My Rylee Ry Skye Pie

I LOVE THIS GIRL!!!

She makes me laugh all the time. Here are a few of the latest things that have made me chuckle.

She refers to her poop as "baby snake" or "mommy snake" depending on the size. I don't think anybody taught her this...she just made it up on her own! Tonight she announced that she was going "potty poo poo" and ran up the stairs to her bathroom. While she was sitting there she was giving me a play by play as follows:

"I potty pee too.

Yellow pee!

Uuh. Poo poo stuck.

I push it out.

Baby snake! Mommy snake!

Rylee poo poo brown!

(As she was flushing the potty) Snakes going night!"

(Hopefully this isn't too graphic, but I thought it was pretty funny...)

I've been working with Rylee on how to ask for things she wants instead of throwing a tantrum. I have her repeat after me, a few words at a time, "Mommy, can I please have some cereal?" or whatever it is that she is wanting to do. Randomly I've been catching her saying "Can I..." Tonight she wanted some dinner, so as she was climbing into her high chair I said and she repeated "Mommy, can I please have some..." and then she said "Cake!?" I guess she's figured out that if she asks that way I respond well! (She didn't get the cake...)

I bought some sidewalk chalk a few days ago, and ever since Rylee has spent pretty much all of her free time out on the front porch coloring - both the porch AND our front door.

Oh, and this picture reminds me that she likes to talk about her "owie knees." The big one you can see is her "red owie knee" and there is a tiny one on her other knee that is her "pink owie knee."

Today, before I took this picture, Rylee was outside playing with the little neighbor girls. She ran inside the house...and didn't have any pants or underwear on! I looked all over outside and all over inside, but haven't found them yet! I told Quinn about this, and later in the day he said, "You know, I've been thinking, toddlers are a lot like drunk people." (refering to the fact that our toddler lost her pants and has no idea where they are) I did put new panties on her though (as you can see) before she resumed her coloring.

Then, tonight, she was on the porch coloring again, and I was upstairs. After a few minutes I called her name to check on her. When she didn't respond, I went out front to check on her and found this:

Rylee was half way down our street with a duster, and when she saw me she said "Mommy, I clean up!"
Never a dull moment with this girl around...

Family Pictures on the Beach

These were taken at our reunion last month, but I just got them last week...and I LOVE them!

6 Months

Time flies; Cailyn turned 6 months on Saturday!

She is such a happy little person and I love having her in our family. She loves to be tickled, and loves to smile. She loves to watch the dogs. She really loves her sister and laughs at her all the time. I have discovered in the last week or so that she also loves swinging! I had a lady at the park yesterday comment that she's never seen such a young baby love to swing as high as Cailyn was. (I personally know of at least one other - Rylee!) I took her to the doctor on Monday for her checkup and shots. She seems so rolly polly that I was totally expecting her to weigh like 18 pounds - I think because she is about too big for her size 2 diapers, which Rylee wore until she was 15 months, and Rylee was about 18 pounds when she was one. Anyway, I was surprised to find that she has only put on about a pound since her checkup in April. Here are her stats:

Weight: 15 lbs. 14 oz. - 48%ile

Height: 26 inches - 60%ile

Head: 18 inches - 99%ile

So she seems to have just had a growth spurt around 4 months that made me think she was going to be huge, but I guess she's slowed down again.

Since she's 6 months now, I also decided that it was time to start giving her solid foods (actually, I'm not sure if rice cereal mixed with breast milk really qualifies as a solid...) Anyway, last night Rylee and I gave her her first food with a spoon.

Here's the before shot:

First bite - not so sure...
Hmm, this is interesting!
Not so bad, I think I kind of like it!

Rylee thought it was great to feed Cailyn...although she spilled most of the food by the time the spoon reached Cailyn's mouth!

OK, this stuff is good! I think I'll eat the bowl!

Wow, I'm feeling kinda full...

I think I'll just veg out for a while now!

Ava's 3rd Birthday Party

Ava is 3! Wow!

Her birthday party was at the park this weekend, and it couldn't have been a more perfect day for a party - we we're worried since it was cool, overcast and rainy for a few days before, but it cleared up just in time for the party, and then returned afterwards. I guess the weather knows just what a little ray of sunshine Ava is!

It was a dinosaur party and the kids had fun doing everything from going on a hunt to find dinosaur eggs and cracking them open to making dinosaur collages. This is the cake...in spite of the craziness in our kitchen while it was being made, it turned out very cute! (Although Rylee managed to get her fingers into it as we were loading it in the car...guess which foot we had to repair when we got to the park!?)
This picture is not where I wanted it to be, but I can't seem to move it, so I'll just leave it here...this is Cailyn's new favorite toy that her Grandma Mac brought her this weekend. Isn't he a cute funny little thing?
Rylee spent the first part of the party playing on the playground and didn't care what the other kids were doing.

Rylee and Cailyn had fun swinging together...Cailyn was cracking up the whole time I was pushing them!

Eventually, I was able to coax Rylee away from the playground and over to the party (I think when the kids went on the dinosaur egg hunt.)

Ava was really cute opening her presents. When she opened the dress up shoes that Rylee gave her and Katie told her they were from Rylee, Ava picked them up and walked over and handed them to Rylee! She did this a few times with different people.

Back at home that evening, it started raining while the girls were playing outside. So, we brought them inside to get raincoats and sent them back out. A few minutes later, we looked outside to find that they had stripped down to nothing! Silly monkeys!

Here they are playing "Pocka-rosies" as Rylee calls it:

Blowouts!

The setup:

Cailyn hadn't pooped since last Saturday.

Yesterday afternoon our kitchen faucet started leaking.

The story:

Ava's birthday is coming up on Monday; her party is this afternoon (she's having a Dinosaur Party, and Rylee has been talking about it ever since I told her a month or so ago!) Allison (as in Quinn's mom) came into town for a few days to visit and help out with the party, and last night our house was the party-preparation zone.

So when the Bergs showed up, I asked Josh if he knew anything about plumbing, specifically kitchen sinks. He said he knew a little bit and, being the nice guy that he is, went over to try to help. Katie and Allison started working on the dinosaur cake while Josh quietly went to work on the faucet. Throughout the process he needed several tools that I couldn't locate, so I went next door to the Wilde's several times to borrow said tools.

After a bit, Josh announced "Uhh...slight dilema..." By the time we looked over, water was shooting to the ceiling - more than a slight dilema! I ran over and, after burning my left hand by trying to smother the water (left hand was over the hot outlet, right over the cold) I grabbed a bunch of kitchen towels to do the job. In the meantime, everyone was frantically looking for where to turn the water line to the house off. Finally, I ran back to the Wilde's and Travis came over and quickly located the watersource in the crawlspace below our house (would anyone else have thought to look there?) So everyone was able to return to their previous activites - the drama was over.

I went to grab Cailyn, who had been sitting on the kitchen counter in her Bumbo throughout the whole ordeal, and found that she had finally pooped - there was a week's worth that finally came out and it was all over her back, from her bum to her head! I was glad that the prune juice I had been giving her for the last two days finally worked - but did it really have to be right after we turned our water off? So, back to the Wilde's it was, for a bath this time!

Megan and Dave stopped by shortly after that (in between dinner and a movie - what great friends!) and Dave the fix it man was able to put our sink back together.

All's well that ends well.