Category Archives: family

It’s FriYay! July One

Awesome Things this week include…

1. Lunch with B! It had been far too long.

2. The kiddos wrapped up their last week of daycare for the summer.

3. Playtime in the water.

4. Mojitos!

5. Wrapping up work every day between 3:30 & 4 PM. What an awesome schedule for summer!

Fun pics from the week…
Lincoln is often asking for breakfast within minutes of him waking up in the mornings. My current work schedule of starting at 6 AM and having a daily call at 6:30 AM interferes with his morning plans. Luckily for me he’s a pretty patient little man. And also quiet. Clockwise from the upper left we have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.

He still loves me!

Reese before our run on Saturday.

My girls and me. All the heart eyes.

Auntie & Reese. Walking buddies.

Straight iron curls! I’m legit proud of myself for finally figuring this out. Girling is hard, yo.

Fun in the sun! Lincoln is now obsessed with playing in the water!

Next week I’m looking forward to…

1. Spending time with friends for the 4th!

2. Short work week that’s ending in a camping trip with some great friends!

2. Planning our first camping trip as a family of 5!

That Circus Life

Life is a circus, guys.

Yes, of course I love my kiddos. And of course I wouldn’t trade them for the world. And of course I can’t imagine my life without them. Full hands, full heart. Yada, yada, yada.

I know they mean well, but when people say “cherish every moment” I can’t help but be all…

And sometimes I’m even like…

Mostly because…

One is always crying.

One is always whining.

One is always tattling.

The laundry. Oh the laundry.

6 AM weekend wake-ups.

We basically bought a car with third row seating just so they can’t touch each other.

If I hear “mom watch” one… more… time…

Seriously… if I had a dollar for every time I heard “Mom, watch!”

It’s impossible to make a dinner everyone is happy about.

Unless it’s pizza night.

Coffee. Coffee. Coffee.

So, just remember, next time you tell me to “cherish every moment,” I may look like this on the outside…

But inside I’m probably doing this…

The Circus Meets Their Cousin

So, back in January my sister, K1, had a baby! It’s the first cousin on my side. My first niece or nephew. This last Saturday I took the kiddos up to meet their sweet cousin George! Yes, he is 4 months old and I just now took the kids up to meet him. And even though there’s really no excuse for how long it took me to make that happen, I’m going to try and make some excuses. 1. My children are disgusting and germ filled and have been passing around the same cold since November. 2. Ever since February, I’ve been going to Portland for work on a weekly basis. I didn’t want to make the trip again on a weekend. 3. I’ve kinda liked having him all to myself on those trips.

Ok, truth be told, reason 3 is pretty much the main reason. 

Anyway, back to Saturday. Andy was off with a friend for the entire day so K1 and I made plans to make the meeting happen! Then Lincoln ended up with a fever Friday afternoon/night. And it turned out that George had an ear infection. So we had decided we’d reschedule. Then Saturday morning by 10:30 I was already feeling myself going crazy being cooped up in the house solo with the 3 kiddos. So I texted K1 and we decided plans were back on! I hadn’t told the kids yet what we were going to be doing, so when plans were back on I shared the news.

There was jumping. There was cheering. There was MUCH excitement.

Within 30 minutes we were hitting the road!

The drive up? Was terrible. I’ve made that drive more than a dozen times in the last 3 months and this was the worst one yet! It was pouring down rain the entire way. There was a ton of traffic. We were stopped because of a wreck at one point. Multiple instances of people slamming on their brakes. I expected Lincoln and Reese to sleep most of the way. Lincoln only slept 1/2 of the drive and Reese slept less than that. Good times.

We made it up in time for a late lunch. George was sleeping so K1 took Rylee and Reese in to peek in on him. Reese had her first I-never-want-to-forget-this-moment one-liner of the day: “Oh auntie he’s cute. You picked a good one.”

When he woke up and was fed and changed it was time for the “official” cousin meeting! Rylee got to hold him for a hot second before it turned into the Reese show.

Reese was obsesssssed with her cousin. Honestly, I should have known that was going to happen. She’s been obsessed with him ever since K1’s baby shower, where she would ask every few days if Baby George had “popped out of Auntie’s tummy yet?”. She got to feed him a bottle, then insisted on burping him. She brought books from home to read to him. She had him giggling at one point. She told me she didn’t want to leave. Her and my sister are already planning a sleepover for sometime this summer.

“Mom move. I got him.” (Brushing my hand away)

“Mom, I’m a good cousin to Baby George.”“Mom, Baby George really loves me.”

They all loved on him. Lincoln was so sweet with him too… bringing me his binkie, rubbing his back and head, sticking his binkie back in his mouth whenever it fell out. The girls took turns reading him books while he hung out in the cradle our grandfather made for my sister.

All in all? Such an amazing day I don’t ever want to forget. I love this little man as much as I love my own kiddos so it made my heart full to see them all together. I’m so looking forward to watching our kiddos grow up together.

Life Update

I think it’s time to get back to the basics. When I first started this blog (over SIX years ago!) the whole point was to keep friends and family, near and far, up to date on the life and times of Little Miss Rylee. Then people other than friends and family started reading the blog, I started posting 3-5 times a week, making a little money and somewhere along the way I lost touch with why I started blogging. Between that and life getting more and more busy I just got overwhelmed with this space and the unrealistic expectations I’d set for myself.

And so here we are.

Getting back to the basics I figured I’d start by trying to give some life updates on the family. On a semi-regular basis maybe?

Rylee continues to kick serious booty at school. Sure, she is smart, but she also works really hard. I love that about her. She’s reading at almost a third grade level. Her math skills are just about off the charts. Like, literally. Her 2nd quarter state math tests put her in the 98th percentile. Yes, in the state. She continues to blow me away and at the rate she’s going she’ll be better than me at math by the time she’s out of elementary school. Other than school, she still loves art, Taylor Swift, board games, playing mine craft on her ipod, and tacos. She tells me her favorite colors are no longer orange and pink. Well, she “still likes, them, but just like not super bright pink or anything.” Her sense of humor is on point. She doesn’t have a boyfriend. She’s lost 5 teeth so far.

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Reese is so full of life! A typical 2.5 year old, she is opinionated as all get out. She makes us laugh all the time. And once she knows she’s being funny she is relentless. She will definitely be the class clown. She also gives some killer dirty looks. (Gets that from her mama.) She’s thoughtful and polite and loves to be a helper. I feel like I need to add more here to make her update more even with the other two, alas I can’t think of anything else to report, Sorry future Reese, I’m definitely not helping with that middle child complex.

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Andy and I have talked about getting Ry back into gymnastics and trying it with Reese too. I just keep forgetting to look up class times.

Oh and I just remembered something else about Reese. We transitioned her to a toddler bed over Christmas break.

Lincoln is actually asleep on me as I’m typing this. Weekends are for snuggle naps, right? He just had his 4 month well-baby check earlier this week. He’s quite the little peanut – just breaking 14 lbs (19th percentile) and 22.5″ long (34th percentile).  He’s generally a happy guy. His blond fuzzy hair cracks me up. His lashes are to die for. He found his toes! He’s also kind of a jerk. He figured out last week how to knock the binkie out of his mouth and replace it with his thumb. Intentionally. Then he’d smile. He’s rolling over from back to stomach. He’s occasionally sleeping through the night. He definitely favors me over Andy and even though I feel kind of bad for Andy, I’m not going to lie, I kind of love it.

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Andy is busy with work and the property, as usual. We had some broken pipes in our pump house last month and like most things with this place, it took way longer to fix than it should have because once he got in there to fix what he thought was the problem, he discovered a bunch of other stuff wrong. It’s exhausting. And expensive! He also cracked a rib or two while he was dealing with all of that so that’s been fun.

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As for me? Being back at work full time has been a pretty easy adjustment. My new role is going well. It’s a bit of an adjustment to go from my old role of pretty much just copy writing to managing a team and keeping track of multiple moving pieces. It’s something I used to do at all my other jobs and it’s coming back to me, but there are definitely times where I feel like I have ADHD or something. One of the first things I had to do was plan a marketing retreat. Overall it went well and it felt pretty good to kind of knock it out of the park. I finally figured out how to french braid! I’m losing hair in disturbing amounts. Meal planning is still my sanity keeper. I’ve started taking a Barre style work out class on Saturday mornings. It’s amazing and I love it and if you live in my area, you really should try it out.

And at this point, that’s all I’ve got. As always, I have so many things I want to blog about. Maybe someday.

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10 minute update

It’s not even 9 pm and I’m ready to pass out. The crazy thing is I’m the only one awake right now. The quiet does things to my mind. Like sometimes makes me want to tap out a quick post from my phone. I love the quiet. I crave the quiet.

Ry has her first tball game tomorrow night. Her uniform is tye-died. Go figure. She seriously loves it. Double go figure. It’s supposed to be almost 80 degrees. Heck. Yes. I’ll report back later on how the game went and how the season has gone so far. That’s a post for when I’m at a computer.

Reese is Reese. Kicking butt with talking and continuing to blow my mind with early potty training.

Andy has begun turning the brick building next to our house into a workshop for himself. We call it the brick house because it is the original home/milking house on the property and well, it’s made a brick. It’s previously just been a catch all for our outdoor shit. He’s pretty excited about it and I’m happy he will have a space to tinker/build. I’m now just wondering why we didn’t do it sooner. I foresee him spending many hours in there…especially if baby number three is another girl. Ha.

I’m good. Just…tired. And my 10 minutes is up.

No one in our house slept worth a damn last night. Here’s hoping tonight is better!

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