Rylee's 3rd Birthday

I just thought I'd share a picture from each of Rylee's Birthdays. My how she has changed, I don't even remember her being so small!! Oh, they grow up waaaaay way too fast.

Here's Rylee on her actual birth day.

Febraury 3, 2006

Only a few days old.
Her 1st Birthday
2nd Birthday
And now, her 3rd birthday!
We had a birthday dinner for Rylee after we got back from Disneyland so the Grammies could celebrate her birthday too.
I made her a Minnie Mouse cake, and yes I am proud of it! If you saw this post of the cake I made for Scott last year, you will see how far my cake decorating skills have come!She made me take a picture of her with each present after she opened it...
Her new tricycle!
Happy Birthday, Rylee, we got you a baby sister!
Haylee and Elijah. I think she was jealous I was paying attention to another baby, how dare I.
Rylee in her new ballerina outfit.

Happy Birthday Rylee, We Love You!!

**Disneyland**

The past few days (February 1st-4th) have been the most exciting, most busy days we have had in a really long time. The month started out by cheering on our hometeam, the Cardinals, at the Superbowl! Scotts dream came true, well except they lost...but it was still a good game!

About halfway through the game, we got the call that my sister-in-law, Holly, was in labor and was admitted into the hospital! So I rushed out of the house to the hospital. Thats where I spent the rest of the night. We welcomed little Elijah into the world early Monday morning, Febraury 2. Holly did AMAZING, and Elijah is adorable!

Here are the proud parents! Congratulations Tony and Holly!Baby Elijah
Holding my new nephew, oh he is so sweet!
I got back home around 4am Monday morning and I took a quick 2 hour nap (which I don't know why I even bothered, I felt better before I slept). I woke up around 7am, did a load of laundry, packed everyone up, and we left for California!

We stopped at the dinasaur rest stop and Rylee was thrilled to see the dinasaurs! I kept telling her, oh you just wait until we get to Disneyland!

We made it to Anaheim around 4pm and we spent the evening walking around Downtown Disney.

We had dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. This is the point where my exhaustion started kicking in....and we still had to walk back to our hotel...

The view from our room! It was awesome, we could see the entire park! Thanks Papa and Grammie!

Tuesday morning, Rylee's 3rd Birthday, we went to Disneyland!! It was amazing. They gave Rylee a button to wear that said Happy Birthday with her name on it. So all day people were constantly telling her "Happy Birthday, Rylee!!" They really made it special for her!

Our new mouse ears

And Scott's new hat...His hat says it all.

Dumbo! The ride not Scott, lol!

The merry-go-round
Meeting Mickey Mouse!!

We had to wait for Minnie Mouse in Toon Town so Scott took Rylee on the Rollercoaster to test if she could do some of the bigger rides...sure enough she LOVED it!

Playing in Minnie's House. She had a tea party.

Minnie and her #1 fan.

She was so excited to meet Goofy too (my personal favorite)

The teas cups were probably Rylee's favorite ride of the day! She loved spinning, which is why I avoided the ride. Haylee and I sat out for this one.

The castle

She was pooped, her nap consisted of sleeping on the way to the next ride.
Pirates of the Carribean. We were AMAZED they let Haylee on this ride!! She loved it too, she was screaming (in a happy way) and dancing the whole time.

Rylee was a tad too short for Splash Mountain but we figured with her mouse ears on she would get on just fine. And she did! So Rylee and I rode it together. This was probably her 2nd favorite ride. I am surprised she didn't freak after that drop but the second we hit the bottom she yelled, "Let's do it again!" You can somewhat see Rylee's mouse ears in the pic.

She also rode the Matterhorn with Daddy!

Her Birthday dinner

And Birthday cake!

We also stayed for the show, Fantasmic, but the batteries died in our camera so no pics. It was a great show! Our day at Disneyland was more than I imagined. I thought we would spend the day trading off watching Haylee while the other took Rylee on a ride. But Haylee did just about everything we did. Plus, I was amazed that Rylee loved the big scary rides and she loved seeing all of the characters. It was a perfect day!

The next day we had to leave but we made a quick stop at the beach so the girls could see the ocean for the 1st time.

The second I sat Haylee down she instantly scooped up the sand and put it right in her mouth!

Baby toes. Aww

I love this pic!

We also stopped in Palm Springs at the outlet mall. This picture is recapturing Scott's favorite pic of us from a long time ago, pre-kids. Same spot and pose.

We still find it funny that we were about to reschedule our trip to Californina because we didn't want to miss the birth of our newest nephew. (When we planned to go to Disneyland for Rylee's birthday, the day she would get in free, we assumed Elijah would be here before his due date, February 1st.) But each day that passed that he didn't come we became more and more anxious not knowing what would happen. And just hours before we had to call the hotel to cancel, Holly went into labor. What luck, huh? It's amazing how everything worked out just perfectly, minus a little lack of sleep! This was such a great trip...we are so bummed it's over already. Time goes by way too fast. We couldn't believe how quickly the days went by! Back to regular life now...

Haylee, your head smells so good!

I had just washed the cover to Cruiser's dog bed and as I was putting it back on, the kids thought it was the funnest new toy to play with. They both were flopping on the bed and laughing, having a good time. The bed is right by my bedroom door so I let them be while I moved on to other chores. After a few minutes their giggles stopped and there was nothing but silence. The kind of silence you know they are up to no good. I ran into my room and as I entered I smelled something rather nice, actually. Like my.........LOTION FROM MY NIGHTSTAND! I booked it over to that side of the bed and this is what I found....

Yes that is Haylee with lotion ALL over her head. And no she didn't apply it herself...Rylee did.

Rylee didn't know what to think because she knew she was in trouble yet all I could do was laugh. Histerically.

Let the countdown begin...

We are so excited! We can't wait to see Rylee's reaction!

11 Months

Haylee is 11 months old now! That means in 1 month she will be 1!!!!! I can't believe it. I HATE how fast they grow up. And it seems she is growing up even faster than Rylee.

Here she is blowing me a kiss. (She just makes a kissing sound with her lips, but close enough!!)

It's meat, Mama, not chicken.

Scott has been in Colorado for the past few days and after two full days of Rylee's constant whining, I about had it. (She gets into these whiney moods sometimes and it's hard to snap her out of it.) On the evening of day 2, Rylee and I were sitting at the table, just the two of us, eating dinner. She was whining on and on, and on, and on. One of the things that she whined about that evening was the fact that I called the piece of chicken I gave her, chicken, instead of calling it meat. "Nooooo Maaaaamaaaa. It's meeeeeeat, Maaaamaaa. Not chicken." Anywho, I admit, my nerves were shot. I looked across the table at this tiny little person whining at me and instead of trying to explain that chicken is a type of meat, I instantly started laughing. It was just me and this little tiny person who was sitting in a huge chair at the huge table. Just us. I thought, "How could I let this little tiny person, that I love and adore, annoy me this much?" Her cute little head was all I could see sitting across from me. I just laughed and laughed and she thought I was rather silly, maybe it was part of me losing my mind. But I was refreshed with the thought that these little tiny people can, at times, be annoying, and at times it's hard, but in the end these tiny people are the ones we love with all our hearts and souls. I love her more than I can put into words.

Success!

Everyone that I have talked to that has potty trained a child has told me not to stress about potty training Rylee. One day it will just click. Well we have been waiting (and stressing) for that day for many many months. Trying everything we could imagine to coax her into going on the potty. And now, that day has finally arrived! It really did just click! She has been going on the potty for a week now. The best part is for the past few days she does it all on her own! She goes into the bathroom when she needs to, pulls down her pants, gets up on the toilet, does her business and then yells for me, lol. I help her down and get her pants back up and then she washes her hands, drys them, turns off the light and shuts the door. Its such an accomplishment!!! We are loving this!