His Love

Some photos of our boy doing what he loves

Friday Night Date With My Boys

Ryder and I had to get out of the apartment last night. We only have one car out here for the time being so Ryder and I are at home a lot with Derrik's rehab at the field six days a week and meetings for his football refereeing two nights a week. I found a place online that has carnival rides for $5 a wrist band. It was nothing too spectacular, but Ryder didn't know the difference. He loved it! There were about four rides he could go on, and he just ran back and forth all night between them all going on them over and over again. I love seeing the big kid come out in him during times like that. We spent just over an hour there and then headed to In-N-Out to get burgers for the first time. Derrik had been, but i'd just never made the time to go. I figured if we are going to live on the west coast for another year we mine as well start trying west coast fast food. It was actually pretty decent.

Here are some pictures of Ryder enjoying the rides....

On the way home Ryder saw me looking at the pictures on the camera and kept saying cheese.... so I snapped a few since it's not too often he's willing to look at the camera and say cheese!

Stream of Consciousness

I just went to go put something in our closet and found a cereal bowl on our bed. Then I walked into the kitchen and found a soccer ball in the oven drawer. Ryder has everything everywhere these days, but he's actually learning to like the clean-up process. He thinks it fun... not sure how long that will last! Have I mentioned yet that the third floor is awful... minus these amazing sunsets we get every night....


When we get back from being out we've just been sitting in the car for 10-15 minutes, or until Ryder breaks from his trance of watching the Cars DVD and realizes we're just sitting there. The thought of lugging up groceries (the only place we're ever really getting back from is Wal-Mart... which we do daily because we don't want to buy too much and lug it all up the stairs)is awful. Especially when Ryder says "walk" the second the car shuts off. It is such a process getting up the stairs with him. Usually one of us will walk ahead and put whatever we have inside then come back down so the next person can take their load up. It seriously takes him f-o-r-e-v-e-r! He feels the need to inspect everything the whole way up. Luckily he doesn't walk down much because the idea of going "bye-bye" is much more exciting. Speaking of which... how great is bribery? Ryder's and my realtionship has grown leaps and bounds since he has started to understand this concept. Something as simple as him not wanting to go down for a nap and me saying "but we can go bye-bye when you wake up" or "daddy will be home from work when you wake up" always does the trick. We brush our teeth before the pool because "we can go to the pool if Mommy can brush your teeth" really does the trick. His teeth are cleaner then they have ever been. He also really loves gummy snacks right now. I try to keep it to under two packs a day, but they are great when I can't come up with something better to bribe him with. Speaking of food... my boys love sharing cereal right now. I'm not a huge fan of Ryder eating sugary cereal with milk in a bowl... sugar and messes first thing in the morning at not my thing. He actually does good with the milk part of the process. Plus it's sweet when I kiss both my boys in the morning, and they both smell like cereal marshmellows.

Time for a new paragraph? Ryder is big into switches right now. He's tall enough to figure them out, and i'm so over turning lights off only for his little fingers to flip them right back on behind me. The other night we realized he turned our AC from Auto to ON and it ran all night. Today it was swealtering in here, and I realized he turned it off! Maybe he was trying to save money after he left it running the other night?! I think it's time to find a way to lock that thing up or at least get tape over the switches!!!

Chloe is doing good back at my parents house. I miss her so so much! She was my baby before Derrik and Ryder and is still my cuddle partner at night. I know she is being loved on back at my parents, but I just wish she was here with us. Our cats are doing great too. They stay on the apartment side of my parents house which my grandparents are staying in for the summer. Unfortunately though we think we might be finding a new home for them. It's not fair for my mom to have to keep up with their constant shedding and litter box changes when she has pets of her own to take care of, and it's just too much to bring them back out here to the west coast. We'd have to find a way to get them back when Derrik was healthy and it would be hard to figure out what to do with them over the holidays. If anyone knows of someone looking for two sweet cats.... let me know!

My mom just sent me this picture down below from the Chatham A's game. Derrik is still in the book with his record setting 12 saves the summer we met. Have I mentioned before that he also had a 0.00 ERA that summer? Plus he met me.... those were the good old days! HA
This is the smile on my little man's face when his Uncle Scott texted him pictures of Mater and Lightning McQueen from Disneyland! You would have thought he saw them in real life... the boy loves his cars!

How cute is Ryder in his Reds gear we got on our "trip" to Cincinnati?! Go Bruce! And seriously.... when are the Heisey and Wood t-shirts going to be for sale?

Speaking of baseball hats... Ryder was all about his Reds hat, but wasn't really diggin' the Phillies hat that I asked Nini to pick up for him. I'm just not sure he recognized the logo and always chose the Reds one over it. The other night he finally decided he likes it, but insister on wearing it sideways...such a goofball!

When I take pictures of Ryder I tend to lay on the floor to get a closer shot. Lately Ryder feels the need to lay down too which usually ruins the pictures I was trying to get in the first place....

"Smile Ryder"

"Ryder can you open your eyes and smile?"

It seems he can't do two things at once! Oh well... I guess that is what you get from an almost two-year-old. Yes... I typed that right. Ryder is almost two.. in 29 days to be exact. Where has the time gone? When I uploaded these picturs to my computer I made the "23 month" folder. Do I continue to count months afer he is two? I surely can't label them in years because all those pictures would be folder overload! Maybe we'll just have to start naming them by the month. UGH He needs to stop growing up!

Here is a cute one of the boys watching horse racing the other day on the computer... no clue why they both get such a kick out of it.

What else is new? Ryder chugs milk like it's going out of style. He always has to have some in his hand, and it makes me crazy! I'm constantly trying to get it back in the fridge so it doesn't go bad. Derrik is at "work" tonight.... it's so cute when we ask Ryder where Daddy is going and he says work... I swear with a New England accent. I love how he puts K's on the ends of his words now. It might be my favorite that he says... unless it's because he wants more milK. He's not really at work though. He is at meeting to become a football ref. He is going to try to give it a shot and then do the basketball stuff once that is over in the winter. It's a great second source of income, and I truly think he enjoys doing it... once these boring meetings are over. So with Derrik gone and my little guy in bed in about 45 minutes I get to sit down and watch last nights episode of the Bachelorette! Love my Tuesday nights with the DVR :) Who is everyone rooting for? I don't think you can lose with the two great guys left, but if I was her I'd be choosing Chris L! What a cutie! I think that's it for now... off to make Ryder something for dinner and then i'll be lounging on the couch... good night!

One more thing.... that $5 DVD I was bragging about last week because Ryder loves it... Remember that? Right about now i'd pay someone $5 to make it disappear!!! AHHHH.... I have seen it like a thousand times and it is all he ever asks for. Ryder has never been a big tv kid, but there is something about this awful DVD that he is in love with. I think we might be stepping it up and getting some real movies like Monsters, Inc. or Nemo because this DVD from the 80s has GOT TO GO!

Jumping Solo

Ryder and I have been spending a lot of time down at our new pool at the apartment we are renting. He wakes up every morning asking for "water". I think we have him so confused this summer between the beach, the pond, and the pool that he's decided that they all have water and just calls it that. Every single time we go to the pool he impresses me more and more with what he can do. Today he started jumping in on his own. He has been jumping with the assitance of my finger since we've been here and finally gave in today.

Jumping Solo

You'll notice in the first video how I make him put his toes all the way to the edge of the pool. I've spent the last week of my life explaining to him how he needs to be at the edge and how he needs to jump out (and show him with my hand where to aim) so we can avoid him banging his head. We finally master this whole process only for a father with his two kids who were much older then Ryder to come down to swim. I notice them standing about twenty feet from the edge of the pool saying "ready... set...go!" and they run and jump into the pool making a huge splash. Ryder's eyes lit up!!!!! Of course he felt the need to immitate them over and over....

Running and Jumping

Oh well.... I tried to play the safe card, but he is awfully cute with how excited he gets to make his little run to the pool!

Who's Stinky?!

Not Ryder!!!

No stinky baby in this hot weather!

Ryder has been obsessed with "putting on" deodorant for a long time now. He does it with his Daddy while they are getting ready for work in the morning. Until recently though Ryder didn't realize there was a cap. Now he knows, and he likes to sneak it out of the bathroom when we're not looking.

And a few extra pictures I got while the little guy played with our deodorant....

Potty Training

We've been doing a lot of this lately....

There has yet to be any potty-ing going on, but he does love sitting on the toilet which I think was the first hurdle we needed to cross. As I said before i'm not going to push the issues. A few times a day Ryder comes running up to us and says "potty". We go into the bathroom get everything situated, and then he sits there. He usually asks me to read him a book about two times, and then he tells me "all done". We then get him off the potty, put his diaper back on, and that's that. I keep reminding him that when he does go to the bathroom in the potty he can have M&M's. He just smiles at me and moves on :)

A Few Good Videos

I took lots of video footage of Ryder over the last month or so with Derrik not being around. I am so greatful to be able to take video of Ryder and send it to Derrik within minutes to share what we are up to with him.

Video #1: This is Ryder swimming at the pond our last day there. He has improved drastically even since we've been out in Arizona. I'll be sure to get some new video soon!

Video #2: Ryder dancing after the band concert one night. We had hit the candy store on the way home, and he was wired!!!

Video #3: Playing in the sprinklers at my parents house

Video #4: Ryder swinging from a bar above the slide at the park. The next day he started hanging off the bar on the playset at my parents house and is quite the pro now.

Video #4: We were at Hailey's end of the school year awards program, and I was trying to occupy Ryder with a bag of goldfish. He had no clue what was going on and freaks out when he hears the first applause!

Totally Worth $4.99

This totally corny DVD was $4.99 at Target and totally worth every penny because my son has stayed like this....

for the last forty-five minutes or so. I'm not one to promote lots of t.v. time, but it's hot here! A quick trip to the park in the afternoons could lead to some serious heat exhaustion (we tried yesterday) so this could be our perfect solutions for a half hour or so each afternoon when we need a little break from the toys. I have a feeling we will be purchasing volume two on our next trip to Target :)

Our Little Man

With all that non-sense going on with baseball, rehabbing, traveling, wondering where we would be living, spending time with family, realizing Derrik's arm was not healthy, surgery, planning a trip back to Arizona, and finding a place to live our life in itself became a full time job. Blogging became a necessity to keep friends and family updated with what was going on in our lives, and our poor little man fell out of the spotlight for a little while. Rest well assured that although he might not have been blogged about he was busy becoming quite the little man and my iPhone was long for the journey. All of these picture are awful quality, and I can't to break out my nice Canon camera on the little guy soon. Alas... some (a lot.. i've been keeping a list in my phone of things he's up to these days!) updates on Ryder:

- He talks! Ryder has babbled for a while and said a handful of key words, but was never much of a talker. At some point in the last month or so he has transformed into this crazy talker. No full sentences yet, but he does repeat everything and can put together a couple words at a time when he really wants to. Of course this requires everyone to start really watching what they are saying. A certain four letter S word was repeated over and over after Mommy said it one day by accident. He can call his Mimi, Papa, Auntie Ally, Auntie Hailey, and even complete strangers by name, but refuses to call him Grammy and Grandpa anything! I think it is a big game to him now to just scream DAAA at them and hope they answer. One of my favorite words he says is nasty. Whenever I am cleaning his stinky diapers he tells me "Nasty!" while he holds his nose... followed by a P.U.!



- He says I Love You :) It's more of a "Luv You", but I don't care. He says it when hes being really sweet when I'm holding him and when we got to bed. He tells me "bye", "good night", and "luv you"

- He is quite the demanding little guy these days. He will tell you "come on", "move", or "go" in a mean little voice if you aren't doing what he wants. Imagine how my mom felt when she was crying at the airport saying bye to him, and he pushed her telling her to "go".... real nice Ryder!!! He likes to cut good-byes short :)

- He knows the Reds logo! Brilliant I tell ya! He refuses to learn colors or letters, but I pull out a Reds baseball bag to start packing the other day and he points to the logo and says "baseball". He can learn when he wants to... i'm sure i'll fight this the rest of my life with him.

- He drinks out of big boy cups now. We haven't completely ditched the sippy cups, but when sitting the table he can have a regular cup and can sip right out of it.

- He loves the big boy swing. No more baby swings for my big boy! By the time we left my parents house we were pushing him as high as he could go and he loved it! He would drag me out into the back yard to go on the swings so many times a day. I should have just embraced it and enjoyed the nice weather because we won't be doing much swinging out here in Arizona for a while!

- Ryder has always been a baby who loves to sleep in his crib. We appreciate that he loves his bed, but sometimes it's a little difficult when your on the go. While at my parents Ryder's schedule wasn't also the most important thing going on and many days he got a short afternoon nap (i'd wake him up so he wouldn't be going to bed late... i like my evenings!) or no nap at all. I love nothing more then to see the sweet little man sleeping so there were many photo ops :)

After a long day at the pond

After the 4th of July parade

No clue... but I was in heaven :)

I think this was after another long day at the pond

After a day of shopping

And a new favorite....

Our first morning home with Daddy :)
(like I said... this is not normal for Ryder.. he has never gotten up and fallen asleep with us in the morning)

- Ryder has discovered dips. I tried to hold out as long as possible, but Grammy kept giving them to him while we were staying with them. His favorite is ranch, but he also loves ketchup and mustard.

- The dips have lead to him eating a vegetable!!! Ryder ate a serving of carrots two nights in a row since we've been in Arizona... thank you ranch dressing!

- I can't tell you how much Ryder adores his Aunties! What a blessing it is to have two younger sisters. When this momma was out of steam for the day I could go take a breather while they played with him for a while. Even when they didn't want to a quick "he might not be here much longer to play with" always did the trick :)

- He loves to say grace at dinner. I'm not sure why we haven't done this before I went to visit my parents, but we just hadn't. Growing up we said grace before dinner every night, and Ryder got such a kick out of it. The problem is he doesn't get that you do it just before you eat. He wants to do it over and over again throughout the meal. If someone doesn't put there fork down, fold their hands, and say grace he will call them out and make them do it on their own. It is so cute hearing him say "a-men" at the end of it. Plus we now look super religious out at restaurants!!!

-Ryder suddenly has to have a napkin at every meal. He can't stand to have food on his face and always wants to wipe it off. Not sure why this is important, but it's really cute watching him wipe off his face and getting no where near the stuff that is on his face.

-Ryder finds the letter D everywhere now. He points to the his name above his crib in The Cape when he wakes up, finds it on books, can find a fridge magnet, but has zero interest in learning any new letters. He thinks well be impressed over and over again with his ability to just find the D.

-Our friend Carrie offered an old wooden train set that was her sons a long time ago, and Ryder fell in love. I'm not sure why I had never introduced him to trains before, but he's always looking for trains and saying "choo-choo".

Ryder built the track all by himself this day

-Ryder has discovered the world of back rubs. He loves to lay on his belly and say "rub". He's also getting pretty good at giving them out too :)

-We are venturing into the world of potty training. Is Ryder ready... NO! I'm not sure he realizes when he's going yet. He knows when he has gone and tells me "stinky", "nasty", or "p.u.". He has interest in the toilet and likes to watch us go. We have been talking lots about the potty and how big boys pee and poop go into the potty. He loves the idea of it so I figured we mine as well get the potty seat. We let him pick between the baseball and cars one (he chose cars) and got a stool. He loves to tell us "POTTY!" and we all run to the bathroom, get the stool out, and wait..... wait some more.... wait some more... when he tells us "all done". We have not had a succesful potty yet, but it's only been two days. We've been pretty relaxed about it (and I plan to stay that way... he's not even two but is just showing a lot of interest). Every time he's on the potty I tell him if he can pee or poop into the water he can have M&Ms (we have a special bag waiting in the pantry). I also tell him every time we are changina diaper that if we get it into the potty next time we can have M&Ms. He never whines for them and seems to realize he has to do something first to earn them. I'm sure there will be many posts dedicated to the potty training of our little man and this is just the beginning!

I did let him put big boy undies on the other night. He had just run out of the bathroom after an attempt on the toilet and peed all over the carpet. I figured he had gotten it out of his system and wanted to see his cute undies on him. Not but fifteen minutes later there was a stream of pee going through his undies onto the floor... they have been stored away in the closet ever sense.

-Ryder is obsessed with light switches. This is the first time that Derrik and I haven't had all-inclusive rent and are paying our own electric bill. We have tried to be good at turning everything off when we aren't using it especially the lights. Ryder is constantly going behind us turning them on. The only one he ever seems to actually turn off is the bathroom one when i'm in there and then closes the door.... sweet of him huh?!

-Ryder found a new love this summer... the pond! The pond (not even sure of the name... we just call it "the pond")has been a favorite of mine for five years now. We started going there the summer I met Derrik, and it's is by far my favorite place to go in the world. Last summer was a disaster with Ryder crawling. We only made it once and it ended with a crying baby and a frustrated momma. This summer is a whole other story. He literally stayed occupied there for hours upon hours. He would play in the sand, swim with anyone willing to take him out, play on the boat ramp, throw rocks, help the girls catch frogs, chase after the momma ducks and her ducklings, and light up when he would hear the ice cream truck coming!!! I hope we can have many many summer spent right there on that very pond while Ryder grows up :)

Checking out the scenes for the day

Looking at a frog Auntie Ally caught

These girls are some serious frog catchers

Momma Duck and her babies
Saying hi to the ducks

- A second love we share.... watermelon! I have no clue how many watermelons we crushed while we were on The Cape, and I imagine we will be eating many more before summer ends out here in Arizona.

- I hesitate to even put this on the internet because of the comments I know i'll be getting from a certain uncle (acutally I probably won't because he'd never read this far into a post), but Ryder's daddy seems okay with the situation so we're rolling with it. While in The Cape Ryder would play in my sisters play room all the time. Being little girls they have lots of babies, and Ryder started playing with some of them. His idea of playing was usually putting them in a stroller, driving like a maniac, and in the end pushing them down the stairs. My mom insisted we take the little boy baby doll back to Arizona with us, and Ryder has been so cute with it. He plays with it just enough to show he has a really sweet nurturing side, but then walks away from it. He is very interested in putting the baby to sleep, giving the baby his "paci", and putting blankets on it.

So proud he put the baby to sleep

We had put Ryder to bed, and I went into our room to put some p.j.'s on. I asked Derrik if he had helped Ryder put the baby to bed, and he told me no. How sweet that he tucked the baby in all by himself :) He is just SOOO sweet!!!

- And to follow up with the babies comment... on to my boys true love... Cars... Trucks... Big Trucks... Boats... you name it... he loves it!!! He is obsessed with the movie Cars, asks for his cars (two toy cars we have from the movie) in the car everytime we are in there. He gets awfully made if he doesn't have both at the same time. The cars names are Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater... it is so cute to hear him say Lightning and Mater :) He also loves bigger trucks like the one down below to push around. He pushed this one all over my parents yard for hours on end this summer and continues to do the same with a similar truck we have out here in Arizona.

-Ryder is also quite the ladies' man! He was pretty much a celebrity in the 4th and 6th grade among the ladies. Our our two months there many woman past through for a chance to spend the night at Ryder's house.

Entertaining the ladies before they left to go see the midnight viewing of Eclipse

The ladies think he's sexy in his swim suit and floaties too!

- I was also excited to have a boy. I even felt as if Ryder was a boy before we actually found out. Although I love it, I do have to admit I felt like I was missing out with all the cute little bows you can buy for girls... That is until I discovered the baseball hat. My boy loves them, and they are my equivilent of a boy in girls hair... maybe even cuter! Ryder asks to wear his "hat" before we leave the house and is so freakin' cute in them!!!!

How cute are my boy's hats hanging together?

- Ryder has started picking up after himself. The last two nights right before bed I asked him if he wanted to help me pick up, and it's like a game to him... a game I just so happen to like! He even puts some of the stuff in the right spots :)

- Ryder has gotten really great at his swimming. He began by walking into the pond as far as he possibly could (the water would be going into his mouth). We then got floaties for his arms, and he would walk in and kick a few kicks to get to me. Within no time he was swimming all over the place. At the pool yesterday he continued to impress while he was swimming. He was jumping off the step into my arms, then jumped from the side of the pool, then began jumping to me with no floaties, he put his head under the fountain.... he truly has no fear of the water. That scares me a bit, but I can an extra close eye on him, and I believe we'll have a swimmer by the end of the summer (does summer ever truly end here?... looks like we have a while!)

-Another important milestone in Ryder's life happened this summer when another one of our great friends got to make his Big League debut! This kid is going to be popular in elementary school when he can say he lived with all of these guys when he was a baby :) Maybe we'll still be sharing houses when he's in elementary school, and we all have tons of kids running around! We of course were once again glued to the computer watching Travis pitch an amazing game.. he even got his first hit that game! The pictures below are of Ryder watching Travis's first game. He even said "travis" a few times when we asked him to. Keep up the good work boys!

Below are a couple of pictures that are cute ones I didn't want to leave out....

I have some videos as well of Ryder, but those are for another day. I think I just spent a good portion of my day trying to get this blog post up! I hope you enjoyed :)