Happy Birthday Rylee!

I cannot believe she is a year old! It blows my mind what has happened over the course of the year! She is walking, saying dada (and jabbering all the time), picking things up, feeding herself, and eating adult food (she refuses to eat baby food now).

For Rylee's birthday I decided to take her to the store to pick out her favorite toy.  I was prepared to spend $30.  Rylee didn't really care for any of the toys I was showing her.  She finally found a ball and was stoked! Then on the way back to the cash register we stumbled across 2 other balls (luckily they were in the wrong place because I don't think I would have been able to find them otherwise.) So for her birthday I got her 3 balls for $10.  No complaints here!

We decided to let Rylee pick the colors of her birthday cake.  Over lunch we showed her different colors on our phones and let her pick her favorite.  We got it down to pink and yellow:) Here is the lovely cake! I am no cake pro, but it seemed to work just fine:)

Here are a series of pictures of her eating her cake.  It took a little while for her to finally dig in.

Sharing with dad:)

We dedided to take it off the plate before she pushed it off the high chair and then she finally dug in!

Striking a pose!

Here is Rylee right before bath time.   Kenny was nice enough to smash her face in the cake (because I guess she wasn't dirty enough;) )

Nice clean Rylee finishing off her birthday with dad reading her her favorite book!

Rylee is SO awesome! We are so blessed to have her in our family.  And I am so lucky to be able to stay at home and spend so much time with her.  She is such a happy girl! And she makes me one happy mom!

April 2013 Part 2

There were way too many pictures that I wanted to post, so here is part 2 to April!

Rylee's doctor said that if I waited until 11 months to wean Rylee I could go straight to milk.  Rylee hated to the taste of formula so I was excited to skip it! And I decided to give it to her in a sippy cup so we could get rid of the bottle. She had no problem taking it! We did it during the last session of conference.

Conference...we didn't get to listen to as much as we wanted.  Unfortunately Rylee's nap schedule didn't exactly work well with us being able to pay attention during conference.  She was awake during conference and then took a nap in between the sessions. It was nice because we could nap in  between the sessions, but it didn't work out too well in terms of being able to pay attention. Luckily the conference talks are all on the internet and we have six months to go over them before the next one!

Rylee also loved trying to share dad:)

Rylee is gradually becoming more of a daddy's girl, but when it comes to cuddling she wants me.  She was exhausted and Kenny wanted some love, but she would only lay down on him if she could hold on to me too:)

I love this picture! They are so cute together!

Kenny installed a swing for Rylee underneath the deck.  She doesn't last as long as we thought she would in it, but she still enjoys it:) Kenny was hoping he could put her in it and then climb on the climbing wall in between pushes...it didn't work as well as he had hoped.

She still loves her food!

She is becoming more and more obsessed with the cats.  She loves trying to lay on them.  Keo is usually the only one she can catch. And when he is lounging on the couch is usually too tired to care:)

My friend at work gave me her walker that makes noises.  Rylee LOVED it!! She would not leave that toy again.  It would make noise every time it moved. She wanted to walk with it everywhere! It helped her gain the confidence she needed to walk on her own:) 

Rylee could walk across the room when she was 11.5 months old.  Of course we held up an iphone for her to come after and kept scooting back:) But she could totally do it! We decided we would count her as walking when she decided to do it by herself without bribery. Finally on April 29th she did it! And she hasn't looked back since!

We went to Governor's Stable to go bouldering.  It is a little over 2 hours away, but it has great bouldering! Here is how Kenny would carry Rylee to the boulders.  She loved it!

April 2013 Part 1

At 11 months Rylee could walk....she just didn't want to. Rylee likes to know she can for sure do something before she does it. She is a bit of a dare devil when she plays with Kenny, but when it comes to doing things on her own, she is very cautious. Like when she crawled, she didn't crawl for so long! And when she finally decided to do it she had perfect form!  No army crawling or scooting for her! It was the same way with walking.

We eat lunch with Kenny everyday.  It gives me a break and Kenny a break! And it is a great chance for Rylee to spend time with her dad...and me of course:) Rylee would get so excited to see Kenny for lunch (and still does.) She will be upset when I am putting her in the car but I tell her we are going to see dada and she calms right down. Here Rylee and Kenny are fighting over a Tylenol bottle.  Rylee loves to shake the bottle.  It makes a great rattle!;)

I finally finished sewing Rylee's first dress! My mom and sisters sent me a pattern and fabric so I could  make a dress for Rylee.  It doesn't get much easier then that! I has been hard to find time to sew because there are so many other things I should be doing during her naps, but I finally decided that I was just going to do it!  And it was surprisingly easy! Thankfully, they knew my sewing ability, or lack there of, and got me a great pattern that I could do! And it worked great! Here is my model:)

I love the ruffles on the bum!

We were having fun at bathtime:) She loved playing with  Kenny's cap and goggles.  She will make one cute swimmer some day if that is what she decided to do:)

So Keo decided he was too cool to go pee in the litter box anymore, and decided to go all over our window/dresser and it went all down the wall.  It was SO nasty.  So while I took care of the lovely mess we moved our bed out to the front room.  We got this special spray that breaks down the bacteria in the urine.  It works great but I hate the smell of it and it takes a little while for it to go away.  And you can also see that Rylee is still playing with her easter egg:)

Here is Rylee going down the slide! It was her first day doing it! I had my friend Melanie help her so that I could take a picture:)

Once again, playing with an egg!

Happy Easter!

Kenny gave Rylee a bowl of Cheerios as her Easter Basket. She wasn't too amused:) Luckily Grandma Clark sent her a better basket! Here was Rylee in outfit #1. Right when we were about to walk out the door to go to chuch, Rylee somehow peed through her diaper onto her dress.  It had never happened before! I thought Grandma Clark's dress she sent was going to be too big, but it was the only other springy one we had to it would have to do.  and it actually fit a lot better then I thought!  I think Rylee just really wanted to wear her new Easter dress from grandma:)

Here is Rylee is her super cute Easter dress. I love the colors!! We got a lot of comments on it at church.  And I love how Kenny matches her:) Look at this awesome family I have!!

Rylee's favorite part of her Easter Basket were the eggs! She still plays with the eggs! Kenny and I's favorite part were the treats and of course the gift card! Thank you Corine!!! In this picture we hid an egg in Rylee's leggings....it took a little while for her to find it:)

March 2013

Here are a bunch of pictures of Rylee when she was 10 months old. It blows my mind to look at her only 5 months ago and see how much she has changed!

 I was so excited that she could fit into this onsie finally! I know if is a boy onsie, but when I saw it I couldn't pass it up.  And see, with a bow she look like a girl:)

 Rylee is eying Keo.  I think she was a little jealous that he was sitting on my lap.  After this picture she kept grabbing his face because she knew it would make him leave.  Sure enough, he eventually left and then she made sure to take my whole lap:)

Having fun with dad before bath time!

We went to visit Andrew and Bags in Ohio.  Rylee was making the drive in style!

We also discovered the beauty of Nerds. She loved them!  One little Nerd would keep her entertained for a while.  If made the trip go by a lot faster when she was getting fussy:)

We finally ran out of our Sam's club pack of Puffs and decided to give Cheerios a try.  She didn't like them quite as much as puffs but they were good enough:) We would both sit there and eat Cheerios and she thought it was the funniest thing! She would also make quite a mess with Cheerios, but it was fine because they were a lot cheaper then puffs!

On March 19th Rylee woke up with a fever of 102.4.  When I called the doctor's office, the nurse said they didn't worry about it unless it was over 104 or they had it for three or more days.  I kept giving her Tylenol as the day went on and I went to work that night like normal, because "a fever was nothing to worry about." I left work a little early because I was still worried about her, and when I picked her up from my friend's house, she felt warmer then she had all day.  So I took her home and she had a temperature of 104.6! I decided to call the doctor's office to see if I needed to go to the emergency room or if you just wait until the next morning to schedule an appointment.  This nurse told me that it was a medical emergency and she could start having convulsions and was blown away that I was wasting my time to call the doctor.  I had no idea that 2 degrees went from no big deal to life threatening! So I rushed her to the emergency room, and of course Kenny was at an important dinner meeting and couldn't be reached. But I think someone was looking over me, because my visiting teaching companion happened to be Rylee's nurse! They ran tests, and eventually Kenny showed up when he could get a ride.  Her fever broke (Thank you Ibuprofen!) and all the tests came back negative. Finally at 12am they released us with an antibiotic for what they thought was an ear infection. (The next day when I followed up with my doctor they said her ears looked great and there wasn't an ear infection.) 

After such an exciting night, Rylee was exhausted, and with her fever finally gone she finally slept!! Here is a picture Kenny got of her the next day.  She found her binky and decided to just lay right there! Kenny then took advantage of some cuddle time that Rylee rarely gives him:)

Kenny is already training Rylee to be a climber!

She is the cutest thing! I LOVE this girl so much!!!!

February 2013

Here is Rylee at 9 months.  She is SO much fun.  And she just keeps getting even more fun!

Rylee has discovered the dishwasher! She gets so excited when I start to unload the dishes. She likes to sit right on the door and play with all the silverware.  I have to remove all the knives as soon as I open the door so that she is safe to have fun. It is actually really nice, because it gives me a chance to unload the dishwasher without her getting fussy.

 Rylee loves having the cats around.  She isn't the softest to them, but they are really good about it.  It think they are just starved for attention and don't care what form it comes in:)

 

 

Here is Rylee posing for the camera. Isn't she the cutest thing?!

 And I love this picture!

Rylee has an on-again-off-again relationship with pacifiers.  She likes them leading up to our trip to Sacramento, and then when we got back she wanted nothing to do with them. Sad day...or month really...

When Rylee was a few months old, Christie got her this awesome pacifier.  I found her playing with it in her room.  She loved to chew on it.  Then gradually it would end up in her mouth and she would suck on it for a little bit...there was hope!  Then she started sucking on it more and more until.... she started liking pacifiers again!!! Thank you Christie!!! Once she started taking pacifiers again she started going down for naps SO much easier!

 Since Jenny lives in D.C., anytime we have a chance to get out of State College (and Jenny is free) we go visit.  Jenny is nice enough to let us stay with her and we always have a blast! It is so nice to have Jenny so close! She does so well with Rylee and even lets Kenny and I go to the temple together. Here is Rylee and Kenny hanging out in Jenny's bedroom.

We finally found a sippy cup Rylee can use all by herself.  She had a hard time learning that she had to tip back the other sippy cups.  Yea for straws!

She is using the walker all by herself! You can see the handle bars are missing... unfortunately, that is where all the noise would be coming from. So it was a silent walker:) She wasn't as excited about using it as I thought she would be.  She loves crawling and doesn't quite understand why walking would be any better.

She still loves bath time:)

January 2013

It is time for MAJOR catch up! Kenny is working late tonight, and I figure it is as good a time as any to get started:)

After Rylee and I went to Sacramento to visit family, we finally had a break from traveling. There wasn't too much going on, but her are some cute picture of Rylee when she was 8 months old.

Rylee was crawling around everywhere! And it didn't take long for her to be pulling herself up on everything.

 

Since she loved pulling herself up on everything, we decided to get her a toy that would help her learn how to walk. It was an awesome little motorcycle that had a seat that went up so it could be used as a walker, and then it went down so she could ride it too. Unfortunately, I put it together wrong and we weren't able to attach the handlebars.  Luckily, the walker didn't need the handlebars:)

She still loved putting everything in her mouth. (Don't worry, it wasn't plugged in)

 Rylee's new favorite thing to do is wave.  She learned it from Skye and loves to wave at everyone.  She is such a social baby. It blows me away! She loves to be around people and she loves the reaction she gets now from waving at people. There are times I would be worried about taking her out to run errands or to go on a play date because she was being fussy.  I would take her out anyways and she would be so happy!  She was a completely different baby! Often times you try to run your errands all on one day so that you can get them over with.  With Rylee, I learned that it is better to spread them out during the week. I wait until she gets stir crazy at home, and then it is errand time:)

 I know, she looks like a little boy, but she looks so cute in those dinosaur PJ's!

I was having a hard time trying to find things in the diaper bag to entertain Rylee while we went grocery shopping.  When I pulled out my wallet to pay for the groceries, she grabbed it and was having a hay day!  It was the best thing I could have pulled out of the diaperbag!

I was going through Rylee's room and found all of the free samples I had been given of formula and nipples and Rylee got into one of the packages of nipples.  She loved chewing on it backwards:)