Toys at Grandma's

So yes, Rylee is very spoiled (we like to say she is just lucky), but Grandma and Grandpa bought her a new toy to have at their house. And I am sure it will quickly become one of her favorites! She already knows exactly how it works: she opens the door, climbs in, and closes the door behind her. Then she turns the steering wheel back and forth and makes "vroom vroom" noises. It was great to watch her play with it! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!!! Climbing into the car:
She has learned that when she does something good she gets to clap. She was very proud of herself for doing it alone:
Steering the car:
Also, here are a few pictures that Grandma took at Rylee's birthday and then I touched up. They turned out pretty cute, so I had to post them as well. (Ignore Chaddy's full mouth):
Hanging out on the blanket, waiting for the party to start:
This one is my favorite - Rylee on our front porch:

Rylee's 1st Birthday

We can't believe it but Rylee is already 1 year old! It doesn't seem like it has been anywhere near that long. (Although, I will admit that there were times when it definitely dragged on. Especially that 9 months until she finally started sleeping through the night!) With all of the births in our family lately (Marci and Wade's baby, Kyall, and Taylor and Mike's baby, Dawson) we are realizing how grown up Rylee really is!!

On Thursdsay, (her actual birthday) we had just a little party with the 3 of us and Grandma and Grandpa. We got pizza for dinner (which Rylee loved) and then she opened some presents from mom & dad and Grandma & Grandpa. Here are a bunch of pictures I took (as usual, there are tons!):

Ry showing Grandma the baby doll that Tammy (her babysitter) had for her when we got there that morning. She takes it to bed with her every night and we have to hide it in the morning to get out the door without it:

The cute outfit from Grandma and Grandpa. She is so funny with clothes! She thinks they are hilarious:

Showing grandpa her new outfit:

The traditional birthday bow on the head:

She still loves to rip the paper apart (more than she likes the actual presents). Once we hide the paper, though, she does get pretty into the toys:

Ry got her first coloring book and crayons. She has done really well to not eat the crayons, but she has yet to learn that crayons stay on the paper - which has led us to keep them hidden unless we can help her color:

With a little supervision, though, she colors pretty well for a 1 year old:

Her favorite trick this time was to destroy the bows. She learned that if she pulled on them just right she could unravel them and have a long piece of ribbon:

Yay, more clothes! She was running around like crazy with them and trying to put them on herself (we think):

Her big present from grandma and grandpa was a Little People School House. She carries the little dog all over the house saying "woof woof woof" (her new favorite word). At our house everything says "woof" now, not just dogs - babies and fishies and pillows ...

Showing grandma the little people. They have a hole in the bottom that she sticks her fingers in and does little finger puppet shows:

Her big present from mom and dad was a baby doll (we didn't know that Tammy was getting her one, too, but it worked out great because now she has one for each hand!):

It has a bottle and if you stick it in the baby's mouth and twist it her eyes close. We showed Rylee how it worked and she just had to do it herself. Unfortunately, it is harder than it looks and we had to put the bottle away for just a little while because she got too frustrated with it (she was really determined to do it herself!) After a little bit of practice, though, she has figured out how to do it all on her own:

After dinner and presents we went out to Charlie's for some ice cream. Rylee got her first scoop that was all for her, and she was not going to share it with anyone! She was also not going to let anyone feed it to her, because - of course - she had to do it herself:

Then on Saturday, July 18th, we threw a birthday party for Rylee in our backyard. (Also, not many people had a chance to see our new house before, so it was a good reason to invite everyone over.) We spent a productive evening at Six Star and got all kind of fun decorations and other party things:

Rylee's birthday cake was white with white buttercream frosting (and no suprise filling, although for a while we weren't too sure what it would be due to a bakery mix up):

I also made Funfetti cupcakes with fruit punch flavored frosting (white frosting with fruit punch flavored kool-aid mixed in). They turned out pretty good, but unfortunately Rylee had an allergic reaction to something in the frosting and ended up covered in hives - she spent the rest of her birthday party drugged out on Benadryl:

Rylee got to have her own cupcake (no I didn't buy a special cake for her to have all by herself, but since she didn't even eat much of the cupcake it turned out ok):

We tried so hard to get her to keep the "Happy Birthday" headband on just long enough to get a picture, but she has decided she wants nothing to do with bows or headbands or anything in her hair anymore, so this was the best picture I could get:

She wasn't quite sure what to think of everyone singing happy birthday to her:

She was mesmerized by the candle, though. Chad tried to get her to blow it out. Usually she blows really well, but she just stared at Chad like she had no idea what he was doing. We should have known she wouldn't perform in front of all those people:

Then she got to dig into the cupcake and make the traditional 1st birthday mess:

We were very lucky to have so much of our family come to visit for the party and earlier that day:

The final mess before we cleaned her up. (Luckily I had remembered to take her party dress off before she started):

Then she got to open gifts from her family. (Thanks everyone for all of the great presents!):

Overall we had a very fun 1st birthday. Chaddy is thrilled that she is old enough to play and wrestle with him (and she is very cute to watch), but I'll admit that I wish she had stayed a baby a little bit longer. She has been very stubborn from the beginning (which I might be willing to admit that she gets from me) and doesn't have time to wait to grow up. Mostly she keeps us too busy to even think about anything other than trying to catch up with her, though. We are very excited for what the next year will bring!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RYLEE!!!

A Yard!!

We finally have a yard!!! Chad spent all week digging up the dirt, installing a sprinkler system, and laying sod. Then we spent the day putting in flower beds and planting a tree on Saturday. Chad did a great job and it looks fantastic!! We thought it would be fun to have before and after pictures, so here they are.

For those of you who had been to our house before you can remember what the yard looked like. I didn't get a picture of the front yard before, but this is the side yard. Imagine this, but everywhere (the trees, etc. are part of the neighbor's yard):

Chaddy and Rylee dreaming of a yard:

Chad worked so hard and leveled off the whole yard (front and back), then installed sprinklers, and put out compost so it would be ready for grass:

Then Chad spent a very long, very hot day laying the sod! We are so excited for a yard:

After the grass was all in, we spent Saturday putting in flower beds and plants. There is one bed on either side of the porch and another big one in the back:

Front right side flower bed:

Front left side flower bed:

This is the backyard. Nobody has really seen it because it has been solid mud since we moved in and there wasn't really a good way to get around the house to see it. Now that we have grass it will be a great place to hang out! Also, it opens up into a park (that hopefully will be landscaped soon) so it will be a fun spot for Rylee to play:

The yard is shaped kind of funny, though. This is the other half of the yard. (The above picture is behind the main house part, and this is the area behind the garage):

We put one long flower bed all along the back of the house:

And this is our very first ever tree - a pin oak! We are hoping it will get big enough to shade the main yard area once it grows some:

Rylee is so excited to have a yard to play in! She spent all weekend running around in the grass and watching us plant flowers:

We worked ourselves to death (mostly Chad and with a lot of help from my mom!) but we are very excited to finally be able to play outside! We rushed to get it all in so that we can have Rylee's birthday party outside next week. (She is 1 year old on Thursday, can you believe it?) Chad has been waiting for soooo long to have his own yard to work in. (I think the only reason he wanted to buy a house was so he could have a yard!) It feels great to have it all done, though. And we are pretty sure that our neighbors gave a big sigh of relief when they saw it. We are kind of on a hill so there yard sits below ours and every time it rained their yard got flooded with mud from ours. We did our best to help them fix it with left over sod, and they have been very nice and patient with us about it. We are officially settled in!!!