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 :)