Tuesday, May 25, 2010

A Busy Life

So I would never have thought that a 3 week old could be busy...but that is how I have felt the last few days! We've been all over the place and done a ton of stuff. Rylie had her first real bath, went and visited Daddy at work for the first time, went to her first birthday party, went on her first walk with Wrigley, and maybe even smiled a little (I know it's just gas, but I can hope!)! We are having a blast, even with the little amount of sleep!



Welcome home from California Daddy!



Using the sink for her bath at my parents house during our sleepover...she loved the full bath so much better than the sponge baths!





Getting to use her bathtub for the first time...our little bathing beauty!





Daddy was excited to show off Rylie at work, so we headed there during lunch one day. All of the teachers just loved her and Brandon even showed her off to his 4th grade class!



Ever since she has been a puppy, Wrigley has hated wheels...so I didn't really think through the fact that she would hate the wheels on the stroller and not want to go anywhere near it! That will make for some difficult walks for me, so we started working with her on this. As you can see, she was not amused to have to be that close to the stroller. :)







Happy 3 week birthday little girl! We love you!

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Sleepover



We have had a very emotional couple of weeks since Rylie was born. I'm sure that is the case with every new parent, but to top off adjusting to life with a baby at home, Brandon's Grandpa passed away last weekend. He is very close to his Grandparents since he lived with them for 3 years growing up. The funeral was Thursday and Friday and after a lot of consideration, we decided that it would be to much for Rylie and I to go with him to California. So, Brandon flew out on Wednesday night and Rylie and I headed to my parents house to stay while he was gone. We definitely missed Brandon, but it was very nice to have the help while he was gone.



Dakota loves Rylie! Unfortunately, she wouldn't let Wrigley anywhere near Rylie the entire time we were at my parent's house. It looks like we had it wrong...we thought Wrigley would be the one who got protective, but it looks like it was Dakota!



Rylie and Grandpa doing a crossword puzzle.

Wednesday was kind of a busy (but fun!) day for us. First off, Rylie has had some goopiness in one of her eyes so I finally decided to take her to the pediatrician...and it turned out to be a clogged tear duct, just like I thought. She got weighed again and was half an ounce shy of her birth weight...7lb 10 1/2 oz. I also asked her doctor about her stomach. It seems like 20 minutes after I nurse, she is in major pain. The doctor suggested I try going completely dairy free for a little while and see if that helps her stomach...so here goes nothing. If you know me, you know how much I love all things dairy, so this will be a challenge. On the bright side, it will probably help me loose weight faster! :) After her doctor, we headed to my doctor. I was so happy when she told me that everything looks great-I even was cleared to drive and to start light exercise! Let me just say that my C-section recovery had been way better than I ever expected. After my doctors appointment, my mom and I headed out to do some shopping for some clothes that fit me. Rylie did amazing running all of our errands and I came away very excited with my clothes purchases!





This seems to be one of her new favorite postitions. She will relax immediately when she is held like this.

The next couple of days we relaxed and Rylie got to do a few new things. We met my mom for lunch one day at her work (though Rylie wouldn't know that as she slept the entire time), went to Valley's track banquet (again, slept through the whole thing), met a friend for frozen yougart (they even had dairy free options!), and hung out with family. It was a fun week, but we are excited for Brandon to be back and get to experience all of this fun stuff with us!



Rylie on a conference call with Grandpa...needless to say, he has a hard time getting any work done when we are there! :)

Monday, May 17, 2010

Cousins

Rylie is 2 weeks old...already! Time has flown by and we are having a blast! Brandon had to go back to work today (we will definitely miss him during the day) but it's almost summer vacation for him, so in another week and half, we will have him back all day long! :) We had a lot of fun this weekend taking Rylie new places and she got to meet a lot of new people.

On Friday, we met some friends for lunch and then went to the splash pad at San Tan to watch their little girl and to feed Rylie...it was Rylie's first play date! Davyn and her will probably be spending a lot of time together in the coming years.



Saturday, I went with my mom and aunt Laurie to visit my grandparents and to an Avon party at my cousins house. It was so great to get out of my house for an entire day...I had a bit of cabin fever! Rylie got to meet Kylee, my cousin's little girl, had her first visit to Grammy's house, and went to her first party...busy day when you're only 2 weeks old! :)



I thought this picture was pretty funny...apparently the headband was kind of bugging her! :) I actually don't think she really cares, she just moves her hands around alot and occasionally catches her headbands.



Sunday, we headed to my parents house to celebrate my cousin Brent's birthday. Here Rylie got to meet all of her cousins (well, I guess they are more like 2nd cousins...they are all my cousins kids). Cayden is only 2 months older than her, so it will be fun to watch them grow up together. Tatum has been waiting to hold Rylie since the hospital so she was super excited that it was finally time for her to hold her!







A few other fun things from the weekend...Rylie took her first bottle and is doing great with her eating. She is giving us about 3 hour stretches of sleep at night and is finally happy sleeping in her cradle. We are enjoying getting to know her little personality and she is starting to be awake more. When she is awake, she is much more alert and trying to focus on things in front of her.




Happy 2 week birthday little girl!

Friday, May 14, 2010

Rylie's Room

I have been wanting to put photos of Rylie's room up, but I wanted to put all of the before, during and after pictures together...however, due a computer crashing and having all of my photos in many different places, I have no idea when I will be able to do that so I decided to forget it and just put up the completed room photos.

Way back when we were thinking about what we wanted for our baby's room, boy or girl, we had a few different ideas. It was pretty easy to decide really...if it was a boy-baseball and a girl-cowgirl. The cowgirl idea came from a painting that had been hanging in my room when I was growing up of a girl and her horse. I thought it would be really cool to do a baby's room around that picture...that and it was something different that I had never seen for a baby's room. I started searching online for stuff that I liked and my mom offered to make bedding if we couldn't find anything that we loved. Well, I did find a hot pink and brown set that we liked and I was pretty sure that it would not match the painting, so I kind of forgot about the painting.

My mom, however, did not forget about it. She secretly got our paint color and took it and had the painting re-matted and framed. She gave it to me at one of my baby showers and it looks great!



When we were at my cousin Jody's house this summer, I saw the cutest lasso rope name on her son Chase's wall. I found it online, but it was a little more than I wanted to pay, so again, I kind of forgot about it. And again, my mom did not :). Instead of buying the name though, my dad was sure that he could make it...and they did! I think it came out better than the one that I found online and it looks great above Rylie's crib.



My other favorite thing about her room is the shadow boxes that my mom and Brandon's mom made for us. They have items from us when we were babies. I just love that Rylie has that little bit of each of her parents childhood hanging on her wall.



Brandon put a countless amount of hours working on this room. He had to start by cleaning out what was our guest/office/junk room and finding a place for everything in our house. Next he ripped out all of the carpet and took off all of the baseboards. Then he and my aunt Miriam painted the top half of the room. My Aunt Miriam and Uncle Alan gave us a great gift...they put in all of the wainscoating for us! We came home to a beautiful room! Brandon and my dad then laid down the hard wood laminate flooring and again, it turned out great. All of the furniture had to be put together, curtains hung, and things put up on the walls...did I mention that my husband is amazing? :) I love how it all turned out, and Brandon was right...we did finish it in time and I really didn't need to worry about it (did I mention that the room was one of my total pregnancy melt down topics :) ).



Wednesday, May 12, 2010

First Mother's Day



So I had Rylie just in time to celebrate my first mother's day! We really couldn't go and do anything due to the fact that I am still recovering from the c-section but my mom and grandparents came to us to celebrate (my dad was out of town). They brought Olive Garden for dinner and my grandma made the most amazing strawberry pie for dessert. We just stayed at home, relaxed and watched the Suns game. I had gotten my mother's day present from Brandon on the day that Rylie was born-my very first piece of jewelry from Tiffany's! My mom got me the Willow Tree new baby statue (I love these...I have one from a lot of big events throughout the last few years) and the perfect frame for Rylie's room that I can fit a maternity photo, a baby photo of her, and a photo of the 3 of us. It was a great way to spend my first mother's day!


My beautiful Tiffany's necklace from Brandon. He gave it to me a little early as a way to remember the day I became a mother.



My wonderful mother (and now grandma!). I have been extremely blessed in the past week and a half by my mom. She came and sat with me in the hospital so Brandon could go to his golf team's championship match (which they won, by the way) and I fell asleep for half the time she was there...and she didn't care one bit. She has run errands for us since we have been home and done whatever we needed. She's gonna be the best grandma!





The yummy homemade strawberry pie!



One of my grandma's with her great-granddaughter

Favorites

I just had to share some of my favorite photos of our little Peanut that we have so far...I'm sure there will be hundreds more to come! :)











Tuesday, May 11, 2010

A Week of Firsts

So we made it through the first week of being parents! There has been so many fun things that we have been able to do with Rylie...and so much that we are learning. I don't think we have figured out nights yet-Rylie will only sleep if someone is holding her and this is not something we would like to make a habit! We have tried her cradle (she will last about 45 minutes max) and her swing (we have had better luck with that-about an hour and a half). She will fall asleep instantly as soon as she is in someone's arms, so it is hard not to give in to that when it's 3 in the morning! I am trying to put her down in her cradle whenever she falls asleep, day or night so she will get used to it. We are also figuring out a feeding schedule. At her latest doctors appointment, she finally gained weight (7oz in 4 days!), but I had been feeding on demand and that has been often. :) So much to learn!

We have obviously had a lot of firsts this week with Rylie. She has met a lot of new friends that have come to visit and been some very fun places. Brandon and I both still cannot believe that she is here and are amazed at how much we love her. Everyone tells you that will be the case when you have a baby, but I never knew it would feel like this! I could seriously just sit and hold and stare at her for hours on end. I thank God everyday for bringing her into our lives.

Rylie's first sponge bath. She was not a huge fan of her bath, but enjoyed the snuggles that she got afterward!







She got to meet her Granddad (Brandon's Dad) and her uncle Brian (Brandon's oldest brother). They drove out from California. She also had her first experience at a restaurant (Abeulo's Mexican Food). She spent the afternoon snoozing on Granddad's shoulder...life is just so rough! :)





We went to Rylie's pediatrician for the first time the day after we came home from the hospital. She had lost a lot of weight (1 oz shy of an entire pound) from when she was born, so the pediatrician told me to feed her on demand and we would come back in a few days to see if she had gained any weight. She was also a little bit concerned about the shape and size of Rylie's head (she is in the 90th percentile for head size!). She actually had us go to Phoenix Children's Hospital Outpatient facility to get X-rays of Rylie's head...so she had her first X-ray experience! Everything turned out to be fine, but it was nice to have the X-rays done so we would know for sure.





Those doctor visits are sure tiring! This is how Rylie spent the rest of the afternoon.



Happy 1 Week Birthday Rylie!