Its Finally Spring!

I know I complain a lot about how I hate being hot and I really dont mind winter. But I still love when winter turns to spring. its finally warm enough for the kids and i to spend some time outside and play with chalk, run around and get some Vit D, throw rocks and pick dandilions. All the great stuff. Not to mention with 2 energy filled toddlers staying inside all the time is a no go. They have had a lot of cabin fever lately. and some days its sunny and warm, but the wind is killer and drops the temp. Man im ready to get out of North Dakota! Still trying to count my blessings and not my woes.

Things in general are good here. Justin still working and driving all over the state. most of the time its not too bad. but we sure are grateful that they pay him for travel time. some days he drives 8 of his 10 hrs. But they have been good to us so no complaints.

Ryker is doing good. we are working on our manners and asking for things instead of demanding them. when he is happy it works really well if he is in the middle of a meltdown then making him ask only makes it worse. so it depends on what kind of headache i want at that point. haha. we have started talking to him about a big boy party we are going to have after Alicia and Brandons wedding beginning of June. when we come back we will have a solid weekend where there are no diapers and we play and party and POTTY all day long. justin will be home so that at least one of us will be on constant ryker duty to watch and remind him and help him. Then of course rewards and big celebrations everytime we have a success. but the other parent will be in charge of rylie and getting things that are needed. but all focused on ryker and getting him to want to go potty. with some hope and lots of prayers we will have him out of diapers before baby gets here in Aug. that is my hope. Im starting my prayers now!

Rylie is so great. I love that little girl. she is my sunshine and always has a smile to share. i love her cheesy grins. i love her babble. i love how when she sits down she rolls her ankles to wiggle her toes. she is very sassy and wants her way often. still a work in progress to teach her that its actually moms breakfast but she is sharing and that means that mom can share with ryker too. not just her. she has gotten really into playing the kids mode on my phone. I try to keep it at a minimum, but she is already getting too attached. so we are working on cutting back. it involves many tears when i say no, and so much excitement when i give in. the other day she got up from a nap, grabbed my phone and wanted up on my lap. once there she grabbed my hand and put the phone in it basically telling me to turn in on so she could play. as i started to load it she got so excited and giggly and kicked her feet. it was the cutest thing ever. how can i say no to that! well i didnt obviously haha. but she is often very happy and i love that about her. breakfast and dinner are the hardest because she is clearly "starving" and i am not moving fast enough to get food to her immediatly. she loves her bear and her dog. yet more often than not when she starts making noise in the morning or after a nap its because she threw her animals out of her crib, and ripped her pacifier off and threw it on the ground as well. when you throw all your comforts away its hard to settle back down! silly girl...

I am doing good too. just had my 25th birthday! yahoo i am officially an adult. I can drive a uhaul and rent a car. no more limits for me! real exciting right? haha. it was a good and mellow day. but thats all i needed. Justin was good to me and got me some almond joys to eat throughout the day. stealthily though because i shouldnt need to share my birthday candy. then we had fruity pebble cheesecake for dessert that night. i told that to my mom and she laughed real hard at me. what! i love fruity pebbles. i know they are pure sugar, so it really i only get a box for my birthday each year as my own little treat. i also decided not to look at my weight this morning because between what i ate and gaining pregnancy weight i didnt want to know what it said. ignorance is bliss!

Baby number 3 is doing fine. He is super active and always moving about. its comforting to feel him move all the time so thats nice. helps reassure me that all is going well. i have my glucose test sometime in the next week or 2, so i should probably try to eat good until then. at least so i can pass. i have no idea whether or not that has any effect, but in my head it does.

i think thats all i have to update. until next time!

happy birthday to me! ryker was all to willing to help me blow out my candles. i think he will be ready for his own this year. 

this is how our conference snuggles started

i get some too!

then ryker wanted us to know how bored he was already

rylie wanted to cut in on mom and dad cuddle time. 

she couldnt get comfortable apparently

ryker cameo during our half hour struggle to listen while rylie sat on both justin and mine faces trying to get comfy but also be entertained. 

laying on dads head worked for 5 sec

i believe this is her getting tired of crawling around so she huffed and put her face in my belly. maybe she was trying to talk to rex?

dads face isnt a great backrest, but we are getting there!

rylie finally got off but ryker wanted to cuddle too. clearly he is sad he wasnt in all the pics. 

but he found a comfy spot much faster than rylie did. 

even better just snuggling with dad

the kids app on my phone has some cool photo features, so of course we had to try them out. 

this is one of his favorites

i thought it was hilarious that it focused on his nose instead of his eyes. bahahaha. brings 4 eyes a whole new meaning. 

very studdly

rylie has a few too. swanky glasses to go with swanky personality

she loves to carry her bear and puppy everywhere! 

justin won fastest car during pinewood derby this year. we had an awesome car set to go! but last minute it didnt work out so we brought some old ones that justin and i made together. sad, but we still won! 

ryker trying on dads paint mask

got rylie up from a nap one day and this is how i found her. i have a pic of ryker just like this around this same age. oh my children. why are you trying to get out of your clothes. 

baby belly! now that i hit my 3rd trimester im starting to look pregnant! haha. 

justin was nice enough to make me this awesome dvd shelf. we love movies and have so many that i was getting frusterated with the disorganization and then trying to help the kids know which movies they could play and pull off and which ones to leave alone. so i love this. we rearranged placement, but still have this on the other side of the TV. we put the kids movies accessible to them so in general this case is off limits. so far so good! and only occasionally do we have to remind rylie not to pull them down. 

i love these people! i love that they love to snuggle and be together. 

post bath rylie ran away from me and stole a book from rykers room. she loves to flip through the books and carry them around everywhere. i love that she loves to read! well... "read"

justin helped rylie try on moms boots

then of course ryker had to try them on. but he was insistant on completing the outfit

my little thug

so much swagger on this boy

the wizard of oz was on tv and they were both enthralled with it! it was so funny to watch them get entranced by an old classic. love

ryker teaching rylie to bounce on the couch

a new favorite dinner time game. this went on for like 10 min. it was so funny. 

i cant remember if i have posted this before or not, but ryker singning his abc's. he is so much better now, but it still melts my heart every time i hear it, he is growing so fast! also little baby bum nursery rhymes on youtube for anyone interested. they are so awesome and a favorite. they have songs about numbers, letters, shapes, colors and all the regular nursery rhymes plus some ive never hear of before. they are wonderful. 

March Mayham

Well, Its that time of month again. I am working on taking less naps during the week so that maybe it wont be so much of a shock when baby 3 comes and it wont even be an option anymore. Mostly im not super tired anymore which is good, but some days it hits hard. a blessing for having my kids nap together in the afternoon. Plus on the days i dont nap, i can get a lot done!

So our family update starts with March Madness. as you all know i am not a sports fan. mostly meaning i dont really play or watch sports. we watch the superbowl and that is about it. just not our thing. but we do participate in the march maddness tournament that my family has. so we do our part and i put in a bracket and justin puts in one. we have never won, never gotten close. but this year our champion made it to the finals! woohoo! i think thats the closest i have ever been. we root for UNC every year because it was in Justins mission. We still dont watch the games at all. I get updates from my family or check my bracket once a week or so. Kuodos to those who get into it. more power to you.

Justin is still enjoying his job. Not much update there. He told me today that some other managers on the construction side of things had a big meeting and he came up a lot. all good things. He is doing great at communicating and making unbias observations. They really like having him here. KSI really lkes having him here. basically everyone loves him and he does good work. Not shocking I already knew he was great ;)  But its nice to be recognized by his job for stepping up and magnifying his responsibilities.

Ryker is great. He is still in his testing boundaries stage. Not shocking. He will continue to be for months if not years. But we are getting less tantrums which is helpful. We learned that if we give him warnings then it helps. Like telling him he has to eat 2 more bites before he can get down from the table. He has 2 more min on his race car game before his time limit is up. He can watch 1 more rhyme then we need to turn off the nursery rhymes. and (mostly for our benefit) we can only bounce you on our leg (35 lbs is heavy for 1 leg!) 2 more times then we need to find a new game. He is a lot better at saying all done okay lets find something new. His phrases and sentences are getting better. He still needs a lot of coaching, but he will repeat it and occasionally ask a full question "can i have a drink please?" instead of just "drink please".  he is very good at saying thank you and your welcome. very good at his pleases too. at least he is polite right? He is really good to share the snacks with rylie. right now rylie is the one that wont share and she is very forcefull about it. we are working on that.

He loves to sing and dance. he loves to come to us if we are sitting on the couch and say "come on mom! come on dad!" so we get up and play with him or dance with him. He tries to get out of bed time by saying he needs a bath. or now he is hungry enough to finish his dinner. the saddest being he wants to snuggle. thinking that if we snuggle he doesnt have to go to bed. its adorable. he says it in the saddest voice and it breaks my heart a little bit. but not enough not ot put him to bed. he doesnt really snuggle. just uses it to stay up. he is a sneaky one! He is getting great at his ABC's he loves to sing the song over and over again. we try and pick out the letters on his busy board and he knows a few of them. we were running errands the other day and stayed in the car while justin returned something real fast and he told me he could see 2 W's on a sign. he was so right and i am so proud that he is learning to pick things out everywhere we go.

Rylie is doing great as well. We are working on her sharing a bit. She tries to shove or scratch Ryker out of the way when she wants something. we are working on teaching her that we had to have ryker share, so she needs to as well. but at 15 months old it doesnt always get through so clearly. she will learn in time! but that is our current lesson. She still loves to run around with Ryker. She loves holding her stuffed animals. She has a bear that she is attached to, but she does okay with any stuffed animal. She is still our great eater. She eats basically anything, and then some of rykers leftovers. we are also working on having her say up when she wants to be held. Ryker used to always go "ah! ah! ah!" Rylie just makes the P sound. so together they said up! that almost counts right? She loves to babble and tell us stories or talk to aunts on facetime. she moves her tongue in and out of her mouth basically saying blah blah blah blah. its great and she loves it when anyone "talks" back. She is still my sweet girl. I love when she snuggles with me even though those times are far and few between. She has been getting 3 molars and 1 canine tooth the last week or so (what luck right?) so she has been pretty miserable. but that leaves lots of snuggles for mom! I do love that.

I am doing good. Pregnancy is going great. no surprises there. We did find out we are having another BOY!!!!!!!! we are so so excited. we break the 1 boy curse. its awesome. we are really happy with a healthy baby. But having a boy is just a nice extra. it will be so fun. and i love hearing ryker bless baby rex in his nightly prayers. so darn cute. I am starting to show a bit more. we officially bought me some new maternity pants. so now i can break out all my maternity things. My pelvic pain is doing okay. I just need to be careful and very conscious of how i move and sit and on good days exercise. if anyone has any good routines to do while pregnant and cant move my hips apart please let me know. most lower body or core exercises are just too much and then i can hardley move for 2 days. its sad because i still really do want to work out! but then i hurt all day. ugh.... i have also noticed that since my weight loss last year, when i eat junk if i was good for a day or 2 it would melt off and i was back to my good weight. now being pregnant, if i eat junk it stays and doesnt come off as easily even if i am really good. now before you freak out, yes i know i am supposed to be gaining weight, im pregnant. but this is definitely junk food weight. going up 3 lbs in a week is not what it should be like. so i am trying to be extra good and keep my weight slowly moving up instead of quickly.

My calling is still doing good. we are busy in the middle of prepping all our summer events and activities. I still have my ward conferences every month. and I still help out in nursery once a month. its almost like getting to help Rylie transition there in a few months. hurray! Justin still enjoys his Weblos calling and is helping them with pinewood derby stuff right now. He enjoys his primary teacher calling with senior primary instead of sunbeams.

so we are all doing pretty good! we had a great easter. got a cute outfit from each grandma for the kids to wear. They really loved finding their basket and hunting for easter eggs around the living room. rylie didnt quite get it, but we tried. We still have a few eggs left over. we ration them out and give them 1 egg to eat every night after dinner. when they literally stuff their faces full we  had to take them away soon after the hunt.

happy march!

she is such a ham. I love her

baby boy coming beginning of aug!

she was sick for like a week with a bad cold. everytime I got her up she would have snot all over her head and in her hair. this was taken right after a nap for lunch time. she looks like a little homeless lady sitting in her corner eating her peanut butter and jelly, with her hair all ary. it was the cuttest thing. but i was sad she was feeling so miserable

dying easter eggs

rylie got to watch a little. she kept trying to drink or spill the dye. yuck... 

awesome baskets!

i made strawberry cinnamon rolls for breakfast. so delish. they were amazing

digging into baskets

had to break out all the new toys. 

ryker looking for easter eggs, rylie just watching. she was not about to let go of the ones in her hand. 

dad and daughter playing selfie on moms phone

dad is great entertainment when he gets home. 

ryker was so good to put all the tetris jenga pieces together. he did 95% of this on his own i helped him pick out maybe 2 pieces that would help fit and thats it. such a smart boy.

happy easter!

late valentines gift to me. Justin made me a universal knife block. I love it! its so amazing. He woodburned a tiny chefs hat and Deitrick into the front. i think it turned out awesome. 

family run! gets all the energy out. 

practicing our suicides. 

singing is ABC"s the first round was better but this is all I could get on camera. still! 

we got him a little fishing hook and some magnetic fish for easter. he LOVES it! this is Ryker taking his fish for a walk. dont worry we stopped to let him swim too. haha. 

Fun February

Hello everyone who reads my blog! or no one and its just me... it could go either way. haha.

well this last month has been pretty good. enough to do some fun things, but still the usual North Dakota life. We didnt do any major traveling or have anything major happen. no other big news or anything.

Just a regular update on everyone. Ryker is doing great. still doing great with talking and stringing words together. this little boy is so smart. He is learning how to put things together like his trucks and loves his bike with all the screws that he got for christmas. we spend a lot of time taking it apart and putting it back together. he still loves loves loves to sing and dance. if we watch anything with singing and dancing he automatically loves it. good thing we have so many disney movies. his current favorite things to watch are Despicable Me 2 which he calls minions 2. doesnt care much for the 1st one but loves the second one. We watch Mickey Mouse clubhouse Donalds hiccups every morning. and Mickeys show and tell where martian mickey brings his pet shapes. lastly in our morning round up is Space guppies with major bummer taking all the music in the galaxy. I know it doesnt make sense to most people. but these keep mom sane and from little boy from having a meltdown every morning. it sounds like a ton of TV time in the morning, but lets be honest he only watches each for maybe 15 min. When Rylie goes down for a nap we turn it off and have some no tv time. we often listen to songs and sing and dance on our own. on leap day this year ryker helped me make jello for our leap day frog pond activity. ryker is getting really good at his alphabet and shapes and colors. he at least sings the alphabet with us and loves the book chikka chikka boom boom. he got it for christmas and we read it often. his favorite books are that one, there is a monster at the end of this book, any book with puppies in it, or if you give a mouse a cookie. grandma reed has taught him well and his favorite color is currently orange. it is the only color that doesnt need any prompting to point out. that and triangles. we are really good at that shape too.

we do let him play a little on the ipad or my phone. but he has learned to exit out of adds and count through the ads when watching his fun nursery rhymes. he is definitely in a technological generation. we spend a good amount of time not playing or watching electronics, but he does some. i dont know why i feel the need to justify it to myself or whoever reads this, but oh well. anyways! he is learning a ton. I cant believe he is almost 3. oh! and for those of you still wondering, i know you are... we are still not potty training. he has a poop spot in the living room. so we know whats going on and so does he, but we are still avidly not going on the potty or trying on underwear. maybe come summertime when its warm enough to go pantsless.

Ryker is really into eating snacks. he doesnt eat much for any meal, but he loves snacks. i have tried saying no to snacks till he eats his meal but then he just doesnt eat anything. he eats breakfast the best. half a sandwich or 2-3 nuggets or 1/4 of a quesadilla is most often what he will eat for lunch. for dinner he eats maybe 2 bites if im lucky and then wont touch it. sometimes he says he is ready for dinner when we say its bed time at 7 but he doesnt eat much then either. our rule for dinner is no electronics while we (or at least the rest of us) eat. on cranky days he can sit on dads lap, but he has to eat his own food. he doesnt eat off our plates anymore. its the same thing anyway. and after dinner no snacks. if he wants to eat he has his dinner sitting out that he can have. i at least try to make the snacks healthy. he eats granola bars, fruit snacks, goldfish, apples, oranges, cheese sticks, strawberries, veggie straws, carrots, bananas. and we only have that snack once a day. he doesnt eat all of these everyday but those are his options.

Rylie is the opposite. She will eat anything and everything. ahe will finish her breakfast and rykers. she must also be fed snacks when ryker gets one. she eats great lunches and also helps ryker finish his. she wants to eat bites of all my food. i try to feed the kids first and then get myself something to eat, but they often eat what im eating too. they both love when i get some grapefruit and love the raisens in my raisen bran crunch. she eats all her dinner and we often give her second helpings of veggies to help her be happy till justin and i can finish eating our own food and clean her up. she is a bottomless pit seriously. but i guess she runs it all off! she isnt chunky at all. at least not any more than usual. its so funny to give her a bath after dinner because she is definitely full and her little belly sticks out. its so darn cute.

Rylie is doing good also. she is growing so fast too, i cant believe it. she loves to sing and dance with ryker. she loves to make noises and stick her tongue in and out. rylie thinks its so funny when we do it back to her. she loves to run around after ryker and follow wherever he goes. she can climb up and down the stairs by herself. however going down she cant get too distracted or too excited or she tends to fall. we still keep a gate up because she tends to get into trouble by herself, but she can do it! she likes to play with light switches. she loves to by whiny during church so we are always out in the hall during sunday school and relief society. last week i helped in nursery and it was fun to watch ryker, and she got to spend some time playing too.

when i first dropped ryker off at nursery for the first time there were the older kids running around and bareling through kids with their big trucks. i was terrified for him! they were going to knock him over and hurt him! ya now thats my kid.... he is the one running through people with the big trucks racing back and forth. oh man... but! he does try to avoid people. but he hasnt quite learned to avoid their trajectory of walking yet. at least the one day i was there he didnt hurt anyone. i hope he is good every other week. we havent heard any complaining. haha.

back to rylie! she can say baby. most of the time it is actually in reference to her baby doll, or her bear. we have started to call it her baby bear just to keep it different from rykers bear. she is also getting smart. it is not as easy to hide a phone or remote from her. and she is very good at crawling right up through you to get to what she wants. she loves to twirl her hair when she is tired. she loves rykers quiet book. all the pieces that come off or out quickly find her mouth. she loves to eat by herself. she doenst like it when i give her bite sizes anymore. she wants the whole thing. she hasnt choked yet, but i constantly am watching her.

Justin is doing well. still enjoying work. he has had a busy couple of weeks with some new projects and them being pretty far away. we need like a week vacation to recover. the weekends just dont seem long enough.

I am doing good. i love being home with the kids and helping them learn and play. I try to keep them busy. we go to a play group on the airforce base that is pretty fun. ryker loves the playground. i have to drag him out everytime.

baby 3 is doing good. I am having the pelvic pain that i had with rylie again. it is uncomfortable and there isnt much i can do about it. but im trying to stay positive and active and not think about how i am not even half way yet... but! we get to find out the gender on the 18th! so thats exciting.

picture time!

he is the only one with a broncos jersey. go broncos! glad they won the superbowl. thanks aunt kristi for the hand me down!

the valentine we sent both sets of grandparents. they loved it. ryker up top, rylie on the bottom. surprisingly they look similar in size. 

ryker really wanted rylie on his lap. cutest thing ever. man i love these kids. 

being like dad. he has his head lamp and his truck up on a jack. then using the screwdriver to fix the tires. at one point he was upside down trying to get under the truck. so cute

dad teaching gun safety with nerf guns

everyone got a turn

happy valentines day from grandma reed!

our fun valentines dress. mostly it was red so we worked with it. haha. 

.they wouldnt stand still for a pic together. 

rylie twieled her hair in the middel of dinner. girl needs a shower cap. 

justin and i tried our hand at some crayon art. it turned out really well!

mine was a little more structured. to help remember our time in north dakota. not that we are leaving yet. 

rylie likes to play on rykers push car. sometimes we get the direction a little askew. 

happy sunday! ryker showing off moms flower from relief society. this didnt last the 15 min drive home. it was in pieces and half eaten. 

ryker helps push her sometimes. 

at the playground at the air force base playgroup. he loved all of it. 

the tree slide was his favorite. there is a real playground on the other half i just didnt get any pictures. 

rylie trying on rykers coat. she loves to wear his orange vest too. 

snuggle time with mom! this doent happen a ton anymore but im loving it!

our apple and grape frogs on the jello pond for leap day. we played frog nursery rhymes, watched princess and the frog, played leap frog and made these treats. it was hard to get a good pic and as soon as the camera shutter went off they were quickly dismantled and eaten. ryker grabbed the grapes with the chocolate chip eyes, rylie grabbed an apple in one hand and a handful of jello in the other. 

it got warm enough this last weekend we went on a few walks, then played with some chalk outside. we loved it!

super bowl weekend. we really did watch the game. ryker enjoyed running around with the players. haha

this one day he was looking for something. it was the funniest thing. this went on for like 10 min. he would pick something up, say what it is, then nope! and throw it. i didnt even mind the mess. it was just so funny!

ryker doing the hiccup polka. with how many times we watch this episode he better be good at it by now!