Halloween

I hope everyone had a fun, happy, and safe halloween. We had a great time today with our little man. We were so clueless as what to do with for Halloween. We knew we wanted to celebrate with Ryder since he has been in love with his monkey costume for well over a month now, has learned what a pumpkin is and can point to it when asked, and just seems ready to participate in all the fun. However... we don't know anybody, where to go, and have no older children to show him the ropes. PLUS... The Phillies were starting at 5 here so it would have been hard to convince Derrik that we had to miss the game for something Ryder truly doesn't even get (He said he would have... but I just felt plain guilty)! We found a little festival in a development around here called Estrella. That really pretty mountain range I put pictures up of when we first moved here... It's an upscale developement in those mountains. It is gorgeous out there, but kind of in the middle of no where. We decided to make the trip out, but made it a little late due to Derrik's basketball schedule today... AND... forgot the stroller! I think we missed the fun part, but Ryder didn't notice. We got him some strawberry ice cream and sat in the shade while we ate it. Ryder then proceeded to walk all around the festival (which was luckily pretty much cleared out) showing off his charm to the few people still hanging around. It wasn't what I imagined we would do today, but Ryder had a blast and that is all that matters!!!

Walking towards the festival

Eating some ice cream with his Da

(we are working so hard to turn Da into Dad or Daddy!)

Cooling our little monkey off
Off he goes...

Having a blast running up and down this hill

Me chasing him all the way down the hill....

Me smiling... Ryder wasn't participating

And that's all folks... Da given Ryder a lift back to the car

Da using all his energy to run just to get some gigles out of Ryder :)

Denoves.... Took these for you guys since you'll be calling this home for two months

The background building is the clubhouse with an amazing pool and water park.

Ryder and I have already invited ourselves for many days of fun in the sun during spring training :) Hope you don't mind!

Gorgeous view of the lake!

When we got home, I contemplated taking Ryder out to a neighborhood to go trick-or-treating, but I realized he was having a blast doing this....

Cheering on the Phillies!!!

(he's clapping in this one)

I hope they can come back in the next few innings so Ryder isn't disappointed when he wakes up in the morning!

Happy Halloween

We want to wish all of our friends and family a very safe and happy Halloween. We will be attempting a short trick-or-treating trip with Ryder tonight. We are hoping for a good time, but aren't setting our expectations too high.... I will definitely get some pictures!

Happy Halloween

***Prayers Needed***

I am going to keep this anonymous because I am not sure this person has shared this with everyone yet, but we have a family member who is in need of some prayers for their health. They could surely use an extra prayer or two through this hard time.

Our Holiday Travel Schedule

After weeks of going back and forth on what we were going to do over the holidays we have finally settled on a plan that works for us and our wallet! The time off has been confirmed by the Reds and the plane tickets have been puchased... so I guess I can say our plans are pretty official at this point. With that said... I'll try to lay it all out for you! If it sounds confusing... it is... imagine trying to do all of this with our extremely active little man tagging along!



Ready for it?!?



Friday - November 20th: After rehab this day, Derrik will be packing up our car (not sure which one yet) with our belongings we will need for our trip and our three pets. He will set out on his way to Pennsylvania. This trip is extremly long and will probably take him about three days.



Tuesday - November 24th: Ryder and I are flying into Harrisburg to meet up with Derrik.



We will be spending the Thanksgiving holiday with Derrik's side of the family. We can not wait to spend almost a week there and spend some time with family! Ryder and I have not made it back to Pennsylvania since Thanksgiving last year!!!



Monday - November 30th: Derrik, Ryder, the pets, and I will all make the six hour trek to Boston to take Derrik to the airport (Derrik is flying out of Boston so I don't have to drive through N.Y.C. by myself... sweet hubby huh?!). Derrik is flying back to Arizona for the three weeks of rehab he has to do between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Once we drop Derrik off at the airport, I will drive the next hour and half back home to The Cape.



** It was a really hard decision to be away from Derrik for these three weeks over the holidays. I will miss my 25th birthday with him :( I tear up just thinking about it, but we decided this is something we had to do so we could get as much time as we could with both families. Doing it this way meant our animals would travel with us which saved us probably almost $1,000 in kennel fees... I hope our pets know how much we love them**



Friday - December 18th: Derrik flies back into Boston!!!



Derrik is planning on coming to The Cape to get the car (and spend some time with us after being back in AZ for soo long!)and then he will drive to Pennsylvania for a couple days to celebrate Christmas with his family. Ryder and I won't be making this trip since Ryder would have been there three weeks earlier for Thanksgiving and will be there again in January. We contemplated it, but it's an extra 12 hours round-trip with Ryder in the car! Not Fun! Anyhow... Derrik will be back in The Cape in time to celebrate Christmas with us. I can not begin to explain to you how happy I am that we will be celebrating Christmas with our tree, our ornaments, our stockings, our bed! I literally fall asleep as night with a huge smile on my face knowing we will get to do this :)



We are hoping to get a ski trip in between Christmas and New Years! No firm plans yet, but we're going to make an effort :)



Sometime around New Years we will pack up the car and pets and head back out to Pennsylvania to see everyone before we head back out West for the rest of Derrik's rehab and another baseball season.



The only two official dates we have for the end of our trip is my ticket back to Arizona from Harrisburg for Wednesday January 6th and Derrik has to report back to rehab Monday January 11th.



We are so excited that we figured out a way to maximize our time home with all of our family and are literally counting down the days until we get there!!! Less then a month!!!

Pumpkin Carving

Ahh it's finally the week of Halloween!!! The holidays are FINALLY here!!! I am SO excited :)

So with the week of Halloween finally approaching we decided to carve our pumpkin. Actually... Derrik did the carving, and I did the photo taking. I was shocked at what a great job Derrik did with the pumpkins and told him he set our standards pretty high for the years to come! He is definitely the official "pumpkin carver" of the family now! Thanks babe :)

Cutting the lid

Time to get the guts out
Ryder checking out the inside of these things he's been playing with all week

All clean :)

Chloe needs her couple seconds of fame...

Poor girl use to get all the attention!

Our monster stencil....

Finished Product!
Pretty impressive huh?!

Peanut Butter Jelly Time

Ok I know i've been on Ryder over load the past couple of days, but he is just SO goofy lately! He constantly has us running for the camera. Not to mention we don't even tell him to smile anymore and still get this terribly awful smile! Ok... I think it's cute, but it doesn't make for great photos to share with family! Today he was watching some football with dad while eating his PB&J like usual... and made a mess!

Want a Kiss?!?!

Playing Catch with Dad

"You want me to throw this?!"

"But you always tell me not to throw them when were at home?!"

"Am I standing right Da?"

"Just like this?"

My little boy is getting it :)

Got It! Man he learns quick :)

And back to the ground it goes...

Running the bases

I think he liked playing in the dugout the best though!

Arizona State Fair

On Friday night we were lucky enough to not only go to the Arizona State Fair, but we also got to go with great friends!!! I know everyone thinks we are stuck out here all by our lonesome, but for a short period of time we do have some great friends out here :)

Our roommates for the month of spring training in Sarasota and the two months of baseball season we had in North Carolina before Derrik's surgery are out in Arizona for about a month and a half while Chris is playing in the Arizona Fall League. They are living only about twenty minutes north of us, and we couldn't be more excited! I don't know many people that were willing to take us on as roommates. The most baggage some players have is a wife and a dog. Living with Derrik means his wife, baby, dog, and two cats! Yes... we come with a lot of baggage while on the road for baseball season, and the Heisey's were such troopers about it... I even think they might have liked living with us :) HAHA!

Anyhow... we had such a great time at the fair with Lisa and Chris. We got to eat some yummy fair food (I am going to let the whole blog world know that The Heisey's crushed a "brick" of curly fries.. should have gotten a picture!), watch a demolition derby, got on a couple rides, and played some games. Ryder liked looking over the whole fair from the top of the ferris wheel and loved when the demolition derby would start up. Chris even won Ryder a HUGE shark stuffed animal!!! We had such a great time and hope to see them again soon during their short stay out here.

Mommy and Ryder on the ferris wheel

(I swear he liked it even though he may not look like it)

Thanks for being the only one smiling Lisa :)
The boys with their prizes

Dad and Ryder waiting to go on the big slide

Coming down....

Our boys were loving the really small and really big animals!

Hey Guys "I'm in the dryer!!!"

Sorry for only one picture yesterday.... I was kind of in a hurry and thought it might be fun to let y'all guess. It makes me sad that I can see that so many of you visit and lack to show any love in the comments section. I guess i'll get past it though since the true purpose of this blog is to put smiles on all of Ryder's grandparents, great-grand parents, and great-great grandparents faces!!! I think we accompish that mission quite often! We love the effort you all make to e-mail, call, and send letters letting us know how much you love our blog. I wish the comments section was easier on you guys so you could make comments... dumb blogger program!

So yesterday I got done emptying the load of laundry out of the dryer and left for the kitchen to go get Ryder's snack ready before his nap. He stayed in there as he always does playing around... why he loves any room but the living room is beyond me! When I went back in I couldn't find him... until I heard the noise coming from the dryer! What a crazy baby! He was having such a blast in there!!!

"Hey crazy lady... I'm in here!"

"I think i'm going to smile like this F-O-R-E-V-E-R to make Mommy crazy!"

I could just eat him up :)

By the way... Thanks for the sweet comments Lindsay, Tricia, and Melissa... be sure to check their blogs on the side bar of my blog!