Christmas Ornaments

I have become obsessed with home-made or personalized ornaments. I just think they are so much better then going to the store and buying any old ornament and putting it on your tree. I have gotten a couple the past two years since we've been married and had Ryder, but have really made an effort this year to get some more. My goal is in the next five years or so to only have personalized ornaments that are special to our family on the tree. I have to give credit to Kelly over at KellysKornerBlog.com for the idea on the ones I made today. I just loved them and had to run out and get stuff to make them.

A FEW RANDOM PICTURES:

Last night Auntie Ally was suppose to be babysitting and decided to have two friends over who really wanted to see Ryder. Before we left to head out for the night I got a few pictures of Ryder really turning on the charm for these girls...

I'm not sure if he laughed more... or if they did

Chick Magnet

Ryder did great for the girls. I had him fed, bathed, and ready for bed when we left. We left about fifteen minutes before his bedtime so I told the girls as soon as he got fussy to just put him down. We were still driving to dinner when Ally called to say he was sound asleep. I love love love having sisters that are just growing into the babysitting age... talk about spoiled!!!

Ryder is still loving this Hess car from his Me-Maw and Poppy

And check out these cute little skid-less Christmas socks... love them!
Playing on the computer with Grandpa and eating a bagel... such a big boy

Breakfast with Santa

Mommy, Ryder and his goofy face, and Auntie Hailey

Grammy and Auntie Ally

During breakfast my mom says to me "I think it costs money to do the crafts and get pictues with Santa. I don't have any cash, but you do you right?" I replied back "Yeah I got it". We head upstairs to see Santa and it dawns on me that my wallet in sitting on my dresser at home from the night before. Ryder was already eyeing Santa, but there wasn't much we could do. My mom said she was going to run home and get the cash. It was about ten minutes down the road. Meanwhile there was no line for Santa so I figured i'd let Ryder warm up so we could get some amazing pictures. I held off on the lap sitting for my mom to be there to see him, but we did a few ho-ho-ho's and high-fives. Ryder decided he LOVED Santa! A little line built up and Ryder didn't understand why he couldn't be with Santa.

Here he is waving as hard as he can to get Santa's attention

Getting even antsier to be back with Santa

Meanwhile...time keeps passing, Ryder doesn't want to be held, there are people everywhere doing crafts, it's getting hot in the room so we decided to head back downstairs to wait for my mom to get back. She finally makes it and we head upstairs. Of course a little line built so we couldn't have time to let Ryder really get comfortable to get the big smiles. While waiting he starts laying his head on my shoulder and rubbing his eyes. That Santa excitement high he was on was gone and he was hitting a low... go figure!

I walked up to Santa first and Ryder followed, but more into my arms then Santa's

I so badly wanted to give Ryder a few minutes to be in love with Santa again, but I could feel the pressure to be quick since there was a line behind us. I quickly put Ryder onto Santa's lap and we got the saddest little pout i've ever seen. He didn't smile and he didn't cry. He just sat there and kinda of let his eyes tear up. I let my mom get a few pictures and we called it a day. Mall Santa... here we come!

Ryder and Santa 2009

Ryder and Santa 2008

Ryder, Auntie Ally, and Auntie Hailey with Santa

Hailey telling Santa her wish-list

Fun Times in PA.

We had such a great time in Pennsylvania over Thanksgiving. It was so nice to see family that we hadn't been able to spend time with in a year. Ryder I truly think loved every second of it. He loved playing with his uncles, all their toys, his second cousin Noah, his grandparents... the entertainment was never ending for him. He's at an age now that he just loves charming people, and everyone seems to love it too :)Here are some random photos from the rest of our stay...

Dalton passed out after a long night

Ryder passed out after a long morning
By far my favorite picture of my two boys at the moment
Love those smiles!

We got to go to Candy Lane at Hershey Park for the second year in a row. Candy Lane is a small section of Hershey Park that opens up for the winter, they have lights everywhere, Christmas music playing, and it's usually pretty chilly! It's the perfect way to get into the Christmas spirit right after Thanksgiving.

Ryder all bundled up for the night

Not sure what he thinks of this bundled-up-ness and cold weather!
Another attempt at a picture of the three boys...
one year i'll get one where they are all looking AND smiling!

Finally a picture with Uncle Tommy!

Ryder and Daddy playing in the space ship

Poppy, Uncle Dalton, and Uncle Cole

Hanging with the Santa Hershey Bar

Ryder loved the train!

The boys in the caboose

My Hubby and I :)

The boys got light sabor toys, and Ryder was loving looking at them real close up

Derrik and I have a picture in this same place in the park with the same light figures from four years ago when we first started dating. We thought we needed one this year with our handsome new addition. We're going to try to find the old one somewhere...

Our Little Man

Football Sunday

Go Eagles!

Papi being goofy with the Hershey Bears hockey puck on his head

Silly Boy

Intense ping-pong games during half-time...

that Ryder wanted to play so so so bad!

Noah wins game #1

"Can I play with you Da?"

Playing hard

Staying occupied for the moment

Time to referree the game

Derrik's cousins Taylor and Noah

Ryder trying out Noah's hockey helmet

Rife and Lutz Family:

Thank you for an amazing Thanksgiving vacation in Pennsylvania. We had such an amazing time and can't wait to see everyone again in the beginning of January!

Christmas Card 2009

Well I've gotten word that our Christmas cards have arrived in most mailboxes so I figured I'd post it for blog world to see. I always get so excited to do them, but every year it is such a process!!! Get outfits, get pictures taken, get the card made (which I did myself this year... what a task that was! LOTS of hours on the computer), order the cards, wait for them to come, buy envelopes, stuff the envelopes, seal them, address them, buy stamps, put them on, and FINALLY get them in the mailbox!!! We also had a last minute disaster this year when I was putting the last of the stamps on and Ryder spilt water on them! I'm pretty sure most of them were ok, but if your card was distorted in anyway... Thank Ryder!

I'll put up some of our photos that didn't make the card later tonight. We love so many of them! Just one last reminder... I loveeee receiving Christmas cards so if you need our address just e-mail me Danielle.Lutz@FMPS.com

What we did today

Today was a day of checking things off the dreaded "to-do" list...

Work with Grandpa: Check

"Mom stop taking pictures i'm trying to work!"

Move all the company files into the new filing room: Check

Trying to figure out what order all the file boxes go in

Starting to come together...
And some more....

As if tackling a project like this wasn't enough for the day... I felt like I needed to use my time wisely tonight and get another project done.... Get Ryder's baby clothes sorted: Check

The Mess

The mess from another angle...

Ryder's pile of shoes... all to keep of course!

The Little Man's boat shoe collection since birth...

minus his current pair becuase he was sleeping and they were in his room.

The consignment shop pile....

And the keep pile...

I probably kept too much, but Ryder is baby #1 for us and hopefully we'll have more little ones to wear these clothes in the years to come. It was fun to look through all of his stuff. I made a pile of "never-ever-ever get rid of" stuff. It was my favorite three or four outfits from his first week, his outfit he came home in, and of course his little hospital shirt that I swear there is no way he ever truly fit in it's soooo tiny!

As you can tell... I found my camera cord. It was in the camera bag after all. It was in a zipper pocket that was hidden. I apologized to my hubby and all is well in the world now :) I am exhausted from our long day, but will put up the rest of our Pennsylvania trip pictures tomorrow night.

We've Made It

We all made it to our destination. On Monday we packed up our car and headed from Pennsylvania to Cape Cod. We dropped Derrik off at the Boston airport to head out to Arizona for three whole weeks!!! He needs to do his rehab and also has started his high school basketball referring this week. He is loving the referring, but other then that we are all already missing each other terribly.

The pets and Ryder are adjusting amazingly well to being back at home. It doesn't surprise me since we are always moving. I'm so thankful for them all being so adaptable. I think I am the one having a hard time adjusting. Man am I exhausted! We got all of our stuff unloaded and into the house, but after that I felt so overwhelmed! I started wanting to unpack and realized before I could do that I needed to clean out our closet and Ryder's. Ryder's closet has clothes from when he was six months old! I emptied his closet and put all of his stuff away, but now have a H-U-G-E pile of clothes from the past year of his. I need to go through these and decide what goes to consignment and what goes in storage bin. It is making me crazy to look at this pile. As for my stuff.... it's all sitting on the floor in my room. My closet needs to be cleaned out also since the clothes in there are either pre-pregnancy and almost two years old, pregnancy, or post-pregnancy and too big. I plan on tackling both of these projects ASAP for my own sanity!

Christmas card have also been stressing me out! I want to get them out so I can use the pictures we took to decorate our blog for Christmas. I hate showing everyone the pictures ahead of time and ruining the fun of the card. They will be out tomorrow so we can get our blog decorated for the holidays :) Speaking of Christmas cards.... Anyone wanting to send us a Christmas card (please do.. we love them!) use my parents address. Our apartment and their house has the same address. I don't like putting our home address on here so just e-mail me if you need it at Danielle.Lutz@FMPS.com

What else.... I can't wait to decorate our apartment this weekend!!! We have lots of other fun holidays stuff planned for this weekend also. It has been sooo amazing having my family around the past few days... help with the baby, home cooked meals, feeling like i'm "home"... I love it! Just can't wait for my hubby to get here... 16 days!

I have some great pictures from the rest of our trip, but somehow we had a mishap with our cord. Derrik said he put it in the camera bag and still thinks he did, but it's not in there :( Hopefully it shows up soon!!! I'll get them up when we find it.

And lastly, the most important thing, please say a prayer for my grandpa tomorrow. He had an irregular test come back on his heart and is undergoing a surgery/procedure tomorrow. He doesn't know much yet, but we are hoping it is nothing. Say a prayer all goes well tomorrow and we get good news!