Happy Father's Day

Happy 1st Father's Day Da-Da!

Love You Biggest Fan,
Ryder

Derrik and I would also like to wish our father's a very Happy Father's Day!!! Dad, Ronnie, and Tom we all hope you guys are having an amazing day! Wish we could celebrate it with all of you.

Our Little Trouble Maker... Showin' Off That New Tooth

So this evening as I am playing on the computer from the kitchen counter I think to myself how nice it is that I can see the bathtub from the kitchen in our new place. Makes it so much nicer so i'm not trapped in the bathroom. Right after that thought I look over to check on my little one to see him STANDING in his seat! So much for thinking I wasn't trapped next to him at every second. I went in quick to avoid him falling and called Daddy in with the camera to snap a few pictures...
We noticed during the photo shoot that you could see Ryder's tooth in some of the pictures! Double click on this picture and it should blow it up for you. You should be able to see his tooth on the bottom!

Believe it or not Ryder has never has juice before. At nine and a half months old I've just never bothered. The pediatricians we've seen have never really told me to push it, and I just thought it was weird to put juice into a bottle. I wanted him to learn to drink it at his meals from a sippy cup. Well he's just not really getting the sippy cup. He holds it like he should and puts it in his mouth, but then he just bites it. The other day he sucked up from my straw, but couldn't get it all the way. The next day I went out and bought little juice boxes with short straws and he loves them!!!
And Ryder now eats ANYTHING we eat! He chows it down! He hates the stage 3 baby food that is basically the food we eat in packaged containers for baby. I'm not sure if it's the packaged taste or what, but he eats the food I offer him from our plates. Oh well... I guess that's what he needs in the long run. Luckily he still eats the stage 2 baby food.

Ryder chowing down

And We Have a Tooth!

So in the midst of all of this moving, I've almost forgotten to tell everyone that Ryder's first tooth came through!!! We first noticed it the day after our drive. It's hard to see since he's not a fan of opening his mouth up for us, but you can definately feel it. So without the pictures you'll just have to take my word for it :)

Since there are no tooth pictures, I thought you might enjoy some pictures from Ryder's bath last night... Enjoy!

All Settled In

We're all settled... minus a few piles of clothes. It doesn't take too long to move in when you live out of two packed cars. It's perfect though. It's a blessing in disguise with Ryder to have no furniture. The whole living room is just a big playroom for him. Ryan brought up an extra bed he had laying around for us last night. It's so comfy and we slept great! Sometime this week he is also bringing up an extra couch from my grandparents house for us. It feels great to be settled! Thanks so much to my grandparents for letting us stay at there house and also to Ryan who helped us get the bed up here! It's great to have such amazing family that's always willing to lend a helping hand!

Today we are just hanging out in the lull of this craziness we are going through. I did quite a bit of work this morning which actually felt good. It felt good to get some normalcy. When Ryder wakes up from his nap we are off to get some groceries and some stuff for the place. Below I have some pictures from my camera I found from recently and from my grandparents house.

The car headed down south

The night after Ryder learned how to crawl... I knew I was in trouble when I saw this!
The night I was packing I didn't know what to do with Ryder... so I put him in the his tub seat with a cookie. Figured he could make a mess and i'd just rinse him off. Chloe wanted his cookie SO bad!

Ryder playing at Mimi and Papa's house

Hanging with his Papa

Mimi loving on Ryder

Actually got a picture of myself with the little man

Ryder's favorite toy he found at their house.... some ribbon

Some of Ryder's funniest picture are when he's trying to grab my camera

Hangin' with dada while the girls clear the table from dinner

This baseball life is making us CrAzY!!!

TIme to make a new "Home-Sweet-Home"

Yesterday was successful... Thank God! My grandparents kept Ryder for the afternoon and let us set out to find a new home. After a fustrating search on CraigsList and ApartmentGuide.com we managed to snag a place. It was the first place we went to, and honestly the price was right and we're not that picky since it is so temporary. It was clean, decent location to the field, and great location to stuff for Ryder and I. Right outside the front door is a playground and pool. Within about a mile is the mall, Target, Publix (our favorite grocery store of all time), and Babies 'R Us. Also right across the street is a YMCA with a really cool looking water park for Ryder. We can't wait to go try it out :)

Today we are going up to sign the lease, unpack the cars, and return the U-Haul trailer we used to tow our car. We will go back to Fort Myers tonight and hopefully be bringing up an extra bed in my grandparents garage and some other random furniture they told us we could borrow.

That is it for now.... I'll keep ya posted!

Off to find a new home... what's new?!

Well we made it safely to Fort Myers! We opted to make the extra hour drive south to see loving family instead of a nasty hotel room in Sarasota. Plus the idea of Ryder crawling on hotel carpet kind of freaks me out! The drive went relatively smooth for having a 9 month old, dog, and two cats in tow. We all survived. We got showers and had a nice dinner last night with my grandparents. After a great nights sleep I guess it's time to find a new place to call home. Like i've said before... it's a good thing home is where your family is because if not i'd never be "home". Enjoy some pictures from our trip and some of Ryder from the past week or so.

All packed up and ready to go at about midnight Friday night

Let get this trip started!!
Trying to entertain Ryder... and get Chloe off my lap for a bit!

Ryder at his last baseball game for the Mudcats this season... like the new shoes... Thanks Cozart's!!!

After swimming and the pool the other day... so sweet :)

Crazy hair... after swimming and nap again I believe. We do a lot of swimming and napping :)

Ryder showing off his new crocs

On The Road Again...

Isn't this the story of our life?! I know I haven't been to thorough with the updates, but things had been changing back and forth so much I couldn't even keep track. Yesterday Derrik threw for one last time and was still in pain. They told him to head home, pack, and get to Florida. We spent about six hours packing and got on the road at about 12:30 am. We drove for about four hours with Ryder sleeping and then stopped to get a little sleep ourselves at a hotel. We are back on the road now and have just gotten into Georgia(online courtesy of the new aircard my dad got me for work!) We have a few days to ourselves to find a new place to live and get settled. Derrik has to report to the rehab facilities in Sarasota for the 19th, 20th, and 21st. We both fly up to Cincinnati on the 22nd for some pre-op stuff and then surgery will follow the next day. We fly back to Sarasota on the 26th and then on Derrik will rehab. We are still trying to get a date on when the Reds are making the big move out to Arizona because we will be following them then. I believe my mom is flying down on the 20th to get Ryder and take him back to Cape Cod while we are gone for the surgery.

So that is the game plan for now. A little crazy, but we can handle it. Just one day at a time... or one minute at a time. We'll make it through :)

Thanks to all of our amazing friends who stopped by last night to help us load our stuff up and say good-bye. I never thought I'd be so blessed to have met such great friends. When we got in this sport I thought i'd be alone while Derrik had the team, but boy was I proven wrong! The guys on this team have some amazing women supporting them. I will miss you girls tons!!! See you all in Arizona!!!!

Ryder Crawling

I made one last attempt to get the crawling video up and it finally worked.... Enjoy :)

Delaying the Inevitable...

Yes that is what I have been doing by not posting on my blog for the entire ten day home stand. I've been trying to avoid a surplus of questions from everyone in which I have no answers for. As most of you know at this point, Derrik has been put on the DL for elbow issues. What began as some minor pain quickly turned into a lot of pain. Derrik tried to pitch through it and get treatment, but realized he just couldn't handle the pain. A week ago he had an MRI done that showed that his UCL was torn in his elbow. It was only partially torn, but we were told that the part that is torn is the part that baseball players need. Anyhow... The Reds head doctor said that he thinks Derrik should try to rehab it. They gave him a cortizone shot and are doing an accelerated rehab program. I'm not sure exacactly what is going on, but he should be back on the mound in like two weeks I think. The hope is that he is back pitching with no pain, but the probability of that isn't too high. Their reasoning behind it all is the surgery he would have to have would put him out of baseball for about 8-12 months so we mine as well take two weeks to see if this will work. That is the game plan as of now. I'm not even going to get into all the details of what happens if he has surgery because there are SO many and it's been giving me a headache all week. I will update as soon as we know anything, but for now it's just a waiting game. Keep us in your prayers... it will be a long year for our family if surgery is the best option, but we're strong and can get through anything :)

With all of this going on I haven't exactly been taking advantage of many photo ops! Bad Momma... I know... Unfortunately I have two really good videos I just can not get to load! They are of our two new accomplishments in the world of baby Ryder: Pulling himself up and CRAWLING! He's getting to be such a handful at the baseball games. The pictures down below speak for themselves I think. We went to Ryder's nine month check up and he's right on track for everything. His head circumference and weight are in the 50th percentile now and his height is still in the 90th... we have a tall one on our hands!

Got to run... Ryder is up fussing. He doesn't get that when Daddy is on the road we can go to bed earlier then 11:30-12:00 like we have to do on game nights.... I wish he only understood! Oh well... It means sleeping until about 9:15 :)

Hanging out at the baseball games...

What germs momma?!

Just like daddy.... totally relaxed taking a nap

Memorial Day

With the boys of the road for Memorial Day we weren't too sure what we were going to do. We decided we didn't need them to have a cookout and did it on our own. The girls all went to the local Farmer's Market this morning to pick up some fresh corn and then got some burgers and hot dogs for the grill. We brought the table outside to sit at, set the laptop up so we could listen to the game, brought the iPod out to listen to some music, and just enjoyed ourselves. I got a little nervous listening to the game in the ninth inning when Derrik was pitching and had to get out of the inning to sweep the whole series. It was a little rough, but we made it out with no runs! The boys swept the series and are doing amazing! They are on their way home on an eight hour bus ride right now for a ten day homestand! Can't wait :)

Trying to get the flames going on the grill

The dogs trying to get in on the action
Ryder enjoying his lunch

Brit trying to get rid of the dead bird... so gross

She made it across the walkway with one swing of the umbrella

Old Navy flip flops anyone?!

The Girls + Lisa (she took the picture)

9 Months!

Our little man is growing up so fast lately I don't even have to ramble on to make the post have substance... i'll just get right into it!

• About my 8 month update when I said we had a TON of hair... well we did! Daddy loved it, but mommy pulled rank over him and said as long as I am the one stuck with him 99% of the time I get to decide what his hair looks like. We took him to Sports Clips and he sat right on Daddy's lap for his 1st hair cut. I felt as if this milestone deserved a full post of it's own, but I was so busy distracting Ryder with toys so the nice lady could cut his hair that we didn't get any pictures. Here is one from when we got home after our bath to get all the yucky hair off of him.

No more yucky mullet hair

• For some reason the past few weeks Ryder likes to suck in his lips like an old man! He does this ALL the time, and I feel like one of these times his lips are just going to be gone!

• Ryder climbs EVERYTHING and gets into EVERYTHING! He literally needs a padded room with only baby-proof toys in it for me to feel like he is safe. Unfortunately living in a semi-furnished small apartment with another couple and four animals we have a serious lack of "baby space". Our furniture is all cheap, light, and wobbly so the idea that he is learning to pull himself up is completely stressing me out! I do the best I can and am constantly moving things out of his way to make sure he's staying out of trouble. I feel a serious disaster in the making these next few weeks!

• We have officially had to move the infant part of the pack-n-play out and lower Ryder down. I was trying not to do this because it's so much easier to lift him in and out when it's up high, but Ryder proved to me this afternoon that is is DEFINATELY time when I came to get him from his nap....

• Ryder still LOVES LOVES LOVES the pool! I've had him in a couple of times since they opened it up. The pool is still cold even though the weather is gorgeous and I have to take him out when he starts to looks blue. If it was up to him I think he'd just stay in forever! He loves to just splash around like a mad man.
• Ryder all ready for the pool the other day
• If you clap your hands for Ryder he will clap his too! It's the first thing that we have been able to get him to mimick after us and it's so fun :)
• Ryder has learned to shake his head no. I'm not completley sure that he gets the concept that he's actually saying "no" but it sure seems that way. He does it a lot when he doesn't want something, but sometimes he also seems to do it just as a way to respond to people when they talk to him. It makes for some pretty funny conversation when he's constantly telling people no!
• I guess it's time to say that Ryder says Ma-Ma and Da-Da. He has been doing this for about two months now, but for a while it felt like more of a random babble. Now he uses this all the time. The Da-Da is usually more of a high pitched fun voice when he is playing and the Ma-Ma is more of a whiny I want you to hold me voice. Go figure huh?!
• We are still working on the crawling. The army crawl is still the choice method to get around, but i'm sure we'll be there soon enough!

Our little man is just getting so big! We love him so much and just can't ever get enough of him :)