He's Home

and that's all that matters right now :)

He's on his way home...

Dear Friends and Family,

Please don't be upset if you are our closer friends and family and are just hearing this info for the first time on our blog. I am trying to avoid answering the same questions over and over because honesty I don't have them all right now. Last night just as we were finishing up birthday festivities for Ryder I got a text from Derrik - "I was released". In real world terms, instead of baseball terms, he got fired. As I just said above we still don't have all of the answers. We are dumbfounded that after Derrik came off of two long and draining years of rehab that they would just simply give up on him after two shorts months with no real signs it was coming. He is still trying to make some phone calls and get some answers, but honesty we could never get any that will really give Derrik or I peace with what has happened.

Derrik has already taken a fight from California into Phoenix early this morning to pick up our car that was still sitting at the Reds complex out in Goodyear. He didn't sleep well last night as expected, was up at 4:30 AM to catch a flight, and now has a long 36 hour drive ahead of him. I can not wait for him to walk through the door and give him a long well deserved hug.

Where does this leave us? The realm of opportunities are endless. In regards to baseball, technically Derrik is now a free agent. This means he can talk with any team he wants and negotiate any deal he wants. A dream come true for a minor leaguer except he is only two months off of back-to-back Tommy John surgeries. If baseball is the route to go he has a long uphill battle to fight. It has been done many times before, but is something Derrik needs to decide if he wants to do. There are currenty ten games left in the minor league season so there is about a 99% chance he is shutting things down for the season. This leaves a long off season to ponder what Derrik and our family really want to do. I am behind him and his decisions 100%.

When Derrik gets home he will hopefully gets some officiating jobs like he was doing in Arizona and look for some other part time work for the time being. We are still trying to wrap our minds around everything and see what plays out with some stuff in the baseball world, but in the mean time we will probably explore some other opportunities in life as well for work.

I truly believe that Derrik's and my heart are both still very into baseball. If the right opportunity presents itsef that is probably the route we will go, but we are also trying to keep our heads on straight and realize this could be the end of the road for us. I'm am sure we have many long talks ahead of us and have no doubt that we will find what works best for us. For now though I just want my husband home, I want to see him hug our little boys, and just have someone to cuddle with again. I never thought seeing him walk through the door would be so bitter sweet.

Happy 3rd Birthday Little Man

Ryder Lee… My little man… You are three years old today. I can remember the day you were born like it was yesterday. It was one of the most amazing days of my life. It is probably tied for number one with the birth of your little brother this year. Where do I even begin talking about you? I think if I had to sum you up in one word it would be extreme. You do everything all the way from loving family to throwing tantrums. Nothing is half way with you little man. Your biggest accomplishments this year started right after your second birthday getting rid of your pacifier, going to a big boy bed not too long after that, becoming a big brother back in April, potty training in the month of July (hallelujah… 100% potty trained!), and then just last week starting school. I think that makes you completely a big boy now huh? Life with you is non stop every single waking second (and ones that shouldn’t be awake) of every single day. There are days I seriously feel so drained, but wouldn’t give up my job for anything. You sleep t-e-r-r-i-b-l-e these days! Soooo terrible!!! You use to go through phases like a week at a time every couple months when you’d wake up, but this has been going on ever since we got to Florida. I am at a loss at what to do, but I hope you grow out of it soon. Your brother sleeps 12+ hours a night, and I’m up with you. News flash buddy… it’s not supposed to work like that! You still go to sleep just fine and take good naps though. We just have to get you to sleep ALL night. I swear it has to do with your crazy imagination. You are always in your old world coming up with all sorts of crazy stories. I love that you have such a vivid imagination, but just wish you could turn it off at night. You are terrified of monsters. I don’t know where this came from, but you do not believe us that monsters don’t live at Grammy and Mack’s house. You still love all things with wheels just like a year ago. You love cars from the Cars movie, monster trucks, or dump trucks. You have a new obsession with pop music thanks to your Aunties. You have a love for sports that hopefully Daddy can help you explore this off season. I can tell you just want someone to play them with you, but Mommy is bad at sports and it is simply too hot out. You love cartoons. Your favorites are The Backyardigans, UmiZoomi, Bubble Guppies, and Chuggington. You are also learning to swim. You are getting close and absolutely love that water. You adjust well to change when it comes to moves and your new little brother. I have to admit that I was terrified of you becoming a big brother. I didn’t think you would handle it well at all. You have gone above and beyond any expectations I ever thought I could have. You never show any jealousy towards him and honestly don’t pay much attention to him at all. I can’t wait to see what happens once he can get into your toys!
Daddy and I love you so much. Watching your Daddy love you makes my heart overflow with love. It honestly rips his heart out that he has been away from you for the past two months with baseball, but he is doing it to hopefully give you an amazing future down the road. He loves you more then you will ever know, and the same goes for me. I’m praying the Terrible 3’s aren’t really worse then the Terrible 2’s like everyone says because I don’t know how we will make it with that strong will of yours, but as long as you still have your other sweet side I’m sure we will all survive to see birthday number four! Thanks for letting me be your Mommy. There is nothing better in the world. I hope we have an amazing fourth year sweetie with lots of fun adventures!

I Love You Ryder Lee

Newborn

6 Months Old 1 Year Old

2 Years Old

3 Years Old

Wordless Wednesday

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A Comparison

I figured it was time for a comparison of the boys once again

My Opinion:

Ryder is more of Derrik.

Landon is more of me.

The boys have the same face and expression.

They have very difference shaped heads.

Ryder is more round.

Landon is more oval.

Ryder is our blonde baby.

Landon is our dark haired baby.

Love them both so so much :)

Landon Brennan - 4 Months

Oh Landon… remember that easy baby I raved that you were the last three months and even well into this last month? Well, I’d like to know where he went. Basically what it all boils down to is you like to be held. It started last Tuesday when your brother started school. I expected such an easy day with him being gone. It was my first time to really be alone with you, and you made sure I knew you were there! Since then I can MAYBE get you to be happy for ten minutes in any contraption. You really aren’t too happy in anyone else’s arms either. When you do fuss all you want is someone to talk to you. Your face absolutely lights up until we walk away. I’m thinking you are going to be really social. When you are being held you want to be held facing out. I’m trying to enjoy you wanting me to hold you because I remember once Ryder hit about nine months I couldn’t get him to let me hold him ever, and I know we will be there before I know it!

Sizes
You grew like a weed this month! I weighed myself and then myself holding you last week, and you were 17 pounds!!! Your brother was about 16 ½ at his 4 month check-up about a week after he turned four months. He was a big baby which I’m sure makes you huge! We will get stats next Monday when you guys both go for your 4 month and 3 year old check-ups. You went from 3 month to 6 month to 9 month jammies in like two weeks. You are still in size 2 diapers, but we are just finishing up the last of what we have. The next time a purchase needs to be made you will be getting size 3s. I’m still holding onto a few 3 month items of clothes in your closet because I don’t want you to stop wearing them quite yet, but most of them have been cleared out of your closet. I’d say you are officially in six month shorts and six and nine month shirts. You do have some bigger stuff that I’ve put on your simply because you have LOTS of hand me downs. I think some of them have probably shrunk up from being washed quite a few times already.

Eating

Bottles first… you have gone from eating 5oz a feeding to 6oz a feeding. You have also gone from the slow nipples to the fast nipples. You seriously drink your bottles in like five minutes and let out one huge burp at the end. You have spit up a little this month, but I think it’s only noticeable because you never did before. You take bottles whenever you get fussy, or I have down time. Still no real set schedule. I would imagine it’s every 2-3 hours unless you are sleeping. You do not like to eat right when you wake up in the morning which is crazy to me since you typically have not eaten for twelve hours. It has been nice with our new schedule in the mornings. Of course I’d make time for you to have a bottle if you needed one, but it works out nice that you usually don’t want one until we are driving to school, and your aunties will usually give it to you in your car seat. It’s also nice you don’t burp much because it allows for feeds in the car seat with us constantly being on the go. Thanks for being so easy in this respect!

Solids… We did just the rice cereal for a little while, and you did great with it. We added applesauce to your meals as well, and did peas for the first time the other night. Just the last few days you’ve started swallowing the food much better. I’m sure during your fourth month you will try all the different fruits and veggies. Until this week you were getting solids when we were home at night. It didn’t seem to really matter whether you had it or not. This week however you have seemed to maybe need it more, or you were guzzling bottles. I also started feeding you solids during lunch time as well. I haven’t had to feed you solids on the go yet. We are working on making it a little less sloppy since I’m sure we will have to soon enough.

Sleep

I just went and re-read what I wrote about your sleep last month, and you are pretty much still on the same schedule. Go to bed around 7:30 and sleep about 12 hours. Very rarely are you ever up at night, and I love you for this so so much! If we are home you take a decent nap around 9 and again around 1. Both are about two hours. You will then take a shorter one later in the afternoon some days. If we are on the go you just sleep on and off all day. When you have woken during the night lately I’ve been able to just give you your pacifier which is nice. You also have started liking to have a burp cloth up by your face. Ryder loved this as a baby too. It is too cute!

All the extras

You have moved to the large MAM pacifiers. Although I don’t think you are nearly as attached to the pacifier as Ryder was. You really don’t even need it when you go to bed. You are quite the fist sucker. If fist sucking is any sign of what hand you will use then you are definitely a lefty like Mommy! You have developed a scream. You have you cry when you wake up, need us, or something is wrong. This new scream is the “I don’t like where I’m at right now come hold me” scream. We hear it all day every day. You stop as soon as we talk to you or hold you. As I said before… you’ll be a social one. I think your favorite spot to play is in your high chair. You like it in the middle of the kitchen when we are all in there. You play with these soft blocks we had from Ryder, and I’d say it is your favorite toy right now. You are still getting use to the exersaucer, but I know you will love it soon. We also had to take your extra padding out of your car seat. You were looking so squished in there. You are still not rolling over. All the other babies we know your age are, but Ryder was late with this as well. He did it right before his fifth month so we will see if you keep on track. You do put pressure on your legs to get into the standing position. It’s too cute!

Landon you are such a joy to be around, even with this new “hold me all the time” attitude. I love you so much, but do admit I’m glad we are into your fourth month because it means your Daddy will be around. It is so sad he has completely missed your second and third month. We will make up for it this off season. We love you sweetie!

And that's a wrap :)

Happy Monday

Happy Monday Everyone :)

Count Down to Daddy!

Clearly we are missing Daddy around here since it has been just over two months since we have seen him. We are in our final countdown until he comes home, and I wanted Ryder to understand just when he would be coming. A fellow baseball wife made her kids a really cute frame with chalkboard paint and would count down "sleeps until Daddy". Unfortunately Ryder doesn't understand the concept of numbers that well. He can count, but I just don't think that would help him really understand it all. I had the idea to make a paper chain with him.

Saturday morning Ryder and I got out the construction paper and crayons and started our chain...

Love those little hands
Can't wait until we get to his 3 more days link!

Time to cut them up...

And our chain is complete!!!

Lets hope this sucker disappears FAST!!!

Landon kept busy in his new exersaucer while Ryder and I were hard at work.

Landon loves t.v..... never remember Ryder being into it so young

15 Days until the last game of the season

16 Days until Derrik gets into Florida :)

17 Days until Ryder wakes up and sees his Daddy!!!

The Exersaucer

We finally got our hands on an exersaucer! My mom and I have been trying to hunt one down for like two weeks. We were going to get a new one, but tried the consignment shop in town first. They had a ton, but the day we went in to check it out had no room in the car. When we got back last week they were all gone. They told us to keep calling back because they get them in all the time. In the mean time we found out our friend Meredith's little boy had just outgrown his, and had the exact one I wanted! I had to give up two of Ryder's baby toys with all of our moving and this was one of them, along with his bath seat, which Meredith was sweet enough to give us as well. Thanks a ton Meredith!!!

Landon is still learning to like the exersaucer. I remember Ryder not being crazy about it either at first, but after a while it was by far his favorite toy. We are in an awkward stage with Landon where he is still too little for stuff like this, but getting too big for all the infant contraptions. I'll write more about that this week in his four month update, and keep an eye our for my big guys three year old birthday post this week. Can you believe he is going to be three?!?!? I hope everyone has a great Sunday :)

The Little Dipper

Yesterday we went to a little water park at one of the local pools call The Little Dipper. It was super cheap to get into, perfect water level for kids Ryder's age, and had lots of shade for the babies.... why didn't we go here all summer?!

We had to get under cover for a little while because of a lightning warning. We all just sat and ate some lunch.

Landon and Dyson just hanging out

Pretty bummed they had to get out of the pool

Dyson is such a cutie pie!

They are best buds already :)

Sophia taught Ryder this yesterday...

now he wants to do it whenever we ask him to smile for the camera

Baby Tristan and Miss Meredith came to meet us for a little while.

Just loveeeee those blue eyes!

Can't believe these two turned three this month!

Where has the time gone?