Saturday, July 31, 2010

Ladies and Gentleman, We Have a Cruiser!

This week Rylie has started cruising along the couches.  This has now introduced us to several other things that need to be babyproofed.  Before, we could put it up in the couch to keep it away from her, but not anymore! This girl is sooo determined. My favorite part of this video is when she stops halfway through to rest :)

Friday, July 30, 2010

Millions of peaches, peaches for me...


or nectarines. Either way, Rylie loves them! She goes crazy when she sees me bring one to the table.  I peel the skin and give it to her whole, this is what it looks like....

She could eat it forever, but I eventually have to take it away when she is sucking on the PIT!
These are the results of her nectarine snacktime:

THE REMAINS

THE MESSY BABY

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Date Night

Ryan and I don't get to get out much together.  One of us usually stays home with Rylie so the other can get out and socialize with their friends every once in a while.  This weekend we had a date night in, complete with a movie, champagne and the last of our Mackinac Fudge!


Rylie was such a good girl so we could have our 'date'.  She went to bed great and stayed asleep until she woke to eat at 5:30, and then slept until 7:45.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Big Girl Bathtime


Rylie is a huge fan of her duck bath

Munchkin White Hot Inflatable Duck Tub

but she is just growing too fast! Now that she pulls herself up (on EVERYTHING), we have had to come up with a new plan for bath time.  Soooo, we tried out the big tub the other day.  Huge success! She absolutely loved it. She loved the freedom to move around and to reach and grab all of her toys.  The duck was still hanging on the wall while she bathed though, so we gave a the beak a squeeze to hear the quack for old times sake :)

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Lesson of the Day

DO NOT, under any circumstances, give Rylie a late afternoon nap. Ever.

Ok, I am only half-serious.

When we picked Rylie up from school today she had only had a 35 minute afternoon nap.  She normally has a 1-1.25 hour nap.  So thinking she might be tired, we thought we would give her a short little snooze before dinner to hold her over until bed..... turns out, we were wrong.

Now Rylie has not had a late afternoon nap in quite sometime, because every time she had one, she would fight bedtime. And that, my friends, is exactly what happened tonight. We tried rocking, nursing, letting her work it out in bed and more rocking, all to no avail.  Our blue eyed baby was bright eyed and bushy tailed until 10:15 pm tonight, exactly 4 hours after she woke up from her lovely late afternoon shut-eye.

So, now I can officially say that she no longer needs an afternoon nap and in the future I will just put her to bed a little early if need be.

Thank you Rylie for the lovely parenting lesson, I can now be a better mommy :)


Wordless Wednesday

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Mommy Brain

Those of you who have had children or know someone who has, Mommy Brain is no joke! I have become an extremely absentminded person and it is sooo frustrating.  But every once in a while, I still can catch a glimpse of the brain that I had before I was a mommy and I can come up with some pretty cool ideas.
My most recent Non-Mommy Brain moment was when I was trying to find a use for all of the delicious blueberry infused water that is leftover after I boil blueberries for pureeing. I was putting it in Rylie's cereal, but it just wasn't using very much of it. So when I went to make pancakes Sunday morning, I thought, hmm, I wonder?  I added the liquid as the water portion of the mix and they turned out awesome! They were blue which was kinda fun to have colored pancakes (for me it was fun, it might freak some people out too, I guess), but the taste was fabulous. I made some non-blueberry ones too in case Ryan thought it was too weird. As you can see in the picture, by the time I snapped it there was only one blueberry pancake left.
 It was blueberry pancakes without the blueberries, but still with all the nutrients that boiled out of the original blueberries. I am super excited about my new creation, and the fact that I don't have to waste any of the nutrient-packed, tasty water leftover from the boiling process. Rylie was also a fan :)

Monday, July 19, 2010

Hail to the Victor


So if you follow college football, then you are aware of the rivalry between Ohio State University and the University of Michigan. Since I moved to Ohio it has been and ongoing battle to be from Michigan because in Ohio they are not kidding around when it comes to the rivalry!
When I first moved here people would ask where I was from and when I would tell them Michigan, they would literally scoff and tell me they couldn't talk to me anymore!! I am not kidding!  So as it would happen I eventually met the man I would marry and lo and behold, he is a Buckeye fan.  So I compromise and root for his Buckeyes and the Wolverines all season long, but when it comes to the BIG GAME, I gotta go with my roots.  I told him when I live here longer than I lived in Michigan then, MAYBE, I will convert. I did concede and take this picture for the stamps on our wedding invitations
and the Buckeye mascot Brutus even made an appearance at our wedding as a surprise to Ryan


Rylie was also born at the OSU hospital and showered with scarlet and gray apparel when she was a newborn

but I am still a Michigander at heart and I still have to make sure my daughter knows her roots ;), My aunt got her a sweatshirt that she was finally able to fit into, it looks good on her if I do say so myself!

 and Grandpa R won't let her forget her roots either! 

GO BLUE! (sorry honey, I love you!)

Sunday, July 18, 2010

5 Generations

On the way to our vacation cabin, we stopped by my great grandmothers house in Warren, Michigan to wish her a happy 95th birthday!! Yes, my Gi-Gi is 95 years old this year, and still so full of spirit!
Rylie got to finally meet her great,great grandmother


 We were able to take a picture with Gi-Gi, my Grandma, my mother, me and Rylie to complete our 5 generation photo. I am so blessed to have 5 living generations in my family!

Saturday, July 17, 2010

259


That's how many pictures we took on our vacation, 259 pictures in 5 days! We spent 5 wonderful days in the peaceful Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  We stayed in Curtis, Michigan at an awesome cabin with an amazing view.

Ryan, Rylie and I joined my Dad, Stepmom, Brother, Stepsister and her two sons to be 'Yoopers' for the week (Local people who live in the Upper Peninsula call themselves Yoopers).  There is so much to do and see up there, we couldn't fit it all in, but we managed to do quite a bit and had a great time! Rylie was a great little traveler and it was so nice for her to be able to spend some quality time with her Grandma and Grandpa on that side of the family. 

Some of the things that we did while we were up there was visit Kitchi-ti-kipi, a really cool underwater spring. It is so neat to see the sand bubbling up from the bottom, and it is amazingly clear, you can see all the way to the bottom of the 10,000 gallons of water.



We went to Sault Ste. Marie to  purchase our fare share of Mackinac Fudge and Salt Water Taffy (which didn't even make it home : /, definitely not helping get back into pre-prego shape! ) and to see the Soo Locks where we all watched patiently as the boat was raised up.



We spent lots of time in the water and on the boat in Big Manistique Lake.  Rylie was not a fan of her life jacket (which I personally thought was adorable, so I don't understand why she didn't LOVE it)


but she came around once she discovered something to chew on


and when we docked, we took it off while the boys fished and she was a new child


The fish were biting like crazy and we caught tons of perch, and some walleye and bass.  Ryan got to fillet his first perch and we had some delicious fried fish for dinner



We also did plenty of swimming, relaxing around the campfire and on the screened porch, and spent plenty of time in the car since it was over 8 hours of driving each way. 






It was a great trip and I wish it lasted longer.  We didn't get a chance to do a lot of the things we wanted to like Tahquamenon Falls and The Bear Ranch, but we made great memories and got to spend time with family.
  I would love to share the other 248 pictures, but I will spare the space and time :)

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Talk about Bed Head


I put Rylie to bed last night after her bath and her hair wasn't quite dry.  This morning she woke up looking like this:

She looked so cute I had to laugh out loud when I walked into her room.  It was also even more sweet because of her innocence about bed head and bad hair days, she had no clue what Ryan and I were laughing at. She just laughed right along with us!


It was nothing a little water and a pretty clip couldn't fix though :)





Monday, July 5, 2010

REAL swim lessons

I read about this the other day at The Momma Maven and I thought it was so cool and such a great idea! We don't have a pool or anything right now, and neither does anyone in our family, but if we ever get one, I really want Rylie to get these lessons.  The video of this in practice is so amazing.



I looked in our area and have not found anyone who teaches this yet.  I thought it was so interesting I shared it at a family dinner and it turns out my stepdad did it for my stepbrother and stepsister when they were Rylie's age.

The theory behind ISR (Infant Swim Resource) is that it teaches your child important survival skills while teaching them to enjoy swimming.  You can read more about it here.

I really like this idea though and I hope it is available in the area when we are ready for it. For now though, we will continue swimming like this:

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Mommy instinct, Ear infections and Bleach

Sometimes I just really need to trust my own instincts as a mom.  Rylie gets a cold pretty much every 3 weeks since she has been in school.  While not fun, I have grown to understand the process which her colds will take and how to deal with them as they run their course.
They always start with the sniffles, then congestion followed by cough and sometimes a low grade fever that lasts no more than 24 hours.  Then the cough will linger for almost 2 weeks-ugh. This cold was different, it started out the same, but then a few days into it the fever came.  This time it went up to 102 which is pretty high for Rylie.  Not only was it high but it lasted for three days.  Each daycmy mommy instinct would tell me this wasn't just a cold and I was sure she had an ear infection, but everyone  Ryan and the doctor told me it would pass.
On day four of  fever ( not to mention ear pulling, screaming at bedtime, fussiness and shaking her head) I put my foot down and took her in- Surprise! Mommy was right! An ear infection, so we got Amoxicillin and headed home.

Now my counters look like this as I try to get rid of all the germs....

But at least Rylie is once again our happy little peanut!

Happy 4th of July!

I haven't written a post in a few days  FOREVER (sorry everyone).  I am in the process of writing several new ones, but Rylie wanted to wish everyone a Happy Fourth in the meantime.