Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Staying cool in the summer heat

Rylee and I went swimming with Sarah and Reese, along with grandpa. Reese has been taking swim lessons and it was so much fun to watch her swim around! Sarah must be soo proud of her! I would really LOVE to start swim lessons with Rylee, maybe we will have the opportunity to next summer as it is quite expensive. Rylee just adores the water! Here are a few shots of everyone having fun (except for me because I was behind the camera, LOL) I have 3 for now to post, and hopefully some more later!!! At least that's better than nothing, right? :)







Monday, June 23, 2008

A time to catch up

Now if I can do my best to remember how far back I should go and what all we've missed!

Let's start with Logan's birthday party back in May of 2008. Logan is the son of Sara whom takes care of Rylee during the week while Mitch and I work. Rylee has the best time with them! She has developed the sweetest friendship with their two kids, Logan and Caity. Rylee could pass as another sister to them with her red hair and all. I can definitely tell that she admires both Caity and Logan and looks up to them dearly. She is always wanting to do and participate in everything they are doing. Logan turned 4 years old in May and he had such a COOL rainforest birthday party! Sara and Bennett had bought Logan this really fun inflatable waterslide (the same waterslide that I had been begging Mitch to buy for Rylee's birthday party until we decided to have a pool party instead) Needless to say, the slide was a total hit with all the kids, and Rylee absolutely had a blast!! Anything with slides, swings, and water = a great time for Rylee. Here are a few pictures from the day!






























and this is a shot that Sara got for me, doing what I love to do, LOL






Logan got a walking, roaring dinosaur for his birthday and Rylee was soo fascinated with it. I wasn't sure if she was scared of it, or if she liked it, but it was soo cute to watch her interact with it! She even wore that party hat for a long time without complaining about it!






and a nice family shot and one of Sara and Rylee together at the party!









After Logan's party that same day, we went to a FIESTA party at our friend Tiffany and Wes's house. We love getting together with all of our friends from highschool and all the kids love to get to play together! It is so much fun to watch our 'next generation' form friendships and play together. Braeden, Aimee and Danny's little boy, loves Rylee to pieces, and the feelings are mutual for Rylee. She is such a flirt and has a thing for the 'older' boys. Braeden really enjoys playing with Rylee and hugging and kissing on her. We'll have to keep our eyes on them when they get older, LOL!! Here are a few from the fiesta party that I took of Rylee and Braeden playing together. Now if I am correct, I think that Braeden is 4 years old!








Now Mitch and I decided for Mother's Day, or some holiday, to buy season passes to Seaworld and Seaworld's waterpark 'Aquatica'. We are getting a LOT of use out of them, and for quite some time, we were going every single weekend! It is sooo terribly HOT here in the summer, so it's nice to get to go for a few hours and leave, and not worry about not getting our day's worth out of going. The new waterpark has been extremely busy but it is very nice to relax in the lazy river, and Rylee just loves the water! Being pregnant again makes it a little rough to do the parks, but it's keeping me in shape, and I'm happy with that! Rylee went on her first Merry Go Round at seaworld, and she just LOVED it soo much the first time! I of course had to photograph the moment, and Daddy enjoyed it with her.














you can really tell that she was fascinated by it and enjoyed it! We also watched the shamu show, as well as many other shows. I don't think Rylee really knows what Shamu is quite yet.... sometimes its easier for her to think its a fish. LOL But I think she really enjoyed watching the show. Here is one of me and Rylee just before the shamu show started






I'm really looking forward to having Rylee feed the dolphins and to take her to see the elmo and friends show that they have there. We also like to play at Shamu's happy harbor, and to see the sharks and penguins, and also all the pretty birds and horses. She really loves animals and she is learning what they are from her books and videos so it is so great to actually get to see them in 'real life'. By the end of our days at Seaworld, she is usually all tuckered out and ready to go home! It's important to stay hydrated, as its soo hot!!






Rylee started taking her first steps at around 10 months old, and by 11 months, she had really started to master walking without having to pull herself up onto something and walking to and from people, she started taking off and walking in no general direction and it was probably our most favorite milestone of all to watch!! Now she is non stop go and all over the place.... Here are some random shots I took one day as we played outside. She's about 10-11 months in these. She is starting to feed herself with her hands, and boy does she LOVE banana's! She is off and on with her eating, sometimes she is such a good eater, and sometimes she doesn't want anything to do with it. It's nice that she can finally eat whatever we are eating for dinner now, but then it's sometimes a pain to clean up that mess! LOL Some of her favorite foods and snacks are: goldfish, raisins, cheerios, waffles, oatmeal, bananas, strawberries, water melon, rice, and yogurt. Of course there are more, but those foods she tends to eat the best. She is also crazy about ice cream, just like her mommy, (unfortunately).





















I started planning Rylee's first birthday party about a month and a half ahead of time. We had a ladybug themed pool party. I had ordered her ladybug dress online and just thought it was the cutest thing ever!! It had little ladybug and butterflies all over it. I had Sara alter it for me as it was a little big in the straps, but here are a few pictures of when she tried it on the first time! Isn't she just sooo cute?










I had also ordered a ladybug bathing suit (which you can see in the later shots) and I had ordered 24 inflatable ladybugs for the pool, ladybug balloons, red balloons with black spots, a ladybug pinata, ladybug floats, and we decorated with ladybug posters and table settings. I had a lot of great people help me along with getting everything together and I thank you all soo much! We went balloon crazy and had them everywhere! We set up 5 10x10 shading tents with tables and chairs, and we had a water table, slide, ball pit, tunnels and tents, bubble station, a sponge bob bounce house, and other toys set up for the kids to play with. We grilled out hamburger and hot dogs on the grill, and we had watermelon, chips, potato salad, goldfish, and more for food. I made ladybug favors that were stuffed with skittles and wrapped in red cellophane paper and decorated like ladybugs. Rylee's Mimi made Rylee a ladybug cake in which she tore into for her party, and she also made cupcakes for everyone else in which mimi, me, and Joanne decorated to look like ladybugs. I had set up baby pictures of Rylee throughout as well. We had the party at Grandma and Grandpa's house! The day was sooo much fun and a total success. I think Rylee had a blast, she tore into her cake, played with friends, and went swimming and I couldn't have asked for a better day!! Thank you to all of our friends and family who came!! Also, I can't forget to add that her Uncle Mike had the fire truck come out, twice, for all the kids to see. That was very COOL!!!

here are some pictures from the day! Thanks to everyone who took pictures for me, because I totally didn't have the time to do it myself!!! Jessica Murariu especially.




















































Rylee's birthday party was on June 7th, so for her actual birthday, we were blessed to get some tickets to Disney from Cheryl and Dean and we took Rylee to Disney for the first time on her first birthday! We were sure to get Rylee her first birthday and first visit pins from Disney. I was sooooooo excited to take her there and to meet all the characters and to take her on "It's a small world" Of course it was hotter than the dickens there.... I just love these pictures from 'It's a small world" to see her look and holding onto daddy's arm during the ride is such a priceless moment for me, I am soo happy to have captured that!














When we first got there, Rylee was sleeping and she finally woke up and I snapped our first picture. Daddy is holding up the number one finger for her first birthday.






Of course we just relaxed for that day and didn't try to do too much. We took the time to make a lot of different photo opportunities and to walk around and enjoy the scenery. Rylee was dancing on main street to the band that played in the family parade and we enjoyed some photo opps in front of the castle.










we had lunch inside at tomorrow land so that we could stay in the AC.







Once Cheryl got off work, she took us to see all the characters and to get our pictures taken with them!
Rylee did quite well and was very impressed. I think she did better with the face characters. She was very intrigued by Ariel's mermaid tail and kept feeling on her tail. She loved the water area there and splashed around there to cool off. of course she was flirting with an older boy that was playing with her there.






She seemed to like Cinderella the best. She loved her gloves, and she also loved the flowers on Belle's dress. I have lots more pictures, but not any at the moment to post. All in all, she saw Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Belle, Donald duck, Goofy, Pluto, Ariel, Mickey, and Minny. Minny was probably her most favorite and the only character that she actually smiled and giggled at. She was a little nervous around goofy and pluto. But she never once cried or was upset and just very calm about everything. We of course had to buy her a minnie mouse stuffed animal as a souvenir and a lollipop that I would use later for another photo opportunity.















Rylee also played in toontown at the playyard. Daddy took her down the slides, and she played in the playhouse. She would also follow the spots that were painted on the ground. She really had soo much fun!














After magic kingdom, we ended the day at Epcot. We went on 'The Land' ride. Rylee played and fed with the ducks (her most favorite animal of all and her first word besides momma and daddy) We walked around the world and listened to the music at the different countries. We were pretty much exhausted and had ran out of diapers for the day and had to buy the most expensive pack of diapers EVER at disney! LOL... I always seem to overpack on diapers and for some reason, that day, we underpacked. We were pretty much at Disney from 10am to 10pm and we were pooped. We ate dinner at McDonald's (sorry about that Rylee, mommy had wanted to take you somewhere nice and have the servers sing to you, but McDonalds it was) We stayed way too long at disney and we were all literally exhausted, tired, and sore. I had never walked that much in my life, and being pregnant didn't help!! I needed a day to recuperate!















So now our precious little baby girl is ONE years old, I don't know how the time passed soo quickly. I did a photoshoot with Rylee to set up her thank you cards for her party. That was fun!!! I had her hold a white piece of paper in which I was going to photoshop some text onto. I could either get some pictures with eye contact and she wouldn't be holding the sign properly, or she would hold the sign and not look at me! LOL. Here are some pictures from the day when I was trying to get that 'shot' for her thank you cards.















and HERE is the thank you card that I made up for her birthday party. This was a joint effort. Our friends, Dave and Jess were over, and this picture was one that Jess had captured and then I worked on editing it and making the text for the sign.... I am hoping that everyone has received their thank you card by now, so here is the card that was sent out. I had them printed as postcards and I wrote a message on the back, I had Rylee color on a few of them. I also made labels for the addresses with Rylee's picture eating the ladybug cake. Thanks again to everyone that came, had fun, and/or helped in the process!!






So....... when Rylee get's tired or cranky, she tends to lay down on the floor, tuck her hands underneath her and stick her bum up in the air.... It's soooo cute and I caught a moment on camera for ya!






So now that Rylee is ONE, she has a big girl car seat. We bought her a Britax Boulevard and they are rated the best for accidents and side impact. She LOVES riding in the car facing forward. You can really tell that she enjoys it soo much more being able to see out. I also love being able to see her as well. We have only bought one seat so far and we need to get one for Daddy's car as well, and we also need to figure out what we're going to do for the babysitter too..... Rylee got soo many nice gifts for her birthday, one of which are her baby dolls, she loves and hugs on them and it is sooo sweet. She also carries around her purse. I don't know where or when she became such a girly girl, but I LOVE it! It's the sweetest thing!! Here are some shots in her car seat and loving on one of her dollies. She wasn't feeling too well this day. and it shows in the pictures!














and remember that lollipop I told you about, the one we bought at disney..... well here it is!!!!!!!! It broke after only a couple minutes, but it was a fun, sticky, messy mess. I loved every minute of it!!! I still plan on doing a 'smash the cake' photo session with her, so be on the look out! :):) oh, and also a peek a boo shot from after cleaning up in the hot tub from the lollipop mess, she was hiding behind her slide and playing peek a boo with us, (jess murariu took that shot, and I edited it)



















the end, I hope I did a good job catching you all up!! and if this doesn't post or doesn't save, I am going to cry!!! Crossing my fingers that this works!!! :)