GIVEAWAY

Hey everyone! My friend Ashley Madsen is doing a giveaway on her blog. You can win a $25 J. Crew gift certificate and free photo sessions with her. Just go to her blog to enter.

http://www.ashmadsen.blogspot.com

Burn, Baby Burn

Tonight Jennifer (my sister-in-law) and I went and did a little shopping at ROSS. We went just planning to look and not purchase, but she found a super cute sundress for our Mexico trip in 2 weeks (which I am so excited for) and I found 2 super cute and cheap swimsuits. So yes...we came, we saw, we bought. When we got home we went into a bedroom to try everything on because I hate trying things on in stores. Naturally, Ryder saw me walking back to the bedroom and wanted to follow me like he always does so I let him come in with us. We were just talking and he was just walking around playing. All of a sudden, mid-conversation, Ryder starts SCREAMING! I lean over the bed to see what's wrong and I can't see anything. Then Jennifer yells, "Oh my gosh! The iron!" That's right folks. He had knocked the iron off a dresser and burned his arm. I felt like the worst mother in the world!!! I am the most unobservant person ever and I didn't even SEE the iron there and I definitely wasn't keeping my best eye on him. We rushed him to the sink and ran cold water on his arm and then my mother-in-law sprayed Solarcaine on it. He was very tough about it. He didn't cry for very long and was right back to playing (not with the iron). Before I put him to bed I looked at the burn and it is very red and swollen. I lightly touched it and it's sooo puffy :( I feel so bad I want to cry.

STINKER!!!!

Ryder has become quite the little stinker! He is into EVERYTHING and starting to do "naughty" things! He loves to empty out any drawer. Lately his favorite is the desk drawers. I let him do it because I don't mind picking it up it takes 1 minute. Well this morning he got his little hands on a pen and I was keeping an eye on him so I just let him have it. It was one of those pens where you click one end and the writing end pops out. He figured out how to click the pen open by banging the clicker against my couch. Then he proceeded to switch to the writing end and tried to write on my couch!!! I was watching him the whole time and when he attempted to doodle I said, "RYDER!!!" He gave me this look....oh man I wish I had it on camera...this look like, "I'm not doing anything." He walked away from the couch and when I looked away he walked right back over to try and doodle. Oh my gosh!!!! What happened to my sweet innocent babe? He is learning to manipulate and be naughty soooo early! I find myself saying the word "no" quite often these days!!

Lil' Laxer

As I've said before, Ryder does NOT have a choice. He will be a lacrosse player as long as his daddy is living on this earth!
For Ryder's first birthday Jon bought him this mini lacrosse stick.
He likes to walk around the apartment twirling it like a baton. HAHA!
Maybe he'll grow up to twirl batons instead????
I'm just kidding. Ryder loves lacrosse. He loves to pick up lacrosse balls and throw them and carry around any lacrosse stick even if it's too big for him.

So big news!! I'm a stay-at-home mom...AGAIN! Okay so a lot of you already know this but I'm happy about it. The plan was for me to stay home from the very beginning but Jon needed my help for a while so I went back to work. Now I am able to stay home again and I just quit my job last week. YAY! So far it's been fun and busy. I still feel productive, which is good. I can do a lot more around the apartment such as cleaning and organizing. I got a lot done yesterday and Jon told me to pace myself and not do EVERYTHING in one day or I'm gonna run out of things to do. That's probably true but in the mean time I like getting things done that I never had time or desire to do before. Well when I run out of things to do I'm gonna want plenty of play dates. So if anyone is interested in hanging out with me and my child, let me know :)

Sleepless in...Mesa

Ryder is getting slightly more difficult as he gets older. He now refuses nap times and NEVER wants to go down for bedtime. He's always been sooooo easy when it comes to nap and bedtime. It was almost like he WANTED to go down to sleep.
THEN:
He would cry for maybe 10 minutes and then take a nap - always 2 naps a day and at least one of them would be 2 or more hours long. Most of the time at night, he wouldn't cry at all. I would sing to him for a minute, lay him down, and never hear a peep until morning.
NOW:
He will cry and scream and stand up in his crib and will NOT give up until I come get him, which is usually after 45 min to an hour. I will try again about 30 min to an hour later cuz he NEEDS a nap and then he'll finally sleep for an hour or 2. However, when he wakes up, it is so late in the afternoon there is no time for a second nap. Because of the lack of 2 naps, he is suuuuper cranky the rest of the afternoon and evening until bedtime. When I put him down in bed, you would think he'd be exhausted from lack of sleep. But he will cry and scream and stand up in his crib and will NOT give up until I come back in (again - after at LEAST 45 min). I let him get back up for 30 minutes and try again and then he goes down JUST fine. I've been doing a little research and from what I've gathered...Ryder should be sleeping twice a day until he's 18 months old. So what do I do?

It's like...I can't do anything anymore without a fight. When I grab a diaper to change him, he will run away from me and laugh. He totally knows he's being a stinker. Then it takes all my energy to hold him down and try to change him without getting poop everywhere or just making a mess. I used to be able to hang him something to distract him but now whatever I hand him, he throws it. He just fights and fights and fights me on everything!

Church is the worst and this is where I need some SERIOUS advice. He will NOT stay on our laps. He wants to get up and walk around and go find brand new babies and bug them or just flat out run away from us. When we bring him back to the seat he is screaming and arching his back. It's awful! My sister Kristin bought him a really nice soft quiet book for church and I LOVE it but he is just so hyperactive at church he won't pay attention to it for more than 2-3 minutes. We are constantly taking him out into the halls and I haven't been to relief society or Sunday school in...forever because he doesn't allow me to stay for more than 10 minutes. I am there long enough to sign the roll and then he's screaming and arching his back and I have to take him out. AAHHH! Church is ALWAYS during his nap time so he's always a little beastie boy. I need some serious suggestions. What I do is not working. I cannot WAIT for nursery. OH MY GOSH!

Ryder J is ONE today!

It's so amazing to watch Ryder grow from this new little baby
into this cute big boy!

I took Ryder to the Dr. this morning for his 1 year well check. here are his stats:

Weight: 25 lbs 11 oz (85th percentile and the lowest it has been on the charts)
Height: 32.25 in. (97th percentile)
Head circumference: 18.75 (80th percentile)

So basically he's gonna be a basketball player. TALL! He now has 8 teeth. Two new ones just popped up and I didn't even know it but the Dr. saw them and I was in shock that I didn't see them first because I'm always looking for new teeth. At 12 months Ryder is walking, clapping, waving bye-bye, and giving a "high five". He also likes to take a spoon and try to scoop food off a plate so I think he's wanting to feed himself. He is all over the place now. When I put him in the tub and run around the corner to grab a towel, I come back and he's either half way out the tub or already out and on the ground naked, wet, and cold. He's crazy! He keeps me busy. He is definitely a momma's boy 100%. He ALWAYS wants me. I can't even run up the stairs to go to the bathroom without him crying and following me. It's kind of endearing but kind of annoying at the same time because he doesn't even like Jon to put him down to bed or rock him when he's sick or tired. It has to be me. It can be hard to catch a break. Poor Jon-O. He still tries to help me out even though Ryder will sometimes throw a fit for him. The sippy-cup is in full effect now. It took a while to find just the right kind of sippy for Ryder but I finally found it. I kept buying the ones with the flexible rubber spout and it turns out he likes just the plain hard plastic spout. We threw all of his bottles away months ago so that I would stick to the sippy transition. No more bottles! Ryder understands the word "breakfast" now. When he wakes up in the morning I let him play for a bit and then I say, "Do you want breakfast?" He gets a huge smile on his face, walks to the fridge, then starts pounding on it and fussing cuz I ain't moving fast enough. One thing he does that cracks me up is he will find a remote laying around the house, pick it up, then point it at the T.V. We don't even have T.V. so I don't know where he learned that. We only watch movies on occasion. Apparently he likes to be in control. He has a big boy toothbrush now and LOVES to brush his teeth when I'm brushing mine. As I've said before, Ryder loves the outdoors. We have a playground behind our apartment and when I take him there he will climb all the way to the stop and then go down the slide by himself! HA! Okay well I have to kind of hold his shirt or he'll eat it hard. So that's what he is up to lately. Just growing up and becoming more fun. He's my little love bug. He can be very affectionate...even with complete strangers (yikes!). Happy Birthday Ryder Bug! We love you very, very much!

Family Birthday Party!

Our family is growing so big that we now have 4 birthdays within about a 3 week period. Instead of having individual parties we decided to have a big combined one in my parents' backyard. Here is Ryder swinging on their little playground. His FIRST birthday is February 6th, which is this Friday. And yes, he does have a nasty bruise on his forehead. He bonked it on my mom's table.
My sister, Sonia, shares a birthday with Ryder on February 6th. She is going to be 32.
Her youngest baby, Peyton, turns 3 on February 11th. He wouldn't cooperate for pictures so I got a quick shot of him on the trampoline.
This is my nephew, Eli. He turned 2 on January 21st.
Ryder and Mom just hangin' out poolside.
Ryder and Daddy.
Ryder got some pretty cool presents.
Aunt Kristin and Uncle Bert got him a lil' round cow that jiggles and bounces around. Grandma Gigi got him a wagon with blocks in it, and Aunt Sonia and Uncle Sherman got him a soccer ball!
My mom and I spent many hours making 4 individual 3-tiered cakes. I made Ryder's. Didn't turn out quite how I'd hoped but oh well.
I originally was going to let Ryder have his whole cake to himself but Jon and I decided it would be smarter to just give him the top tier.
And here he is licking the plate. HA! Just playing. He wasn't even interested. He ate a little bit of frosting and then just played with it so we threw it away.
Ryder's Grandma Barb enjoying some food.
Ryder's Aunt Jenn and soon-to-be Uncle JT. They are getting married in May!!!
Here is some more of the party eating their dinner.
We had lots of yummy food and plenty of dessert.
Here is the ramada Sherman and Jon built in my parents' backyard. They got patio furniture to put under it and now we LOVE to sit out there. That is where we all sat and ate appetizers while the kids ran around the yard playing. It was a great party! I can't believe Ryder is already a year old in 5 more days!!! He's grown up so fast! Happy Birthday Eli, Ryder, Sonia, and Peyton!!