8 Months

I know I'm behind in posting this but our baby girl turned 8 months old about a week and a half ago. Here's what's new with her these days:

-She now has 3 almost 4 teeth! Her first top tooth finally emerged. I can tell that she's getting older and learning how to handle the pain of teething better. It still effects her sleep but not nearly as much as it did when she was cutting her bottom teeth. So thankful for that!

-She's learned how to shake her head "no". Not that she knows what it means but we get the biggest kick out of asking her a question and her saying no no matter what it is. "Reese, do you love Mommy?" "No!" We know it won't always be cute but for now we're enjoying her learning new things. :)

-As of two days ago she's really starting to figure out where her knees are and how they work for crawling. The only problem: she's going backwards not forwards. I had a feeling that crawling might be happening just as we were ready to put up our Christmas tree. We're giving her 2 weeks and thinking she's really going to get the hang of it quickly!

-Reese is still a little feather weight. We don't go to the doctor again till 9 months but our scale here at home said she's 16.5 pounds. She's stayed little a lot longer that way and wearing 6 month clothes.

-Hands down dad is still her favorite plaything. She loves it when he comes home from work or is home on the weekends. 

-We are so excited to have her here this year for Thanksgiving and Christmas! What a joy to celebrate as a family of 3!

Ready for Church

Matt has taken over the job of dressing Reese on Sunday mornings while I rush around trying to make myself halfway presentable. So he just had to get the camera out to take pictures of one of his favorite girls in his favorite outfit for her. :) Enjoy!

Christmas can come...

Since before I could remember and there are just pictures to show what my early Christmas' were like, I have had my stocking. My great Aunt Jean crocheted it by hand with my name down the front and the best part about it, as a kid, is how big it is! Every year that a new baby came into our home, a handmade stocking from Aunt Jean would arrive just in time to hang it on the mantle. 

The stockings all hung by the chimney with care...

After I got married, my sister Kelly graciously took over the role of making the stockings for our expanding {Ryan} family. For our first Christmas she surprised Matt and I both and sent him his own stocking made just a little differently. I love how it matches yet is set apart. :)

Since we are without a fireplace we've made good use of our bookshelf.

That's why it was such a surprise and delight to find this package in our mailbox this week.

Thank you so much, Kelly, for all the hard work you did in making this for Reese. We are ready for Christmas to come and I can't wait to decorate and hang her stocking right alongside mom and dad's! What a special tradition to keep going!

Happy Birthday Jeremiah!

I love how God knows the desires of our hearts and has planned out exactly what we will need before we ever realize it's important to us! I had no idea that when I left Alaska for college I wouldn't be going back once I was finished. The Lord knew though and had the perfect family in mind for me to become a part of through being Matt's wife. Family is so important to me...I love my family and am so thankful that although I can't be home, I have two parents, 3 sisters and 2 brothers to call my own right here in California! 

To celebrate Jeremiah's Birthday (Matt's brother-in-law who's married to Courtney) the family got together, went to Stonefire for dinner and then headed to Tad and Monika's house to have cake, open presents, spend time together and then play 9 or 10 CrAzY games of Nertz!

Reese with the Birthday Boy!

Reese was having a conversation with Jeremiah...

I think she said something like Happy Birthday.

What would a night be without football?!? 

Monika and I ask ourselves that regularly. 

This picture captures those that hold it dear to their hearts. :)

Life is full and blessed with having such dear friends to call my family. 

Happy Birthday, Jeremiah! We sure enjoyed celebrating you and spending time with everyone! 

May you have a wonderful year ahead.

Lombardi Ranch

We are making a tradition of going to Lombardi Ranch here in Santa Clarita to celebrate fall, harvest time, pumpkin patches, fresh produce and the chance to get out together as a family! It was a beautiful, {warm} and sunny day when we went and since it was in the middle of a week day no one was there! We had the whole place to ourselves. I can't wait to go back next year when Reese is walking everywhere and can enjoy things like pony rides and the hay wagon. 

I'm in love with this picture...if that's allowed. :) Since we were all by ourselves at the ranch there was no one to take our camera to get the 3 of us. So this is a self portrait and when Matt and I looked to see how it turned out I couldn't believe Reese smiled for it! I think this will be my favorite for a long time...and how crazy/silly are we that all 3 of us are wearing a shade of blue! Ha!

I remember taking this picture and thinking...I can't wait until next year when our tiny little baby is here with us and we can show her what fall and pumpkins are all about! It blows me away how fast that year went and here I am blogging about this year!

We had a great time walking through all 

these gigantic sunflowers enjoying God's creation, each other and being outside.

What a happy little girl with her pumpkin! 

It's so much better with my baby on my lap!

Baby Books and Clive

Reese's buddy Clive was over for dinner last night and brought her a present. I've heard that there are books out there made specifically with babies in mind but this one takes the cake! It's claim: Chew proof, rip proof, 100% washable, oh and nontoxic too! Reese LoVesS paper these days. She lunges for any book, paper, flier, or bulletin from church and immediately it goes in her mouth. So needless to say...I'm a big fan of this book and can't wait to find more to add to the collection. Thank you Clivey boy for Reese's gift. She loves it and it's spent a lot of time in her mouth already. :)

A little bit about this precious boy... I know he is special to many people, especially his parents and family but I just love this little guy...long before he entered the world! He has been on my heart even before his mama told me she was pregnant. I just had a hunch Amy was expecting but wanted to wait for her to tell me. :) Then a few months later I found we were having a baby. It was extra special to be friends, co-workers and then mom's to be all at the same time! I loved getting my weekly updates from Babycenter.com and sharing it with Amy because I knew she was just excited about each growth and development as I was.

Amy's goodbye brunch at work

Amy's shower

So now to have these two little ones playing together is priceless to me. Especially because Bart and Amy are about to head off to be missionaries in Lebanon...far, far away! Reese and I will just have to watch Clive grow and change through facebook and ichat. 

I love you dear friend so much and your sweet family and will be keeping you in my thoughts and prayers. Thank you for being wonderful friends to us!

October 31st

Even though we were still feeling the effects of the flu, we wanted Reese to have some sort of experience for Reformation Sunday. So here is our little pumpkin...

Reese kept wanting to touch that big orange ball. 

She wasn't sure what was going on in her kitchen that night. :)

Our little family has now expanded to 3! 

This was last year with Reese still a bun in the oven.

Matt did a great job carving the pumpkin for us. 

This guy was quite the beast to carve but it turned out quite nicely.

We didn't get any trick-or-treaters but if we had they would have been given Reese's peanut butter cups. Oh well...maybe next year!

Helping Mommy

Life has been a little harried around here... Reese got a cold, passed it to me and then just as we were getting better from that she picked up a nasty flu bug which included a fever in the 103s. No fun at all...especially with her being so little. I thought we were just about through with everything when I picked up her flu followed by dad the same night. :( This past weekend we cancelled everything on the calendar and just laid low. So while I don't have pictures of all us sickies (yeah no one wants to see that sight) I do have some of when we had a good day and Reese helped with the laundry. More posts to soon follow!

This one was just too cute not to add...it was a "cold" day for California and the first time Reese got to wear her Bacon Bits hat outside of Alaska. :)