephew. He is so sweet! He liked the show at first, but the loud noises kind of put him on edge and he was fussy throughout the second half of the show. Rylee got a bit nervous at some of the louder planes, so I can see how it would frighten baby Austin.

     After the air show, Liz, Brandon, Kade, Ryan, Rylee, and I headed to Dyersburg. We went to the city park and played for a while and then we went to dinner at El Patio. We had such an amazing day together. I just love weekends! :) Work is going good, even though I am still getting the hang of things. I honestly love what I do. This week we are moving out of apartment and into a house. Mary and Bailey are moving in, too. It is going to be a busy, crazy week, but everything will work out and get done eventually. I'm excited for this next adventure in our lives! ;)

Back to School

      This week is the first week of school, and, boy, has it been crazy! I had no idea how exhausting it would be! I met my girls on Monday and my boys on Tuesday. Today was the first day that I had my whole class. Monday and Tuesday were a little bit off-kilter, but today was great. I love all 19 of my "babies," and I am so excited to finally have a class of my own. I am working harder than I have worked in my entire life, but I am loving every single minute of it. The first day caught me a little off guard because I had never even observed a first day of class before, so I wasn't prepared for how overwhelming it could be. I am glad that I feel much more comfortable now, and my kids are well on their way to being "trained" in my classroom rules and procedures. Next week I start really teaching, and I am excited. Practicing procedures and testing for reading levels and such is just not nearly as fun as instruction time! :)

     I just have to add coming home to this sweet face everyday really is just the icing on the cake of my sweet life! :)