halloween.

Happy Halloween!

We had all the Winegars over.

It was a blast!

We had some yummy soup and homemade bread.

Did some trick-or-treating

& ate way too much candy!

family pictures

Instead of trying to catch up on all the blogging I've missed in the past year plus, I'm going to just start from now.

Pictures done by Amanda Castleberry.

ryder said.

Ryder got to meet Santa for the first time last Sunday at a family party. When Ryder was invited to come and sit on his lap, the following went down...

Ryder: (looking right into Santa's eyes.) Elmo.
Santa: Oh, you want Elmo!
Ryder: Elmo.
Santa: What else do you want?
Ryder: Toast.

And that's his Christmas wish list. Elmo & Toast. He's easy enough. I wish all of my Christmas shopping was this easy.



Our DVD player in our house has been broken for a while now. It was only playing in black and white. (Kid shows just aren't the same in black and white.) Lucky us, Chase is great at fixing things like that. He took it apart last night and found the loose connection that was causing the problem. Now if we can just get Ryder to stop pulling the DVD player out of entertainment center and dropping it on the floor! Before we got it fixed, Ryder had been watching Elmo in Grouchland, in black and white of course, and we had to go run some errands. He was enjoying his show so much that I decided to bring it in the car with us. I was pulling out of the driveway when the movie had finally loaded.

Ryder: Elmo's red!
Mom: laughing my head off.
Ryder: YEAH!

He was so excited! He kept telling me all the colors he was seeing. Only a kid who has had to watch his favorite show in black in white would get this excited about finally getting to see it in color again.

new house.

You can blame our lack of blogging on this...
Our new house!

We couldn't be more excited. It took us a while to find, but we are so glad that we waited. It's the perfect house for us to grow into and we love the location. We started seriously looking in July when we moved out of our condo and into a home my grandparents own and had been renting. We were introduced to a couple who was getting married and wanted to rent from us and we couldn't pass them up. My Grandparents were nice enough to let us live in their house until we found our own place.

We still have a few more things that we want do to the new house before we move in, but hopefully it won't be too long! We can't wait to get settled and make this our home.

nose.

Poor kid. He was out on the front porch playing with his ball and tripped on his too long for him pants. I had them rolled up, but one of the cuffs had started to unroll. He doesn't usually cry when he gets hurt, but this one sure got a good cry. He kept saying "Da Da. Da Da." (He has been going through a Daddy phase lately.) After I wiped his face off a little, he asked for a bottle. Yes, I'm a sucker. How could I deny him when he was so sad?! Now that a little time has passed, he is feeling much better. His nose has stopped bleeding, he just has a scrape on the end of his nose and on his upper lip and a little bit of a fat lip where his teeth hit. He keeps showing me that he is hurt though. "ouch. nose. ma ma. ouch."

glasses.

words.

The words most frequently used by Ryder... The list grows every day.
ma ma mom
da da dad
bama grandma
bampah grandpa
eh mo elmo
eesh swing
oosh shoes
no no
ahh yes
pears prayers
dooce juice
appo apple
doe-st toast
baby baby
ba ba bottle/drink
bee binky
mo more
baw ball
where's? where is?
glasses glasses


Our boy is talking more and more every day. He is so much fun! He has just started trying to repeat things that we say. I love it.

breakfast..

Ryder has a few favorite breakfast foods.
cereal
toast
&

oateal.

We don't do oatmeal very often. Can you tell why? He usually wants to feed himself which turns into a huge mess. It's not uncommon for him to take a handful and rub it in his hair, or he squishes it in between his hands like it's soap and he's washing his hands with it.

.side story.

A couple of weeks ago, Ryder was having a bowl of cereal, I was trying to be productive while he was eating and was doing the dishes from the night before. He was doing so well. He wasn't making a mess. Most of the cereal was ending up in his mouth and not in his lap or on the tray. He hadn't even used his hands to eat yet. I was so proud, thinking he was really getting the hang of feeding himself.

I had just loaded the last dish in the dishwasher when I looked over and saw that Ryder had taken his half full bowl of rice checks and milk and put it on his head and was wearing it like a hat. Milk and soggy rice checks were dripping down his face. He had the biggest, proudest grin on his face that screamed "look mom, a hat!". I couldn't help but just laugh at him. He is one funny boy.

chocolate.

Do you know how to make Ryder a happy boy?
Give him a teaspoon of Hersheys chocolate syrup on his highchair tray.
I think this got me a good thirty minutes of distraction. I can't take credit though. It was his pushover Aunt Hannah who thought up this one. And we wonder why he prefers her over everyone else. Including his own parents!
Love you Aunt Nanny!

graduation.

Chase graduated! He can now officially call himself a Mechanical Engineer. I'm so proud of him and all of his hard work.