Kreider's and Pudelko's visit

Two weekends ago we had our good friends from college, the Kreider's and Pudelko's come and visit. It was so great to see them! The six of us (now 8) use to get together every few months but it had been about a year since we've all gotten together, so it was well overdue. We had a lot of fun! They all got in Friday night (Krieder's from Howell, MI and Pudelko's from Milwaukee, WI) and left Sunday late morning. So it was a quick trip but it was so nice to all be together! The girls had fun playing together too. Maddy just loves Rylee! Maddy is talking more now since the last time we saw her and it is so cute to hear her say baby Rylee all the time. Rylee gets entertained by watching Maddy too. Those two are going to be such good buds growing up together! I meant to take some group pictures and it never happened. The time just flew by and before you knew it they were all leaving. I did manage to take some pictures of the girls though.

The girls hanging out together on the floor

Maddy telling Rylee a secret

Maddy attempting to hold Rylee

Like I said "attempting" to hold her

Rylee tackling Maddy

The girls playing ring around the rosy

I don't think you'll fit under there Maddy, but you can try

Big hugs for Brad

Annie playing with Rylee

Thanks for coming down guys...we'll have to get our next get together on the calendar for sometime soon.

8 Months Old!

8 months old is so much fun! It is just such a great age! It seems like she is learning something new everyday. She's learned so many new tricks this past month. She raises her arms over her head for "big girl", waves bye-bye, plays peek-a-boo with her blanket, shakes her head for "no, no, no", claps, and rests her head down when you say "night, night". My mom taught her most of the tricks while we were gone to Jamaica and we've just continued to work with her. Of course she doesn't do her tricks all the time, she has to be in the right mood. My mom also tried to teach her to say Gramma which she couldn't quite do but Rylee did learn to say "emm" so that's Gramma in my mom's head. She still mostly just says dadada and a few other squealing noises. Rylee also started feeding herself puffs this month. The first time we gave them to her she made some funny faces but then she quickly decided she liked them and she likes to feed herself. I am done nursing now. I was kind of sad to stop, I really enjoyed nursing and am thankful that we got to have that experience together. I gradually stopped and was down to just nursing her at night time and then the last time was the night before we went to Jamaica. We have been going through my frozen milk very quickly now but have also started using formula too. We'll probably have to go to all formula by 9 months. Rylee doesn't seem to mind at all although I think she spits up more now with the formula. Or it could be from the fact that she is on her belly all the time. She has mastered army crawling. She uses her elbows and knees to get her around wherever she needs to go. She hasn't really tried crawling with her hands, right now she prefers her elbows which is fine with us. We don't have baby gates up yet but we'll have to purchase them pretty soon. We are really excited that the weather is finally nice now and we can go outside! Rylee loves going for walks and hanging out outside with all the neighborhood kids. It's going to be a fun spring!

Hanging out on our front porch

She still has her chubby cheeks (they are just so darn kissable)

She LOVES going for walks in her stroller

Her shy smile

"Big Girl"

Since she started doing "big girl" she has realized she has hair. It's cute to watch her play with it.

"Bye Bye"

I took these pictures at 8 months which is now about 2 weeks ago. Sorry it took me so long to get them up.

Jamaica!

Brad and I were in Jamaica from April 2nd - 6th. We stayed at a Sandals in Ocho Rios (a beautiful all inclusive resort). This trip was originally planned for last year but then when the Dr. wouldn't let me go we had to cancel. We had a year to use our plane tickets so we decided we should go. It actually ended up working out a lot better that we went this year. We really needed the getaway. Work has been really busy for both of us and Brad has had to travel a lot for his job. Needless to say, things were getting pretty stressful so it was a great break. My mom, Grandma Sallly, and Bailey came down for the week to watch Rylee. They got here on Saturday and we didn't leave til Wednesday so it was nice to see them for awhile too. I was nervous about being away from Rylee for that long. I had never even left her for a night. I was excited though for her to spend all that time with my family and I knew she was going to get lots of lovin. Gramma Vikki was SO excited about watching her! I missed her incredibly but Brad and I had such a great time! The weather the first two days was absolutely beautiful, we ate and drank our moneys worth, and did a lot of relaxing together at the beach and at the pools.

We went on a "romance cruise" one night and it was a blast! We had drinks and h'ourderves and then had a dance party on the way back. One of the Jamaican guys served drinks on his head and even danced with a drink on his head. It was pretty impressive.

Brad drinking from a real coconut at the Reggae beach party

We took the hobie cat out for a spin

We had someone take us out on the catamaran, we weren't exactly sure how to do it on our own. It was windy so we were able to get it going pretty fast and also had a lot of water splashing all over us.

Our last day there it rained but it was alright cause it was relaxing and our skin probably didn't need a lot more sun anyways. This picture is from our last night. We went to an Italian restaraunt and we both had an appetizer, bread, soup, salad, a meat entree and a pasta dish. Then after all that we even had dessert! Talk about pigging out!

But the best part of our whole trip was coming home to Rylee!

We sure did miss our little girl!

A special thank you to Mom, Grandma Sally and Bailey for coming down to Indy, taking such good care of Rylee and allowing Brad and I to have a little getaway vacation. THANKS, we sure do appreciate it!

dadada...

A few weeks ago I filmed Rylee talking away. She really is quite the babbler. Her favorite thing to say is dadadada and she says it ALL the time. We can't actually say dada is her first word though cause she doesn't just say it to Brad, she constantly says it over and over. This video actually goes on for almost 5 minutes of her babbling but it gets rather repetitive so I cut it down for you. This video also shows how much she uses her feet to play with her toys too. She's kind of rough with her dolls right now, when she's a little older we'll have to teach her to play nice with the dolls.

The Mayra's visit

The Mayra's came down from Chicago to visit us 2 weekends ago. It was so nice to see them again. Now that Rylee's a little older, her and Noah could actually play. It was fun to watch the two of them together. Lesley and I had a great time catching up too. We even snuck away Saturday afternoon and both went and got our haircuts...we should have gotten a pedicure and a massage too but that might have been pushing it. We took lots of pictures of our little ones and caught a lot of great expressions!

Rylee and Noah's little photo shoot...Noah's showing off his big smile

I love that shy little look he's giving her

Now he's checking her out to make sure she's smiling too

And they've both had enough of their photo shoot, so exhausting. Rylee's more interested in Noah's ear.

Playing with the jumperoo

Apparently those rings are pretty cool

They even took a bath together, can you tell she's never had a bath with another little boy. Shame on you Rylee for staring.

I think Rylee's staring might have made Noah a little uncomfortable. Rylee looks like she's enjoying herself though.

Noah checking out Rylee's crazy hair

The two of them having fun in the tub!