Nine Months In, Nine Months Out!

  (This post has a lot of details on Ryder's developement, mostly for my own record and for any family who is interested)

    Ryder is nine months old today!  I can't believe it!  I swear we just had his six month check up a couple weeks ago.  He'll be ONE before I know it!  He is right on track developmentally.  He is in the 50th percentile for height, 25th for head circumference, and 4th for weight.  Haha, he's just a little guy, but he always has been, so it's ok.  Our doctor told me to help him beef up a little I can start adding butter or olive oil to all his veggies.  Also we can give him avacados, whole milk cheese and yogurt, salmon, shredded meats, and some other food with healthy fats.  So, he pretty much has the dream diet!  He doesn't seem to mind the butter at all haha.  He is still nursing well, and the goal is to continue until he's one.  We'll see if we make it, he's so curious and easily distracted, it's sometimes hard to get him to focus on the task at hand haha.  He has learned how to wave hello.  It's the cutest thing.  He kinda flaps his whole arm up and down :)

 He has been talking all the time and adding new sounds everyday.  I love his little voice.  He is not crawling yet.  If  i put him on the floor, he is incredibly stubborn and would rather sit there and cry than make any effort to move to get a toy, haha.  He'll get it eventually, and in the meantime i'll just keep giving him lots of chances.  He loves playing peekaboo.  It makes him laugh so much.  He also loves to play "fetch" with me.  Fetch, as in, he drops his toys off the side of the high chair, exersaucer, couch, bed, over and over again, and i pick the up for him over and over again.  Fun for him, not so much for me!  I'll just count it as my exercise for the day.  He also LOVES to dance.  He bounces up and down to anything with a beat, any music, even church hymns haha.
     His top four center teeth are coming in and he's actually been doing really good with teething this time.  He usually only fussy about it at night.  One of his lateral incisors (tooth next to the center ones) is going to beat the rest, in fact it'll probably cut through in the next day or two.  So he'll have a goofy little side tooth by itself until the rest come in, which shouldn't be very long.  His sleep has been all over the place thanks to teething.  He goes to sleep at 8 and sleeps until about 4:30 or 5, waking maybe once.  Then i usually just bring him in to nurse and snuggle with me. That usually buys me some more sleep, but never past 7:30.  He is always wide awake and ready to go by then.  His naps (or lack of) are terrible!  We used to have him sleep in his little swing because that's the only place he would take a nap, but he's too big for it now.  So i have been putting him down in his crib and he HATES it.  He refuses to sleep in there for naps, he just screams and cries.  I go in and comfort him every 5 minutes, and that goes on for about 45 minutes.  Then i get him out and give him lots of snuggles to show i'm not torturing him.  It's so hard!  This has been going on the past two weeks or so and it's finally starting to pay off!  The past couple days i only have to go comfort him once or twice before he falls asleep.  Yesterday he didn't even cry at all!  He has only slept for about 45 minutes in there at most, but it's better than nothing!

    He is such a BUSY, stubborn, difficult, amazing, sweet, funny baby and i wouldn't change a thing about him.  I love him more than i could ever express!

A Valentines Day Post for my Hubby

Dear Kevin,

You still give me butterflies :)

Thanks for being my love!

Happy Valentines Day!

Love,

Amy

Feeling Crafty

At night, when Ryder is asleep and Kevin is studying, I love to do little crafts.  I always seem to have at least 5 projects in progress.  Mostly I try and make things out of stuff that I already have around the house since I cant afford to buy a lot of supplies.  I really wanted to make some Valentines stuff for my family.  I LOVE holidays, decorating for them, and LOVE making cute holiday crafts.  It reminds me of being a little kid when most holidays seemed a little more magical.  So I made some little flower clips for the moms, sisters, and nieces.  You can clip them in your hair or pin them on your clothing.

I put them in baby food jars (something I have plenty of) with some candy and tied it with a bow.  I thought they turned out cute. 

Since I didn't have anything for the guys, I decided to make cupcakes.  As Kevin could tell you, I never need a reason to make cupcakes.  As far as I'm concerned, they are their own very important food group!  I love them!  While making these, I got to try out some of my new cupcake making things I got for Christmas.  These cupcakes have chocolate mousse filling in the center and buttercream frosting on top. YUM!

I also made this cute Valentines topiary

I love Valentines Day.  I love to celebrate the love in my life in all forms.  From my husband, Ryder, family and friends.

Happy Valentines Day from us to you!

A Visit From Grandpa Lynn

Kevin's Grandpa Lynn and Grandma Barbra are on a mission right now in Peru.  Lynn recently had the chance to come back to Utah briefly.  The last time Lynn saw Ryder he was only about 2 months old.  He has obviously changed a lot so it was really fun for Lynn to stop by and get reacquainted with little Ryder.  They read a book together, Lynn let Ryder put on his name tag, and Ryder even gave Lynn a little snuggle for a second (which is so sweet because Ryder RARELY snuggles with anyone).  Lynn had gotten Tuberculosis before Christmas and has made such a great recovery so far, which we are so thankful for.  Grandma Barbra and Grandpa Lynn, we miss you and love you tons!

Roseola and Birds

Starting this past Wednesday, Ryder was running a fever. It wasn't going away and only seemed to be getting higher. Finally on Friday morning it got up to 102.4 and I called the doctor. They said to bring him in. So we went in and from all the questions they asked and the exam they did, they couldn't find any reason for his fever. Very frustrating. She said it's most likely one of two things, either Roseola or a Urinary Tract Infection. Roseola typically starts with a high fever for 3 to 4 days then the fever diasppears. After the fever disappears, a rash sets in and usually lasts a day or two. It doesn't itch and it's not painful. Doesn't sound bad at all! But we wouldn't know if it was that until the fever went away (if it did at all) and a rash appeared. On the other hand, to find out if he had a UTI, they need a sterile urine sample and since Ryder can't exactly pee in a cup, they would need to put a catheter in... Not exactly thrilled to hear that. So, we decided to wait and hope he would get a roseloa rash in the next day or so (never thought i would be wishing for my baby to get a rash!) This morning his temperature was gone but still no rash. I checked throughout the day, and still no rash. Finally i noticed some bumps on his back, and sure enough, he has roseola! He probably had the rash all day, i just didn't even think to check his back. So we are super glad we dont have to take him back in for a catheter-urine test! He's been such a sweet boy even while he had a high temperature! I hate when he's sick, i just want to make it better instantly! It's hard to be patient in those situations.

It's hard to see in the pictures, but there's the rash on his back.  It also goes up around the back of his ears and a little bit on his lower belly.

A while back, i bought some tickets to the Tracy Aviary online through Groupon.  They expire this week so we decided to go use them today.  I had never been, and i wish we could have gone during the spring or summer, because it was definitely not impressive right now.  It was still fun though.  A lot of the birds were kind of curled up and hiding because of the cold weather but we did get to see some of the bigger ones like the bald eagle, condors, vultures, parrots, swans, and peacocks.  There were tons of peacocks just roaming around freely.  Ryder loved watching them.  At one point, I was holding Ryder and we were watching a peacock as it was walking past, all of a sudden it started squawking really loud!  We were startled and Ryder wasn't sure if he wanted to cry or not, but he didn't :)

Look at how close the peacock was!  Also, look at how cute Ryder and Kevin are with their matching pants ;)

 

This was after the peacock squawked at us!

 

I don't know what we were looking at, but from the look on our faces it must has been amazing

 

Happy Birthday Dad!

Today is my Dad's birthday.  He is the BEST dad in the world.  He is definitely a hero of mine and a huge example to me. 

I love you Dad, Happy Birthday!