Rhylan wants to tell you a secret

Its true! I am almost 2.5 months pregnant. I know people always wait longer to spill the beans but I hate worrying about keeping this secret. I always have to act like I am feeling good, or that I am not taking a nap! Also, I have found it harder to keep the secret than I imaged. I would rather not have to think about saying the wrong thing, or going to the OB the same days as someone else. Oh yeah and I already wear maternity clothes and look 5-6 months along. So yes I am pregnant! We are so excited, our new baby is due July 25!

Oh so thoughtful

I am sure many of you have husbands who are amazing, and thoughtful! So do I. This morning I woke up to the smell of breakfast. Riley woke up early, did the dishes, played with Rhylan when she woke up and made us all a delicious breakfast before waking me up ...yes after 9:00!!! I love sleeping in, it is pretty much my favorite thing to do. With an 18 month old in the house that rarely happens.

No it is not my birthday, no it is not our anniversary. Yes it is a day when he should be stressed and I should be the one cooking him breakfast (finals week). What a sweet husband! I hope all of you are this lucky. Thanks Riley, love ya!

The Ornament

While growing up, my family had a very cool tradition! Each Christmas we would get a new ornament to put on the tree. Sometimes my mom would buy some and then let us choose,or we would make a trip to the store and get to each pick out our own. And a couple of times she painted us a new ornament. Some of them didn't last as long as others, and of course it broke our hearts to let them go but I am so glad that I still have so many of them. When we move away and get married we then were able to have a tree full of unique ornaments that were pretty special!!! Here are some of mine that I still have. These first two are from my first two Christmases.

Riley and I decided to keep this tradition with our children. Here is the ornament Rhylan "picked" out this year. (I finally found some that she liked and gave her a choice between two) This is a pretty neat one because now she can always remember that she went to the Georgia Aquarium this year and loved the fish!!

Just like mommy

Rhylan loves her mama and tries to copy everything I do. The other day after a bath, Riley helped her put on her towel like mom! This is a little hand towel and it fits perfectly. She thought she was funny and walked around the house for a while, like this.

decorating with FHE

My mom sent Rhylan a package this last week. Inside were several thing for Rhylan to help decorate for Christmas. She got this snowman window cling that she can play with for 20 min or more at a time!!!

She also got a stuffed nativity ornament set! This was really nice because she really liked helping me decorate our tree but these little characters she can take off and put back on again.


So Monday we had FHE from the new nursery manual. At the end of the lesson she colored some pictures that I helped her turn into a mobile. On our way to the dinning room light (where we usually hang her beautiful projects) I turned around and she had already hung it on the tree!!! I thought it was so clever, it is still on our tree. I guess she was really in the decorating mood after all that practice.

Auntie Markee

Rhylan has the best aunts. They all love her and love to play and be with her. Riley's sister Markee was here over Thanksgiving and Rhylan and her were instant playmates.
Markee was so excited to come see her only niece. They played nonstop for 3 days!!!

We went to the park on Thanksgiving afternoon and Rhylan dragged Markee all over the place, showing her all of her favorite toys.



Then later we watched a movie, Rhylan snuggled up to Markee on the couch! Aren't they cute!
Then it was finally bath time. They played for almost half an hour in there. Markee would help Rhylan fill up the bucket with water and then they would dump it out. Yes...over and over again.



P.S. It was also Riley's birthday on Thanksgiving. He had a great day!

"ishy" translation--fish

Monday we made a special trip to Atlanta to see the world famous Georgia Aquarium!!! This is the largest Aquarium in the world. We finally lived on this end of the country and couldn't give up the chance to go see it!!

Rhylan loved looking at all the fish (so did we). It was so exciting to see her face light up and that little finger point to everything. Our favorite animal was the largest fish in the sea...the Whale Shark. (I have a video below. ) Here are just a few picture of our day!

We got this little leash thing a couple weeks ago. It works wonders, she loves to wander around but she will never get too far!
She was scared to death of this fish!
Most of the pictures are of the back of her head because she wouldn't look away from the fish.


Here is a whale shark. I had a better picture with out strangers in it but I like how you can tell how big it is.

This is a Manta ray!! It was also huge. I guess it can get as big as an elephant that is an over 20 foot "wing"span.
Here are my two favorite people. She obviously gets her interest in animals from Riley.

Georgia Aquarium Video!!

Our favorite exhibit was the Ocean Voyager!! There was this huge tank that has 6 types of sharks and hundreds of other fish. We loved the whale shark. This tank was big enough to hold 6 40 foot whale sharks!! They only have 4 right now, and they are not full grown. These ones ranger from smallest 17 foot and biggest 22 feet!! Here is a video of lots of the neat animals we saw in the one tank!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

LOOK WHAT I MADE!!!!

I learned how to make this during enrichment! And 5 hours later here it is!! Yeah I am pretty proud of it. This ornament is defiantly going at the top of the tree so Rhylan can't get her hands on it. It was pretty fun to make. I will probably make more someday.

Turkey day party

Today we went to a Thanksgiving party with our mother's group. Rhylan helped me make a feather headband...yes it is backwards and inside out oops.
She also helped me make a turkey. Hers was one of the only ones left alive. She wasn't interested in eating any of it.
She really had a fun time interacting with all the little kids in our ward. She is a pretty social little girl.

Sorry about the fuzzy photos..they are pretty good considering they are from my little phone!

YELLOW

I have been trying to teach Rhylan some colors. We started with "lele" --yellow. Today i had her find the yellow crayon and she did it over and over again. She always wanted to see her video after finding one.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

HOCKEY night in Mississippi

Riley wanted to write a post so here it is!!

Saturday night Savannah, Rhylan and I finally went to a hockey game here in Mississippi. Who would have thought that they have hockey down here! It's really nice because the stadium is only like a mile away from our house. We went with some friends and we had a great time, not to mention there was a fight in the first period, and that someone's skate put a hole through the boards because of a hard body check. It was good ol' hockey.
Here is Rhylan and her good buddy Lucy.
Here is the Riverkings mascot, a turtle. How appropriate for Mississippi, because there's turtles everywhere.
Rhylan was so excited about the hockey game she started eating her tickets.
Family taking a snack break during the zamboni time inbetween periods.
I don't know who is more excited Rhylan or ME!!
Riverkings 3. Blazers 2. We won, yeah!

Messy Face

Rhylan and I were eating breakfast this morning when I noticed this face. I know it was clean when she went to bed... I don't know what happened!!

I love that Rhylan can do crafts now!! There are several girls in my ward that got together and ordered crafts from oriental trading and then swapped. They only come in packs of 12 so it was nice to order a whole pack and get 12 different crafts to do. Some of them are a little too advanced for Rhylan but will be great next year!

She did it all by her self. I did the glue but she stuck everything together. Check out the red leaf on the top left, I put the glue dots in the same place but she smeared his eyes that way. It looks so cute on my front door.

A day at the Park

Today was park day for our mothers group. As you can see in the pictures, we were the only ones there for most of it (after 45 min of alone time Brittany showed up to play). It looks colder than it really was and Rhylan had a fun time being queen of the playground!! I of course seized the opportunity to take a million photos of her. Here are some of my favorite.