Time Flies

Cheri & Rya at Thanksgiving 2008












Time has somehow slipped away from us. I can't believe I haven't posted since October! So much has happened. Rya has become such an angel! We started cereal at 5 and a half months. Right around 6 months we started veggies and then fruits. I must say, she likes veggies more. Especially squash and sweet potatoes. Yum. She had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I was concerned that she wouldn't nap away from the house or car, but she did great. She just laid down in Aunt Katie's room, rolled over, and fell asleep.

Rya is SO close to crawling. She can go backwards and spin in circles all day, but actually moving forward hasn't come yet. :) Sometimes she just leans on her hands and knee (w/ her other leg straight out to the side) and just rocks back and forth. You can see her thinking about wanting to go somewhere, but just can't quite figure out how to get there...yet.


We just got through our second ear infection. BOO. It lasted right at two weeks. It was hell. She didn't respond to the first round of antibiotics, so after suffering through 9 days of snot and vomit, we were switched to a stronger antibiotic. It took a few days to kick in and she was finally 100% back to normal two days before Christmas. It's so nice to finally get some sleep again. Poor girl would wake up miserable. She ended up sleeping in her Boppy on our bed with us for about a week. Elevating her matress didn't seem to work as well as sleeping in the Boppy did. When we went to the doctor's the first time she weighed 18.0 pounds. Oink Oink. The next follow-up doctor's trip she lost a half a pound and was at 17.5 pounds. Our next checkup isn't until February for the 9 month well baby.

Rya's first Christmas was wonderful. We woke up Christmas morning and she opened some presents. She LOVED pulling off the paper. Of course it went straight into her mouth, but it was still cute regardless. She got a TON of clothes, some books, some toys, a drum and two super loud obnoxious play tables with music that we almost have memorized. :) We snapped a few photos, so I'll be sure to add those once I get them on the computer. Rya has started to say a few words. She says "Ma ma ma ma" (Yes! This came first.) and "Da da da da". It's great. I don't think she associates us with these, but it's still cute to hear her say them. She also says something like "Hi/Hey" when she first wakes up and "Mmmmm" when she's eating...after EVERY bite. It's like she thinks whatever she's eating is the most delicious thing she's ever had. Super funny.


Here are a few pictures from the beginning of December.








Hopefully our next post won't be so far away. I have a few videos I've tried to put up, but for some reason they just won't post. I'll keep trying so you can see some of Rya in action.

Pumpkin Patch Halloween & Mullet Festival 2008

My little flower child

5 month update

Rya has made it to the 5 month mark. YAY! We have started cereal. She didn't quite understand what to do at first, she was sucking the cereal like it was milk, but she loves it now.


Rya really likes sitting up with Cecilia and watching Kitty Willy run around the house.







The other day I put Rya on her back on the floor so I could go into the kitchen to get some water and when I came back, she was on her belly. She rolled over and I missed it. :( I grabbed the camera and got the end of it though.

On Monday, after Rya's nap, she was burning up so I took her temperature and it was 101.4 degrees!! I called her doctor and they wanted to see her. So we went in and Rya has an ear infection. She is on antibiotics and was super fussy for a few days but is doing MUCH better. She weighed in at 13.8 pounds. She gained one pound since her 4 month well baby checkup! ♥ ♥ ♥

Video of Rya sitting up

Rya's sitting up unassisted pretty good. :) This is for Nana Net. We were watching the Rays game. You might be able to hear Larry on the phone and me being silly w/ Rya.

Slideshow from 7/25/08 to 9/29/08

4 month update

We've had an exciting September! We started Mother's Day Out on Wednesdays. Rya was having a little stranger anxiety and so we thought it would be best for her to get out and get around some other people...it's good for Mommy too! The first time was a little rough, but she gets better every week and just LOVES the workers.

Terra, Sarah, and Ann came to visit for three days and we had a BLAST. Rya did amazing!! I think during this trip she really came out of her shell and started liking people more. She let Terra hold her for about an hour while Ann just played and played with her. It was great!



She also let her Pa Pa hold her for awhile during the Bucs-Falcons game. This made Dad so happy...he didn't want to hand her back over. :D



Rya had her 4 month well baby check up on the 19th. She weighed in at 12.8 pounds. She has exactly doubled her birth weight. She is in the 40th percentile for weight (meaning 40% of the other kids her age are smaller than her). She is 23 3/4 inches long. She is in the 25th percentile for height. Her head measures 16 3/4 inches. This is the 75th percentile. Dr. V said she could start cereal if we wanted to. We tried it, but weren't very successful. I think we tried it at the wrong time...when she was TOO hungry and TOO tired from Oktoberfest. Yep, that's right! We took her to Oktoberfest. She just loved the music and seeing all the people. It was nice for Mommy and Daddy to get out amongst the people too! We'll try cereal again in a couple of weeks. Rya is sitting up pretty much on her own. She'll sit up for about 5-10 seconds before slowly falling over. It's super cute and she just loves being able to sit up and look around. She loves books and grabbing ANYTHING that is in her reach.

She passes things back and forth from hand to hand and puts EVERYTHING in her mouth. She is looking more and more like her Daddy everyday...she even has his eye color! It's amazing how much she's changed over these past months and I can't wait to see how much more she's going to change.

Home from Venice

The trip to Venice was MUCH better than I expected. It took us 8.5 hours to get there and Rya cried for a total of 10 minutes. It took us 8 hours to get back and she cried for 20 minutes. Granted, she was really crying during those times, but she settled down right when we thought we couldn't handle it anymore and so we trudged on. We took a few breaks around an hour each to let her stretch out, eat and play. We had a nice relaxing time in Venice. Rya had her first trip to the beach, but she didn't like it too much. I think it was because the seaweed had a funny smell to it, but maybe not. :) The surf was pretty loud, so maybe the waves scared her. She met her great Gram, uncle Wes and cousin John. Nana Net had a good time hanging out with us! We can't wait to go back when Rya gets older to show her off again!

I can't believe Rya is going to be 3 months old in a few days. She went to the doctor a few days ago to have her eye looked at again because it's still oozing. It's just a blocked tear duct and it should open up as she grows and gets bigger. She weighed in at a whopping 10.8 pounds! She is getting so big! We work on tummy time almost every day and we have been working really hard to keep her on a strict nighttime routine. She is a pretty good sleeper so we can't complain too much. Now if I could just figure out the daytime routine, we'd be good to go. :)


She is holding her head up pretty good. It gets heavy for her when she's tired, but overall she is pretty steady. She loves sitting up like a big girl and I'm trying to encourage it more and more. I just prop her up in the corner of our
chair...the arm rest is prefect height for her head. She enjoys it for about 10 minutes and then she wants to be held again. She loves trying to grab at things...especially my hands. Of course anything she gets a hold of goes straight into her mouth. She has a good little grip. She is cooing and babbling a lot more. She LOVES the morning and is full of smiles as we sing "Good Morning!" to her. She is enjoying the evening more and more, but still has her occasional meltdown when she's over tired. She is also starting to laugh a little more which is always nice. We are heading to Venice, FL next week for a long weekend. We are all looking forward to seeing the family and getting some sunshine on our skin. I'm sure the 8 hour drive will be more like 10 or 12, but we aren't in a hurry and are going to try to enjoy every minute of it. When we get back, I'll post the pictures. xoxo

Rya shaking her rattle

What are those things?!

 
 

Rya found her hand! It was sooo funny this morning. We were playing right after nursing this morning and she kept staring at what I thought was me, but I quickly realized she was looking at her hand. She had this inquisitive look on her face and as she brought her hand closer to her face she would go more and more cross-eyed. She would then hit her face with her hand and blink, shocked. She did this a few times and so I grabbed the camera to try to catch some of the action. It was super cool and very exciting for me. She was watching her left hand which is a little suprising to me b/c so far she has shown right hand dominance. She swats at everything with her right hand and definitely dances more with her right side. Before we know it she'll be grabbing things and putting them in her mouth.

Slideshow from 7/2/08 through 7/24/08

2 month shots!

This picture is from Monday's tummy time.

Rya had her 6 vaccines last Friday. She did great! She weighed in at a whopping 10 pounds!! What a little porker. She had 3 shots w/ 5 vaccines and the Rotavirus as a liquid in her mouth. She screamed after the shots. It stunk. I had never heard that cry before and we have now dubbed it the "shot" cry. I started crying, of course, because of the pain she was telling us about. When I picked her up and put her to my chest she fell into me saying "help me, Mommy!" and so then I started crying even more b/c it felt SO good to be needed. Larry just looked at us with the "Oh Great, I have two crybabies on my hands" look. :D She ran a fever throughout the weekend and just wanted to be loved on. We were back to newborn sleeping hours so we were pretty whooped.
She had a great week this week though. Yesterday I took her to the petstore to look at the fish tanks. She loved it. We are going to try to make that a weekly outing. It was nice for me to get out of the house and I'm sure she was glad to see something other than my face for once. Today we went for a long walk. The morning was so pleasant and she had fallen asleep so we just kept strolling along. Before I knew it we were a mile from home and it was HOT. So we called Dad and asked him to come pick us up. Thank goodness he works so close to home. She's getting so big and changing so much everyday.

Rya dancing

She really likes it when you whistle...I hope you can see her happiness.

Rya Bug

This little girl is too cute. I am so glad to be a father. Cheri is such a wonderful mother, and I am looking forward to the years ahead, but I am taking it one day at a time. Thank you to Cheri and Kevin for their work on this site. She is changing everyday, so we will have to update the site frequently. More to come later.....

Slideshow of Rya from 5/9/08 through 7/1/08

First Post

Let me start by saying a big "Thank You" to our friend Kevin for helping us get this site up and going. We are still working on a few minor details, but hopefully you will enjoy this as much as we have so far.

Rya will be 2 months old next week and time is going MUCH faster now. It has been hard work, but I can honestly say now that it was worth it. (I had my doubts there for a little while.) I'm sure our hard days aren't over, but I'm happy for the little break. This picture is from last weekend. She continues to change every day and it is just so much fun to have her around. She has given us a few scares, but it's all a learning experience, right? One thing I have learned the past two weeks is that if she is content doing whatever it is she is doing, to just leave her be. Once you move her or take her away from what she is doing, you are in for some trouble. :) She really enjoys her swing and playing after she eats. She is doing well with her tracking and it seems like her range of vision is increasing everyday. She has started to show some interest in Cecilia and her hands. She is touching her face a lot more and likes to touch our faces too.