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!

Calm January

Well it has been so nice to have a calm month. nothing exciting planned and we can just get back to what is normal to us. is that even a thing?

Its starting with the super cold. but surprisingly it hasnt been too bad. we had a couple weeks of negative. but we are mostly in the 20s and 30s not. so heat wave for north dakota! justin has had a busy few weeks at work and its kind of burning him out a bit. he still does what he needs to, but after working more than 50 hrs 1 week and getting his 40 hrs by wed of the next he was ready for some time off. not that he took it, but he did work from home one day just to recooperate.

we have a new walker in the house! not like zombie walking dead walker, but rylie has officially started walking as her primary form of transportation. she has been able to for a while, she just didnt want to. it took maybe 3 days to figure it out. she would dtart walking but as soon as she fell she would crawl the first day. the second day she would walk a little farther but fall and then crawl. then by say 3 she just got up when she fell and kept walking. she loves to run around with ryker. they both run in circles all the time. she is so happy to be able to keep up a little easier. but that also means she gets into a lot of trouble still. she is still quick to climb up the stairs if mom isnt looking or forgets to put the gate up. one day i was making lunch and heard running around upstairs. i look in the living room and ryker is playing by himself. so i look upstairs and rylie is at the top, sees me, giggles and runs away. little stinker. it was super cute. she loves to go into rykers room and play on his bbig boy bed. you get one soon rylie! be my little baby for just a little longer.

ryker is definitely down to 1 nap now. sleeps in the afternoon with rylie and he and i get some alone time when rylie takes her morning nap. he loves to sing songs and play with the busy board. he loves to dance around to anything. tv show, music, movie or even just by himself. i love this little boy. he has been fighting eating dinner with the family. i admit, we often have a movie on in the evenings because the kids get cranky, its been a  long day, and everyone is hungry and so on. but we turn it all off for dinner. this is not new, but he throws a tantrum every night. so he will go and whine on the couch instead of come to the table and eat. at least he is nice enough to be quiet and say amen when we say prayer. so we eat without him till he decides he really is hungry. lately he finally decides to eat once we put rylie to bed and are ready to get him in jammies. maybe he is just stalling. smart kid. anyways, so we were eating and he was playing. he grabbed rylies baby doll and we hear him say "oh you hurt your head! i kiss it better" then gave it a big kiss. brought it over to the landing where he layed it down and gave it another kiss. then picked it up and said "all better!" it was the cutest thing ever!

He is so polite and sweet. of course he can throw a good tantrum and he has an attitude, but he is still my sweet little boy. I read an article the other day about toddlers. it just talked about how the author didnt like to refer to her son as "terrible two" year old. that actually he is just a regular two year old. he is just learning how to test the boundaries on what is okay and what is not. he is seeing how far he can push things and who will break first mom or toddler. i really liked how she phrases things. not that saying your toddler is in his terrible twos is a bad thing, but i like the boundary phrase better. i think it better describes it. and it makes me feel calmer knowing he is not just doing this to push my buttons, he is just testing limits. so thats what we are calling it now. the boundary phase.

me and baby 3 are doing well also. i havent been too sick this time which is awesome. however once i hit 12 weeks i feel like my symptoms got worse. i am getting more headaches, more nauseous in the mornings. i thought things were supposed to lighten up. haha. oh well. it is all still manageable. i have another dr apt on friday. just making sure everything is going good. im still anxious to know the gender, but we still wont know till march ish.

baby 3! wigglin away on the ultrasound. not that i feel it, but its fun to watch

ryker likes ro play horse and carriage with my workout jump rope

ryker "fixing" the stroller. he likes to be under it just like dad. 

rylie sucking on her toes. a new favorite pastime

we made a movie date night. full of a nest of blankets and pillows, popcorn, chocolate covered raisens, cheese balls, and ibc rootbeer

love this girl. she already loves taking selfies. also, another tooth! 9 teeth total

they do play together. not always just pushing each other out of the way, 

ryker with his awesome new motorcycle. is comes with a wrench and screwdriver to help take apart and put back together. its awesome! he carries it around always. 

he put together his own outfit. it includes a hat that is much too small, lightning mcqueen slippers that are too small for rylie even, and his awesome vest. whatever works bud. 

they both love to snuggle with dad. mostly at the same time. but dont touch each other! thats chaos

rylie being so sweet and letting me not be in relief society on sunday. this is a common occurance

ryker wearing his shirt to cover his legs. he didnt want to come over and put his pants on. but its too cold to go pantsless. 

rewind to christmas. this is the progress pics of Alicias joker game we made for her. it turned out so awesome!

took forever to place and space out all the wholes. it took us a good 4-5 months to do this project

getting closer. 

we stained them so its easier to tell the teams apart

this is the carrying case i made for it. i did end up embroidering joker on the bag. but it fits all the pieces, the container of pegs, and all the decks of cards including a extended edition pack with all the specialty cards. it turned out great and we were really proud of it. 

rylie has gotten into sucking her toes. i have no idea why. but its hilarious. 

this is the walker rylie got for christmas. while it did help her learn apparently it also helped ryker with his hops. it makes him happy. so imaginative.