Twelve Weeks

Derrik is exactly twelve weeks post surgery, and I think he is more excited about what he is allowed to do as off today then he is to be able to pitch again sometime in May. Today is the day he is officially allowed to golf again! There is a really nice two story driving range right down the road from the condo and it's been calling Derrik's name since we've been here. Well so are all of the really nice golf courses around here, but I think he is trying to work his way back into it like a good boy :) We actually had a really good time there this afternoon. The sun was setting so the heat was sort of gone, and it was nice to be out of the house!

He's Back!!!

"When can I do that Dad?"

Derrik's other love

My boys

The gorgeous view at the driving range

I'm pretty sure Ryder loved the putting area WAYYY more then Derrik!

"I'll get it for you Dad"

Crazy crazy boy!

All done... time to head home

"Are my knees dirty?"

A Boy and His Ball

One of Ryder's favorite things to do with us is throw his basketball and play catch (thanks for the basketball Lisa and Chris). We have spent countless afternoons throwing the ball back and forth with him. This afternoon he was being silly so I got the camera out (since i've been pretty awful since we've be here) and got some cute pictures.

I've never seen him look more like Derrik then I do in this picture!

This is one of Ryder's silly new faces we get all the time.

He makes it when he's done something he's not thrilled about... pretty silly boy!

This is why there is nothing on these shelves in his room

"Ugh Oh! The basketball went under my bed! Can I reach it?!"

"What do I do Mom?"

"Ok yeah I think I can get it"

"Yup got it!!!"

"Found some blocks while I was under here too!"

"Listen here basketball... stay out from underneath there please!"

Someone Got Their Haircut

This is by no means Ryder's first haircut, but it was the first time he sat by himself. It gave me the chance to actually get the camera out, and he looked so adorable. We've been having issues trying to decide what to do with his hair. It is very straight and just falls straight forward. Today we decided to really buzz it off... and LOVE it!!!

Before

After
Ryder loves getting lollipops after he gets his haircut!

Like my new haircut?!

Not Me Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.


I did not get really really super excited over the fact that Ryder slept until 7:30 this morning! It did not feel like we got to sleep in super late and make us all feel totally refreshed. It would be silly to consider 7:30 sleeping in.

I did not give put the huge package of paper towels, toilet paper, wipes, and a few mixing bowls into Ryder's room this evening to try to buy myself a few extra minutes of him entertaining himself.

I did not buy two package of this stuff at Babies 'R Us the other day to try to get some veggies into my babies body. I would never actually squeeze food into my babies mouth to try to get the veggies he needs in his diet. Ok.. so your actually suppose to squeeze it into a bowl, but Ryder would then not think it was a new super cool way to eat food! Which with then mean he would not eat veggies once again. SO I of course do not plan on going back to Babies 'R Us tomorrow to purchase loads more of this stuff!

I did not cook a spam and egg sandwich tonight for dinner, and then let Ryder suck on a piece of the spam. I would never do that because spam is such a yucky canned food, and I would never think it taste amazing!

I did not load Ryder up in the car tonight just to go with Derrik to pick up his Chinese food to just try to pass a half hour of Ryder being entertained by Elmo on the t.v. in the car.

I have definitely not already bought Ryder wayyyyyy too much halloween clothing (I truly have not purchased the costume yet though)! I would never do that because we don't have any family or friends out here to actually see him in the stuff. I don't secretly plan on just getting tons of cute pictures of him in the stuff for blogging so they can see him wear it :)

I was so not excited to see that pumpkin pie has officially made its way into the bakery section at the grocery store! Because that would mean my husband wouldn't buy it (heck I don't even like the stuff), and that wouldn't in return allow me to stroll down the ice cream aisle and guiltlessly put a container of Ben and Jerries Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream into the carriage to eat while he doesn't eat his pumpkin pie!

I don't think all of this negating what I did do is really confusing to type :)

We most certainly did NOT get charged almost $50.00 on our cell phone bill for "international charges" that we had no clue about! They definitely didn't pull up a Canada location that had been texted well over a hundred times. It most certainly wasn't a baseball player friend from Canada who forgot to mention he has a Canadian cell phone number that costs a ridiculous amount of money to call or text! He would never not tell us that this would happen because i'm sure none of his other American teammates have never noticed this before!!! UGHHH


And last, but certainly not least.... my husband did NOT sit on the couch for about ten minutes tonight while the baby was screaming in his high chair,and I was rushing to get dinner put away before offering to help me out. This did not happen because he was not completely obsessed with playing Bejeweled Blitz on facebook to just try to beat him mom and aunts high scores. My husband would NEVER be obsessed with something like this!

Welcome Back!

To my sweet precious little man who is oh so sweet! Saturday night Ryder only woke up once (which is his normal) and slept about twelve hours, Sunday he took a three hour nap, and was awesome for us all day! Last night he went down without a fuss, woke up around four and put himself back to sleep rather quickly, took a bottle in the morning at six and went back to sleep until 7:30 :) Today he took a two hour nap and has been great every since. I guess we are done doing whatever it was we were doing and we are back to normal!!! I couldn't be more excited!!!

I've been seriously slacking on the picture taking... i'll try to get back on it!

Go Eagles

The boys in my house are VERY excited it is game day! They both have their jerseys on today and look oh so cute in them! Due to Ryder's butthead status still being at an all time high... this is what I got. Luckily we have many weeks of football left to get the perfect picture :)

Ryder is sporting the #10 this year

I can honestly say i've never heard of him until Derrik brought the jersey home, but I think he scored a touchdown today... I think?!

You want me to smile? For the camera? No Chance!
Daddy and Ryder showing off their backsides..
and looking at our gorgeous view of the mountains :)

On their couch... ready for the game to begin!

Our New Home Away From Home

My mom wanted to see some photos of our place... so here ya have it! We found a funished two bedroom/two bathroom condo for our nine month stay here in Arizona. It has worked out great for us so far. Let me see if I can make this simple...

A picture of the entry from the living room.

The door on the left is the entry.

The door on the right is the laundry room

(forgot to get pics of that.. new washer/dryer and spacious!)

Just to the right is the entry to our room.

The left counter space is the kitchen.

Our room.

Bathroom and closet are to the left.

Slider to the right.

Our room from by the slider.

The mirror is the door to the closet.

Forgot pictures of our bathroom... so try to get a peak from this pic

Our room from the bathroom
Our closet... notice no pack 'n play :)

The living room from the edge of the entry way by the bedroom.

Kitchen is to the right.

Living Room from the Kitchen

Living room from one of the corners.

Our master bedroom is just behind that couch...

That is the laundry room door you see...

getting it? :)

Kitchen from the living room.

The hallway to the left is to Ryder's room (left) and the 2nd bathroom (right)

The door in the kitchen is our pantry.. haven't had one of these since we left home!!!

Kitchen from the 2nd bedroom/bathroom hallway

That is our bedroom door you see

Ahh... a pantry :)

The hallway to Ryder's room and bathroom

Ryder's room

Yes it is purple and green... No we can't paint it we are only temporary renters

This bed is such a blessing!

It's like a huge changing table for Ryder!

Ryder's room from by his crib

Looking into the kitchen

The kitchen being so close is great because he plays in there while we cook dinner :)

The second bathroom

Also known as our animals feeding/potty station :)

I hope that wasn't too confusing!!!

Happy Grandparents Day!

Derrik, Ryder, and I would like to wish all of our grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents a very Happy Grandparents Day! Ryder is a VERY lucky baby so have so many wonderful "grands" in his life! We hope that Grammy, Grandpa, Me-Maw, Poppy, Papi, Gram, Papa, Nini, Papa, and GiGi all have a great day today!

We Love You All Very Very Much!

I'll just throw a "GO TEAM" in here since all of Ryder's grandparents root for different teams!

Terrible One's?!

Ever since we have gotten to Arizona with Ryder he has been...well... a different baby! It was like we left our sweet little angel in Cape Cod. He has been having us rock him to sleep, taking one one hour nap a day, not eating, won't take his bottles, screaming, crying at everything, wanting to be held all the time, and just being unbearable! At times I feel like I am walking on egg shells with him trying not to set him off. He has no running nose, isn't pulling at his ears, no fever, and is wetting his diapers still.... No real sign of anything. At first we chalked it up to the time change and tried hard to let him adjust, then we thought he was out to get us for moving him again, but yesterday I think we finally settled on teething. Even though I think it is slightly a combo of all three. I want my baby back who entertains himself, never needs to be soothed, goes right to sleep as soon as we lay him down, is an saint in public, and well is just loveable and happy. Not that we don't love him... you know what I mean :) SOOO we are still holding high hopes that he was teething (after all he was putting EVERYTHING he could in his mouth the past couple days... even though we see no teeth coming in) and that this isn't a case of the Terrible One's!!! No one even talks about that... they only talk about Terrile Two's. So if the Terrible Two's are wayyy worse then Terrible One's... well Ryder is going to be forced to stay one forever!

Now that I was just mean and totally bashed my little sweet heart i'm going to brag about him a little bit. Because even when he is this cranky little baby... I still could just eat him up! He has really started to learn new things lately! His favorite thing he has learned is still clapping. He has been doing this for months now, but it still cracks me up how he claps for everything. He has recently really started to blow kisses, can give high-fives, and is starting to mimick us when we sing songs to him that require hand motions. He loves the Itsy-Bitsy Spider and Patty-Cake! He has started to be able to feed himself off of a fork. I'm glad his Grammy showed me he could do this because I wouldn't ever even let him touch a fork! We have really been working on him getting who mama, dada, dog, and cat are. He is in no way saying the words, but sometimes he does point to what we are saying... progress :) I also have FINALLY starting reading him books since we have been in Arizona. I know i'm a bad mommy for not reading to him sooner, but I felt like it was a waste since he doesn't know what I am saying! I'm sure I just struck a nerve with so many people by saying that, but I promise we will stick with it now :) He really likes it! We have been doing it after his bath and brushing his teeth at night... right before bed. He relaxes on me while we read the book, helps flip the page, and points to stuff. I really like this time now :) We'll have to go out and purchase some more books with some of the gift cards from his birthday!!!

I leave you with a video from Ryder in the bath yesterday. While videoing him he accidentally put his face in the water and thought it was pretty funny! I do know that he almost hits his head on the faucet... he just recently took an interest in that part of the bathtub. We are going to purchase a faucet cover today... well maybe tomorrow. The Eagles do play today, but at ten our time! SOOO crazy that football is starting SO early!

I hope everyone has a great Sunday! Football Sunday... Love It :)

Our Trips Back Home

Mine and Derrik's trips back to our own homes this past Labor Day weekend we're both so nice! I truly enjoyed being in the Cape with just my family, just hanging out, and being home. Derrik enjoyed his trip because he hadn't had a chance to see most of his family since the beginning of February I believe it was. We both would have loved to have vistied Pennsylvania and Massachusetss, but unfortunately finances and pets kept our trips to a maximum of a few days. Of course Derrik has no pictures... so enjoy a couple we took over the weekend in The Cape.

Grandpa finally got his Chunky Money into a Dolphin's shirt!

I think way down deep inside he thinks he still has a chance to convince him to be a dolphins fan, but we all know Daddy will have nothing to do with him not being an Eagles fan!

Love you Daddy... and Grandpa

Love You Momma!

Thanks for taking care of my little man for me :)

Some pictures from the dog park...

Ryder LOVED throwing stuff down from the second floor!

Please Say A Prayer for Hailey!

As many of you know, my sister Ally struggled with Lyme's Disease since last Christmas and just in the last month or two has finally gotten back to her happy-go-lucky self! I can not tell you how happy I was to see her off to her first day of school, middle school at that, after missing nearly two full quarters of school last year. I was so happy to see the smile on her face when we picked her up, and she is now taking the bus to and from school for the first time. She is loving school and can't wait to wake up every morning to go back! I thank the Lord he has allowed my sister to have such an amazing recovery.

Unfortunately, just as our family thought we were out of the woods with this nasty disease it seems it might be making a very un-welcomed return. Hailey was diagnosed with arthritus I believe maybe a year ago. She had an extremely swollen finger that bothered her on and off so my mom took her to get it checked out. Arthritus runs in our family and given her young age they opted not to do anything to drastic at the time. In the last couple of weeks though her whole wrist began to swell up and her whole body is just aching. We all thought it was the arthritus acting out in her body... my mom can completley relate to all of this because she has had it since she was twenty I believe. She had blood work done and the doctor thinks it may be Lymes Disease. Some stuff in her blood work showed positive that also tested positive in Ally's blood work when she had it. A side effect of Lymes is arthritus so it's a matter of if she has arthritus or lymes bring arthritus out in her body. Ally's side effects were completely different as Lymes has so many different symptoms. She had more in depth blood work done this week, and we are waiting on the results. I'm not even sure what I want them to come back saying... she has somthing, but i'm not sure if the Lymes or the Arthritus would be worse. Needless to say she could use a prayer or two! She has been such a champ and has attended school since it started this Tuesday. I am so proud of her for being so strong, and hope she feels better soon.

We Love You Hailey!

Adjusting

Yes... that is a good title... because this can't be the "new normal" quite yet because I'm exhausted! I'll blog about our trip later tonight... or tomorrow... but right now I feel the need to let you know about our first 24 hours of officially living in Arizona as a whole family. Ugh... I guess to catch you up I might have to rewind a tad bit further...

Tuesday night... late... 11:45 I believe... Derrik caught a bus from Harrisburg, Pa (where he was visiting his family) to Boston to meet Ryder and I for our flight back out to Arizona. Thank God my husband came out to be there for me because yesterday was LONG! We had two three hours fights to make it out here with about an hour layover in between. Ryder was good... not bad... not great... just good. I was very pleased, but really wished I had a fast forward button yesterday! He never really cried, but let out a good loud scream a couple times each flight if we didn't obey what he wanted at a fast pace! We managed to juggle toys, drinks, snacks, bathroom breaks, singing songs, smashing the window, snuggling with his blankies, and sucking on his pacifier just long enough to make it to landing on the last flight. Our trek from the runway to the gate on this second flight is when he officially lost it! I mean we were six hours into flying and three hours past his bedtime on East Cost Time... so I was proud of him. We quickly grabbed our bags and got to the car. Ryder crashed on the way home at about 7:15 our new time.. and was in bed about 7:30 our new time (which was his bedtime back home..7:30 that is not the 10:30 it actually was back home!) I was thankful to be putting him down then hoping he'd decide to sleep the same amount of hours. Of course not though... he has that internal 7am alarm clock! 7am Eastern time is 4am our time! As soon as I heard him just after 4am I rushed in a bottle, tip-toed out, crawled back into bed, and prayed so hard for silence... and it happened... until 6am. Good Enough! We'll take it for the first night of adjusting!

The first few hours of our day went decently smooth. Ryder got acquainted with our new home and re-aquainted with his toys again. We have three huge tubs of toys, a ball pit, a play table, a push cart... wouldn't you know it... within minutes he had that bull-dozer in his hands broom, broom, brooming around the condo with it! That boy loves that thing!

We had lots to do today... work, lots of work, unpacking, laundry, getting Ryder's room together, pick up the dog from the kennel, a grocery store trip, dishes to clean, lint roll all the spots the cats slept on while we were gone (yes this is a long task with two cats... one white and one dark hair), and try to keep up with a baby who is completely off schedule and cranky! I unfortunely have the type of personality that has to have all of this stuff done as quickly as possible and get very cranky until it is that way. I like things to be done, I like things neat, I like things clean, and I most certainly don't like feeling like my life is a mess... which it did! Luckily my husband knows this, ignored my attitude this morning, and we survived. It is now just before 8pm, baby is sleeping, chores are all done except laundry (there is a load washing as I type), and we're both on our laptops in our happy place watching the first football game of the season :)

So okay all of the adjusting for the stuff I just typed about takes like a day... the part I'm worried won't take a day is our precious little man. He was very very cranky today. I promised myself once our always moving, birthday partying, grandparent visiting, traveling across the country days were done, and we actually got to live in one place for nine months that the pacifier and bottle would be gone! Usually babies are attached to one or the other, but Ryder LOVESSSS both! I tried to stick to my rules today and at least keep the pacifier and bottles for nap time and bed time, but honestly we need to wait another week... I won't break my promise to myself after that! My little man just needs time to adjust to his new home, new time zone, and just simply needs his paci, ba-ba, and blanket to survive this all. I made him a doctors appointment for the 21st to get his one year old check-up... so once we go there and get some questions answers I plan to really follow through with all of this!

Now that leads to some questions for any moms out there. How do you calm your baby down in public without a pacifier? The bottle isn't a big deal since we only use it before his nap, before bed, and on a rare occasion that we aren't home for a nap and it's been a very long day! At home I let him throw a tantrum without giving him my immediate attention, put him in his crib for a minute if he needs to get a grip, and try to tell him no and move onto something else. That is all great at home, but in public I don't really have these options. An example would be today... In Wal-Mart... We are trying to do our grocery shopping and Ryder is yelling in the cart. He wasn't screaming really loud, he wasn't screaming long, (he never really actually cries unless he's hurt), but he kept letting out loud squeals to get our attention. You could tell he was just fustrated and didn't want to sit in the cart anymore. He was fresh up from a nap and had just had lunch. All of his need were being met, but he simple wasn't digging the grocery trip (heck who was?!). I see three options 1. give him the pacifier, 2. keep telling him NO in a firm tone and have him keep screaming, or 3. give him food to pre-occupy him. I know it differs for every parents because I feel like all three are right and all three are wrong. I didn't give him the pacifier today because I was still holding my ground at this point. I told him no repeatedly and he didn't listen at all. How much does no sink in at twelve months old? He gets it sometimes, but not always. I don't feel like he is purposely rebelling against me, but at what age are they? I did at a certain point break open a bag off freeze-dried apples to try to hold him over, but I felt like I was bribbing him and he wasn't into them anyhow because he was full from lunch. Anyhow... What am I suppose to do in this situation? Help me out... I know it was just a day of adjusting to lots of things, and I'm tired, and this too will pass as all things do, but I just feel very over-whelmed with my little guy. I think we all just need sleep :) I'd appreciate any help though!!! Let me know what you think mommies!

1st Day of School

I don't really have time to post about our trip right now (we are still on it... wish us luck with our long flight tomorrow!), but my grandma really wanted to see pictures of my sisters on their first day of school... here ya go gram :)