A year in review

Today as I was filling in all the birthdays and anniversaries on my new 2010 calendar I was copying off of my 2009 calendar and I realized we had a super busy year.
Starting with the grand event of Ryleigh's arrival into the world, which then led to many doctors appointments. It also led to many visits to RI, and many visits from my parents.
We took several mini vacations and weekend getaways to Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Ohio, Maryland, DC, and Ocean City.
We got to enjoy a couple of Phillies games, including one where we got to see Uncle Steven's choir perform! And we went to the circus for the first time as well.
Ryleigh got to make her stage debut in our church spring drama.... she did a great job of playing a baby. haha.
I helped throw a couple of baby showers for friends, and I am so excited about all of our kids growing up together!!
Another big exciting event was our move into a 2 bedroom apartment. Ryleigh is very grateful for her own room. We also helped other family members move... hopefully everyone will stay put for a little while now. haha
Another big arrival was my nephew Ezra, who is the first Weber grandson!
The holidays were especially exciting as Ryleigh got to experience everything for the first time. I'm pretty sure her favorite holiday event was the horse-drawn carriage ride and pumpkin picking. And as much as I was so happy to finally have a baby to share the holidays with I can't wait till she's older and she can enjoy them a little more.
I'm sure there's a lot more fun events I forgot to mention. But, I am so thankful for all the good times, and I can't wait for more.

Goals for 2010

I know you're supposed to make resolutions for the new year, but my resolutions are never very resolute, so I'm going to make goals instead... they sound less intimidating.

1. Finish paying off credit card debt. It's looking like we can accomplish it this year, or very early into next year!

2. Have baby #2, or at the very least have a bun in the oven.

3. Finally get my NJ teacher's license, cause I still only have my VA license, and it will never help me find any sort of job in NJ.... not that I want a job right now cause working from home is ideal, but it would still be nice to know I could get a job in NJ if I needed to

4. Go on a fun vacation. My vote is for Florida, Ryan's vote is for Chicago... we'll see who wins that one

5. Be a BFF. (ignore the stupid teenager terminology). Ever since moving to NJ almost 4 years ago I have been wanting a best friend. I have several close friends, but if you asked them who there best friend is they would not say me. I am still looking for a close friendship with someone I know I can call for comfort when I'm crying, or just hang out with and hopefully have our kids grow up together and such. I am so thankful for my close girl friends, and maybe in the new year we can just keep growing closer and closer...

I hope everyone has a great new years! Be safe and have fun!

Baby's 1at Christmas

After the fiasco of Ryan's horrible day at work on Christmas eve we finally managed to leave for RI and get there around 11pm. Thankfully the rest of our trip was good.
We got tons of presents. I got three new video games, haha.... I'm worse than a teenage boy with my video games. But, Ryan is getting to enjoy them as well. I also got a bread maker. Woohoo! I've been wanting one for years and I can't wait to try it out. Ryan got his new soccer shoes, some new clothes, and a book he really been wanting. And of course Ryleigh got tons of clothes and toys.
Here's a couple of pics from our morning.

Ry had to see how all her new Little People tasted.. I think she prefers the cows

Laura was happy about all the new scarves she got


Yay for new drill bits.... of whatever they are...


Ha! I love this picture of my dad!


My favorite present of all (aside from baby Jesus of course)

New England here we come

Tomorrow is going to be a crazy day, hopefully in a good way. Ryan's going to work early so he can either a) pass his work on to someone else and come home, or b) Get his work done really, really fast in hopes of making it home in time for us to leave.
We have to leave by 12:30 to make it to dinner in time in CT. My parents, grandparents, and about 30 other distant relatives are all going to be there, and I am praying and hoping we make it on time! After dinner we will get a special visit from Santa and open gifts... so even if we can't make it for dinner I really hope we don't miss Santa, it will make me very sad if we do.
After that we're heading up to RI. We'll do Christmas morning with my parents and sis, then my mom's whole side of the family squashes into my aunt's tiny apartment for breakfast. It's just not Christmas unless you are trying to eat your french toast while listening to a hundred kids running around screaming :-) (Ok, a hundred is a little much, but I can think of about 17 off the top of my head).
Then after breakfast we'll take naps, and I think going to another aunt's house for dinner. So much eating!!!
This weekend we'll also go to church with my parents so I can see old friends. And, it's looking like I will also be getting together with some old friends from high school... some of them I don't think I've seen since graduation 9 years ago!
We're also planning on going ice skating, something I haven't done in like 4 years.
I am super excited to be going home this Christmas. I cannot wait to see Ryleigh's face on Christmas morning!!
I hope everyone enjoys the holiday!

Parents: Why don't you care?!

Being a teacher seriously makes you so mad at parents!
They were talking about this on the View today, and I see it first hand every day. When parents don't care about their children's school work then it leads to the children also not caring.
My job is to tutor kids who are struggling in school. Due to the fact that it is online, we tend to have a lot of technical problems that need to be dealt with by the parents calling the Tech Support people we provide. It is ridiculous how many parents refuse to call. So, instead of their child getting the help they need we end up sitting there for an hour, wasting time, and wasting the tax payers money staring at a blank screen!
I have also had a lot of parents go on a swearing rampage when their child approaches them, asking them to simply make a phone call. It's amazing how mad these parents get at their children for things that the child cannot help.
Ah!
If anything can make you cynical about the world it is parents that just don't care about raising their children properly!

Ok.. my rant is over :-) Have a good night

A Christmas Story

Santa showed up to our family Christmas party. Curiously he showed up when Pop-pop was "in the bathroom". Hmmm :-)

Ryleigh was excited about getting a presentThankfully cousin Amelie was around to help teach Ryleigh the art of unwrapping.


Have you ever tried to get 8 kids to all look at the camera, and smile all at the same time? It's nearly impossible!

Hehe. Amusing weather reports

This morning I turned on the news to see if I should venture out in the snow to turn in my over-due library books.
The first thing I saw was the traffic report. As the meteorologist was showing the traffic on 76 a car swerved on the ice, into another lane of traffic. The meteorologist got all excited and said, "we might see an accident happen right now"... then he just stood there and watched the cars swerving to avoid each other. He got a disappointed look on his face when no accidents occurred. Haha. Why is it that no one wants to get in an accident, but everyone wants to watch them?

Then another news anchor came on to inform us that the Philadelphia Zoo is closed. So, just in case you were thinking about trekking through the snow to get to the zoo, to walk around in the freezing cold snowiness you are just going to have to wait for another day

Then a news anchor starts interviewing people in the Deptford Mall parking lot. This one woman was like "yeah my car was sliding all over the roads. So, I think I might go home.... or to Walmart". Seriously? If you car is sliding on the icy roads wouldn't you want to just want to focus on getting home safely? Why put your self in extra danger crazy Walmart people.

I can't wait to watch the rest of the news and find more little things that amuse me.... What else is there to do on a snow day? haha

Times have changed

When I was a kid I enjoyed reading the back of cereal boxes. They always had fun little quizzes, or mazes, or word scrambles. So this morning, as I was feeding Ryleigh some cheerios (which, by the way, she totally doesn't enjoy and they all just ended up on the floor) I decided to read the back of the box.
This is an excerpt on the history of Route 66 printed on the back, "The comeback of the American Automobile industry following WWII further promoted the use of Route 66, and service station prototypes were developed regionally, and then adopted across the country".
Seriously, who wants to read such big words at 7 in the morning?! Maybe cheerios are considered an adult cereal, but still! I want to be amused at the breakfast table, not educated.
Maybe that's what I get for buying the generic brands instead of the name brands. Haha

My dream job

If I could have any job in the world I'd take Scott McGillivray's job. I'm pretty sure the only people who know who he is are those ones addicted to HGTV like me. He is the host of a show called Income Property. http://www.hgtv.com/scott-mcgillivray/bio/index.html
I want his job! He gets to look at people's basement apartments, rearrange the floor plans, and help design a whole new space so that the owners of a house can rent out an apartment to make money to help pay their mortgage. I love the idea of totally rearranging the floor plan, and tearing down walls, and helping to design a whole new space.
I love the rest of the shows on HGTV as well. I spend much of my free time watching it, and checking out real estate websites to look at houses in our price range, in our area, and dreaming....

I am a dorky book worm

Yesterday, with nothing to do, and no money, I decided to head to the library. I go a lot because I read a lot. However, I only just discovered the children's section. They have toys, puzzles, puppets, and plenty of books for me to read to Ryleigh that I haven't read 100 times before. So, I have taken her a couple of times and she loves it.
Yesterday though we saw a librarian and she said, "oh, you're back again!". I felt like such a loser. It's bad enough that the lady at the CVS photo counter knows me and Ryleigh cause I get so many pictures printed there. Now the librarian knows me too. I seriously have no life.
Now I need a different free place to go because I am tired of being predictable/boring, and I don't want everyone in West Deptford to start thinking of me as the mom who has nothing better to do than hang out at the library and CVS all day!

This parenting thing is hard

Ryan and I have come to the conclusion that Ryleigh is heading down a path that will turn her into a spoiled brat. At the tender age of 10 months she is already throwing fits when she does not get her way.
Today we were in CVS waiting for some prescriptions to be filled. She was sitting on my lap, but she wanted to get down and walk. Just being in the pharmacy department creeps me out, with all those people hacking their lungs out as their waiting for medicine. So, there was no way I was going to let her walk all around, picking up germs. I made her sit on my lap, and didn't let her down. Being a typical child she decided to start crying very loudly because she was not getting her own way. Thankfully I was able to distract her by letting her play with a toy, but man, for those few seconds that she was mad I was super embarrassed.
It's not fun having to make my daughter upset. We had about 3 episodes of Temper Tantrum Ryleigh today. None of which neither me nor Ryan enjoyed. It's tough not just giving in to what she wants. But thankfully we've seen enough episodes of Super Nanny, and we've seen enough spoiled children in the grocery store to know that it will only get worse when she's older if we don't deal with it now.
She's also started to think that disobeying is funny. For example, trying to eat cat food, and then when I move her away and say no she finds it extremely funny to immediately crawl as fast as she can back to the cat food.... It is so hard to resist laughing as she's giggling to herself and doing her cute little army crawl!
I knew parenting wasn't going to be easy.... I just never knew the tough parts could start so soon!! Haha

If you give a baby a cookie...

If you give a baby a cookie...
Chances are, you'll have to give her a bath

Ryleigh's 1st Christmas tree

All ready to go pick out a tree!


Ryleigh picked out the perfect one (Daddy didn't seem too happy about carrying it)


Trying to get her to pose in front of the tree.....
... But she saw the cat food and decided it was more interesting
Ryleigh discovered all the pretty ornaments... and then proceeded to undecorate the tree
Daddy helped her put the ornaments back on the tree :-)

I must be getting old

You know the saying, "if the music's too loud then you're too old"? Well, I just called our leasing office to complain about the volume of our downstairs neighbor's music... again....

I guess I am officially old. But seriously I do not want my floor vibrating with the stupid repetitive drone of hip hop music, especially when I am trying to get my daughter to take her nap. I am half tempted to take Ryleigh down there when she is screaming because she is so tired, and make them deal with it.

And yes, I know, I should go down there and talk to them instead of having the leasing office people do it, but I hate confrontation! I'll save my energy for when we have a house and I have bad neighbors and no leasing office to deal with the problems.

I feel like the mean neighborhood witch....but they should just be glad we don't call the cops on them whenever they get into arguments with their boyfriends at 4 in the morning. They should also be glad we don't call the fashion police on them anytime they are seen out in public with only half of a shirt on. No one wants to see your boobs you stupid immature college students!

There. I'm done. :-)
In other news.... I'm busy begging Ryan to get our tree tonight. We were going to wait till Monday, but I am just too darn impatient. Plus we will be busy getting our family Christmas picture done on Monday :-)

Ah, maintenance

I am thankful that we are living in an apartment, so whenever something breaks we can just call maintenance to come fix it and we don't have to pay for anything. It's a wonderful thing...
BUT, I just wish I didn't have to call so often. We've been living here for a little over 3 months and so far the ac broke, Ryleigh's closet doors have both broken on separate occasions, and the garbage disposal broke. That's not even mentioning the things that haven't been fixed yet.

I guess I shouldn't complain though. I'm sure once we move into a house I'll just have a big long to-do list that I'll have to nag Ryan about...