New Years Resolutions

For several years I stopped pretending that I'd ever accomplish my New Years Resolutions; however, this year I'm going to humor myself one more time!  I never stick with my resolutions - most people don't, but I figure one way to look at it is that you might as well try plan to change if you think there is a good reason.  So, with that being said, here's the plan:

1.  Stop Drinking Caffeine and Carbonated Drinks:  Actually I've already started (or stopped, I should say) as of Monday!  I thought I needed to wean myself, rather than going cold turkey, but instead, I went cold turkey.  Why do I do such horrible things to myself?  Luckily, Ryne is back to sleeping through the night again, so I am getting roughly 7 to 8 hours of sleep!  Hallelujah!   I do crave a Pepsi now and then every single waking moment, but I remind myself that I am strong and push through the pain!

2.  Stop Eating Candy:  EEK!  I was supposed to be working on this all week too, but I've started eating more candy to compensate for lack of sugar in my Pepsi drinking fetish.  Note to Self:  stop eating candy...after all the Christmas candy is gone!  Seriously, the more I read about sugar the more I realize it's the DEVIL for your body...at least the sugar I love the most.  Mom calls the sugar/candy I like, rot gut, because there is absolutely no nutritional value to it (despite their claims of "made with real fruit juices").  I'm not a big chocolate eater, so I eat the hard core, soury, sugary, sticks to your teeth and rots them out of your head kind of candy!  Sour Patch Kids:  I will miss biting your little heads off!

3.  Get Out of the House More:  this has totally taken a back seat since we had Ryne!  I need more girl time!  I need a life of my own, other than being Ryne's Momma and Adam's wife, who bleeds him dry of all his hard earned money (that's what everyone thinks so, I might as well stop fighting that issue) even though she rarely does anything for herself!  I also need to get Ryne out more.  It's hard because he gets bored of places and things so easily and so quickly.  I need to find some cost-effective places/things to do with him.

4.  Start My Photography Business and Learn Everything I Can about Photography:  this is a must!  I have been sort of delayed in that since the holidays are so hectic.  I'm not quite sure when I will truly "start."  I need to build a portfolio and get Photoshop or some kind of editing software, since Santa forgot to bring that - never trust a guy who sneaks into people's homes at night and eats their cookies and drinks their milk!  I start my photography classes at UT at the end of January, which I am super excited about.  I'm still trying to think of a business name as well, since I will need to know that when I apply for a business license.  Any suggestions?

5.  Move:  this is kind of a must too!  We need more space!  Ryne's playroom is also our livingroom.  Adam and I are too much of neat freaks for this to continue much longer.  Not to mention, if we ever decide to have another bundle of wild and unbridled energy, we need another bedroom and a true playroom!  Sadly, several of our neighbors seem to have the same plan, so this will be no easy task.  Prayers please!

6.  Dance Like No One's Watching:  I used to dance and sing around the house all the time.  Then I got pregnant and couldn't dance so much, and then we had a baby and I didn't want to wake him up with my dancing/singing/music blasting during his naps.  However, last week, I decided to dance and sing (low volume) while Ryne was napping and I LOVED it!  It keeps me happy and sane!  Maybe Ryne will join me...after his nap!

I'm sure I will add more to the list - that is quite a list!  Hopefully I will be able to stick to accomplishing all of those things by the end of 2011!
Also see our Christmas picture on the previous post!

Happy New Year!

Christmas Pictures

 The Knies Family Christmas - I think they cut back some this year!

Watching for Santa

 Giant 5-way Maze toy

 Have Blue Bear, will travel!

 This thing came with two wooden mallets - we may regret giving Ryne those!

 Nothing but net!

Aunt Sarah playing with Ryne 

Adam on Christmas Eve morning, when we did the Phillips Family Christmas

note:  Ryne was up for 2 hours during the night!  Fun!

Mom's tree and some gifts!

Ryne loves his coloring book.  Too bad he eats the crayons!

The many faces of River!

River opening his Tony Hawk board...

but he wouldn't smile for the camera...

so I told him he had a booger in his nose...

and then I told him I was kidding...and he smiled!  

This is one of our gifts to River - a remote control Jeep that looks just like Ronnie's real Jeep!

Ryne not touching the tree

not touching...

not touching...

...just looking...

...thinking about it...

...if he touches the tree but doesn't make eye contract with anyone, then he didn't touch the tree...right?

P.S.  his jammies are adorable!

Smart Trike

This was River's pretty pose!

Christmas Photobooth

Trike Race - the porch was the finish line

River growls when he loses!

"Santa" and Elf the Roger!

This past weekend was a blessing, but a CRAZY blessing!  Earlier in the week, Ryne said "Santa" for the first time!  We haven't talked much about Santa since Ryne is so little, so I guess after hearing it once, he had it down pat.  Santa Buddies came on TV and we knew Ryne would want to see the dogs, since he is so obsessed.  I was explaining to Adam that the dogs are Santa's buddies.  As soon as I said "Santa, " Ryne  repeated it!  It was so cute!

Thursday evening we moved into my mother's house for the weekend.  We visited with Jonas and Lily at the Knies house and River at Mom's house.  Mom has been doing the Elf on the Shelf thing with River this year.  One day they asked River what the elf's name was and he said Roger.  However, whenever River talked about the elf he called him Elf the Roger.  Thus, the elf is now referred to as Elf the Roger!

Friday morning we celebrated Christmas at Mom's house, since River would be there.  The expression on River's face was priceless!  His eyes bulged out of his head!  It was such a precious moment!  Ryne still doesn't really know what's going on, but he did find his coloring book that Santa left for him and he liked opening his gifts, once he realized that he was supposed to.  Ryne is so particular.  When we opened his gifts, it wasn't enough to just take the wrapping paper off.  He wanted the entire gift opened and assembled -  at that moment.  

Saturday (Christmas Day), we had Christmas at the Knies house.  Ryne got even more cool toys and clothes.  Then it was off the Adam's Aunt's house to visit with the Sexton side of the family!  Mamaw gave Ryne a toy vacuum, a toy remote control and a puzzle.  Ryne has taken to the toy vacuum and remote better than I expected since he is obsessed with the real ones.  The puzzle was a cute puzzle with momma and baby animals one it.  I'm not sure what the age was (I'm assuming 2+ years) but Ryne completed it within seconds!  Mamaw was shocked!  She asked how many pieces were in it and I told her that there were eight.  She asked how many pieces he could do and I told her that he was doing puzzles for 3+ years!  Again, she was shocked!  Ryne did get a few more puzzles that are a little more challenging.  Hopefully, that will keep him busy for awhile!

We were blessed with many wonderful gifts this year, but the greatest gifts were the time spent with our families, giving back, and celebrating the reason for the season!

17 months

Yesterday, Ryne turned 17 months!  This means we are a month away from the big 1-8!!!  These bigger milestones drive me crazy!  I worry because I want Ryne to be on target for all the 18 month old accomplishments!  They also drive me crazy because he's getting older and bigger and not so much my "baby" anymore (even though he will be my baby for his entire life)!
So what is going on in the world of Ryne?  Everything!

Language:  Ryne is saying new words almost daily!  I'm surprised sometimes by what he learns.  He is now busting out full sentences.  Yesterday he said "I want my dadda." (tear) and "help me."  He still has his baby jabber as well.  It's not like he speaks full sentences or phrases all the time, but before 17 months is pretty darn good!

I started "teaching" Ryne (sorta).  We are going over a new color and a new letter of the alphabet every week, although the ABCs may be 86ed shortly.  I'm  not sure if he's ready for them.  He can pick out an A and he can say "A" but he's still not quite grasping the concept, and I'm not sure he should!  He now uses "A" in phrases.  So "bite bite" has become "a bite", etc.  Who knew a child could learn to use articles so early!  He also picked up the word "apple" which usually sounds like "babble" but he can point one out...and he loves to eat them!

Physical:  Ryne is continuing to climb on EVERYTHING - coffee table, tv console, chairs, sofa, etc.  He has also started sitting in a regular chair when he eats, instead of the high chair.  He will occasionally sit in the high chair, but he wants to be a big boy, I guess!  He's also using a spoon and fork (toddler size and regular size) very well - anything to be like Mommy and Daddy!
Just today, he learned to turn the vacuum on.  He is obsessed!  I had to vacuum the entire house...twice, to keep him from screaming "back back" at me!  I guess I'm glad we are still in a tiny house!

Sleep:  Tonight is night #2 of the "Back to Sleep" campaign.  I'm not sure why Ryne started waking up at night about a month ago, but it's been torture.  I took him to the doctor yesterday to get him checked out to make sure he wasn't crying at night for a legit reason.  The doctor (who we LOVE, by the way, ) crossed his legs and said "you're going to have to suck it up!"  We had been letting him cry with no success and we had been rocking him, with no success, and Adam committed Baby Sleep Sin by letting Ryne watch TV in the middle of the night one night!  Nothing was working.  So we are now back to controlling his bedtime a little better and last night he didn't wake up (YAY!!!).  Pray for us that this works!

Bottle:  I'm cracking down!  I've declared Momma Law!  Dr P. said 18 oz of milk is more than enough right now.  Ryne is having double (sometimes more than double) that in a day!  He won't drink milk out of a sippy cup, but he will drink juice and tea from a sippy, so I've decided to use that to my advantage.  His reflux is 100% gone (Praise the Lord!), so we have been able to give him watered down juice and tea in a sippy cup with no problems.  Today I got him down to 24 oz of milk and honestly, if I can't get him lower, I'm not going to worry.  That basically leaves him using a bottle just in the morning, before a nap and bedtime.  I'm fine with him drinking mostly milk, but he's not eating as much so we have to cut back.

Puzzles:  He's now completing some of the harder puzzles for 3+ years!  He's obsessed and it's something we can do together so I'm happy to let him do it!  Next we are going to work on jigsaw puzzles!

Music and Dancing:  Ryne loves both!  I think we are going to try out Kindermusik after the New Year in lue of The Little Gym.  I think Ryne would get more out of Kindermusik right now.  He participates, to an extent, at TLG.  He's strangely not into the group stuff at TLG, even though he is incredibly social there.  He likes to sit off away from everyone else and do the activities, but some activities he just refuses to do!  If you put on a good beat, though, Ryne will drop it like it's hot!   It's the cutest thing EVER!

I'm excited to see what the next month holds!

Snow and Ice

No, I'm not talking about the famous Snow and Ice display in Nashville, although I'd love to go sometime. I'm talking about my neighborhood!  We got more than 2 inches of snow yesterday.  So no big deal, right? Nope!  There is a layer of ice underneath all that wonderful white fluffy stuff, which is making our neighborhood a junk yard!

Last night, Adam decided to take the Trailblazer out to see how bad our street was since we live on a hill.  He made it down to the clubhouse and couldn't get back up the hill.  So the Trailblazer is now camping out at the clubhouse!  As Adam was walking home, he passed some of our neighbors that had to abandon their car and trek 3 miles home.  They said that there was a 10-car pile up right outside our neighborhood!  Whoa!  Funny thing, how piles ups multiply like rabbits!  As of 7 AM this morning, the 10-car pile up turned into a 22-car pile up!  People could hardly get in or out of the neighborhood even with four wheel drive because the road was littered with abandoned cars!

We walked down to the scene around 10:30 to find several cars still abandoned and a tow truck trying to pull one car out of the dog pile!  The tow truck was sliding on ice, down a hill while trying to pull a car out.  We also watched people continue to drive towards our intersection, with a tow truck in the middle of it and try to get past.  Really?!!  Come on people!  It's common knowledge that people in the South can't drive in the snow and this 22-car pile up was proof!  We actually saw some people have to abandon their car while we were standing there.  One neighbor was desperately hoping to get his car out of the pile, but the tow truck said he was called to get one car out and that's all he was allowed to do because there were several other calls he had to respond to!  So close, yet so far!

Well the good news is that Adam gets to stay home today because there's no way we can get out without playing plinko with the other cars!  The ice and snow are melting some (Thank You Sun!), but I assume it will just refreeze tonight and there will be another game of bumper cars down the road.  Adam is currently getting cabin fever. He hates missing work, especially when he has to go in on Friday to make up for it!

Stay Warm and Be Safe!

Sleep Baby Sleep!

Well, I guess it was only a matter of time before the good sleeping habits faded away!  Ryne is back to waking up every night and staying up for an hour or so.  I love my son, but I do not love his sleep issues!  This new trend has been going on for a month now.  It started a week or so before Thanksgiving.  I knew Thanksgiving travels would mess up Ryne's sleeping schedule some, so we just stuck it out until the holiday was over.  I did not expect for it to carry on until close to Christmas!

Also, it's not just like I'm waking up for an hour or so to get him back to sleep.  I'm now waking up on my own every night around 2 AM and have trouble going back to sleep until sometime around 5.  Usually, Ryne wakes up sometime during those hours every night.

If the snow and ice are cleared tomorrow, I'm taking him back to the doctor!  His waking up HAS to stop!  Maybe Ryne's pediatrician will do  me a favor and prescribe me a sedative - wishful thinking!

Ryne also said a new phrase today:  "up there."  I guess he's picking up all this vocabulary because he never sleeps!

New Direction

Recently, I've been having so much fun with our new camera!  Yay!  Santa came early this year!  And...I'm still so in LOVE with photography!  So much so that I'm considering making a go of it!  So what does that mean?  Well, that means I need to take tons of pictures (not just of Ryne and River) and put together a portfolio, to show potential clients...when I actually make my photography business official, sometime after then New Year!

I've been reading, and studying, but practice makes perfect.  So, I need people to take pictures of and I will do it for FREE!!!!  I will put some of the best pictures on a CD for you to have.  If you check to see what other photographers charge for a CD of pictures, a FREE one is kind of a BIG DEAL!

I'm trying to narrow my areas of interest and target market; however, for now I'm open to just about anything.  I have really enjoyed taking pictures of the boys, but I'd also love to work with some younger babies, couples, families, events and maybe even boudoir (it's getting really popular and what lady wouldn't want a classy, tasteful picture of themselves looking like a Victoria's Secret model - you know you secretly do!)

Here are a few of my favorite pictures that I've taken so far.  The picture in the blog header is also one of mine!