Potty Time

Well Ryne peed in his potty again today!  Adam was here, even though he stepped out of the bathroom moments before Ryne actually peed.  However, Adam still came in and got excited and gave praises, hugs and kisses!  It took about ten minutes or more for Ryne to go, but he went and that's what's important!

Ryne has a few different pee pee cues that I've been noticing.  Sometimes he will tell you that he has to "pee pee" and then we go to the potty.  Sometimes, like today, he will start trying to take his diaper off and when I ask him why he's doing that, he will tell me that he has to pee.  As you probably know, if you've ever read a blog posting about Ryne, he is an extremely high-energy child, more so than most toddlers, so it's hard to get him to stay in one spot of longer than a few seconds (unless he's doing puzzles or playing with trains).  He actually sits on the potty quite well, especially for the length of time it takes him to actually go.  Adam asked me today if it always takes "this long" and I said, "yes because he doesn't know how to make himself go all the time."  Ryne does get up off the potty every so often and I ask him if he wants to put his diaper back on.  He immediately says "I pee pee" or "I need to pee pee" and sits back down.  I also sing silly songs to keep us both occupied!

Potty training is definitely a process that requires patience, but Ryne seems so excited about it...and getting Elmo stamps for doing it.  Hopefully Ryne will be potty trained soon, but we aren't pushing him. We want him to continue to get excited about using the potty!

Well Butter My Biscuit...

Chocolate Biscuit Cake that is!  Okay so that's a terrible segue to the Royal Wedding, but how else do you mention the South and the Royal Wedding in the same paragraph?

I have to admit that I had no intention of watching the Royal Wedding.  I don't know why, but I didn't.  I did want to check out a few of the highlights so around 9 AM this morning I tuned into CNN.  Why CNN, which I never watch?  Well Adam was watching some sports junk on TV and CNN was the closest channel on the guide covering the Royal Wedding!

I was about to change the channel when all of a sudden, I thought I recognized a familiar face (or 2) in the audience on the lawns of Westminster Abbey.  The reporter turned to interview these familiar faces, and I realized that yes they were very familiar!   Adam's cousin Leah and her daughter Olivia were on national news and outside the Royal Wedding!  I started screaming for Adam to come into the living room and of course he didn't respond.  I was so excited all I heard from the interview, before literally hurdling the couch (I guess all those years of running the hurdles for the track team finally paid off!), was that they came all the way from Nashville, Tennessee!  I was excited about the Royal Wedding from that moment on...obviously!

I LOVED the dress, like so many others!  It was modest, but stunning.  Kate's bouquet was also quite modest compared to what we usually see these days.  I'm assuming the floral budget was not a generous portion of the reported $23 million!  Kate also seemed to keep her composure, which I couldn't have done and didn't do at my own wedding.  So props to her!  I would have been a blubbering idiot!

Anywho, members of the Knies family has been making quite a few national news appearances this year!  Hopefully, I will get to see some great pictures, if they could even see well enough to take any!

"Boom Boom Outside"

I think Ryne's version of tornadic weather is pretty accurate!  All evening long he would say "boom boom outside" for thunder and "light outside" for lightening.  I'm just glad storms don't scare him, and he actually sleeps very well when it is storming!  We were fortunate enough to not have as much serious weather as some of the surrounding areas.  We did have gumball sized hail, but luckily all our cars were in the garage!

The past few days have just been full of excitement, good and bad.  Tuesday the compressor on our refrigerator died!  We had a repairman come look at it and said it would cost almost $500 for a new compressor with labor!  While the repair guy was finishing up, Adam told me to get online and start looking at refrigerators.  Then the repairman mentioned that some companies have warranties on things like this for up to 5 years, so I pulled out the warranty info and found out that we had purchased a 4-year extended warranty plan through Lowes for under $90!  Thank you, Lord!  That's probably the only time we've purchased an extended warranty on anything!  We were supposed to have the Lowes repairman come yesterday, but they apparently overbooked him, so he called to tell me he couldn't come until today.  So, I'm patiently waiting...with all the refrigerator contents in coolers in the kitchen floor!

We had some good excitement, yesterday during the lighter side of the storms.  Ryne used his potty again!  He's been doing well to sit on it for awhile, but he couldn't seem to go...until yesterday!  He told me he had to pee pee, so we went to the bathroom and I took his diaper off.  He sat down for a few minutes.  Then he got up to play a minute and then I noticed a little dribble going down his leg, so he sat down on the potty again and peed in the potty!  We were so excited!  He got two Elmo stamps, one on each hand, for using his potty!  He really enjoyed dumping the pee from his potty into the toilet, so much so that he tried to dip it back out!  Boys will be boys!

I am thankful for the good aspects of yesterday and praying for those who didn't weather the storms as well as we did.  I did manage to take a few pictures yesterday evening.  These are by no means great pictures.  I didn't want to get my tripod out while these storms were going through because I didn't want it to become a lightening rod, so pardon the camera shake, night shots!

Scary clouds last night! 

 Somber sky this morning

A little blue peeking through!

Easter Weekend

Our Easter weekend was hoppin'!  It started out on Good Friday.  That morning my brother graduated from college, which is a big deal!  Adam stayed home with Ryne, and it was a darn good thing too because the commencement speaker was TERRIBLE!  Ryne would have been bored to tears, as I was during the speech, and would have probably been carried out screaming anyway, seeing as that's kind of become the norm here lately.  Anyway, Ronnie did graduate and River did very well during the graduation and was so excited to see his daddy walk across stage.  River also liked playing with Ronnie's tassel - maybe that will be motivation to wear his own tassel one day!  Adam and Ryne joined us later at Parkside Grill for some yummy lunch, where Ryne ate like horse goat!

Mom and Dad took Ryne back to there house to stay the rest of the day and night.  They wanted Ryne to come down for a slumber party of sorts with River, and Adam and I had a Baby Party to attend to that night!  Ryne and River played well together all day and even dyed Easter eggs that night!  Mom put Ryne in the bed with River later that evening and Ryne rolled over and started screaming in River's face, so Ryne ended up in the pack n play by the end of the night!  Maybe we'll try the big boy bed another day!

Friday evening Adam and I drove up to Kodak to my best friend's house for her Baby Party!  I've never heard of a party like this but it was so cool!  Charlotte and Kris went to the OB Friday morning for an ultrasound of their baby to find out the sex of the baby and check out all the inner workings of Baby T.  They asked the ultrasound tech to write the sex of the baby in a card and include the ultrasound pictures of the gender-specific parts in the card.  They went to Magpies bakery and gave the sealed card to them. Magpies put gender-specific colored icing (blue or pink) between the layers of the cake, and covered the outside of the cake in sort of an ivory color.  So basically, Charlotte and Kris would have to cut the cake to find out what they were having!  So of course, they invited about 30 of their closest friends to come eat some fabulous food and view the cake-cutting.  They even did a drawing for a prize, if you guessed the correct sex of the baby.  I just knew it would be a girl...until I started taking pictures of the cake!  I noticed a faint line through the icing, that no one else noticed!  So when they cut the cake, I knew the icing in the middle would be...BLUE!  They were so excited!  Now Ryne will have another little guy friend in September!

Saturday morning, we woke up to a text from our realtor that said we had a viewing at 4:30.  Adam and I were expecting to pack and leave for Kingston for Easter dinner with my family, but the viewing threw a temporary wrench into that plan.  We had to clean like crazy!  We had a spill on the carpet from the night before that had to be cleaned up with a steam cleaner.  So we had to go get that and then put fans on the carpet in hopes that it would dry before the viewing time.  We got the house spotless in just a few short hours, showered and then packed for Kingston.  Ryne had been outside all day at Mom and Dad's - no nap. He hunted eggs all day and ran all over the back yard trying to love on my dog, Hannah or "Nanna" as Ryne calls her!  We had a fabulous Easter dinner:  shrimp, steak, some kind of roasted onion, etc.  It was all so good!  I think Dad was excited to break in the new grill!   Later that evening we went to Adam's parents' house to see his brother and his family.

Easter morning, we woke up early...because Ryne woke up early, and started getting ready for church.  We showed Ryne his Easter basket, which was an Elmo basket, filled with everything Elmo!  At first Ryne didn't seem interested until we started pulling stuff out of the basket.  Then he'd say "whoa" or "wow" after each item was pulled out!  It was so cute!  While getting ready for church, we experienced the power outage, like the rest of Kingston!  I thought I'd be going to church with a raggedy ponytail and wrinkled clothes, but luckily the power came back on with enough time for me to straighten my wavy mop of hair.

Ryne did pretty well during church, until the last half - the crying room was full so we ended up sitting in the back of the church.  He couldn't sit still after awhile and started getting fussy.  He just wanted to go outside and who could really blame him on such a beautiful day!  Finally Adam took him out and then right before communion, I left as well so that Adam could come in for communion, since I can't participate in communion at the Catholic church :(.  We were able to stick around long enough to get a little Holy Water on us - Thank the Lord!  Ryne and I walked down the street and looked at bushes, trees, flowers and cars.  As we walked back towards the church, the people living right next door to the church decided to try to pull a fence post up (during the service) with a big, loud truck.  Ryne was fascinated by it all!  He stood there and watched until they finally got the post out.  Ryne is really into some man-work:  mowing, climbing ladders, weed eating, etc.

After lunch we headed back to Adam's parents' house for lunch and some fun with the water hose! Ryne was soaked, head to toe from playing with the water hose, but he had SO much fun!  He just wants to be outside, and I don't blame him, since we had wonderful weather this weekend!  I guess ABCs, 123s, puzzles and books are going to be on the back burner this summer.  Although, yesterday at Mom and Dad's house, Ryne got the water hose again and instead of playing with it, he studied it - like total concentration on the water coming from the hose, how it hit the porch and where the water went.  I think he's learning a lot by being outside, even if it's not ABCs and such!

I hope everyone had a Happy Easter!

Connect with Purpose

I definitely experienced this during my Wednesday night photography class!  We had three local photographers that have taken the very class that I'm taking and have made it pretty big in the photography industry...especially the local photography industry!  I was hoping this class would lift my spirits and it most definitely did!

Enter Bryan Allen (Google him)!  He is a fabulous photographer and what's best is, he shoots like I do (or like I attempt to do) - candid (for his lifestyle photography).  Although he is much better than I am!  I have visions of being that good and maybe if I can go to some of his workshops and work my booty off, I too can become that good!  One can only hope!  Anywho, he is just one of those people whose personality and energy is just contagious - like in a way that you just want him to breathe on you so you can catch that personality and energy!   He started talking and I just wanted to be his best friend - instantly!

He talked some about his philosophy of photography and in essence life in general.  I LOVED every bit of it.  It's like all the things I wished and dreamed I could do/be/etc., were all encompassed in this one really cool guy standing at the front of the class.  I like his philosophy and his style of photography, I just wish I could manage to maintain it consistently instead of having what seems like brief moments of enlightenment.

Bryan talked a lot about creativity and how to get it.  I think to some extent my creativity has taken a backseat, since I've been focusing more on learning how to use the camera properly.  My goal is to train my brain on how to operate the camera properly in all situations and then let my creativity run wild.  I want to be so comfortable with the camera that I don't have to think about it anymore and let my creativity take over!

I think the other thing I liked about Bryan so much is that he sort of reminded me of Ryne - a grown up, more mellow version of Ryne!  He is an electrical engineer by day and does photography on the side.  His quirks and areas of interest seemed so much like Ryne's.  I just wish Ryne would mellow out a little already - sheesh!  I guess that's what any parent can hope for - that you raise a will-adjusted, smart, creative, centered, passionate, friendly child!

Anyway, my spirits have been lifted!  Not only did I connect with my purpose, I connected with someone else with a similar purpose who can be a fabulous inspiration for me and my photography!  I'm excited for the future!  

One Step Forward or Two Steps Back?

I've started my second photography class!  I'm excited and learning even more!  I think I will probably take a few other classes in the program as well because I am learning so much and so quickly!  However, sometimes I wonder if I haven't taken two steps backwards by trying to move forward.  My photos aren't significantly better than when I borrowed my best friend's camera and shot the pictures of Ryne back in November that everyone raved about on Facebook - some people even going so far as to say that they looked professional.  I haven't had as many comments like that recently and I am actually working towards being a professional!  Although the people who have done photo shoots for me seem to be quite happy with my work!  

Do I think the classes are worth it?  YES!!  I'm seeing photography in a whole new way.  I look at pictures differently and I have a VERY picky eye for certain things.  I can look at a professional's work and tell what they did with editing and such and my eye for composition has changed significantly!  I have learned to use my camera in total Manual mode rather than relying on the basic settings (you know the ones that have a picture of the running man, mountain, and flower for close ups).  I can make my camera do all that by telling it that I want this shutter speed, this aperture and this ISO.  So in a sense I feel that is several steps forward, but I don't have people knocking down my door for pictures...even free ones.  Since I tell the camera everything to do, I can also mess it up a bit, like have the wrong shutter speed or aperture or ISO, so not all my pictures are looking that much better.  Sometimes this is disheartening.  :(

Lets face it - I've spent a lot of money on a really nice/good camera.  I've spent a lot of money on classes and the best version of Photoshop.  I want my pictures to be spectacular already!  Anyone can take a picture and throw some basic editing software on it and make it look good, and if photography is a hobby, that's perfectly fine to do!  I did it too once upon a time and there's no shame in that!  I just want my photos to start reflecting my knowledge and I hope one day it will.  Otherwise, what use is it that when I see a wedding photographer shooting with all his fancy flash and whatnot pointed up to the sky in church with a super high ceiling and I know that flash is doing NOTHING.  Or when I see a professional holding their camera incorrectly (shudder the thought - pun intended!).

I never expected this to be easy, but I thought it would be easier.  I am hoping that class this week will lift my spirits a bit!  We are having guest speakers come who are Tom's previous students, and these people have made it BIG - not big in Knoxville, but big nationwide!  I trust that my education and experience with my instructor, Tom, will definitely come in handy very soon, but I am so impatient and such a perfectionist!  It's too bad that my true style of photography is more candid because it's harder to adjust my camera because lighting and exposure can change quickly with a moving target.  Editing my photos is harder as well because if you were posing someone you wouldn't necessarily do it in the same place or time as a candid shot.  I like the realness of my candid photos, and I am hoping to be able to adapt that into more visibly pleasing photos and I'm hoping my hard work, dedication and eduction will pay off!

21 months

I cannot believe that Ryne is 3 months away from being 2!   Ahh!  It's killing me!  It seems like yesterday that we celebrated Ryne's first birthday.

So here are his stats:

Weight:  25lbs 2 oz.  Really this kid eats like a horse and barely gains an ounce.  His level of physical activity is through the roof so I guess he's burning calories like crazy.  We recently started buying summer clothes and we've had a bit of a change in size.  Ryne is wearing 9 month shorts and 12-18 month shirts.  I'm going to assume since Adam wears a size 36 in the waist of his pants that Ryne has my waist!

Language Development:  During this age, it's so hard to keep up.  We know Ryne says over 200 words at this point, which is wonderful.  He is using some interjections like "wow", "whoa", "yay" and conjunctions like "and."  He is getting a little better about naming things when we ask what they are, but he is still quite reserved with his language.  He talks to me and Adam the most, but when he's around other people he uses less words and shorter phrases.  He also likes pretending to be asleep and making the snoring noise...through his mouth!

Comprehension:  At this age, the level of comprehension is quite astounding!  It's hard to believe kids this age even understand half of what we say and do.  He understands complex directions, details and storylines.  He has for quite some time, but his understanding seems to be evolving even more.  He is very good at problem solving, but sometimes solves problems so well that it's actually quite scary.  He wants to be a grown up so bad that he will do almost anything a grown up will do.

Speaking of doing things that grown ups do, he can undo almost any babyproofing device.  He can completely unbuckle himself from his carseat - which is a BAD thing.  He can also put car keys in the ignition and start a car and buckle himself up in the front seat, with no carseat.  We did not teach him this, so obviously we NEVER leave Ryne alone in the car, even if it's turned off with no keys, because that's just a dangerous combination with little Houdini Knies!  He can unplug the HDMI cord from the DVR and put it into the PS3 all by himself because he wants to watch Elmo.  He can put his shoes on the correct feet, do a zipper and button pants.  He can almost completely dress himself and tries to put on his own diaper - which means it's time for training pants!

Potty Time:  or "pee pee time" as Ryne calls it.  Ryne is working hard at potty training.  He is still not consistent enough with potty training over an extended period of time, but there are days when he does quite well!  Some days he will only tell you when he wets or dirties his diaper.  Some days he will tell you that he has to use the potty and he will sit on it patiently, but we wait and wait and nothing comes out!  Either way, he's getting there and I think he could be in mostly training pants by 2, but we aren't pushing it.

Music and songs:  oh my goodness, Ryne loves music!  He loves to dance to it!  About the only time Ryne watches a show on TV is when the music comes on.  He sings songs that he makes up and he will hum other songs that he knows, but he wont really sing a song, like the Wheels on the Bus or the ABCs.

ABCs:  Ryne seems to know quite a bit of his alphabet.  He usually will not tell you what they are if you ask, but he will just bust out the letters when he's not prompted to do so.  While doing one of his jigsaw puzzles the other day, he saw the title "Picture Puzzle" at the top of the puzzle and pointed and said "P" "C" "T" and "E".  Some of the letters were lowercase, which I've never exposed him to.  He still will not say them in order, even though he knows several chunks of the alphabet in order.  Order is not Ryne's way of functioning, apparently!

Puzzles:  Ryne is doing jigsaw puzzles with little to no help.  I finally figured out a way to teach him how to do puzzles by looking at the picture some and not just the shape.  He can do puzzles that have no outlines, guidelines or pictures underneath.  Since he has mastered most of his puzzles, he is putting them together off the cardboard frame thing and learning animals names and the names of the United States in the process.  As long as he masters puzzles and enjoys them, we are going to keep challenging him.  I really recommend puzzles to any parent because Ryne is learning so much in the process.

Reading:  he is learning to read a few words.  My mother taught my brother around 18 months so she suggested seeing if Ryne could as well.  He can read a few words and sometimes we wonder if he's not reading more than we realize or if he has somehow deduced the meaning of words from other things.

Ryne is such a sweet little guy, but he is still so challenging!  It's becoming more and more obvious to us that he learns in a dramatically different way than most.  However, we are also learning that he learns VERY much like Adam!  I am blown away almost daily and challenged daily.  These monthly postings are just a glimpse into Ryne's monthly achievements and some things are leftovers from previous months.  As I'm sure almost every other mother of a toddler can attest to, there's not enough time or space to write down even half of what toddlers accomplish during this time of their life!  It's such an exciting time and again, we can't wait to see what the next month holds!

The Climb

As much as I loathe Miley Cyrus, she does have some good lyrics from time to time and her song, "The Climb" has been on my mind for the past few days...well, since my climb!

Sunday, bright and early at 4 AM, Ronnie and I headed out to climb the Chimney Tops!  I had about 4 hours of sleep and Ronnie had none, but we were actually quite chipper!  Ronnie had been looking for a hiking partner and I was looking for someone that was brave enough to take me climbing before the sun came up for some amazing photo ops, and also someone that I could possibly outrun, if in fact we came across a bear!  You know that joke, that you don't have to outrun the bear, just the slowest person in the group!  Well, in a group of 2, I better be booking it if Yogi and Boo Boo decide to nab some hikers!

The Chimney Tops trail is not a very long one - only 2 miles, but we didn't realize the difficulty of the trail. I think Ronnie said it was roughly a 1000 ft elevation change over the 2 miles!  We made the first mile pretty quickly and without many problems.  We were decked out in our head lamps and short sleeved shirts.  It was cold enough that we could see our breath, in the light of the head lamps, but we were burning up from busting it up that mountain.  Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Ronnie and I are both incredibly out of shape, so that made this little hike even more eventful!  Around 1.3 miles we started feeling like we could puke!  We had to stop every 20 yards or so and sit for a minute.  I guess the change in elevation was starting to wear on us by that point.

The top of the Chimney Tops is actually rock-face or basically a bunch of slate jutting up out of the ground!  The trails technically ends at the base of the rock face, but we and many others, ventured forth to literally climb the rock face - like, looking for hand and foot holds kind of climbing!  At first I didn't want to climb the rock face, but Ronnie told me that I didn't get up that early and hike until I wanted to puke to just stand at the bottom of the rock face to get my pictures.  So I shimmied up the rock face and it was SO worth it!

Luckily, we made it to the tippy top before sunrise!  That was the whole purpose of the trip.  It was somewhat light outside before the sun truly came up over the mountains, but the view and the photos were still quite moving!  It's not the tallest mountain but it's tall enough and you have a 360 degree view so it's amazing... especially at sunrise!

I wish Adam could have gone and he wanted to but he didn't want to lose that much sleep and then have to start the work week the next day.  It was good having a little bonding time with my brother though.  Hopefully Adam will go again with me one day, maybe in the fall when the position of the sun is different and sunrise is at a different time!

Here are a few photos that I took at Sunrise and on the hike back down!

God's Flashlight!

 this is where God's Flashlight was pointing to 

S-curves in nature are beautiful! 

Little Red Squirrel who was busting a move!  I could hardly catch him clearly in a photo!

Family Photo Shoot

I had another photo shoot last week that I'd like to share some of.  They haven't seen all the pictures yet, so I am waiting to post them all until after they get their copies of them.  I will also have a photography blog up and running soon, and eventually my photo shoot pictures will be plastered all over that as well!  But for now, I have to think of a name, and a business name!  Decisions.  Decisions!

Anyway, this photo shoot involved some Senior Portraits, and a family of four, soon-to-be five!

Wonderful Weekend!

This weekend was full of fun times!  I kinda hate for it to end!

Friday, we celebrated Open Day with Adam's parents.  We had tilapia instead of hamburgers and hotdogs because of Lent.  I had some parmesan cheese handy, so we had some fabulous tilapia!  I found a little fun note in the cookbook about tilapia.  Apparently, it is believed to be the fish that Jesus used to feed the multitudes and is also called St. Peter's fish.  We had a great night and Ryne liked showing off for the grandparents!

Saturday morning I woke up and started baking...Red Velvet cupcakes!  Yum!  A friend of mine is getting married in a few weeks so we celebrated her bachelorette party on Saturday.  She is marrying a minister and we are all old maids now, so we celebrated with dinner and cupcakes.  I think her story is rather amazing.  She basically fell in love with the minister from another state, and decided to pretty much drop everything and move to be closer to him.  I guess God works in mysterious ways sometimes and sometimes, leaving your job, home and friends to be with someone ends up being your happily ever after!  I'm so glad they've found each other and I know it will be happily ever after!

Today, we had lunch and saw a movie with my best friend and her husband!  We don't live all that close to each other, so we don't get to see each other all that often.  We had lunch downtown at Latitude 35, which was quite good and then saw Limitless at Regal Downtown!  The movie was pretty good.  If you don't already know, it's about a guy who takes a pill that sort of changes the brain in an amazing way.  I wish they made a pill that I could take that would make me awesome at everything and focused!  I have a feeling I could be "Super Mom" on a pill like that!

I always feel so refreshed after spending time with my bestie!  I truly think that, although I don't have all that many close friends, I have some of the most amazing friends!  My best and my oldest friends are probably the two nicest, most well-rounded, lovable people that I know!  They are such a blessing in my life and I love them dearly...no matter how far away they might be!

Photography Friday

I HAVE to show some pictures from one of my first non-family photo shoots!

Talia and her beautiful family were brave enough to let me practice my photography skills on them recently.  Grant, her son, is such a cute, cooperative, little guy, and the entire family was a pleasure to work with!

So here is a little sneak peek...a little more than I shared on Facebook.

Thanks again to this beautiful family!