2010

2010 has flown by so fast. I feel like we just started it and now it's over. This year started off wonderful because we were preparing for our new little family member. On March 13 Ryleigh joined our family. Josh and I became parents again and Emma became a big sister. I love my little family of four and we couldn't be more blessed to have these two little girls. We had a great summer watching Emma swim and play. She started getting in the pool all by herself and floating around. In July, I lost my job and as a result of that became a stay at home mom. It was a lot to get used to. In the past, I was used to working a full time job as well as taking care of Emma. It was like I was joining a new club or something. Now, my days consist of going the childrens museum, playdates, science center, and doing "mom things". I love being at home with the girls but it is also a very hard job at times. In August, Emma turned 2!! She is growing up so fast and she has a personality like you wouldn't believe. Most of the time she is kind of quiet and keeps to herself, but if she wants something, you're gonna know about it. I love seeing her learn new things and open up to doing different things too. In November we added another new addition to the famly, our miniature daschund Blake. He is a spunky hard-headed sweet little puppy. We have spent the past month or so training him and making him fit into our family. Also, in November Josh got a promotion to Regional Sales Manager. He works so hard and I'm so proud of him for this accomplishment. We just spent our first Christmas has a family of four and Ryleigh's 1st Christmas. It was so a great day and I enjoyed watching my little girls get so excited over everything.

As much as I am sad to see 2010 go, I am more excited to see what 2011 has in store for us. I know it's going to be a great year.

emma::ryleigh

I have been taking a few pictures today just to get a feel for my new camera. Here are some of the girls. I am already loving how much better these are than with my old camera.

Late Christmas/Early Birthday Present

I am soooooo excited. Look what Josh came home with yesterday.

It's a Canon EOS 40D. I have been wanting a new camera forever. I take tons of pictures and my point and shoot just wasn't cutting it anymore. As you all probably know, DSLR cameras are expensive so Josh made a trip to Raleigh yesterday to a store that buys and sells used cameras. He sold his old SLR and was able to get this. It is slightly used but you would never really know it by looking at it. There's no way we could have got a NEW camera like this, so I'm really excited that we were able to get one this awesome. I have only used it for a few minutes, but there is alot that I need to learn. I couldn't ask for anything more. I am just so ready to go out and take some pictures!! Thanks sweetheart...you're the best!

Snow Day!!

I absolutely LOVE snow! It could snow all year long and I wouldn't care. I'm not one of those people who stays inside cuddled up on the couch when it snows either. I want to go out and drive around and play. Last week when they were calling for a lot of snow I made sure I got everything we needed for Emma to play. Last year, Emma mostly just stayed in the same place and looked around. But this year, her and Cheyenne went sledding behind the four wheeler. I was inside with Ryleigh most of the time but everyone said she was giggling so much and having fun. I took Ryleigh outside for about 15 minutes and she really loved it. She didn't fuss at all, but I took her back inside once her nose and cheeks were bright red. I hope we get lots more snow before winter is over!

Christmas Eve

Every Christmas Eve we go to my parents house for dinner. It used to be all of us but now its only mom, dad, me, Josh, and the girls. The girls have so much fun playing with the little snowman and snoopy that plays music. Ryleigh also loves to get in the walker that mom has. She has learned to move herself forward in it and she scoots around everywhere.

Our Christmas

It's always so funny to me how each year Christmas changes for us. Last year, Emma was only 16 months old and still not into opening presents or anything. But this year, she was all over them. She opened all of hers, most of Ryleighs, and helped everyone else with theirs too. My sweet Ryleigh is cutting some teeth and she didn't sleep much Christmas eve night. I was up with her ALOT and by the time opening presents came she was exhausted, but still enjoyed it. Santa brought Emma a Barbie car with a Barbie and Ryleigh got a musical table. They both played with the table more than anything. Then we let Emma open up all of her since Ryleigh was focused on playing with other things. Emma got a Princess Doll, two magnetic dress up dolls, and a bath Barbie. Then Ryleigh opened up hers. She got Tickle Me Elmo, a Leapfrog my pal dog, and some pop ups. It only took us about 15 minutes to get through that and then we got ready and headed to my mom and dads house. Once we got there we opened up some presents and then waited on Autumn and her family to get there. Then there was more present opening. Emma, Cheyenne, and Hailey were ALL. OVER. THE. PLACE! They have finally started playing together and they just laugh and giggle the whole time. I got lucky and Ryleigh actually took a nap there(even with all the loud craziness). She slept a little over an hour and that gave us time to eat breakfast and watch everyone else open us gifts. We left mom and dads around 11:15 to come home and let the girls nap. Once we got to Oak Ridge it started SNOWING! I was so excited to see snow on Christmas. It snowed for the rest of the day by the way. After naps, we headed to Josh's parents house for dinner. We finally got home around 7:00 and we were all exhausted. I love Christmas Day, but with two little ones, it's tiring. Right now my house is full of boxes and new toys that the girls love. We really enjoyed spending the day with all of our family and I can't wait till next year when Ryleigh will be able to walk around and open up presents too.

Emma loved playing with Ryleigh's presents moreDaddy helped Emma open up her giftsI love this little dog. You hook it up to the computer and personalize it. She says "I love you Ryleigh". It's the cutest thing ever!Emma playing with her magnetic dollsRyleigh LOVES tickle me elmoCheyenne opening a present from Aunt KatieEmma opening up her Barbie Dream House with Josh's momRyleigh got a cool ride on/walker from Josh's parents.It's Sunday morning now and it's still snowing. Can't wait to go out and play today!

1 more day!

Only 1 day till Christmas. Finally what we've all been waiting and preparing for. This year I was very unprepared. I feel like Christmas snuck up on me, but I still got everything done. Yesterday morning Josh and I took the girls out to breakfast and then we had to go to a few stores. We left at 8:15 and didn't get home till about 12. It was CRAZY out there. I still don't understand why people have to act like they don't have common sense just because it's Christmas time. After we got home, I was able to get all the presents wrapped while Emma napped. I still can't put them under my tree so most of them are sitting on my kitchen table. This week I spent some time rearranging the house in order to make some room for some new toys. I can't wait for Santa to come. Last year Santa got Emma a leapfrog musical table. She really LOVED it. Since then, it's been in her room but rarely got played with. Well, once Ryleigh started cruisin' around, she would always go to this table and try to play. Well, we thought the batteries were just dead, but nope, it quit working. Somehow there was a bunch of sticky stuff where the batteries go, but I know for a fact that nothing has been spilt there so we think a battery leaked in it or something. Anyway, she loved it so much, that this year Santa is bringing her one of her own. I'm so excited for her to get it because I know she will spend hours playing with it. When Josh and I first got pregnant with Emma we had a conversation about birthday's and Christmas and decided that our kids would get most of their new toys on their birthday or Christmas. We don't just go out and buy new toys all the time. They play with what they have and we rotate toys out through the year. That doesn't mean that we don't get them a new toys every now and again, but you can get really caught up in new toys that are out and you end up with a house FULL of toys that no one really plays with. So, I'm excited for them to have some new things to play with. I think we did pretty good this year and have some things for them that they are really going to love.

After Emma got up from her nap yesterday I took her to get some snow bibs. We are supposed to get some snow tomorrow and Sunday and Emma had everything she needed except bibs. I CALLED everywhere and no one had any, but finally called a store who told me where I could find some. I ended up getting bibs and a matching jacket for $18.00. Now, if we would just get some snow!!!

Tonight we are headed to my mom and dads for Christmas eve dinner. Then tomorrow morning we will go back to my mom and dads and then Josh's family tomorrow night. This is the first year since Josh and I got married that I will be able to go to sleep on Christmas eve and wake up in my own house Christmas morning. I have had to work every other year, so I'm really excited about that.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas.

9 Months Old

I am really late in posting this, but last week my little Ryleigh bear turned 9 months. I can't believe how fast she is growing. It seems as though she learns to do something new every day. Here is what she is up to now.

-She wears 12-18 month clothes and size 3 shoe

-She crawls everywhere

-She can pull up on anything and walk around. She even walks along the wall sometimes.

-She is eating three meals a day with a couple of 6 ounce bottles in between.

-She takes two naps a day and sleeps about 11 hours at night. She usually gets up once and eats and goes right back to sleep.

-She has become so vocal the past few days. She is constantly "talking" and she is always saying "dada dada".

-She loves when I sing "Rockabye Baby" and rock her. She smiles so big and just laughs at me.

-She doesn't like Blake at all. If he even licks her, she starts screaming.

-She has mastered the sippy cup and now we give her whole crackers and she eats them by herself.

-I've gotten her back to putting herself to sleep. We ran into trouble once she started standing up by herself, but now she will go to sleep after about 10 minutes.

-She loves to go shopping. She sits in the shopping cart and looks around at everything and never makes a peep.

-She can stand for about 3 seconds by herself. I think she will definitely be walking by her birthday.

She has changed so much this month, and she is growing up so fast. I am looking forward to spending her first Christmas with her this weekend!

Playing with Pots

Now that Ryleigh is crawling everywhere, she wants to be right at my feet all the time. When I try to wash the dishes, she stands up and holds onto my legs, so I take her back into the living her with some toys and then go back to the kitchen. Within 30 seconds she is right back at my feet, so I got out some pots and spoons for her to play with beside me to keep her occupied. But once Emma sees Ryleigh doing something, she has to do it too.

Stomach Bug 2010

I'm finally back!! The past week or so has been rough! My house got hit with the worst stomach bug ever. It started with Ryleigh. She was vomiting and spitting up all of her bottles and couldn't keep anything down. So after running a fever I took her to the doctor and was told that she had a bad stomach bug. The next day she couldn't even keep down pedialyte and wasn't wetting enough diapers so I took her back to the doctor but they said she looked a little dehydrated but not bad. Finally after a couple of days, she was better and we have gotten her back to eating full bottles and she's done wonderful. Then the next morning Emma woke up crying and when I went into her room, she had vomited all in her bed. Emma hardly ever gets sick and she has never been one to throw up any so I knew that she was really sick. Josh went on to work and after about an hour or so I had to call him to come home. Emma threw up all over me, the dog, Ryleigh, the floor, and the couch....and that was all in one time. It was horrible. I have never seen my little girl so sick. She looked so pale and I felt so sorry for her. She threw up about 7 or 8 times that day. We would try to give her sips of pedialyte but she couldn't keep it down, so I took her to the doctor around 5:00 that evening. Emma fell asleep on my shoulder while we were in the room waiting on the doctor. Once she walked in, Emma woke up and threw up everywhere....including all over my foot. The doctor felt her stomach and said it felt a little enlarged and she was concerned about that so she told me to take her over to Radiology at the hospital and get an x-ray done. Once we got to the hospital we had to get her admitted and then wait for them to do the x-ray, Emma slept in the stroller most of the time. She did wonderful with the x-ray, she didn't move the entire time. The pictures are with my phone so the quality isn't that great, but you can see how miserable she was.Turns out Emma had a bowel obstruction. She was extremely constipated so we had to work on alleviating her pain. (I won't go into details about that) After a few days she started feeling better. Then, last Monday I got the stomach bug. I haven't felt that bad in a long time. Josh did a great job of taking care of everything. He went through so much hand sanitizer and lysol, but he didn't get sick, so it worked. He even slept on the couch for three nights so he wouldn't get anything. Everyone is better now and I'm so glad that this didn't happen over Christmas. It was miserable. So for the last couple of weeks we have mostly been staying in the house. Sunday we went to my mom and dads to visit. We hadn't been there in weeks so it was nice to see them. Now, we have 4 days till Christmas and I'm busy getting the house cleaned and wrapping a few presents.

Morning with Nana

While my mom is out of work, one of the things she wanted to do is play with the girls at the children's museum. So we all met there this morning and let the girls play and then we went to lunch at Chick-fil-a or "chick a lay" as Chey calls it. It was so much fun to be able to spend the morning with mom. I think the girls really loved having her there.Do you see Ryleigh's Nikes? These were Emma's! Ryleigh cruises all around and I figured she better have some shoes on.

A New Discovery

Hey mom, what's this? Repeat a thousand times!!

snow & ice

Last week, the weather people said that we could get some possible snow flurries Saturday night (last night). I was sooooo excited. I don't care how much snow it is. I just love it when it snows!!! Winter is my favorite time of the year and I hope it snows like crazy this year. Yesterday was also the day that were going to take Emma to Disney on Ice. We've had tickets for months and I was soooo excited to take her. I was going to take Ryleigh to my mom and dads around 12:30 so that I could come back and pick up Josh and Emma once Emma got up from her nap and then we were going to the coliseum. Once I got out of the shower and was getting ready, Josh said "hey it's snowing". I was SHOCKED! It started off as snow flurries and I figured it wouldn't really do anything else and I knew it wouldn't last long. I got Ryleigh in the car and headed to mom and dads and it started snowing hard. It was hard for me to even see to drive. By the time I got back home to get Emma and Josh the ground was pretty much covered. The roads were fine when we left but by then time we got to the coliseum it was started to stay on the roads some. Josh and I looked up the weather and they were calling for some freezing rain in the afternoon. We almost turned around and picked up Ryleigh and went home but I'm glad we didn't. Once we left Disney on Ice, it had stopped snowing and the roads were fine. Here is what it looked like on the way to the coliseum. The snow was still here this morning but it's slowly melting. Ok, now onto Disney on Ice. Emma had so much fun. I was worried that she would be too young and not really like it. But once we sat down and show started she started smiling and then she went back and forth hugging me and Josh, almost like she was saying "thank you mama and daddy". We went to see Toy Story 3. I was a little disappointed in how the show was done but it was still good. Emma loves "Ham"..the piggy bank and when he came out. She stood up in her seat and yelled "Pig". When the crowd would clap, Emma started clapping and yelling. It was so fun to go with her. It was nice to be able to take just Emma and do something like that. Ryleigh did wonderful with Nana and Papa all afternoon. I'm so thankful to them for keeping her.

Cruisin' Around

Ryleigh is all over the place. She is crawling like a champ and pulling up on everything and cruisin' around. It's so fun to watch. She can go anywhere she wants now and she loves it. I was finally able to get a little video of her crawling. Every time I get out of the camera she is more interested in looking at it and I never get anything. It's not very long but you can clearly see she is CRAWLING! Yay!! She is getting so big.

Never Grow Up

You're little hands wrapped around my finger

And, it's so quiet in the world tonight

You're little eyelids flutter cause you're dreaming

So, I tuck you in

Turn on your favorite night light

To you, everything's funny

You got nothing to regret

I'd give all I had, honey

If you could stay like that

Oh, darling don't you ever grow up

Don't you ever grow up

Just stay this little

Oh, darling don't you ever grow up

Don't you ever grow up

It can stay this simple

I won't let nobody hurt you, won't let no one break your heart

And no one will desert you

Just try to never grow up, and never grow up

This is a little bit of a song that I absolutely love. It's from Taylor Swift's new ablbum "Speak Now". It's an amazing song, especially for those of you who have children. Go and listen to it if you have a chance.

Crawling

I almost forgot to tell you all that a few days ago Ryleigh started crawling. She's been army crawling for a while but she is now on hands and knees. She is still slow and cautious about it but she has figured it out. She will still drop to her belly some and army crawl but it's getting less and less. I'll try to get a video soon if she will do it long enough.

Speaking of Ryleigh, it is 9:00 in the morning and she is STILL asleep. This never happens. I guess she must have been really tired. She slept from 8:00pm-4:00am, then ate, and has been asleep ever since. It's nice to have a little break this morning though.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

It's beginning to look a lot like.....

CHRISTMAS!!

I am super excited that it is finally here! Thanksgiving is over and that means it's time to put up our Christmas decorations. Josh and I put up our tree today while Emma was napping, and then we decorated this afternoon. Ryleigh didn't care one bit about the tree, but Emma LOVED to help with putting on the ornamants. She put them all in the exact same spot, but that's ok. After she put one on she would quickly run back and get another one. It was so much fun having her help this year. Even though only the top 3/4 of the tree is decorated it is still beautiful and it finally feels like Christmas in here. As you walk in our front door, we have some built in shelves that I love. That is where I put the nativity scene. Last year it was above the fireplace, but we mounted our t.v. there, so I had to find a new place and I think it worked out great. I am so proud of this set. My mom gave it to me last year and she hand painted it back in 1993. She did such a great job and I'm glad that I have it to put out every year. Only 29 days till Christmas!