Weekend Fun

Why oh why must weekends always go by so quickly...

friday night
a tired girl doesn't need much more than her blankie and mickey mouse clubhouse while sitting on mommy's lap

saturday morning
she often insists on wearing her hat around the house...even during breakfast

Saturday afternoon, Ryleigh and I went to a birthday party for our friend Bailey. She turned five and her party was at Flipz Gymnastics. Ryleigh wasn't too sure about the situation at first, but it didn't take too long before she was having a great time watching the bigger kids bounce and run all around. She REALLY wanted to bounce on the big trampoline, but I was a little worried about her getting bounced and bumped by the big kids. We played with a ball, did some bouncing on a smaller trampoline and some climbing on the mats...

This is pretty awesome sauce y'all. As you can see her feet get in kind of 'cringe worthy' positions when she is doing this. She has some braces to help keep them straight, but to this point they are just cumbersome and inhibit her crawling and movement more than they seem to help. We are looking into other options. I'd say she's doing pretty well on her own. She is just so motivated to go go go!

saturday evening
family relaxation time

sunday afternoon
like i said, goof ball loves wearing her hat

And one more little video to make you smile. This is post-nap, so she sounds a little congested.

Ryleigh loves watching this video of herself. She cracks up every time.
Oh weekend, until we meet again...We'll miss you.

Welcome to Toddlerhood

Having a toddler is fun and entertaining, frustrating and exhausting. Ryleigh is so amazing. I love watching her little mind work things out. And I swear she is learning new words everyday. There is a bus stop near daycare, earlier this week we were getting out of the car, she pointed to the group waiting for the bus and said, "people." Seriously? People? Where the heck did she learn that? Hilarious.

Even more amazing though are the cognitive connections she has been starting to make. For example, I have a pair of red gloves, they are kind of fuzzy and I guess you could say they look like Elmo's hands. But I didn't really expect my 16 month old (this was a more than a month ago) to point them out and say, "Elmo," totally out of context of the little red monster. She has hardly ever even seen Sesame Street for crying out loud! They do have a poster hanging in her classroom.

Ryleigh is becoming quite opinionated these days. "No" has become a favorite word. She is picky about what books we read. If you start reading one she doesn't want she'll push it away. Sandra Boynton books seem to be her favorites.

She has made the transition to the Red Room at daycare. It was a little bit rough at first. I know she misses her teacher and friends in the infant room. But after a couple weeks she is getting used to her new surroundings. She has been happy to wave bye-bye to mommy every morning. 

Sorry, this post is a little bit all over the place. But it wouldn't be complete without any pics of the cutest kid in America. 

getting the hang of using a spoon

And a few random photos for the sake of cuteness:

Five

Five years ago I went on a date with a guy. Kind of a lot had happened since then. But I think we still like each other...most of the time.

This Kid

I tell you what, she is pretty ridiculously cute!

playing on the bed at the hotel 

sweet and innocent face after making a ruckus in panera.
she was pretty excited about spending father's day {in the car} with her daddy.

Our Weekend

This weekend we participated in the Tim Heinz 5K put on by the Law School. Notice I said participated, not ran. We did jog a little bit, but mostly just walked. It was a chilly, but nice morning.

Ryleigh doesn't look very amused, but she had a good time. She was a little tired by this point.

I also started work on hanging a little photo collage on our living room wall. Here's a little preview:

Looks pretty awesome, right? ...Just you wait.

Our little wild child is about to wear her mama out. She is one busy little bee. She doesn't really want to sit and play with her toys. She wants to be up and held and walked around. And when you are holding her and walking around, she wants to reach for everything and lunge out of your arms to grab a passing cat or a toy or anything that might be good to put in her mouth. And she wants to pull on your clothes or your hair or whatever she can wrap her sticky little fingers around. She was so full of energy yesterday afternoon and evening! I haven't posted a video in a while, so here is just a little sample of what we had on our hands. And this is after she calmed down a bit once the camera came out...

Can you believe she's such a big girl? I certainly can't.

What the...?

Not too sure about eating this green stuff. Aren't you supposed to mash it up or something, mommy?

Close Up

Total cuteness.

We've got a pretty fun weekend ahead. Starting with me being off work today. Daycare is closed so I have to stay home with my girl. So sad about that. Have a great weekend!!

Maybe I Forgot to Mention

Last Monday we started at a new daycare center. We had been on the waiting list at UCP for quite a while at the urging of Ryleigh's PT, Gerti. The center is more accessible and they have a bit more experience caring for kiddos with different needs. I was more stressed about it than I was taking her to daycare in the first place! Of course she did just fine. I thought she'd be scared of confused with the new people. Nope. It will still be a little bit of an adjustment getting used to a new routine, but she's doing just fine.

AND she is officially a roly-poly! Our little monster can roll from her back to her belly. All by herself. Whenever she wants. One proud momma here!


After her first day at her new school.



Oh my goodness! Can you believe how much she's changed?

Sweet Sunshine

When we got home today Ryleigh and I took a quilt out to the back yard for some relaxation time.
The weather was ah-mazing.
Our girl is so sweet.
Life is good.

Checking In

Well shoot! I'm not doing very well on my new years' resolution to post updates more frequently.

I can't think of anything interesting that we've been doing, pretty much just hanging out.

We like to put our little baby in our big chair and take pictures of her.

My goodness she's cute!

She's been checking out her cool Christmas gift from Mimi and Pop and loving it.

Ryleigh's PT, Gerti, made her this really cool custom seat out of foam. It's about 6 inches thick and has a cut-out for her legs to fit in. This is GREAT since she can't sit up yet and a Bumbo seat would curve her back too much.
This is a phone pic Ryleigh's teacher sent me the first time she tried out her new seat. I think she looks pretty darn happy. :-)

 She is a girl who wants to be up and seeing what's going on in the world. So, being able to sit up and play with her toys has been really fun for her...and for mommy and daddy too!

I'm taking all the snuggles I can get.

I know one day she'll be too big and won't want to snuggle with mommy, so I'm going to soak it up all I can now.

A little video of our little bug and her newest trick:

So that's a little bit of what we've been up to these past couple weeks. Enjoying our sweet girl and our new house. It doesn't get much better than that...unless we could win powerball.