Birthday Weekend

This is Larry's birthday weekend and we had a wonderful day! Rya, Mimi and I went for a SUPER long (over an hour) walk this morning while Larry played golf with a friend. After Rya's nap, we ate lunch and hung out for a little bit before heading to the beach. It was wonderful! Lots of seaweed in the water, but just the perfect temperature. Rya had a blast and we got to watch a wedding...always a treat. :)

Rya and Larry were spending some time together last night while I went over the bridge to drop our computer off at the "repair shop". (Keep your fingers crossed that they can fix it.) He called to let me know that Rya had walked through the living room and kitchen on her own. I missed it! She has walked back and forth to us or from us to the couch/chair, but she hasn't just taken a leisurely stroll on her own yet. He was so excited!

We had a nice steak dinner last night with some nice wine. Tonight we are having pasta and tomorrow, for his birthday dinner, Larry wants burgers and wings!! So funny! His birthday isn't really until Monday, but he wants his presents and meals on Sunday since he won't be taking off work. Oh and for birthday breakfast he wants eggs, bacon and chocolate chip pancakes. I better set the alarm and hope Rya sleeps in. :D

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs

So, I've been battling with the desktop computer. It won't boot up and ALL of our pictures are on it. Wedding pictures, vacation pictures, Rya pictures, Harley pictures. :( We have some sort of nasty bug or virus and we are going to have to call in the professionals. Of course putting these pictures on a disk or external hard drive has been on my "ToDo" list for a few months now and just hasn't gotten completed. I'm paying for it now, aren't I? Ugh.

Also at the top of our fun list is cleaning and disinfecting the day after the termites swarm...6 times now! We usually get one, maybe two, bad swarms a year, but they have been persistent little things this year. It's so so so so gross. They swarm, the next day there are dead termites in random spots all over the house. So, I scrub everything down, vacuum the dead ones up and pray that was the last swarm. They swarmed again last night and hopefully today will be the last of the cleaning up of dead termites. To top it off, in the middle of the night I woke up to a creepy crawly thing on my left arm. You guessed it...nasty termite crawling on me. I got the heebie geebies, went to the bathroom and scrubbed myself with soap and water. I examined the rest of the bed and pillows thoroughly before climbing back in and attempting to fall back asleep. It took awhile...where there's one there's bound to be another. SO SO SO gross. I really hope you aren't eating while reading this.

Rya's had a fever for a few days now...just a low 100.1, 100.2, etc. It's either from her MMR shot last week or her teeth. This is one place I don't want a bug to be. She's doing so well and we are enjoying her being healthy. :) She had her 12 month well baby last week and is doing great! The doctor was so happy that we made it and are doing so good. She didn't have any concerns and said to keep doing what we were doing. My main question was what to do if Rya ate a rock. Dr. V said that if we saw her do it and she swallowed it with no problem, to bring her in to do x-rays. She said not to freak out and startle Rya if she happens to put it in her mouth because she could gasp and inhale it. I have noticed that Rya has started taking things OUT of her mouth that she doesn't want in there so the Dr. said that chances are she would realize that the rock isn't something she could eat and would take it out on her own. I'm not going to test it though. ;) Rya weighed in at 20.8 pounds...in the 50th percentile. She is 29 and 1/2 inches long...in the 50-75th percentile. Her head is 46cm in circumference...also in the 50-75th percentile. Bottom line is that she is proportioning out and filling into her head some. :) Below is a picture from our trip...Thanks for reading!

Super Cute at our Sunset Spot

We enjoyed watching the sunset from this Sandestin golf course hole. SO beautiful! Here is a special moment we happened to capture on video. I'll upload to YouTube for it to be more clear soon. :)

Sweet Vacation

We left for Sandestin yesterday afternoon for some much needed R&R...THANK YOU JAY & MELISSA! Rya took her first ride on an elevator and boy can that girl scream...in a small box with great acoustics. LOL. Poor guy riding with us. When he exited the elevator he told me not to worry-that he had a granddaughter about the same age and she did the same thing. I don't know if he was telling me not to worry b/c it was normal for one-year-olds to freak out on the elevator or to not worry b/c he's used to hearing a one-year-old scream her head off and it didn't upset him. :shrug: Either way, I know my ears were bleeding...so I'm sure his were too. We struggled last night w/ trying to get Miss Rya to sleep in her pack n play. It was 1:30am before we all just piled into the bed together. We slept until 7:15am. I woke up to the BIGGEST smile I've seen in a long time. I forgot how much I loved waking up next to her...it has been too long. Anyway, she's doing great with her naps in her pack n play now so hopefully bedtime tonight will be much easier and smoother. We just had a nice thunderstorm and it's cooled down quite a bit so when Miss Monkey wakes up we are going to hit the pool! xxoo

Happy First Birthday, Rya!

Wow! What a year! I can't believe we made it. LOL. It's been such a fantastic, scary, overwhelmingly wonderful journey so far. We had such a nice afternoon with friends and family on Saturday. We missed all that couldn't make it and hope to see you real soon. I think I'm addicted to making collages with Picasa. :) I hope to get the video of Rya "smashing" her cake up soon. In the meantime, here are some pictures of from the day:

Happy Mother's Day

 

What a wonderful day! It started with this cutie looking at me:





















We played in Rya's new pool that Larry got for her 1st birthday! I only took one picture and of course her eyes are closed, but it's still cute:
















Me & Miss Bug (kind of looking like a boy):


We all took a nap together in the afternoon and then headed to the beach for the sunset. Rya loves facing forward in her car seat and she had SO much fun playing in the shallow water at the beach. Yes, I just let her go in her diaper and shorts. :) I had extra clothes in the car and was sad we decided not to put our bathing suit back on. We'll know for next time. Enjoy! ♥

Drinking and Driving

I'm sorry this is sideways. But it's funny to hear her squeaks and squawks. She's drinking her milk while driving her car...sounds like I was drinking too by calling it a chair. :shrug:

What would you do?

What is it that even a perfectly well-mannered, mild-tempered kid goes absolutely crazy and all rules, self restraint, and manners go OUT the window when you put kids in or near water? Last Friday our friends came to visit from Tampa. I was trying to think of something we could do in the evening before dinner so I thought we could go swimming for a little while. Honestly, I also didn't feel like giving Rya a bath and just wanted to white trash bathe her for the evening...nothing like killing two birds with one stone, right? Anyway, we get there and it's a ZOO. A madhouse! Kids everywhere. We watched them for a little while and they were having SO much fun, but I started getting panicky. I'm not a big fan of kids and more were showing up by the minute. I figured I needed to get Rya in, rinse her off, TRY to play for a few minutes and get out before all the elementary aged kids in BWB showed up. So off we went. I'm holding Rya on my left side and walking down the stairs when BAM! something hard and fast hit me on the forehead (inches from the baby)! I mean I knew I was walking into a danger zone, but for Pete's sake. I look down and see this dive stick torpedo thing at the bottom of the pool next to my foot. I got NAILED in the face with a dive stick torpedo thing! Here's what it looked like, except it had some sort of cartoon character face on the top:

Problem: I didn't see which out-of-their-mind kid threw it. So, I bent down, picked it up and laid it outside of the pool. I watched closely to see who came to pick it up and spotted an overweight 5/6 year old boy grab it and take off. No apologies, no excuse me, no ceasing of the "game". It took me a little while longer to figure out who owned him and when I finally figured it out I was VERY discouraged. Three ladies had met up at the pool to let their kids play to allow them so social time. They were relaxing, talking, having a couple of beers...unfortunately, they weren't very attentive to their hellions. My heart sunk b/c I didn't want to approach them (yes, I'm a chicken), but by this time, my forehead was swollen and throbbing. I practiced what I would say a few times and realized that I was too angry to say anything, so I didn't. We just left. Of course, the next morning I woke up with A LOT of nicer ways to address the situation, but the moment had passed. So my question to you is this: What would you have done?

Happy 4th Birthday, Samuel!

My sweet, handsome little nephew was born 4 years ago today. Unfortunately I missed the birth because I was at my college graduation, but my sister labored and delivered al natural...yes! by choice. :) He is a joy to be around and Rya adores him. We are having a joint birthday party this weekend. I have been looking forward to this for a long time! The kid is sharp as a tack and is a natural at pretty much every sport. They will probably get orders to move when Doug gets back from the desert...a move we are not looking forward to.

Rya is a machine lately. She has dropped her afternoon nap and has really given us challenges in the bathtub...she doesn't want to sit down anymore. It's not an option. Outside of the tub she wants to be scaling the wall or climbing over anything AND everything. I have started "ON YOUR HINEY!" in the Mom voice when she gets into the Danger Zone and it usually works. I'm not a fan of the boundary pushing though and she is definitely testing me at times.

My prayer for National Day of Prayer is this: God, please bless this country, bless our homes, & bless our hearts. Lord, please help us to make good decisions and to not be quick to judge. Please help us keep peace in our hearts and stillness in our minds. Please comfort those that are mourning. Please give strength to those that are sick. Please give hope to those that are weary. Thank you for all that you are and all you have done for each and everyone one of us. Amen.

The Many Faces of Rya

 

Some days are so much fun, I never want the day to end...and other days are the hardest days I've ever experienced and I can't wait until bedtime!! As shown in the pictures above, this little girl has quite the personality. And these are only the faces I've captured with the camera! Yesterday was one of the not-so-fun days. Rya was pushing her boundaries and I caught our first glimpses of mini-tantrums. NOT fun! By afternoon nap I was online looking for jobs. LOL. It's such a battle somedays between staying at home and doing the things I want to do...include spending money. I am SO incredibly fortunate to be able to stay at home with Rya, however, the budget way of life gets old somedays. I know it's just a cycle and I will once again be SO incredibly happy not working, but the days when I question it really stink. I'm normal, right?

Sunday Fun-day

Today is going to be one of those "let's do nothing ALL day and have so much fun doing it" days. :) Our company left early this morning and we are spending much needed family time together today. Mimi and I took Rya to the beach yesterday for about an hour while Larry played golf. We were covered in sand within seconds. Meghan would have loved it! :) It was such a beautiful day and we really did have a lot of fun...until nap time. I was hoping Rya would just fall asleep in my arms, but it didn't happen. As soon as we started driving home she was out like a light. We took our friends to Tradewinds for dinner and it was delicious! The wine wasn't too bad either. ;) Rya is back to herself and is just so happy and fun. We are less than a week away from her first birthday and I can't get over how much we have all grown and changed over the last year. Having a child is truly a blessing and we thank God everyday for our not-so-little bundle of joy.