Happy Birthday Dave

Dave celebrated his 43rd Birthday this week. Reganne & Rylee are becoming great party planners. Reganne decided Dad needed a cake. A boy cake to be exact. It should have Flounder on it and be a white cake with white frosting. I couldn't convice her that Dad doesn't like cake but loves cherry pie instead. Rylee remembers ages and loves to sing to them. Dad was to pick dinner for the night and he chose McDonalds with the playground. He also bought each of them Happy Meals. What a great dad!!! The girls talked him into playing wii dancing. Let's say everyone got a great workout.

I love this they are finally starting to play together. It lasted only about 10 minutes before they were tormenting each other, but I will take whatever I can get. For some reason they love playing with Ryder's head. They either are patting, pulling, or rubbing it. Reganne keeps trying to wrap things around his neck to make leashes. Maybe she thinks she will have more control over him.

Here is his latest playground is the table and chairs. He crawls in and out of the chairs. Then he pushes the chairs to another spot and does it again.

The Reflections Contest Winner's were announced this week. Rylee took 2nd place for the First Grade and in Visual Arts. The prize was a necklace which she wears constantly. She was so excited about winning. They had an assembly with the whole school and she had to go up in front of everyone. She is getting to be a good artist.

Reganne was so excited for soccer this week. She really wanted to play. However, that lasted until they took the field. She played more this week. She is always off to the side and not in the group. She would rather watch them and when it comes time to kick it in. She quickly volunteers.

The game is over for Reganne. She is done. She can be so dramatic and even more so with a crowd.

Game was over and back to the car. Ryder decided he wanted to walk and push the stroller like a big boy. He walk the whole way back to the car. This was with only a couple of stops. Oops!!! I forgot his shoes and his socks are now green.

Fall Break

It was Fall Break / UEA / Deer Hunt weekend. This meant no school Thursday and Friday. We did alot of fun things, but I forgot the camera every time. We went to Payson for Jason & Camille's Wedding on Thursday. They were married in the Provo Temple and the kids played with the cousins outside by the water fountain and flowers. Everyone had a great time. We wish we could have stayed longer. However, the flights were awful so we left later that same day for home.

Friday's adventure was a picnic at Hidden Valley Park. To bad everyone else had the same idea. The park was packed with kids everywhere. We came home and brought out our bounce house to play in the backyard. Ryder would not go anywere near it.

Saturday we went swimming at the Washington County Rec Center. We were surprised it wasn't packed as well. The kids had fun and everyone was worn out. The funny moment was changing afterwards for dinner. I had asked the girls to bring me their clothes. Reganne forgot panties and so all she had was a dress she wore over the top of her swimsuit. She wasn't concerned and when I asked her why she had no panties. Her quick response was I told you Mom that I didn't want to bring them. I quickly remembered the spare pair in the diaper bag. I will learn, someday.

We were trying to get pictures of Ryder's new shoes. He wouldn't stay put, Rylee loves to poise, and Reganne wants to take the picture.

Finally, a picture of his new shoes. He walks like Frankenstein, maybe that is what he should be for Halloween? They come off faster than I can put them on since they are a little big.

Reganne has been my super duper helper this week. She loves to help me with whatever I am doing. She was helping clean the house and pick up the toys.

Someone has a sweet tooth or should we say 7 of them. Ryder loves chocolate. This mess was made by a chocolate covered doughnut and so far he had only ate half. Imagine the mess from the whole one. Bathtime last night I was still find chocolate on him.

One Year Ago Today

We are celebrating Ryder's Hospital Birthday today. He finally came home from the hospital after 28 days in the NICU. Looking back I am in awe as to what he went through and survived. Today he is a healthy, active one year old. These pictures are from the day he was born until he came home.

Finally, home at last. Being held by Aunt Janelle and sound asleep. In his car seat all snuggled down and asleep.
Big sister Rylee finally getting to hold him and cuddle with him. Could that smile get any bigger?

My first picture...Where are my clothes?

Sleeping so peaceful, except for the darn feeding tube.
This is the most expensive bed he will ever sleep in. Just the rental per day was $30,000. They named this bed the Cadillac Bed. He was in this for 4 days.

Wow!! what is happening to me. I don't feel good. This was a day after having his chest tube removed. He was still fighting the infections and sleeping most of the time.

The infections were gone and he was starting to feel better. The final hurdle was eating on his own for 24 hours. They diagnosed his reflux and gave him prevacide. He then started right in with the bottle. It would wear him out after about 5 minutes and he wanted to sleep.

He started eating on his own and came home 9 days later. It took him 30 minutes to eat half ounce and we repeated this every 2 hours.

I am so thankful that he is healthy and strong today. We had amazing doctors and nurses that took care of him during his stay. The stories they told me about promptings they received during those first two weeks. Ryder was truly protected and blessed.

IT IS SO COLD !!!!!!

I love the watching the weather. It is constantly changing and yesterday was no different. Except it started out cold and ended cold. We had sunshine and cold in the morning. In the afternoon clouds and cold. Then early evening it started to rain and it got even colder. We went from being in the low 90's on Friday to the low 50's today.

So everyone bundled up for soccer. Rylee dress in shorts and a t-shirt. I sent her outside to see if she would be warm enough. She quickly changed in to long pants, shoes, socks, and a jacket. Ryder we tried to dress warm with long pants, jacket, and socks. He wasn't so sure of the socks and kept pulling them off. So today one of our many errands would be to buy him some shoes. Reganne we dressed in layers and she didn't complain at all that she was cold.

In fact she played better than ever in the game. She loves kicking the ball and she wanted to be the one to kick it in all the time. Taking turns is not her thing right now. She also found the sand and was dumping sand in the coaches sandles. Boy! I'm glad that he is patient because he just laughed it off as he was dumping out his shoes. She disappeared at one point and everyone was calling her name. She was up by the goal and was waving to everyone. She was so excited that we had treats for the end of the game. She planned Cheese Sticks, Capri Sun (Sun Juice), and Fruit Rollups. I couldn't disappoint her.

The wind started to blow and everyone bundled up the best that they could. Rylee was so cold she ended up in the car and watching the game from there.

Reganne and Ryder loved being out there and didn't complain about the cold. In fact Dave decided it was to cold for Ryder to be out there and put him in the car. He was not happy about that.

After the soccer game the girls had a birthday party for a friend from day care. They were so excited to go there was going to be a clown and swimming. They were doing face painting when we arrived. Both girls had flowers painted on their cheeks. Rylee's was pink and Reganne's was white.
There was no peace until they went swimming. I love this pool they have life jackets for the kids that can't swim. So I could watch them from the side and let them play.
I am so lucky they like to play together. They were chasing each other down the slides and around the splash pad.
Reganne & Robin love playing together as well. They also think they are as big as the older girls. So they took off to the middle of the pool. When we tried to yell at them to come back they would only giggle and turn away from us. We sent the older girls out to get them and then they were all out in the middle playing. Finally, a lifeguard blew his whistle at them and told them to get back to the splash pad. Finally, they listened and came back. They played in the shallow end until another mom decided to get in and take as many as wanted to go down the slide. It turned out to be only Reganne & Robin. They were both smiles when they reached the bottom.

Wow!!! what a fun and busy day...they should sleep in....NOT!!!

Happy Birthday Reganne

Happy 4th Birthday Reganne!!! The day finally arrived and she was so excited to finally have her birthday. It is conference weekend so Grandma JeanAnn, Grandpa Chris, Uncle Randy, Aunt Janelle, Brinton, Holland, and Uncle Bryan joined us. The day started off rainy and cold. It rained most of the day. It was so rainy there was no soccer and no picnic. A quick change of plans we went out to eat and then had a birthday party.

This was all about her favorites....Pink is her favorite color and she dressed for the occasion with all her pink accessories. Her favorite princess this week is Ariel and she loves ponies. Her cake was supposed to be pink with purple frosting. Thank goodness for our local Harmon's Grocery Store. I was able to order a white cake with pink filling and purple flowers. Pink & Purple balloons rounded out the decorations.


She was so excited that the presents were for her this time and not Ryder. She loved all the ponies, and Ariel toys. She couldn't decide which to play with first. She had her dad open everything and sat down in the middle to play with everything. She thought it was cool that these were her toys and she didn't have to share.
Get Ready...Set...Blow.... it took a group of us to blow out her candles. They must be defective. The crown was courtsey of her teachers at A Child's World.
Wow...Reganne's cake was much better than mine. He ate the whole piece and wanted more.
The day continued with playing outside. Finally, the rain stopped. Reganne & Brinton talked Grandma into going outside to swing them. They took a wrong turn and instead got her on the trampoline. She was a good sport and jumped with them.

Ryder was also a busy little boy. He figured out how to climb in and onto anything he could find. He loved playing with Brinton and finally figured out that boy toys are alot of fun. I turned around from loading the dishwasher and there he was right in the middle of it. Little black hand & foot prints all over inside. The picture I missed was him standing up holdin onto the top rack.

Next came emptying my cupboards and making a mess where ever he went. He is giving Reganne a run for her money on being busy.