Rylie thought all of the lights were so pretty! :) I love how easy going she is...we really can do just about anything with her.
The joy set before us
2 years ago
Monday, December 13, 2010
Zoolights
After we opened presents with my parents, we all bundled up (which, once we got there, we un-bundled since it was not even slightly cold that night!) and headed to the Phoenix Zoo for Zoolights. If you have never heard of this event, they take a section of the zoo and put thousands and thousands of lights up. Some are in the shapes of animals and move, some are just on trees and bushes, and some they have set to music for a light show. It is pretty cool!
Rylie thought all of the lights were so pretty! :) I love how easy going she is...we really can do just about anything with her.
Rylie thought all of the lights were so pretty! :) I love how easy going she is...we really can do just about anything with her.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Happy Birthday Jesus!
I just love my family. One of my aunts, Kathy, has worked in children's ministry for years and she is really creative. I have so many fun memories growing up of doing fun crafts and activities that she would organize for all of us cousins. Well now that quite a few of us have little ones, the fun events are beginning again!
This last week, she had a birthday party for Jesus at her house. At the beginning, she had all of the kids sit down and she told the Nativity story using one of those flannel boards (I know you all remember them from Sunday school!). Then she had the kids help her tell the story. It was so cute and you knew they actually listened the first time because of how they answered the questions. Next, she sent them on a hunt around her house to find all of the little stars that she had hidden. She also had a little nativity ornament that they got to decorate. She gave them all jingle bells to sing Christmas carols with and had a cake with a candle to sing "Happy Birthday".
The highlight of the party was when she took them all outside to go look for a star like the wiseman did. As they walked around the backyard, they all saw a big lit up star over a little stable that she had made--and Mary and Joseph and Baby Jesus were in the stable! The kids thought this was so cool and they all took pictures with Mary and Joseph. What a fun tradition this party will be every Christmas!
Rylie and Tatum getting ready to listen to the story.
Singing Christmas carols
Rylie with her jingle bells...they of course went right into her mouth!
Singing Happy Birthday
Rylie with Mary and Joseph
The whole group :)
This last week, she had a birthday party for Jesus at her house. At the beginning, she had all of the kids sit down and she told the Nativity story using one of those flannel boards (I know you all remember them from Sunday school!). Then she had the kids help her tell the story. It was so cute and you knew they actually listened the first time because of how they answered the questions. Next, she sent them on a hunt around her house to find all of the little stars that she had hidden. She also had a little nativity ornament that they got to decorate. She gave them all jingle bells to sing Christmas carols with and had a cake with a candle to sing "Happy Birthday".
The highlight of the party was when she took them all outside to go look for a star like the wiseman did. As they walked around the backyard, they all saw a big lit up star over a little stable that she had made--and Mary and Joseph and Baby Jesus were in the stable! The kids thought this was so cool and they all took pictures with Mary and Joseph. What a fun tradition this party will be every Christmas!
Rylie and Tatum getting ready to listen to the story.
Singing Christmas carols
Rylie with her jingle bells...they of course went right into her mouth!
Singing Happy Birthday
Rylie with Mary and Joseph
The whole group :)
A Day at the Park
We have been having this amazing weather these past few weeks (I apologize to all of my Minnesota friends and family for even mentioning this in the midst of the 4th largest snow storm your state has ever had!) so one day my Mom and I decided to take Rylie to the park for the first time. She loved it! We tried out the slides and the little toys you can kind of ride on. She was a little too small for the swing still and couldn't really sit up right in it so that one will have to wait a little bit longer. It was so fun to be outside and get a glimpse of the fun we will have there in the future!
7 Months
This is a little bit overdue, but Rylie turned 7 months old on Dec. 2! Here are some of the fun things that she has been up to:
*She weighs about 18 pounds (I'm not exactly sure since she hasn't been to the doctor in a little while, but that is what we got when we "unofficially" weighed her).
*She is wearing 6 and 6-9 month clothing.
*No teeth yet...but I seriously think it might be any day for that first one to pop through!
*She kind of went on a sleeping through the night strike. She was doing so good for a little while and then decided to start waking up at around 2 and stay up for quite awhile...not mommy's favorite thing in the world!
*She loves food! Her newest foods are oatmeal, apples, mangos, pumpkin and pears--and she loves them all! She also will now eat avocado, but only if it blended up really well. :)
*She is very chatty but no words yet...just lots of babbles.
*Her primary mode of movement is rolling around, and she is pretty quick at it! She is starting to get up on her hands and knees but hasn't crawled yet. I literally see the wheels in her head turning with "why do all the work to crawl when I can roll there much faster"!
She is such a happy girl with constant smiles (though you wouldn't know that from the pictures...no smiles for a big camera lens!) and loves to giggle. As a result, we are constantly smiling with how blessed we are to have her and I don't think we could love her anymore than we do!
(The photos are a small preview of our latest photo shoot with Radiant Photography...the rest will have to wait until the Christmas cards are out! :) )
Saturday, December 11, 2010
A Couple of Traditions...
So it seems like there has been 2 different cooking traditions that have become a part of my Christmas season--Tamales and Gingerbread Men. :)
We decided to attempt to make the tamales all by ourselves this year (in previous years, I have just helped someone out that does them) so I enlisted the help of my wonderful (and very willing and helpful for this event :) ) mother-in-law, Helen, since she makes tamales. There were about 10 of us that headed to my mom's house the day after Thanksgiving to give the tamale making a try. We started at 10am and had previously decided on making 3 different kinds of tamales--pork, turkey and cheese. So we began spreading masa and wrapping tamales by the dozen...and I do mean by the dozen! Our grand total by the time we ended at 7pm was around 32 dozen tamales! The day was a lot of work but was actually really fun. I guess we will see how fun it really was next year--wonder if anyone will want to attempt it again! :)
Did I mention that we also had 2 babies to entertain while we did this? Lot's of toys and rotating babysitters seem to do the trick. :)
Jeff on babysitting duty...Rylie was pretty interested in the Guitar Hero he was playing!
Lunch Break!
Some of our finished product.
My mom and I started our gingerbread men tradition last year and this year we invited my brother's fiance, Laura, and her mom to join us. Right as we were about to start, my mom brings out these great Christmas aprons with little gingerbread men on them for all of us. The best part is, she even made one for Rylie! We had a blast making our gingerbread reindeer and all of the people (I say people because we always make us...like I made a Brandon gingerbread guy, a me gingerbread girl and a Rylie gingerbread...you get the idea). I love this tradition and will be on the lookout for what we can add to it next year! :)
Rylie and I with our "aprons"
Our reindeer gingerbread :)
Some of our finished products
The future bride and groom :)
The Juarez Family :)
So I gave Rylie her gingerbread to get some photos of her with it...and of course it went right to her mouth (like everything else she touches).
After getting a pretty good taste, she spit it out and made a hilarious face! Apparently, Rylie does not like gingerbread!
We decided to attempt to make the tamales all by ourselves this year (in previous years, I have just helped someone out that does them) so I enlisted the help of my wonderful (and very willing and helpful for this event :) ) mother-in-law, Helen, since she makes tamales. There were about 10 of us that headed to my mom's house the day after Thanksgiving to give the tamale making a try. We started at 10am and had previously decided on making 3 different kinds of tamales--pork, turkey and cheese. So we began spreading masa and wrapping tamales by the dozen...and I do mean by the dozen! Our grand total by the time we ended at 7pm was around 32 dozen tamales! The day was a lot of work but was actually really fun. I guess we will see how fun it really was next year--wonder if anyone will want to attempt it again! :)
Did I mention that we also had 2 babies to entertain while we did this? Lot's of toys and rotating babysitters seem to do the trick. :)
Jeff on babysitting duty...Rylie was pretty interested in the Guitar Hero he was playing!
Lunch Break!
Some of our finished product.
My mom and I started our gingerbread men tradition last year and this year we invited my brother's fiance, Laura, and her mom to join us. Right as we were about to start, my mom brings out these great Christmas aprons with little gingerbread men on them for all of us. The best part is, she even made one for Rylie! We had a blast making our gingerbread reindeer and all of the people (I say people because we always make us...like I made a Brandon gingerbread guy, a me gingerbread girl and a Rylie gingerbread...you get the idea). I love this tradition and will be on the lookout for what we can add to it next year! :)
Rylie and I with our "aprons"
Our reindeer gingerbread :)
Some of our finished products
The future bride and groom :)
The Juarez Family :)
So I gave Rylie her gingerbread to get some photos of her with it...and of course it went right to her mouth (like everything else she touches).
After getting a pretty good taste, she spit it out and made a hilarious face! Apparently, Rylie does not like gingerbread!
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Christmas at a Farm
We went to Superstition Farm tonight for their Moo-ey Christmas event. They had vendor booths, hay rides, a petting zoo, s'mores by the campfire and pictures with Santa. It was pretty cute!
I was very excited for Rylie to get her picture taken with Santa...and did not really expect that she would hate every minute of it! She has shown no hesitation with strangers so far, so we were pretty surprised when Santa walked up to her and she started crying...hysterically. I mean, the bottom lip popped out and everything! I knew it was really bad when I was holding her and feeding her a bottle about 5 feet away from Brandon and my dad and they were talking to Santa...she literally started whimpering in my arms when she saw him again. So being the loving parents that we are, we decided to skip the photos...um, not so much! We tried to back her up so she wouldn't see him first and then place her in his lap, but that didn't work even a little bit. She screamed the entire time, even when Brandon and I tried to get in the photo with her. So her first photos with Santa are definitely the screaming, hysterical baby photos. Guess we won't be getting that cute picture with Mickey Mouse at Disneyland in a couple of weeks! (See the preceding post for photos)
The rest of the night, Rylie seemed to be just fine! She loved the animals in the petting zoo (like mother, like daughter!) and pretty much just hung out in someone's arms the rest of the night (just as long as they didn't walk anywhere near the guy in the red suit!). A very cute event for Christmas!
I was very excited for Rylie to get her picture taken with Santa...and did not really expect that she would hate every minute of it! She has shown no hesitation with strangers so far, so we were pretty surprised when Santa walked up to her and she started crying...hysterically. I mean, the bottom lip popped out and everything! I knew it was really bad when I was holding her and feeding her a bottle about 5 feet away from Brandon and my dad and they were talking to Santa...she literally started whimpering in my arms when she saw him again. So being the loving parents that we are, we decided to skip the photos...um, not so much! We tried to back her up so she wouldn't see him first and then place her in his lap, but that didn't work even a little bit. She screamed the entire time, even when Brandon and I tried to get in the photo with her. So her first photos with Santa are definitely the screaming, hysterical baby photos. Guess we won't be getting that cute picture with Mickey Mouse at Disneyland in a couple of weeks! (See the preceding post for photos)
The rest of the night, Rylie seemed to be just fine! She loved the animals in the petting zoo (like mother, like daughter!) and pretty much just hung out in someone's arms the rest of the night (just as long as they didn't walk anywhere near the guy in the red suit!). A very cute event for Christmas!
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