Best Christmas Present EVER!

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THIS IS A MUST WATCH!!!

I just love this face. Ryder loves to stick his tongue out all the time right now for some reason. This is the back corner of our "family room" where I keep all of Ryder's toys. It's like their hiding place so that you can't see them when you walk in and I don't have to keep hauling them upstairs when he's done playing with them. Ryder loves to crawl over his toys all the way back into the corner and camp out underneath his old rainforest jumperoo. He will sit back there for 30-45 minutes in total silence just checking out his toys. It's so cute!! I wanted to snap a picture of him sitting under the jumperoo but he saw my camera and got all excited and started crawling to it. So this is him coming out of his "cave" as I like to call it.

10 Months!!!

I feel like I JUST posted about Ryder being 9 months and now a whole month has passed. I guess that is the result of being really busy. We just love this lil' man more and more all the time!! He has developed such a cute, spunky little personality and he is constantly cracking us up. He is getting smarter too and we are proud of him. About a week ago we were driving down the road and listening to the radio. Jon and I were not really listening and having a conversation. I guess Ryder sure was enjoying it because we both looked back and he was dancing!! It was so funny. He was waving his hand up and down and then would point his finger and wave it around. HAHA! He has a really good memory. He remembers where things are around the apartment and knows what areas are OFF limits (even though he goes there anyways). He absolutely loves being in nature, which I love about him. Jon just started coaching another season of lacrosse for junior high AND high school. We go to every practice so that Ryder can have time outside. He loves to watch the boys run around and he always steals a lacrosse ball to play with. For his first birthday Jon wants him to have his very own stick. Ryder has no choice...he's playing lacrosse when he grows up. His daddy and uncles and aunt play it so he's destined. So there is still no walking but Ryder can stand for longer periods of time by himself and we bought him a walker toy so he's learning to walk with help. He's already wearing size 5 shoes and size 4 diapers!!! AHHH!! He's so big I can barely carry him. He is learning to clap thanks to me and his Baby Einstein video. He now has 6 teeth; 4 on top, 2 on the bottom!! He's learning to eat a variety of foods and will still eat anything. The only problem I'm having right now is getting him off the bottle. I've bought several different kinds of sippy cups and even bought the kind that comes with 3 different "nipples" to teach him to drink from a sippy cup but he sucks SO hard he chokes and gets frustrated and won't drink anymore. I've re-introduced the sippy cup many times and don't know what esle to do! Any suggestions? And now for his best accomplishment yet...Ryder now says, "Mama!!!" The first time he said it I was SO happy. I make him say it all the time because I love it. He can now say "Dada," "Mama," and "Baba" (bottle).

WHERE HAS THE TIME GONE?!?!

So I was supposed to post this like a week ago but my camera battery had died and we were getting ready to go to Mexico for Thanksgiving and yada, yada, yada. So I ended up cutting my hair like Victoria Beckham's. Okay well it's not 100% the same cuz I can't style it like that but I love it. I was super nervous about it because this is the shortest my hair has been (at least on that one shorter side) and I had my friend Jessica cut it and she has never cut my hair before but she was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!!! I highly recommend her because she does a really good job and is affordable. It looked much better when she styled it but here are Ryder and myself on Thanksgiving. Sorry it's not the best hair shot but Jon was busy getting everything down to the car for us to go eat turkey and then leave for Mexico. I had to take the shot with one hand while holding Ryder. So here it is!! My new hairdo and Ryder giving the stink-eye. I think he did that because of the flash hahaha!!! So for Thanksgiving we went to my uncle John's and had the best most delicious dinner I've ever experienced in my life...EVER!!! It was seriously so yummy. Then we left immediately for Mexico, which was a hellish trip if I may say so. Ryder cried and yelled and screamed for the last 2 hours of the trip down there. Jon and I were beside ourselves. We didn't know what to do and couldn't believe he was being so naughty and could NOT figure out what was wrong with him so we decided he was just sick of being in the car, which I don't blame him. It took us 5.5 hours to get there and we were SO done. Jon's family owns a really nice house down there with 4 bedrooms and like...7 bathrooms. It needed fixing up so we painted and hung pictures and set up other decor. It was pretty much work the whole time we were there but the house looks so much better and they are going to rent it out or maybe sell it one day. We left Mexico at 11am yesterday and didn't get home until 8pm. That's right folks!! We thought the trip THERE was bad...the trip back was 3.5 hours longer (it takes forever to cross the border back into America)!! Ryder did better, but was still really naughty. We took a lot of stops to break up the monotony of the car. One stop was dinner at Taco Bell and Ryder was so well behaved in there just staring at people. One old guy went walking out the door and said to his wife, "Did you see this little boy? I've been watching him the whole time. He's such a good little boy!" I was thinking, "Yeah he's good now...you should've seen him an hour ago and you would NOT be saying that." Anyways this is getting really long so I'll end it here.
Things I am Thankful for (even though Thanksgiving is over)
- A loving husband and father. Jon helped take care of Ryder SO much in Mexico so that I could actually feel like I was on vacation. It was awesome.
- A healthy baby. I keep hearing about friends with babies that have serious problems and it makes me SO thankful that Ryder has been healthy as a horse.
- Parents who take care of us in every way you can think of.
- A roof over my head, food, and clothing.