Daddy's Home!

Jon was in Boston for the APMM convention for the past six days. After all that mommy & me time (okay there was some Gaga time in there too), Rylee was very excited to see her Daddy again tonight. She spent the better part of an hour crawling all over him, wrestling, giggling, giving him hugs and kisses - too sweet!

Sunday Sillies

Oblivious
Last weekend Jon scraped up his ankle when he was working outside. He asked me where the Neosporin was so I told him it was in Rylee's diaper caddy. Later I looked at the tube of cream he had obviously used. It was Rylee's yeast infection cream! It cracked me up! (Best part of the story: he actually said I could retell it on the blog - that never happens!)

TMI?
A bumper sticker I recently read declared: "I'm only speeding because I have to poop!" Too funny...

Depot Dance
(I don't think I ever got around to telling this story about Rylee. If it's a duplicate, forgive me - you know my memory is crap.)
Jon, Rylee and I were in the garden center of Home Depot a few weeks back. Rylee was walking around exploring when she found a big open spot of floor right underneath their speaker system. They were playing good music so what did she do? Dance of course! The cutest part was a female employee came up and danced with her and then later some customers walking by. :)

"Shiver"
by Maggie Stiefvater is a new YA book that is supposed to be the new "Twilight." I picked it up at Border's today. I'm only 70 pages in, but it is pretty interesting so far and it definitely has a Twilight vibe. If you're a Team Jacob fan, check out this new werewolf trilogy...
*Bonus: it's set in Minnesota

Polka-cutie

How cute does Rylee look in this outfit? (That's not a rhetorical question - I really want you to tell me... hee hee)

 

A-dor-able! :)

 

*Mom and I listened to the C-I boys basketball game online tonight. What a nail biter - we won in overtime. We're in the state championships tomorrow! Not sure if my heart can take it. Go C-I Go!

I'm Back!

So I thought I wouldn't be able to post much the week we were in Alabama, but it was actually after we got back that things really got busy. My 10 year old cousin, Lilly, was in town visiting and since she can stay up a lot later than Rylee, I didn't get my usual nightly blogging time in.

 

We did have a lot of fun though in a "disastrous" sort of way. This was Lilly's word to describe her trip! It's too long to explain, but there was "drama."

Here's the cliff notes version of our week:
Fri - park, pool time, dinner & a movie ("The Bounty Hunter"), followed by late night viewing of "Twilight"

Sat - pool time, playtime & dinner with Miller and the Froyd's, followed by DVD release viewing of "New Moon" (Angel hurts her leg and needs to be confined - disaster #1)

Sun - ocean (unbelievable wind, sandblasting, and waves drives us off the beach in less than 10 minutes - disaster #2) lunch at the "swings," more pool time

Mon - rainy day forces us inside (disaster #3), solitaire, cheap theater viewing of "The Blind Side" (Angel has bad reaction to her shots - disaster #4)

Tues - (too much vacationing?) I was sick out of both ends all day and Lilly got sun stroke and was pretty pathetic herself (disaster #5)

Wed - back to MN for Lilly, patheticness continues for me

I'm feeling somewhat better today. I made it out this morning to take the guys to the airport, took Rylee to the park, and even attended my book club. I should have skipped dessert though - my stomach is a little off now. Oops. Hopefully sleep will cure what ails me this time. Better hit the hay as they say...

I had to post this alternate version of the pic above. Rylee looks so "talk to the hand-y." :)

 

18 mos

Rylee had her 18 month checkup yesterday. It went really well.

Stats:
Height - 33 inches (83rd percentile)
Weight - 23 lbs 6 oz (35th percentile)

This is her first weight gain since all of her "intestinal issues" began back in Nov. so I'm guessing the specialist will continue her on the lactose-free diet (we see him in early April).

I'm glad we've switched back to the female pediatrician. Rylee is much more comfortable with her. She has a little wariness around "guys." Whenever she hears big trucks (which always make Rio bark), she runs over to someone for protection from the "guys." I know she doesn't like when Rio barks her "alarm bark" like that... and I guess I always tell Rio to settle down because it's just the UPS "guy" or Fed Ex "guy"... so apparently now all "guys" are scary. Just one of the ways I've accidentally scarred Rylee for life. :)

**She also has a fear of grass which I may be partially responsible for. The little hoover vac always picks up every little speck of something that she finds both inside the house and outside on the pool deck. When it happens inside, I always tell her it's "garbage" and then we throw it away. (FYI: She calls all garbage "diapers" for some messed up logical association that I think is adorable! Toilet paper is sometimes "diaper" too.) Anyway... when it was happening outside I was always nervous she would try to put the stuff in her mouth and who knows what dead thing/excrement it was. I would tell her "icky" and then throw it in the grass so she wouldn't find it again. After a while I noticed that she would point at the grass and say "icky." Oops! She will not walk on grass in her bare feet and will only marginally walk on it in her shoes. In my defense, Florida "grass" is bizarre so maybe she would never have liked it regardless.

***She does have other foot texture issues like the sand thing which I am not taking the blame for since we have no sand around here and I have made no comments pro or con about sand. Then again maybe I am to blame... I personally hate the sand so maybe it's a genetic thing?! :)

Got off on a tangent there, sorry... all in all it was a great appt. She didn't cry during the exam and only had a couple quick tears during her shots. I was impressed.
Have a great weekend everyone!

Happy (belated) St. Paddy's Day!

I didn't have a chance to get these posted on Wed - too busy packing and driving. The drive through the night went much easier this time - no pukey Rylee! We are all still a little off schedule though, both Jon and Rylee are sleeping in a little this morning.

"Irish gals" Shannon & Rylee in their St. Patrick's Day shirts.

 

It was overcast and chilly on our last day, but we still made it outside for a walk...

 

...and some play time at the park. All in all, a great first beach vacay for Miss Rylee!

 

AL Adv. 4 - Ocean

A couple of quick shots from our time at the beach. Too bad it wasn't Mommy & Me Monday - I actually have two shots of Rylee and I together. :)

 

 

Rylee has some texture issues - she hates the sand. She refused to walk on it without her socks and shoes, but she did lay with us on the towels and catch some rays.

 

Cowgirl Rylee Rides Again

 

I've never really gotten the hang of posting video. Whenever I try to post the footage we take with our video camera, it's too big. I know you must be able to upload to YouTube first (I see Ryan do it this way all the time), but I'm not YouTube savvy so I've never tried. Yesterday Jon took a little video with our digital camera so I thought I would try posting that just to see if it worked.

Rylee's favorite thing about the zoo might have been riding this mechanical horse. She called her "Poco," but her name was really "Ginger." For only 50 cents a ride, she was quite a bargain!


Looks like it works!

AL Adv Part 3 - Zoo

Rylee had a great time at the zoo yesterday. (I was nervous she was going to be cranky since she woke up at 5 a.m. - a little over an hour earlier than normal. Turns out she was the only one who remembered daylight savings time - she was right on schedule.) They had lots of fun animals, like...

lions...

 

tigers...

 

... and goats, oh my! (They had bears too, I just didn't have a photo of Rylee in front of them!)

 

Grandma Gaga (as Rylee now calls my Mom) told me not to let Rylee fall into any of the lion or tiger pens. She didn't specify anything about bunnies though... phew! Rylee did fall into the grass near this bunny (which wasn't part of any exhibit) thus foiling my plans of capturing it and giving it to her as an early Easter present. It's possible Jon pushed her down since he didn't seem to embrace my plan anyway. :)

 

AL Adventure Part 2 - Beach

Grandma Sandy and Grandpa Chip rent a lovely condo off the beach in Gulf Shores, AL. Here's the view from the balcony...

 

...gorgeous!

 

Rylee used one word to describe the area: "windy!" She still enjoyed walking the beach though. (I, on the other hand, wished I had worn pants. The wind wiped up the sand so hard that it was like getting my skin sand blasted!) She especially enjoyed picking up shells and putting them in her pocket - so cute. :)

 

Alabama Adventure (Abridged)

I'm blogging while Grandma Sandy entertains Rylee and Jon and Grandpa Chip cook dinner so this will be brief. :)

We left Thursday night after dinner with grand plans to make an easy (10+ hour) drive while Rylee slept. We were slowed down by the pouring rain, dense fog, and 2 pukes by Miss Rylee. Not sure if she was actually car sick or it was something else, but it turned out to be an interesting drive. Why should I have expected anything less?! We made it - that's the important part. :)

Friday was a relaxing day as Jon and I were going on only a few hours sleep. Luckily Rylee took a nice nap thus so did we and everyone had an early bed time.

Today we took Rylee to a cool park, went down by the beach and hit Souvenir City (the shop with the huge shark mouth). Jon was so excited to take Rylee to Hardees for lunch (we haven't been to one in over a decade), but it was not the experience he was looking for. They goofed up our order three times (gave Rylee the wrong burger twice and forgot our curly fries altogether). It was comical!

Tomorrow we're going to the zoo (or at least that's the plan)...

What Did You Just Say?

Yesterday Rylee and I had opposing view points about whether or not she should try to go down the slide standing up. I won by walking over and making her sit down. In true teenage (toddler) fashion, she mumbled something underneath her breath when I walked away.

I was pretty sure what the word was, but I couldn't help asking: "what did you just say?"

"Mean," she answered. "Mean, mean, mean." (I'm not exaggerating - she repeated it three times!)

At the time, I burst out laughing. I hadn't even realized she knew that word (though we do tell her "don't be mean to the dogs" so I guess that's where she heard it). Afterwards it made me kind of nervous. Obviously there are many times ahead when she's gonna think I'm being mean... and I like to be liked... loved even! Man, parenting is rough!

I felt a little better today though when I received a funny email about moms. You've probably read it. It's the one where little kids use their own words to describe moms. Check out this one...

What ingredients are mothers made of?
1. God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.

...I figure four dabs of mean isn't too bad, right?! :)

Monday :)

Hosted by Krystyn

Yesterday was insane so I didn't get a chance to post. I'm a little late but I didn't want to miss my chance to post my first Mommy and Me Monday. I'm always behind the camera so I had to take these photos special - you can see that Rylee wasn't really in the mood, but too bad! We need photographic documentation of us together. :)

 

 

 

Just the Bad & the Ugly

While on my baby picture hunt the other day, I came across the below photos. They were too hilarious not to share...

Me and my Grandma Elsie in our "Sally Jesse" glasses. I don't even know what to say about the suspenders. When Jon saw this pic he said, "your mother dressed you this way on purpose?" :)

 

This one is even better. This is the outfit I was wearing for my surprise birthday party when I turned 13. Where to begin?... the puffy sleeves, the ruffles, the nylons, the matching socks. If you could see the back of my hair I'm sure there was a matching teal scrunchie. In my defense, matching socks and scrunchies was all the rage then. Just goes to show you it doesn't always pay to be fashionable!

 

I wore a dress with a ruffle accent on it to a wedding a few years ago and have since come to regret that fashion choice as well. Note to self: ruffles are bad... unless you're a small child - I loved the ruffles on Rylee's minnie mousish skirt yesterday!

Rylee, let me apologize in advance for the outfits that will one day make you look back and wonder whether or not I secretly wanted to humiliate you. Trust me, I didn't!

"Mee Mou"

Rylee's obsession with Mickey and Minnie continues. It's hard to say which character she prefers, "mee mou" works for both.

 

Doing the "hot dog" dance.

 

In case you didn't notice, Rylee's wearing her Minnie outfit. Cute, huh? :)

 

Happy Birthday to Me!

I've been wanting to post some pics of myself as a baby to see if Rylee looks anything like me (everyone keeps saying she looks like Jon lately). Since today is my 34th birthday, it seemed a fitting occasion...

With my Grandpa DuWayne...

 

With my Mom at my 1st birthday party...

 

I think I'm about 18 months here. C'mon, doesn't she look like me a little?!

 

With "Poco" (Obviously I'm a little older than Rylee here, but I couldn't resist posting this since Rylee is so into her rocking horse these days)

 

Post-It-Note Tuesday

Misc. Monday

Rylee Strikes Back
Rylee has learned several new words that make her Daddy proud. I already mentioned "par-ty." She also learned "tattoo" on Valentine's Day (there were tattoos in her cards). Now every night she asks for tattoos (stickers) and covers her hands and face. Possibly his favorite new word though is "jedi." We didn't teach it to her, but one day she brought me the Star Wars board book and said "jedi!" (I must admit even I was proud of that one.)

Texting
Rylee sent her first text last week. She turned on my phone and typed "Koppooiio" and hit send. It confused the heck out of Gramma, but still pretty impressive for a 18 month old. :)


Rylee loves the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom board book. It's shorter than the original so it ends when the alphabet letters fall out of the tree. Rylee loves to say the ending "oh no, boom boom." I hear her practicing her inflection when she's in her crib. I think she's going to like reading aloud just like me.