Lets Go Reds!

Tonight the Reds have a chance to clinch the National League Central with a Reds win or a Cardinals loss. Ryder is sporting his jersey he got for his birthday in hopes of a celebration tonight. Although i'm sure he won't be celebrating quite as hard as some of his big league buddies, Mommy and Daddy might let him have some ice cream or something.

With the Reds having such an amazing season and seemingly heading to the playoffs I feel as if we are constantly asked the "do you want them to win it all?" question. It's such a touchy subject don't you think? Would I prefer my husband wasn't on year number two of rehab and was instead out there with his friends enjoying such success? Of course I do, but it still doesn't take away from the excitement I feel for some of our best friends. We will cheer them on whole-heartedly, and hope for a repeat next year along with an amazing addition of a healthy relief pitcher fresh off of two Tommy John surgeries :)

On a side note.... Derrik is anti-converse shoes. He had told me a while back that Ryder better not have any, but more and more a lot of Ryder's clothes tend to look weird with a regular sneaker. He needed a skater-ish style shoe, and these suckers were on sale for $9 at Wal-Mart yesterday. We tried them on and somehow convince Derrik we couldn't leave without them.... I just think they are sooo adorable...

Steam of Consciousness: Pregnancy Edition

So we are about 8 1/2 weeks into this whole pregnancy thing... only two weeks into consciously knowing we were doing it... and it's been rough! With Ryder I was a miserable pregnant person the second and third trimester, but the first was a breeze. Minus those two lines on a pregnancy test and some adorable ultrasound pictures, I had no signs of pregnancy. This time around I feel awful. I have little to no energy, feel nauceous a majority of the time (it's been ok the last two days.. hoping it's on its way out?), and have already been having awful hip and back pain. I had this with Ryder really bad, but was told it was just due to the extra weight I was carrying. Well I haven't put on any weight in the last couple of weeks and am already in so much pain. I'm hoping the doctor can do something or it's going to be a long pregnancy. My motivation for blogging is none because it would just be a longgg complaining blog with no pictures since we just lounge in our PJs at home most days. I promised myself i'd embrace this pregnancy and enjoy it since it could be our last, but saying something is a lot easier then doing sometimes.

I go to the doctors for my first "official" appointment on Friday. I don't actually meet with the doctor though. We will do blood work, family history, discuss my past pregnancy... all that fun stuff. On October 28th we go for our first appointment with the doctor. We will hear the heartbeat at this appointment. It was supposed to be my ten week appointment, but due to the bump in our due date will be more like a thirteen week appointment. They tried to re-schedule but the doctor will be out of town.

A lot of girls that do blogs take weekly pictures of their belly and fill out a little survey. I will probably start this at ten weeks. It makes me kind of regret being such a brat about taking pictures when I was pregnant with Ryder so I could compare now. I think I have like maybe four or five pictures from that pregnancy of my belly. I do know that at about fifteen weeks you couldn't tell I was pregnant with a shirt over my belly, and it's already getting slightly hard to hide at this point. I guess you do show faster with your second one!

I did manage to scrounge up a few pictures of Ryder from the past week for those who just visit for the pictures:

Some pictures of Ryder with his friend Page at McDonald's on Saturday

I told them to put their arms around each other... they both did this?

I guess they didn't get it?

There we go!

They are both going to be the "big kids" by December and May!

All About the B's

Today's post is all about the Big Boy Bed and the Baby!!! I'm sure they could both make their own post, but we'll just put them all together into one.

Let start with the baby. When I had gotten home from Florida I was e-x-h-a-u-s-t-e-d! I blamed it on the time change (which had never affected me much before due to the sheer exhaustion of the trip itself making me just fall right to sleep anyhow), on Ryder being sick that whole week and up a lot at night, then we had an issue with our apartment (it's fine now) that had me all worked up over the weekend so I blamed the nauceous feeling on that. When the following Monday had finally rolled around, and I still felt tired and nauceous I was getting frustrated. You know when you start letting yourself nap to much and lay around to much it just becomes habit, and you need to just snap out of it? That was how I felt. The thought of being pregnant crossed my mind, but I had been in Florida and it was about 90% impossible. There was one time, but I was fairly certain it would not have been the right timing. (Side Note: We were trying so I have been off the pill since this summer. We weren't together all summer due to Derrik's arm so that was why this hasn't happened sooner.)

So last Monday... Ryder and I had to go to Target to get diapers, and I figured i'd buy a test. Derrik has always told me to NEVER take a test without him there. I bought the test unsure of whether I was going to ask him to take it with me that night or if I was going to do it alone right when I got home. Derrik tends to not let things get him overly excited, and I figured he'd want to wait a couple days until my period was late. The earliest I probably should have gotten it was that Monday... so I wasn't late.... just feeling AWFUL! I was 99% sure I wasn't pregnant since it seemed nearly impossible, didn't want to have to deal with the "I told you that you were over reacting" from my husband... I'm sure he would have been a slightly nicer in his wording, but I didn't want to deal with it.... so I took the test! I peed on the stick, put the cap back up, turned it upside down, and walked back to the kitchen to put some stuff away. I let a couple of minutes go by, walked into the bathroom, thought to myself Danielle don't be upset when it's negative your being silly anyhow, flipped the test, and then though "oh shit.... it's positive!". I think right after that I got the biggest smile on my face and went running into the living room. I scooped up my little man and told him he was going to be a big brother! I am positive at this point he had no clue what I was talking about, but he knew Mommy was excited and totally fed right into it with me. He hugged me lots, kissed me lots, danced around, and kept saying baby. Derrik was just starting his football game at this point so I had at least a couple hours that I had to keep my mouth shut. Usually I call my mom immediately with any news, but I knew this was something I needed to share with Derrik first. What a longggggg afternoon that was for me! Derrik came home and wanted to shower immediately. Meanwhile i was pacing back and forth, and I was soooo nervous! I wanted him to just be excited and not upset I took the test without him. Ryder and I had colored the picture from the previous post saying he was going to be a big brother. I had Ryder give it to him. Derrik immediately got a hugeeee smile across his face asking if it was really true. I showed him the tests and got a big hug from him. He kept asking me why I hadn't told him, and I said I just thought for sure I wasn't.

(F.Y.I. - Lot's of "girl talk" in this paragraph for any guys not wanting that much info. Lots of girlfriends keep asking for the whole story though so I gotta put it all in for it to make sense.)

So let the excitement wear down. I had to let the reality that I had set up a doctors appointment about two weeks ago for the 1st of October because I had been spotting all month, and quite a bit all summer since I had been off the pill. I called the doctor to set up my pregnancy appointments, cancel my other appointment, and explained my situation. They felt that because it had been happening since before I was pregnant it probably wasn't a huge deal, but wanted to get me checked out as soon as possible anyhow. They asked me to come in for blood work the following day (Thursday) to see if my HCG level was high enough (1,400) to do an ultrasound. I would hav ebeen barely four weeks at this point so they thought I might not be far enough along. This would be the first opportunity they would really have to get a look at anything. That Friday afternoon I got a call from my doctors asking how far away we lived from the doctors office. I told them about twenty minutes (it was about 3:30 at this point). They asked me to come immediately, but they would want me to check into the hospital across the catwalk from the doctors office. I asked if everything was ok and she told me my levels weren't just the 1,400 they were looking for, but 36,000! With these levels, along with the bleeding, they wanted me to just head to the hospital. Derrik had to head into work so Ryder and I headed to the hospital together. Waiting to get taken back felt like an eternity, but finally we got called back.

The lady doing the ultrasound immediately told me, "Well I see a heartbeat". I knew that was good because they had "possible miscarriage" written on my paperwork. After a closer look she told me the baby was measuring 7 weeks 1 day... not 4 weeks. I was so excited, but the only other reason for those high numbers was multiples! God bless parents of multiples... I'm just not sure i'm cut out for that. That was really all the information she could give me. She told me the specialist would check out the pictures she had taken (which she gave me none... nice huh?), and they would pass the info on to my doctor to go over with me. After a long weekend we finally got the call from the doctor's office saying that everything fine. They felt the baby was measuring at 7 weeks 2 days in the ultrasounds and set my due date for May 4th. I was 8 weeks along yesterday :) The reason for the bleeding was a subchorionic clot. They said it all looked fine now and the baby was totally healthy. We are glad that is over and now we can just be excited!!!

The only other missing piece to the puzzle is how was I 7 1/2 weeks and not 4 weeks? I know I had my period on the 18th of August. They told me some people get their period while pregnant. This is just soooo odd to me!

So now that we are past all of this we can happily that we are expecting, are 8 week and 1 days pregnant, and will hopefully have a second little addition to our family around May 4th :)

Onto the big boy bed.... I probably should have saved this for later, but oh well. We knew as soon as we found out we were pregnant we needed to get Ryder into a big boy bed! The holidays will approach faster then we will expect causing too wacky of a travle schedule for a big change like that. He has been sleeping in his big boy bed since Monday night and is doing fantastic. We had a few tears the first night, but he got over it pretty quick. It was another easy transition. I think Ryder is going to make everything easy on me except this potty training thing... that is just so not happening!

The Big Boy Bed

This was just an iPhone picture.The lighting in there is awful. We still have the black out shades tacked on the wall from the day we moved in. I'm hoping to maybe get a few cute decorating and the curtains hung the right way soon and then maybe i'll get some better pictures :)

Ryder has something to say...

Just Some Cute-ness

My Water Baby

CHEESEEEEE!!!!

Yesterday I had to babysit over at my friend Tricia's. She runs an in-home daycare and just needs to sneak away for an hour or so every couple weeks for doctor's appointment (Baby Logen is due at Christmas time!). There were two babies there yesterday, and I was nervous how Ryder would handle them having paci's. It went so great!!! Here is a cute video of what he would do when they spit them out.

"Boo-Boo Paci's"

WE DID IT!!!

The Paci's Are Gone!!!

Ryder has loved his paci since the hospital the day he was born. The first year of his life you were more likely to see one in his mouth then not. When he turned one I knew we needed it tone it down a little with the paci sucking, but I wasn't even ready to give it up at that point. We then made the decision that the paci was strictly for bedtime and plane rides. I'd say I stuck to my word 90% of the time, and it wasn't too much of an issue. I knew I would try to get rid of it when Ryder turned two. He turned two, but we were flying the next day so I waited it out. Florida was a d-i-s-a-s-t-e-r with the paci. He was sick, off schedule,taking little to no naps because of our schedule, cranky, and I just caved! Not only did he have it the whole time we were home, I also let him have it out at restaurants!!! I hadn't let that happen in over a year. Oh well... I guess life goes on. When we got back to Arizona, Derrik and Papa arrived the next day, and Ryder got even more sick so I let him have it a few more days.

On Thursday morning Papa flew home. When Ryder asked for his paci that morning I knew I had to do it.... I took three of his four paci's (I hid one... I didn't even tell Derrik I had it!)and snipped the ends off. It literally felt like someone was stabbing me in my heart knowing how sad he was going to be. I took the three pacis and my little man who was whining for his paci, wrapped him in his blankies on the couch, and explained to him that his paci's had boo-boo. He took one put it in his mouth and immediately gave it back to me (this is why I brought three... he's no dummy, and I knew he'd ask for another one). We did this with the other two pacis and it didn't seem to phase him too much. I left them out the rest of the morning so it would start to sink in. He could still get them in his mouth, but it was difficult to suck. He took a nap with no problem and did the same for bed that night. He just kept telling me "boo-boo pacis". The next day I was REALLY over the pacis because at this point he was carrying them everywhere with their boo-boos! I completely cut the nipple off. He told me every couple of minutes that they had boo-boo's that morning. He went down for his nap without any paci that morning and has done the same for every night and nap since then. Just today he hasn't even said the word once! When I put him down he gives me the saddest look and gets big huge tears in his eyes. He doesn't say the word but you can just see the ache in his heart that they are missing, and he knows they aren't coming back. He does this sad cry for about twenty seconds, and then drops it which has made it much easier on me.

I'm so proud of both of us for making this transition such a simple one! I never thought i'd actually follow through and take them away!!! One more step away from baby and one step closer to a big boy :(

Football Sunday

Football Sunday.... you use to be so much more relaxing before we had a toddler in our house. The most I use to do on those days was argue with Derrik about who was going to get off the couch to get the next fattening "football food".

Ryder and Derrik

'08-'09 Season

During the '08-'09 season we thought we couldn't relax like we did in the past, but looking back on it it was pretty simple. It was the only football season Derrik hadn't been in rehab since we've had our little man, and I think Ryder's Aunties would come next door and play with him quite a bit, he would nap a lot, and just sit on the floor and play.

Derrik and Ryder

'09-'10 Season

Last football season I think almost made Derrik almost not looking forward to Sundays. Ryder would be an amazing baby all week and be a complete terror on Sunday's. He wouldn't play, wanted us to constantly be paying attention to him, was fussy at home, and made lounging completely impossible!

Derrik and Ryder

'10-'11 Season

I am not sure what this season holds for us. I'm sure it will be memorable. Ryder was excited to put on his jersey today. It was cute that he understood what it was, he kept saying "jersey", was excited Daddy had one on, and I think he is starting to understand it's for football. I think he'll really start to take in the sport this year with Derrik.... for the five minues he's willing to sit still!
Even though we were out here for the last football season it is still so weird to us that football starts so early! I woke Derrik up at 8 a.m. so we could get our grocery shopping out of the way. We barely made it home for the 10 a.m. start of the first games. Instead of having an awesome lunch to sit down with we had cinnamon rolls for breakfast. It is just SO odd!

While shopping today I notice in the produce section they had little bundles of the really small pumpkins. I was excited to get Ryder some and to start talking about Halloween with him. When we got home he asked us to "open", and immediately starting throwing them calling them "balls". He keeps telling Daddy "pass" as he tries to throw them to him, or "shoot" as he tried to shoot them into his basketball hoop. We keep telling him they are pumpkins, and he'll repeat the word and then try to throw them again. I guess we'll just be putting them out of reach as a decoration.

We got a new big boy potty today. I had started with one of the ones that goes on the real potty, but noticed both of my friends kids that are doing really great with it started with the stand free potties. I figured it wouldn't hurt to just try that. We've been building it up all week, Ryder was SO excited to bring it home and open it, and he loves it... but he just sits on it. I'm not sure what to do to get him to actually go potty. He has no fear of sitting on it which I thought was going to be the hard part. I could really care less if he gets it at this point since he's still so young, but he's interested. We bribe him with M&Ms or today even a popcicle if he went... he gets all excited and then opts to just pass it up when he doesn't go. Oh well...

Go Eagles!!!

P.S. - The teal color of the Eagles jerseys is just so awful on a pale child with blonde hair and blue eyes.... if anyone spots a black toddler Eagles jersey for cheap let me know and we'll pay you back!

Papa's Visit

Oh Papa's visit... Poor little Ryder was an absolute sick mess up until the last day (although he is feeling better now... his nose is STILL running like a faucet... over it!) Papa was a trooper and helped us make the best of it though. It was so nice to be able to watch Ryder and him bond :) Ryder has asked for his Papa since he left and says "Papa... bye-bye... plane". I can't wait to see him get all excited when we see them again around Christmas time since he really seems to remember people now!

Since Ryder wasn't feeling to well we didn't get too many pictures, but I did get some pretty cute ones the last night before Ryder went to bed. The pictures are off them singing The Itsy Bitsy Spider and Paddy Cake in case they look awkward!

Thanks for helping us get the car back out west and spending some time with us Papa!!!

We love you and miss you!!!

Ugh Oh.....

Can anyone guess what these are?!?!

Hoping for a Healthy Two-Year-Old!

Being home has been anything but relaxing. Ryder had a little cold before we left for Florida, while in Florida he became just miserable over it and such a wacky schedule, and since being home he has been even MORE miserable if that was even possible. Add in this miserable-ness and Derrik's grandpa visiting in our small apartment it leads to exhaustion! Ryder literally slept worse then a newborn last night. Usually I would have taken him to the couch, but Papa was sleeping out there. I felt awful waking him up probably 6+ times last night with my in and our of the room, getting milk, changing diapers.... it was a mess! I took Ryder to the doctor today because I needed some kind of an answer. I think he saw the desperation in my eyes! He said it was hard to tell if it was allergies or a sinus infection because of how congested he was, BUT we have a prescription being filled! WooHoo for getting on track to a healthy happy two year old boy!

The Last of Our Florida Trip

Here are some photos of our last couple days in Florida...

We kidnapped Sophia for the day....

At the splash pad

Auntie Ally and Ryder
The group of us at Chuck E. Cheese's

"Shootin' Hoops" as Ryder would say

Ryder is taking his woman for a ride in his monster truck

Melts my heart... look at how sweet they are holding hands One last night together

Wearing their tacky Lightning McQueen and Dora PJ's

One last kiss before bed....

Ryder loves you Soso and can't wait to see you again

The DeHaven Family

Matt had just arrived home on leave for the weekend from A-School with the Navy

We are so proud of the sacrifice he is making for his family :)

Ryder and Miss Charli

Ryder really took a liking to her :)

Such a cutie pie

I had been waiting to get my hands on this little one since she was born :)

Auntie Hailey playing with Charli

What can I say... I'm a sucker for pictures of babies

So happy they got a weekend together at home :)

Enjoy your time guys and thanks for sharing some of it with us!

We had such a great trip to Florida! If I had it my way we would live there, but I guess everything happens for a reason. Thank you so much to all our friends for the amazing time, and to my parents for making the trips happen. Derrik and Papa made the trip back out to Arizona from Pennsylvania with the car safe and sound. Ryder is enjoying showing off all his new toys to his Papa. We're just enjoying some time out here until he flies back home on Thursday.

We're Home... 1/2 of us at least...

Ryder and I are home. We had a great flight. He is really starting to understand all of the travel I think. He wouldn't leave my side this morning because he's learned that sometimes Mommy leaves Ryder behind when we visit Mac and Grammy. He got really excited for the plane today, and while on the plane really appreciates his blankie, paci, movie time with Mommy. I was an idiot and forgot wipes today! I had to buy individual Wet-Ones at the store in the airport. I got four wipes for four dollars and some change!!! Talk about the most expensive wipes ever! While in the Atlanta airport I bumped into my friend Tricia. What are the chances?! I mean I knew we were both flying today, but for us to both be in Atanta and actually in the same spot in the airport (it is HUGE!)is just insane. Unfortunately she is flying home because her grandpa passed away :( Ryder is in heaven with all his birthday presents we had to leave behind when we went to Florida. I am being lazy on the couch. Derrik and his grandpa were passing St. Louis last time I checked and should be home sometime late tomorrow night or Monday morning. I have some photos from the end of our trip i'll try to get up tonight. Other then that we are just hanging out :) It feels good to be home.... but I still HATE saying bye to my family!!!