Rylee's 3 Year Pictures

Holy crap! I was just looking through some things and realized I never posted these pictures of Rylee! These are the ones I had done when she turned 3, you know....4 months ago! Yikes! I think I didn't post them because I was going to do a whole post about her at 3, but since no one probably wants to read all that anyway, I'll just post the pics and add some more about Rylee later. I am SO far behind on blogging! I still have our new family pictures to post and haven't gotten around to it yet. We just got home from vacation, which I will probably get around to posting in about six months... I still haven't finished doing laundry or unpacking and my sister-in-law has it all blogged already! (Thanks a lot Kim, hahaha!!!) I have GOT to get more organized or stop sleeping or something! Anyway - Here are Ry's gorgeous pictures - I love this girl!!! And she LOVES to pose!
This one is my favorite - How sweet is she???



I had the ones above taken by the photographer I've been using for awhile and I loved them! But, my sister made Rylee this cute tutu and I wanted to get a couple pictures that showed it more, so I took her to one of Avery's many photo shoots at Target. These ones turned out super cute, too. She was in more of a picture taking mood that day and was loving posing for the photographer there!

This is her attitude face. This is what happens when aunts and uncles teach your kids things that they think are funny. Thank you Aunt Vanessa! It does capture Rylee quite well though.




Oh, how I love my Rylee! She can be difficult at times, but she is also the sweetest thing ever when she wants to be. If I ever pull a sad face, she will immediately give me a big hug and is always worried about hurting my feelings. Rylee is definitely our Princess, but can dig in the dirt with the best of them and really keeps us hopping. If there is a mess, Ry can find it and she is ALWAYS dirty and still has to wear a bib at every meal because I think she is the messiest eater on the planet! She has more personality than ANY of us knows what to do with and adds a lot to our family. Rylee loves to be helpful, even though it sometimes isn't as helpful as she wants to be. She loves "helping" taking care of Avery and one of her favorite jobs is helping in the kitchen. She is a great potato washer and I am trying to get better about letting her help more without worrying about her messes. She loves her baby dolls and it is so funny to watch her care for them. She will wrap them up, feed them bottles, put them down for naps and warn us all to be quiet. She is just so funny with them! Rylee loves her purses and sometimes I call her the bag lady because she is always hauling some kind of bag around the house stuffed with crap. She fills any kind of bag she can find with stuff, then carries it around for awhile, then decides to dump it out (never in the room it belongs in...), fills that bag up with new crap and takes it into another room to repeat the process. She is the biggest reason that my house is never clean! She also is my best cleaner, IF she feels like it (and that is a BIG if!!!)

One of my favorite things about Rylee is when you tuck her in at night and she can't stop talking to you! She talks all during the song I sing her, and keeps talking as I walk out the door. She will yell "I love you More" down the stairs several times before she finally gives up. I also love singing to her at night. She is very particular about it and lets me know if I do it wrong. I always sing "Whenever I hear the song of the bird..." and then "Goodnight sweetheart". Awhile ago, Rylee got irritated with the way I was doing the "badadadum"s between the lines of the song, so she decided she would sing them herself. She kept telling me I was doing it wrong and finally started doing it herself and now she sings it like that every night. It is so cute - I don't know how to type what it sounds like but it is sweet and her little tongue does it so funny!

She is quite the little social butterfly and always knows who people are and remembers everyone's names. For instance, the other day, we were going somewhere with a group from our ward, and I was naming a few of the kids' from nursery that would be there and she said, "Oh, Gabe. He wore a pink shirt to nursery on Sunday." It was hilarious! (I checked with his mom, and he did!) She notices a lot of things about people and sometimes, I think she must be much more grown up than she is. Ry has a great imagination and loves to play and is great at role-playing (as long as SHE gets to be the mom!) and loves to play Princesses or Little People or with her stuffed animals. She keeps us all in line, even if she is "SOooo bossy" as Logan says at least 5 times a day. She LOVES to talk and is SO good at it! She loves purses, the color PINK, dressups, ALL things Princess, Backyardigans, Elmo, Dora, reading, puppies, stuffed animals, the sandbox and swings, going anywhere, shopping, her little friends.... I'll have to come back and finish this later. I'm much too tired for this tonight.... We love our Rylee! I can't believe she is 3, although there are many days she seems much older than that! Shouldn't she be a little older before she starts asking to call her friends and telling me boys are cute? I think we may have to lock this one up when she turns 16....

Cruising Around

Yesterday, (July 10), Avery started yet another new trick. She started pulling herself up to the couch. She crawled over, and pulled herself right up. She did it so quick it makes me wonder if she has been doing it for awhile and I just didn't notice, but I am pretty certain that yesterday was the first time she did it all on her own. She is now EVERYWHERE!!! She can go from laying on her back, to flipping onto her tummy, pushing up to crawling (which is also a new trick in the last week or so. Before she could only get into crawl position if she was sitting up...), crawling over to the couch, pulling up to it and then cruising around on the furniture. She is also getting really brave and will let go for a second or 2 at a time. I think she could stand up if she wasn't always bouncing or dancing. Yesterday, she tried to make the jump from the couch to Darren's leg and had a pretty bad spill. I think we are in for some serious trouble!
She is SO fast at crawling and can get anywhere and especially likes to eat small things she finds on the ground, or rip and eat paper any chance she gets. She always seems to surprise me with how quick she can get across the room, or lately across a couple of rooms. She has started to use a more conventional method of crawling occasionally, but for the most part, she still does her funny crawl with one leg sticking straight out to the side and doing most of the pushing. It looks pretty funny!
Avery has also discovered another new trick - Clicking her tongue. She did it by accident about a week or 2 ago and it really surprised her. Ever since then, she would do it every once in awhile, and then it seems like she is trying to figure out how to repeat the feat, but can't. Today, she put it all together and spent most of the day clicking away for all of us and looking rather proud of herself and sticking out her cute little pointed tongue to show off. I can't believe how big she is getting and how much she is changing! She seems to be coming rather independent and a bit more daring, just like her big sister! I don't know if I am ready for this....

Vegas Vacation

In April, (April 15 - 18) we made a quick trip to Vegas to try and work out something for our condo and to visit some friends. It wasn't a very exciting vacation, but we had a good time. It was our first real road trip in the mini-van and with THREE kids and a good test drive for our trip to California coming up soon!
Ever since our Yellowstone trip, my kids love to have their binoculars in their road trip bags. Not much to see in the desert between here and Vegas, but Rylee liked using them anyway.
She may look cute, but she was a bit of a terror in the car. We put all 3 kids in one row in the van so I could hand them things and they could watch movies. Rylee was a stinker and kept bugging Logan and kicking him and stealing his toys and then he would whine and it was a LONG drive! I think that we will put Avery in the middle on the way to Disneyland...
Logan was happy to be in the front row and watch movies!
Avery chilling in her chair. She is not a great car traveler, but she did OK on this trip.
Watching a movie in the car. Thank heavens for DVD players!
It is a tight squeeze!
We left on Thursday (April 15) and stayed the night in St George at Darren's parents new house. It was a nice way to break up the drive and fun to see Grandpa Webber who had a yummy dinner waiting for us. On Friday (April 16), we got up and had some breakfast and then drove to Vegas. On the way into town, we made a quick stop at the dental school so Daddy could say hi to a few of his old professors. The funny thing was that Logan remembered Dr Richards, too and said hello to him before we even introduced him. He has such a great memory! It was fun to visit the dental school for a minute and surprise some people.
Next, we went to lunch at our of our favorite places - Bahama Breeze! Everyone was making a big fuss over our cute baby. Avery was a big attention getter! I forget that people make a big deal over cute babies outside of Utah. There are too many of them here for anyone to notice. They all also commented on her big bow....
MMMmmmm.....The reason we love Bahama Breeze so much is these delicious coconut onion rings! They are A.M.A.Z.I.N.G and worth the trip to Vegas on their own!
Daddy and Rylee
Logan and Mom
Next, we had a quick meeting with a property manager. We stayed with our good friends, the White's, and they were nice enough to watch our kids while we were in the meeting. When we were done, the kids were so excited to go swimming in their pool! Our kids LOVE to swim and it always seems to be the highlight of any trip.
Rylee used to not like the water much, but she is a little fish these days and loves to swim!




The water was a little cold, so Avery hung out poolside. Here she is getting kisses from Daddy. You gotta love those sweet cheeks!
I love this baby!
Our friends ended up with some tickets to the Professional Bull riding championship rodeo in town that night, so we were off to the rodeo! It didn't start until 8 pm, which is 9 pm Utah time, so the kids were a bit tired, but we had a lot of fun!
Logan screaming for Team USA. What can I say??? He is a passionate fan!
Rylee sitting with cute Hannah Banana! She is so cute to help with our kids and Rylee adores her.
Avery
Avery clapping -I wasn't sure how she would do with the noise, but she did great and loved clapping when everyone else did.
Rylee and Avery
Rylee wasn't a big fan of how loud it was
Daddy caught this ball for Rylee and it made her night. It was a good thing, too, because it was late and she was on the verge of a major meltdown! Of course, this caused Logan to have a meltdown because he didn't get a ball. You can't win them all...
On Saturday (April 17), we got up and hung around for awhile. Avery had her first taste of bananas and as you can see, she quite liked them. Logan headed off with the White's to the Primary Activity for our old ward there and was quite the celebrity! Everyone in that ward loved Logan and he even remembered a couple of his old teachers and was so happy to see them. He had a great time!
Logan has this blood vessel growth under his eye and since Sandy White was our old Dr in Vegas, he wanted to try and fix it for us. He took Logan into his office and zapped it. This was supposed to be a before picture, but the growth hasn't gone away. I guess we will be making a trip to the Pediatric Dermatologist still.... Logan was really brave for the procedure and did great, though.
In the afternoon, we wanted to do something fun with the kids, so we went down to one of our favorite Vegas places, the Bellagio. We LOVE it there. First we walked through the Conservatory. Logan wanted to smell EVERY flower! He is really funny lately and seems to notice every smell...especially Rylee's stinky diapers!
Cute Rylee with the flowers. Her shirt matched perfectly
Logan and Ry - Avery was asleep in her stroller...
I love this cutie!
Quick family photo by Hannah, who came with us.
Avery sleeping in her stroller.
Isn't this place gorgeous??? I LOVE visiting here!
Logan really liked this snail
Another view
Next, we watched the HUGE chocolate fountain and then we headed out to watch the fountain show. While we were walking, Logan saw a Star Wars storm trooper and his face LIT UP!
He was so excited to go and say hello to him!
We paid good money for this picture, so enjoy it! This guy was just out on the street taking pictures, but you have to tip them. Logan was in heaven, so it was well worth it. Especially when he got to hold the storm trooper gun!
Waiting for the fountains to start
I love this picture of their faces

Avery woke up in time to see most of the fountain show
The girls - Avery couldn't take her eyes off the water!
Family picture
We had to take a couple more pictures in the Observatory since Avery woke up
What a cutie!
Another family shot
When we got back to the White's house, we took another dip in the pool. Avery had a good time exploring the grass. It was kind of a new thing for her....




Rylee doing a Superman in the pool
Avery really wanted to get in, so we gave it a try. The water was a little cold, so she didn't last too long.
She liked dangling her toes in the water and the hot tub much better!

Logan was cold, too and wanted to lay in the sun and get warm. Cute Hannah laid down with him.
It looks like Avery is grooming Daddy....
Avery loved the bubbles in the hot tub!

Saturday night, Madi and Hannah babysat for us and we got to go out for an adult dinner with Sandy and Jen (and Avery...) to a really yummy Mexican restaurant. It was a lot of fun! Sunday (April 18), we went to our old ward. It was fun to see so many familiar faces and chat with a few friends. My good friend, Valerie, even came and sat with us during church, even though it wasn't her ward. She was the RS President in our first Vegas ward and I was her Secretary. She was so wonderful to us and we love her! Logan even calls her "Grandma Valerie". She met Avery for the first time and held her for most of church. After church, I noticed that Avery smelled just like Grandma Valerie, just like Logan used to when he was a baby! I was so happy we could see her - I just wish I would have taken a picture! Our trip to Vegas went much quicker than we planned and we didn't get to do all that we had hoped or see too many people that we thought we would. Maybe another trip....
The drive home was LONG..,..We made a stop in Cedar and the girls had a great time on the swings! I love how happy Avery is!

We didn't quite make it all the way home on Sunday. We ended up staying at Darren's parents' house and finishing our drive Monday morning. It was a fun getaway and we loved some warm weather, even though it was a lot of driving and a little too quick! Viva Las Vegas!!!