waking smiles

I love my little boy. Whenever he wakes up, as soon as he sees me, he gives me the biggest, happiest smile. It makes me feel so loved! Then I always hold him to a mirror to "say good morning to himself" and he gets SO HAPPY! I managed to snap a pic of him waking up after nap one day. Here you go!




Also, Kelsey had her baby shower on the 24th. Here are some pics of us three at it. It was a lot of fun. Very relaxed, sitting out on a back patio with some other women and babies, and eating snacks. I wish my baby shower had been more relaxed and fun like that. Oh well! We have more kids yet to create! I cant wait for Kelsey to have Jayden. He is gonna be a cutie!

august camping trip

This last weekend (August 22-24) we went camping with Shane's family over at Spruce Run. It was a lot of fun. His siblings are very entertaining, not to mention I get that much needed break from always holding my boy since they all want to cuddle him too! On saturday we drove out to Canon Beach and spent most of the day there. Rylend loved watching the waves and playing in the sand. He thought the sand was the most amazing thing ever and spent a large chunk of time staring at it, "talking." Then he tried to eat it...Shane tried hard to not let him, but somehow he got sand anyway. Kids are good at that. We also made a sand sculpture of a monkey. I did the face...very proud! haha. Overall it was a very nice camping trip. Relaxing, family time, and sunshine. Does a body good!

Rylend playing with Daddy at the camp site. Happy boy!!

Rylend's first time to the beach. He was eating his carrier...haha

Daddy showing Rylend the waves

Mommy walking with Rylend in a tidepool. He loved the water

Rylend discovering sand...on his foot. Amazing!
Eww kid. He was happy though
Here is a video of Rylend and Alexis in the sand:



Our AMAZING monkey! Yay!!

4 month old pictures!

I set up a backdrop and took some photos of Rylend. He is such a cutie! I have all of them up in my myspace album, but for those of you who do not use that site, here are my favorites!

Photos with Mommy, Kelsey in the hospital, and "crawling"

I realized that there really arent many pictures of Rylend and me...since I am the one who always has the camera in hand! So one day, since I was dressed up for our dinner that night (August 13th was our three year anniversary! WOW!) Here are a few that I took!

On the same day, our friend Kelsey (who at that time was almost 30 weeks pregnant) had to go to the hospital. Turns out her little boy Jayden was trying to come out early! They had to give her steroids and magnesium to stop the contactions and she had to stay there for about a week. They finally let her out, but she is on bed rest now. We brought Rylend in to see her a few days after she was admitted. We call him her little boyfriend. Rylend LOVES Kelsey. Its good to see she is doing good again, though a little crazy with her bedrest! We are all VERY excited to meet little Jayden...he just needs to finish baking first! Here is a pic of Rylend visiting Kelsey


Also, Rylend has decided it is time to move on to bigger and better things! He has very much so mastered rolling. I will set him on one side of the living room, and before I know it he is on the other side, smiling up at me. So now he is working on his crawling. He pulls his knees under him and lifts himself onto his elbows...sometimes even hands. He will rock sometimes. Other times just push nonstop with his legs, kind of inchworming forward. He has found it gets him moving a bit more than rolling and quickly gets into whatever I might have left on the ground. I think in the next month or so he will be crawling very well! And he isnt even 5 months old yet!! I would upload a video I have of him, but each time I have tried I get problems. So here are a few pics, so you can get a slight image of my little man's skills!

Shane's birthday (August 11th)

Ok, I havent posted forever...so I have a few different posts to catch up on!

First one!
Shane had his 22nd bday on August 11th. We went out to dinner with his family and some of our friends at Applebees. Man...first time I have been there. Its pretty good!


I wrapped Shane's present COMPLETELY in bows...it was awesome! And Rylend LOVED watching Daddy unwrap it too! He laid on the floor afterwards and "talked" to the bows. It was so cute!! For his bday, I got Shane Eureka Season 1, slong with T2 and Hackers. I love Amazon! They are so cheap!!!!



We WERE going to go lazer tagging, but of course we didnt check their hours...its kinda bummed Shane out, but we will go soon!

this kid loves his cereal

Here is a video of Rylend in his high chair, eating Gerber cereal. Of course we started recording it towards the end of his giggle fit, but it is still a very cute video! I also snagged some pics from it, though they are a bit blurry... (for those of you who get this in an email update, to view the video you have to click on the link at the bottom of the page that brings you to the actual blog page, in case you havent discovered that!)


Video...

And some pics...Isnt he SUCH a cutie??? Man, this kid is awesome!

Hot days and Twilight Books

Oh my gosh! It has been SO SO hot! Literally, yesterday I would wiped sweat off my forehead, and I could feel it bead right back before my hand was even down. I had gotten so excited that the heat had gone down that I forgot it is just the beginning of August. Here I am in perfect comfort...then two days ago WHAM the heat comes back and I am pretty much miserable in it. It is especially sucky when it comes time to feeding Rylend...We are both sweatmeisters so I bet you can guess the comfort we lack there. Rylend has been spending most of his days in just his diaper. It is cute seeing his fat rolls and he loves feeling "free." You should see how excited he gets when he has NOTHING on! I let him lay on his mat one day naked and he sat there all happy, shaking his bootie. It was way too cute.
I am HOPING this heat goes away soon. The news tries to convince us that it will go away soon....but I cringe every time they happily say there will be no clouds or sunshine will break through. Man, I really AM a northwesterner! lol


Now for something totally not related to real life at all!

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TWILIGHT
Yes people, I too have entered into the Twilight world. I just finished the 4th book, Breaking Dawn, a day ago and I am still FIRMLY a Twilight fan. I know alot of people have been complaining non stop about how this last book turned out, but personally I find it did wrap up the love story quite nicely.
If you DONT know Twilight, heres a quick rundown on it:
Bella moves to Forks, WA to live with her Dad. There she meets Edward and very quickly knows that one, he was very different than others, and two, that she was inexplicably drawn to him. Lo and behold, she comes to find out he is a vampire, but all too late. She was in love. Good thing that he is a "vegetarian" meaning his family of vampires have sworn to never hurt another human and feed only on animal blood. Through the first book you watch as their love grows...then is tested as a group of rogue vampires, true vampires, happens on them and ends up hunting Bella.
The other three books keep telling the story, each one with a new trial that the teen lovers battle through. People mainly dont like the fourth one because Bella and Edward get married and Bella is only 18. They dont like the fact that Stephanie Meyer is endorsing YOUNG marriage...not to boot that Bella ends up getting pregnant and keeps the baby, when most of these people this she should have aborted. It seems people dont want to remember that the author is a MORMON so of course the LDS teachings WILL bleed through into these books. And we do support younger marriage and starting families young. I truly dont see what is wrong with that. Also, people were expecting some grand message from this final book, and were mad when it had a happy ending where everyone turns out where they should be in life. The readers complain that this ending could never happen in real life....which is understandable...since this book is a FICTION. Jeesh...I loved the ending. We all wish that happy endings would always happen and that is why we read. To escape. Right?


But yes I think this four book series is a work of art. It comes from a LDS housewife who had a funky dream one night and wrote a book that would become such a best-selling phenomenon... They are even making a movie on the first book, coming out this winter! It gives me hope that maybe, someday, I too will finish one of my stories and people will love it too. I like being given hope.


This series has made its way onto my top shelf full of my other all time favorites: Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth Series, Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series, all of Orson Scott card (Mainly the Ender/Beans series)...and it desereves that spot (now I just need to BUY the first three books....ha!)

4 months old!

(for those of u now tuning in from my myspace blog...this is the same entry as there. Scroll down for the older ones that u havent read yet!)

Alright! Yesterday was Rylend's 4 month birthday! Man he is HUGE now! People who see him ask me if he is 7 or 8 months old...haha! He is such a goof ball too. At church yesterday he took a nice nap during sacrament meeting. It was testimony meeting so different people were talking. He woke up a bit before the meeting was over...looked over to Grandpa Merritt...and just started LAUGHING. It didnt help that Brian was making faces...Shane would smother Rylend's face in his chest...but the kid kept laughing! He was in such a great mood and usually we make him laugh harder, so he didnt know what to think. Great timing kid...but it was WAY cute!

He has his first bites of Gerber cereal. I think he was more interested in knawing on that spoon though. We need to get him a high chair, but other than that...I am way excited to start feeding him food. He would raise his eyebrows every so often, as if He is draining me! haha


Also, joy on all mother's parts, he rolled to his belly today!!! Yes, he has been rolling from belly to back for quite some time now (though he wont do it as much anymore. He is more interested in being in his walker, which he ADORES) But each time he has been on his back lately he would roll to his side then just chill. Last night he actually would roll his hips completely over then stop, having that dang arm stuck under him. I knew it was close though. Then today, after changing his diaper, he started doing it again. SO I grabbed the camera for the heck of it and....he rolled! He chilled +on his belly for a few seconds, then rolled back to his back and zoned out. SO BIG!

(hah he is on his play mat right now and he just did it a few times again!)

...so thats about it for now.

Im going to go watch my little boy roll all over the place! Have a great day!