Pre-Thanksgiving - Year 4

This was our 4th year hosting Pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving, and it was a blast as usual.  We provide the food, Kendall provides the turkey, and everyone else brings the beverages.  This year went very smoothly...Tyler pretty much did everything and it was a great time to catch up with friends.

Rilyn loved playing with Payton.  She is such a polite and friendly girl and we are so excited that Kole and Shannon are going to parents again!  This new little baby is going to be so lucky to have them as parents!

Food was pretty darn good and Rilyn seemed to enjoy her first Thanskgiving meal.

Thank you friends for being so important to us.  We are thankful for all of you!

Puppy Love

 

Just some Anna ramblings...

I thought I would give this ramblings idea a try because that is really what I feel like doing....

Rilyn had her 9 month check-up this week.  She is all caught up on her shots including the first half of her flu shot.  She is 21 lbs (80%) and 28 inches (58%).  She is meeting all her milestones and is doing great.

She is VERY mobile and is starting to babble and actually talk.  She said two words the other day, "Hi Zoe Zoe."

We had kind of a rough week....
First I cut a good chunk off of my pointer finger using a mandolin.  I spent the morning at Urgent Care and today has been the first day without quite a bit of pain.  Unfortunately, my finger is going to look a little funky as there was really no repairing it.

I took my car into the shop to get a gas smell figured out (second time it has been in for this), and they tried telling me my warranty wasn't going to cover it.  Let's just say I went all Tyler on them and my warranty will be covering it.  I of course was too embarrassed to go in and pick up my car after my little outburst, but hey I bet I saved us a couple hundred dollars at least.

The same day my car was in the shop, Sheila (the jeep), overheated and ended up in the shop in Castle Rock.  Which means we had no car.  Thank God for the Decker rents who loaned us a car for a day!

We had a rough week but it's been a relaxing weekend so that is good.  We cleared out the garden, which was kind of sentimental for me because the kids were so little when we started and now they seemed so old.  A whole season of their lives have passed with the season of the garden.  Cheesy I know, but it is true!!!!
We then celebrated with beers and pizza with our garden partners.

1st garden picture...Rilyn was 3 1/2 months and Joaquin must have been about 10 months.

Our last garden picture of the season...Rilyn is 9 1/2  months and Joaquin is 16 months

Today I went to a church in our neighborhood that I have been too a couple times now, and I LOVE it.  They seem to love Jesus, know they are crap without him, and the sermons challenge me like crazy.  I'm pretty pumped about this church and excited to see where it takes me. 

Well I guess that is all the ramblings I have for now....have a great week!

still eating dirt at the garden

big helper

muddy face and crazy hair...must have had fun!

overalls are good for catching babies

November Ramblings

Let's go ahead and get this done early in the month.

Heard of Tebowing?  If not, check out tebowing.com.  I've been trying to get Rilyn to Tebow while raging.  It's not going good.  She seems to get more upset when I try and contort her body into a praying position while she's already ticked off.

It's also official, the apocalypse is near.  After 9 months and 4 days I was able to teach Anna a better way to do something "parenting" wise. 

Baby's, when they eat, are filthy.  When I watch on TV, or hear someone talking about their general dislike of kids, it's usually because they always smell like something they just ate.  The biggest complaint seems to be that they're always sticky.  I wholly agree with this stereotype because it's completely true.

Baby's, who don't get fed pureed food with a spoon are dirtier.  That leaves the task of wiping the baby down after their done eating (and don't think we haven't though about just putting her on the floor and letting the dogs go to town).

I've been developing a technique I call "The Ole" for a while, but decided to keep it to myself so I could laugh inside as Anna washed the baby's face as she raged.  I ultimately decided that 3 months of my own inside joke was enough, and so finally taught Anna "The Ole".

The premise is simple.  The washcloth is the tool to ultimately bait the bull into attacking it.  The bull, obviously, is Rilyn Grace.

Funny thing is that it works like a charm.  No crying, no fussing, it actually seems like Rilyn enjoys "The Ole". 

Anna was obviously skeptical when I tried to show her a better way of doing things.  As she attempted her first "The Ole", the sarcasm in her voice as she executed the maneuver was obvious.  The greatest part about it is that it (obviously) worked.  Since then I've been blessed to have the opportunity to wax poetically about the genius of "The Ole" each and every time Anna washes Rilyn's face.  Don't think for a second that I don't also credit the genius of it's creator.

My latest method of proving the ingenuity is to simply watch, and nod in approval as "The Ole" is executed.

The week of Halloween Rilyn came down with a bout of some diarrhea (side note, who freaking invented the spelling of that word?...It makes no sense).  Based on the runs, I stayed home with Rilyn on Halloween to prevent the illness (that my Mom, Ryan, and Carly all caught) from spreading to the other kids my Mom watches.

If I haven't said it enough I'll say it again.  Stay at home Mom's are amazing.  After the 4th time that I was forced to walk the stairs, either to take Rilyn up for a nap, or pull her off the stairs, I decided to keep count for the remainder of the day.  Between the hours of 6 and 4 that day, I trekked those damn stairs 26 times. 

Combining the amount of power lifting (picking kids up), stair trekking, and the amazing calories burned while breast feeding, it makes sense.  After a baby, Mom's get super hot, super quick, resulting in another baby.

Snow Day!!!

Today I was so lucky to have a snow day and not have to go too work!  Tyler and I were up at 4:30 because we figured he would have to drive Rilyn to Castle Rock and we were super nervous as all the snow fell later in the night/early in the AM. 

We have 4 wheel drive in the Jeep and have been preparing ourselves for this (emotionally) because we knew eventually he would have to start driving her on bad roads.

Tyler and Rilyn left at about 5, and at 5:15 I saw on the news that they had canceled school.  Tyler turned around and came home.  He also had a late start so he got to spend a little more time at home this morning.

Rilyn and I got stuff done around the house and she played wonderfully.  Typically I get out and do something with her because she gets pretty bored quickly, but today she just played and played and played. 
It was a good day for sure and here are the pictures to prove it :)

Reading books to Nernie (daddy's Ernie from when he was little)

Watching the snow with Zoe (they both got to eventually play in it)

Climbing the stairs

Best Friends

She obviously did not like the cold but kept wanting it in her mouth

Snow is not her favorite thing

Halloween

How much fun to celebrate Rilyn's first Halloween!

I love Halloween anyways because the kids at school are so excited and there are a lot of fun things to do with pumpkins, candy, fall, etc...today at school we decorated cookies and the kids LOVED it!  Of course, it was a challenge trying to explain to them that they couldn't eat the cookie until they decorated it and only about half of the cookies actually got decorated but nonetheless it was fun.  My students have always been the most excited about cookies and often it is one of the few words they can say...too much fun!

Anyways.....

I love Halloween!  A bottle of wine, some pizza ( I was too lazy to make my pumpkin risotto), and really cute kids!  Rilyn had a lion costume but she did not love having it on.  However, when I was having her look in the mirror with it on she laughed and then I showed her how to roar and she imitated me :)  She is imitating so much right now and can say, "mama, dada, hi, and Zoe Zoe"

She liked looking at the other kids in their costumes, but did not like giving our candy away and really I can't blame her!

Holidays are going to be so much fun!