Rylee Nicole's 2nd Christmas :]

This year I decided not to put the presents under the tree until Christmas eve night after Rylee went to sleep.

So the next morning she was not expecting to wake up to presents.

This was the first time she has really enjoyed opening any sort of presents.

Last Christmas she was only 8 months old and didnt care about it.

On her birthday, she didnt really care.

But this year at almost 20 months she was completely into ripping all of them open.

But when she would open one toy, she would stop and forget about opening anymore, because she wanted to play with her new toy.

She was really good about it though, Jake would just say, open another one and she would get up no problem and do so.

I got the entire morning on video :]

Such a great memory to have.

After she got done opening her presents I got into the shower.

And when I got out Rylee was dragging my dad's present (that we had left under the tree) around the house, holding onto the ribbon.

I am really glad she didnt open it.

I would not have been too pleased to have to wrap a present all over again.

We left for my parents house around noon.

We ate and then opened Rylees presents as well as mine and Jakes.

Rylee got so many toys.

And they really kept her content. Usually she acts like she has ADD or something and only plays with the toys for a few minutes and moves on.

But not with all of these new toys!

We took her outside to let her ride her power wheels car that was supposed to be a Christmas present.

We keep it at her Nana & Pappaws house.

She was riding it up and down the street, I think she completely gets how to drive it now.

Before she would step on the gas and would get so excited that she was going, she would quit.

Now she stays on the gas and loves to keep going.

She doesnt quite get how to steer it.

But she is still sort of young for it.

After spending 5 hours at my parents house, we went to Jakes parents house.

We got there and right away openned our presents.

Rylee got this dog that laughs and rolls around on the floor. Rylee really seemed to love it.

Well I was standing up holding her and she was holding the dog and she dropped it!

The motor got broke or something. So that toy didnt last very long!

Hopefully we can get them to send us a new working one!

We ate again at Jakes parents house.

We spent almost 5 hours there too.

Rylee had no nap the whole day and we left his parents house past her bedtime.

So needless to say she fell asleep in the car!

When we got home, I got her out of the car and she didnt wake up at all.

She was beat, she had too much excitement for one day.

I wish she could have days like this more often.

All I wanted was for her to be happy and have the best day :]

I think we accomplished that.

I love her more than life itself.

Doing new things everyday

Shes so cute sometimes, Lately she has been obsessed with getting her picture taken...
I wonder what could have made her that way....? :]
Maybe the camera that has been non-stop in her face since she exited the womb. lol
Lately she has been sneaking to get my camera out the diaper bag and turning it on and holding it above her head pointed at her.
When she does this, she doesnt completely get how to take the picture.
She knows what button to push but she holds it down instead of just pushing it.
So she sits there with it pointed at her saying "cheese" "cheese".
She is so conceited too, she loves to look at herself and everytime I take a picture of her, she says "see".
She wants to look at herself as often as she can, and when she does see the picture of herself, she says "aw" or "pretty".
She occassionally likes to pretend like shes taking pictures of mommy and daddy.

Also on the topic of her being conceited.... Everytime she puts clothes on that she thinks is cute or gets a bow in her hair or anything like that, she says "mirror" and runs into our room to look at herself in the mirror.
She is too cute sometimes. :]

Another new thing for her is when she is pooping in her diaper, she feels the need to run and hide.
I dont know what could have given her the idea that this is embarassing, we have never made her feel bad about doing it?
She has this one particular wall in our apartment that she runs behind and stands there until she is done.
When she is done, she comes to us and says "poopie".
If she cant leave the room she will just go to a corner and cover her face.
I really dont know how she picked this one up.

About a week and a half ago we took Rylee to JCPenney portrait studio to get her christmas pictures done and while we were waiting for it to be our turn we were sitting out in the little waiting area.
Well they have toys there to keep babies occupied.
And there was a little girl waiting with her mom too, I would say the little girl was about 3?
And she was playing with a toy and Rylee came up to her and started playing with the toy with her, didnt even try to take it away from her.
And the girl says "mine!" and takes the toy away.
Well ever since that day, Rylee has loved the word mine, and I hate it soooo much.
I want her to be a brat. And she completely gets how to use it. I dont know how hearing it one time has taught her to keep using the word over and over again.
Every time she says it she gets popped and I tell her we dont say mine.
But its an every day thing.
She takes toys from Lexie now and says it, or takes the phone from me or jake and says it.
I have to put a stop to it, I am not going to have a little brat on my hands.

ALMOST POTTY TRAINED

I would say she is for the most part potty trained.

While we are at home, she will not have a diaper on.

If there is even 1 pee in it she will say "change"! She absolutely doesnt like pee on her now that she knows she can do it in the potty.

So pretty much as soon as we get home she takes off her pants and her diaper and goes to the potty.

I try to keep a diaper on her, but that definately doesnt happen, she ends up getting her way.

And I really dont want to hold her back from learning, because it is good that she wants to go on the potty.

I wish that she would just keep her clothes on until she needed to go!

Especially when people are over, and theyre like "whys your kid naked" lol.

Or when we go down to Amanda & Lexies house, she gets naked there too!

I really would hate for her to have an accident in someone elses house.

But in general she has done really good. She rarely pees on the floor anymore.

For some reason her potty is messing up though, it is only supposed to sing when she goes in it. But now it is singing even when she just sits down. So she says "yay!" for herself even when she didnt do it! Its annoying.

We havent mastered going on a big potty yet.

The other day when we were at Amanda's and she had taken off her diaper, she said "tee-tee" and I was like oh, no, she doesnt have her potty here!

I tried putting her up on the regular toilet and she didnt go, about a minute later she said "tee-tee" again, I thought she just wanted to get back up on the potty because it was fun.

I didnt believe her and she peed on the floor.

I quickly stopped her and got her on to the toilet and she finished going on the big potty.

I still havent let her try to go while we are out in public. I think Im just too lazy for it.

It is alot of work on my part and I would rather her just pee in her diaper while we're out.

LOG OF "TEE TEES & #2S IN POTTY"

12/9- 5 TEE TEES

12/10- 8 TEE TEES, 1 #2

12/11- 4 TEE TEES

12/12- 3 TEE TEES, 1 #2

12/13- 8 TEE TEES, 1 #2

12/14- 7 TEE TEES, 2 #2S

12/15- 8 TEE TEES

12/16- 8 TEE TEES

SHES GROWING UP BEFORE MY EYES!

Well, Rylee has been reading this little book of colors she has had for about a month.

Her daddy and I have been trying to teach her a couple of colors with it.

Usually I think she just guesses what color it is and always says pink. lol.

Yesterday she brought the book to me saying "Red", and it was actually on the red page.

I congratulated her on getting it right but I thought she had just guessed.

Well today I was flipping through the book with her and I turned it to red, and she said "red".

I turned it to pink and she said "pink". Then I turned it to yellow and she said nothing. I told her yellow.

And the next turn around she got pink, red, and yellow.

I dont think I want to give her too many different colors to remember yet. I think I want to ingrave these few in her head first. lol.

I am so proud.

POTTY TRAINING :]

I have been keeping a little log of the number of times Rylee goes on her potty each day.

And so far --- 12/4- 2 times

12/5- 1 time

12/6- 0 times

12/7- 2 times

12/8- 6 times

Yesterday with the 6 times -

The first time Rylee just came out of her room where she was playing with Lexie with no diaper on.

And she went in the bathroom saying "tee-tee". I honestly didnt believe that she was going to go.

Because alot of times she just says it for attention and does nothing.

But a second later I heard the music on her potty.

I am really glad we got her a potty with music because sometimes I probably wouldnt have known that she went without it.

And all through out the day she would take her pants off by herself and go.

Alot of times I stop her from taking off her pants and diapers just becuase it is a pain for me and she does have alot of accidents on the floor.

But I am trying to get past that so she can learn.

And she does alot better if when she says "tee tee" and goes in the bathroom if me or her daddy goes with her.

Because if we dont usually she starts going on the potty and then when the music starts she gets up to see if we are going to come watch her and pees all over the floor.

But if we go with her she completely pees in the potty.

I am really proud of her, but I am still not pushing the issue.

We are just taking it day by day because I do not want to get frustrated with her if she stops going in the potty.

Such a little character!

So not too long ago, Jake was getting onto Rylee for something and he said "Rylee, I'm gonna pop you".
And She said in the cutest, happiest voice, "pop you". So ever since she thinks its so funny to say it to me and her daddy.
She doesn't actually pop us, she just likes to say it.

Lately Rylee has liked to be held like a baby, probably because I have been teaching her to hold babies.
My mom will hold her like a baby and sing "Rock a bye baby" and Rylee loves it, she will let her hold her as long as she is singing.
Well today Rylee was on the phone with my mom and my mom started singing it to her.
So Rylee, holds the phone like a baby and rocks it back and forth. I thought it was the cutest thing. When she saw how much attention I gave her for it she started hysterically laughing. She loves attention!

Another BIG THING right now is... Bribery!
I mainly just have to bribe her to eat. It all started with those graduate meals with ravioli and a side of vegetables. Well she didn't seem to think that she had to eat the vegetables, just the ravioli. I told her that she couldn't have anymore until she ate the vegetables. And right away she did it. Now when we eat those, she eats every other bite a vegetable. She really seems to understand everytime I try to make a deal with her.
She doesn't particularly like her yo baby yogurt, so I tell her that she will get candy or a cookie when she eats it all, and she comes up and eats it, no problem.
Or I will tell her just one more bite and it will be gone gone. and she will say "gone gone?" and then eat it. I end up telling her this a few times. I'm sure soon she won't believe me anymore and I don't know what I will do then. But I always hold up my side of our deals.
She loves to be Mommy's helper. When she brings her toys into the living room, once she's done playing with them, I will say, be mommy's helper please. And she says"box" like her toybox. She automatically knows what I am talking about and cleans up her toys.
When she walks into her room, if there are toys on the ground, she says "messy" and starts picking them up. I think I might be creating a neat freak!
But when her friend Lexie is over she always pulls out every last one of her toys!
I don't know what shes trying to prove? If she's trying to show off all of her toys or if shes trying to show Lexie all the things they can play with or if she's just trying to be bad?

POTTY! --- the past few months Rylee's potty has been sitting in the bathroom just waiting to get used. I haven't been pushing the issue with her because she is only 19 months old.
Well she used it 1 time when we first got the potty.
And yesterday right after her daddy went to school, she took her diaper off. (it's such a struggle to keep anything on her, clothes, shoes, socks, diaper!).
So I just let her keep it off, thinking she doesn't pee that much, I will probably put a diaper back on her before she goes.
Well we were about to go into the kitchen and she just stops and says "tee tee". She peed on the floor. Well while I was running a bath for her, we were sitting in the bathroom waiting for the tub to fill up, and she just willingly sits on her potty and pees!
I clapped and cheered for her and she was sooo proud of herself. I don't know if I have ever seen her smile so big and she is always smiling!

So today, she strips down again without saying a word and goes and sits in the dark bathroom and all of a sudden I hear the music to her potty (it goes off when it senses #1 or #2 in it)
So I rush in there to see her getting off the potty saying "tee tee". I am so proud of her. She could have very well just left her diaper on, but she knew she should go in the potty.
Well I came back into the living room and was on the computer and about 5 minutes later I hear the music again & she did it again.
She obviosly knows this is where she is supposed to go. I am trying not to get my hopes up about it, I know that it might not stick. But I am so proud of her. :] Words can't really explain how proud I am :]

19 Months :]

Rylee is such a happy girl. She is always playing and making up games with her mommy and daddy.

We even taught her to say "happy" and im pretty sure she understands the full meaning of it. We only say happy to her when she is laughing or smiling.

Now she will just randomly walk up to us and say happy and smile.

She loves to talk on the phone. She is always bringing the phone to me and saying " nana" (my mom), so I have to call her for her.

She will talk to her for a little while and then hang up and bring the phone back to me, usually she doesn't realize that she hung up on her and wants me to call her back. She is also trying to be really pursuasive it seems like, when she says something that she wants she nods her head yes while saying it.

Like she knows she is gonna get it or something and she is so sure of it.

It is cute, but it can be a pain when I tell her no, because she was so sure she was gonna get it that it upsets her so bad.

She tells us when she is hungry, which sometimes I feel like she can't be hungry that often. I wish I could tell when she was really hungry. Like if she had some kind of hunger meter that I could see. lol.

But she tells me she's hungry and takes my hand and guides me to the kitchen.

She eats so much now that she is off the bottle.

Still not drinking any milk!

My mom got her some chocolate soy milk and I try just putting the slightest amount in her cup of juice, just so she gets a little bit of milk.

Usually she will drink it as long as there isn't too much.

I have been feeding her more macaroni and cheese and things like that to help her get more calcium.

We have still been talking about "brother Aedyn" ofcourse, and how he will be here in 2 months.

I know she has no idea how long that is. lol

We have been practicing how to hold a baby, and putting a baby doll to sleep in a crib and how we have to be quiet.

She hasn't really gotten that part down, she will "shhh" and then say " nite nite baby" real loud. lol

Also I took her by myself to go visit Santa, I figured with all this extra - scaredness she's been going through lately that we should go visit him a couple times before we actually take her 2009 Santa pic.

Before it was our turn to go see Santa, Rylee was looking at him through the gate saying her version of Santa, Santa.

I had been showing her the picture from last year with him.

(different Santa this year btw)

And she seemed to be excited to see him, but as I expected the closer we got to him the more she wanted me to hold her.

By the time we were standing in front of him she had her head down on my shoulder.

I was showing her that he had boots, because she is obsessed with her own boots.

I put her down to stand by him because I thought that would be the next step to sitting on his lap.

She immediately started crying and saying "up. up". He gave her a coloring book and she still didn't like him.

I didn't want to stay there forever trying to make her like him, there was a whole line full of people. So we left. I plan to take her back again on a day where Santa isn't very busy.

Hopefully by the 3rd time she can go in her pretty dress and get pictures with him.

I don't want to give up the tradition of Santa pics!