Merry Christmas 2012

Well this is Ryleigh's second Christmas, but the first one that she could actually participate in. She really enjoyed opening every one's gifts including her own.

Ryleigh was so excited for Christmas she woke up at 6am! I am sleepy just thinking about it! While opening up her gifts she had such a look concentration and determination. No smiles...just a serious look on her face the whole time. I know she loved her gifts because she had to stop and play with each and every one of them. It made for a very long, but entertaining morning.

It was so wonderful having David's parents in town to celebrate Christmas with us!

Samson helped Ryleigh open her presents

Sipping on some tea

 

Samson eating a gift tag

Ryleigh cooking with her new pots and pans

Just like that...she is 17 months old!

I have reached full capacity and made my way to the end of the blogger world. I can no longer upload picture to my blog without paying for more storage so sadly I will be deleting many of my postings so that I can continue to post all of Ryleigh's silly faces and fun moments . The good news is I found a website that will transform my blog into a book so at least I will have a copy in some form.


Things Ryleigh is doing now:
~ Loves her babies or Buh-Be as she calls them and kind of with an accent. Other new words she is saying or trying to say include Jacket (jick-jack), book (boo), and tree (tra)
~FINALLY-no more bottles and now that she does not get a bottle she does not need her baby rocker anymore. So we are able to pack up yet another piece of baby gear.
~ Favorite food is still cereal bar or yogurt
~Enjoys dancing





Just hanging out with her toys

 

Hmmm...wonder where she learned to do this?

 

She has started liking bows and hats now. She insists on wearing a bow after bath time.



Her early Christmas present from Grandma K



Ryleigh's new friend Bear



I think Bear really liked hanging out with Ryleigh

Christmas Tree Farm!

Well, we had a great Thanksgiving with tons of food and great friends. All that was missing was some family...it is always hard being so far away from the ones you love, but we are thankful for the time we do get to spend with them. We have so much to be thankful for and we are very blessed! We really didn't get any pictures of Thanksgiving, but felt it was important to mention how wonderful the holiday was for us.

Now that Thanksgiving is officially over we started up the Christmas music and headed out to the Christmas tree farm. Ryleigh really loves the outdoors and we got really lucky that it did not rain. This Christmas tree farm is pretty awesome. They have real reindeer, a duck pond, hot chocolate and of course Santa!

She really enjoyed meeting Santa. Not!

Sipping on some hot chocolate. YUM!

 

She really loved running around looking at all the trees

Searching for a tree with Dad

 

16 Months

She grows up so fast! Here is another month of what Ryleigh has been up too.

~Very independent and likes to try to do things for herself
~Really likes to feed herself and have her food in a bowl (instead of on her high chair tray)
~Throws her food EVERYWHERE!
~Loves her baby, pillow and blankie
~Very sweet when she wants to be....like to give hugs and kisses
~Says "hi" "Bye" "Yeah" "ba ba" "da da" "ma ma" and babbles and squeals a lot
~She is a great helper! Loves to help put away the dishes, throw garbage in the trash can and even put dirty laundry in the basket
~Still weighs between 20-21 lbs
~Favorite foods include cereal bars, yogurt and vegetables

Trip to the Park~seems like this was the last sunny day of the month

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Halloween!~2012

I like to think that this is Ryleigh first "real" Halloween. She got to go door to door (only 3 houses) and trick or treat this year! The neighbors had special treats for Ryleigh at each house she went to. Instead of candy she got a stuffed which, snack bars, graham crackers, raisins and a fruit pouch. We are so lucky to have such great friends!

I was so surprised that Ryleigh actually wore her hat and I knew she would like the tutu!

Ryleigh's daycare had a Halloween party and the kids all dressed up and  also made some art!

Hand print spider

Foot print ghost

Our little candy corn with her trick or treat bag she got from Grandma K

She got really excited to wear her costume

Our decorations and we can't forget about Samson

Fun with Family

What a great week! Ryleigh had cousin Parker (18 Months old), Auntie Tina and Uncle B-rad come visit and wow did we have fun.

I am amazed how great Mr. Parker did with the time change, flight delays, new enviornment and lost luggage! Luckly, Ryleigh shared her pink horse Pj's with him!

Ryleigh was a little shy at first, but soon really liked playing with Parker. They played chase, had fun with bath tub drums and even gave each other "high five"

We took a trip to the Zoo and we were really lucky that the rain stopped most of the day. It seemed as though we had the whole zoo to ourselves. It was such a great day that most of the animals were all out enjoying the wheather and since it was not crowded we did not have to fight to see the animals.

Unfortunatly, our trip to the pumpkin patch was cut short since it was raining, but the kids splashed in a couple puddles and still got to decorate their pumpkins!

New "Game"

Ryleigh has figured out how to throw stuff in the trash can! This is great because I can get her to help me clean up!

15 Months

Ryleigh had her next developmental appointment and it went very well. We found out that she is normal :) They test her cognitive, fine motor and gross motor skills. She scored between 12mo-17months on these tests. She also had her hearing tested again, which was normal. They were able to do much better testing now that she has the tubes in her ears. They also did "Play Audiometry" They put her and David in this giant box/room with speakers. Then they play sound out of one side and show her a toy. Then they play the sound and see if she will look in the direction of the toy (without actually showing her the toy) It is a pretty elaborate "experiment". All these tests were done during Ryleigh's usually naptime and she stayed surprisingly happy.

Things she is doing now:
~Still between 20-21lbs...I guess babies at this age don't grow as fast as when they are younger.
~Loves eating food from a pouch (very messy)
~Loves chasing Samons and looking for him
~ Likes to try and blow kisses
~She is pointing a lot at things she wants or things she want us to have
~I purchased some floating bath animals and she is able to point out some of them. She can find the cheetah, flamingo and lizard. We are still working on the other ones.
~She is still VERY shy around people...mostly guys. David hopes she stays that way until she is at least 30.
~She like to walk around with daddy's watch on her arm
~UPDATE: I stepped away from the computer while I was typing this and came back in the room and Ryleigh posted it online before I finished typing.

Crazy hair!

She found a new cup holder. Again, crazy hair!

Riding on her giraffe and texting

More fun times!

Here are some fun videos from that past week or so:

Here is a video of Ryleigh doing a little dance...it is a little blurry, but you get the idea.

 

 

Ryleigh was making a bunch of funny faces and noises and I got a little bit of it on video.

 

 

Ryleigh was rocking and hugging her baby.

 

I was feeding Ryleigh and suddenly both Ryleigh and Samson were fixated on something outside...turns out they were watching squirrels.

 

Ear Tubes

This morning Ryleigh went in for ear tubes. The procedure took place at a brand new children's hospital and went very smooth and uneventful. They gave her a special "syrup" that made her relax and she got very loopy. They also had to put her under anestia to put in the tubes and she did just great! We are hoping now she will not have so many ear infections...just in time for cold and flu season.

 

Such a cute hospital  gown



Post-surgery