Happy Birthday Ryker Pants!

Ryker's turned a year old on the 28th, I just can't believe a whole year has gone by! He's such a sweet little guy! We had a small Birthday party at Grandma and Grandpa Duffin's and I made him a Happy Birthday cake. Ryker really liked the icing and had lots of fun making a mess of everything.

Divide and Conquer

Another Rexburg winter has arrived! We got a whole bunch of snow a few days ago and lots of wind. We couldn't get into our driveway or out. Luckily I have a big strong husband who loves to shovel snow, it took Ryan about 4 hours to dig us out. Ryker loves to look out the window and watch whats going on. Here he was banging on the window trying to get Daddy's attention.

Finally! Ryan did get some help from our neighbors who were kind enough to help.

This innocent little face has learned some new tricks. The other day I was giving him a bath, I looked away for a moment and he's fallen out of the tub! He has learned the art of climbing! He can climb on the couch, the dishwasher, and the bath tub. I just hope he doesn't figure out how to climb out of his crib too soon. He's a fun little guy and keeps me on my toes!

Family Pictures!

I've been wanting to get family pictures done for a long time, so a couple of weeks ago Ryan's mom came up to Rexburg and took a few shots of us. These are some of the best ones!

We are doing well, I just finished off the semester. Friday was the last day of my internship, so I am basically done with the semester and college for awhile! I'm so glad that I'm finished with school, it has taken awhile but I'm proud to be a college graduate (not offically until April). We are getting ready for Christmas. We put up our Christmas tree last weekend and the few decorations that we have too. I thought Ryker would have a hard time staying away from the tree, but it seems like he hasn't even noticed it yet, I'll cross my fingers. We've started a family tradition last year, each December we read the book of Luke. Since there are 24 chapters its perfect for our count down to Christmas. Last year we made a popcorn string for our 2 foot tree, so this year Ryan was pretty excited to make an extra long popcorn string for a 6 foot size Chirstmas tree. It took him about 2 hours to string it and next year Ryker can help!

All Dressed Up

Ryker got some new Church clothes from his Grandma Duffin, this was the best picture I could get out of him. He looked SO cute! It was a little bit big on him so he should be able to wear it for at least a month or two. Ryker is getting too BIG too fast! He's gaining weight again, for awhile there he'd lost a few pounds and was stuck at 18 pounds. I weighted him today he's close to 20 pounds. Ryker is learning so much everyday. He's got waving down, but he'll only do it if you say, "bye-bye". Ryan has taught him to bonk heads but you have to watch out or he'll hit ya pretty hard.

The Silly Side of Ryker

Ryker has recently learned how to use his tongue to his advantage, he has figured out if he doesn't want to eat something he can push food out of his mouth with his tongue. It's really funny to see and he sticks it out just for fun.

Ryker has been having a rough few days, he has been sick on and off since Friday. In the midst of his illness he got a black eye while in the tub. He fell and hit his cheek on the tub, poor little guy is having a hard time.

HALLOWEEN

You can't really tell all that well in this picture but Ryker is the football!

This was last weekend at our ward's Halloween party, we were able to borrow Ryan and I's costumes and made Ryker's real easy. We bought a brown shirt laced it up with some yarn and used some white tape at the top and bottom. It was a cute idea huh!

Clogged Tear Ducts

Ryker needed to have surgery on his clogged tear duct today. It was a simple procedure, but he still needed to be sedated. Because malignant hyperthermia runs in Ryan's family, and is triggered by general anesthesia Ryker needed to have an IV. In order to get the IV, we had to hold him down while the nurse poked both of his hands........I think the IV experience was the worst part of the whole thing. The surgery itself was about 30 minutes but we had to stay at the hospital for six extra hours just in case. Ryker was great considering he had to keep his IV in almost the entire day!

It was sort of fun to spend time all together without worrying about anything else going on. And I am so thankful that everything went okay and now Ryker shouldn't have so much eye crust all the time!

My li'l Punkin

We love that the holliday season is coming around again so soon! Ryan and I both come from families who whole heartedly celebrate Halloween and of course one of our favorite activities (especially Ryan's) is carving pumkins. Life is so busy right now with my internship and Ryan applying to grad schools; it's fun to get out of the house together. We went out to a local pumpkin patch today to pick our own. It turns out the owner of the little farm grew up with Ryan's dad and sort of had a part in introducing his parents. We picked out a little baby pumkin for Ryker; Ryan insisted that we let him sit down and play in the dirt for a while...boys! He was content to say the least. He was obsessed with his little pumpkin. He didn't care about the other ones we picked, just his. He mostly just enjoyed being outside in the dirt...yep, he's a boy!!!













Here's our cute little family of pumkins. We have a daddy pumpkin, a mommy pand a baby pumpkin. Can you tell which one is Ryker's favorite? Bryanne had to jump around and play picaboo with Ryker in order to get him to smile. It's always the little things that remind us how blessed we are.

September

I can't believe its fall already! Time has gone by so fast. Ryker is pushing 9 months already.
So Ryker has grown up so much these past few months! He's got crawling down and gets quickly to one place to anther in no time at all. He's also standing up on anything and everything he can...even in the bath tub when he's all slippery. I love watching him eat finger foods, it is the cutest thing ever! Especially when he gets cheerios stuck on his chin. So cute!

Ryker loves loves loves these little bath-time duckies, its his most favorite toy, when he wants to travel to one place to the next he shoves the duck in his mouth and goes. It's pretty funny to watch.

This week we went to the park, it was a little cold but Ryker got to wear his super cute winter coat. He liked sitting on the slide but going down he was a little concerned.

Swinging, I thought he would like but he didn't really warm up to it.

This week been pretty crazy, I started my internship last week and this week my final semester has begun. I'm doing my internship at Children Supportive Services in Idaho Falls, its a partial care and PSR center for children with mental illnesses. It's going pretty good, but this week the kids have been out of control! I'm hoping after a little while the kids will start taking me more seriously, I'm too nice. Anyhow, I'm excited that this is my last semester and can't wait for it to be over with.

Yellowstone Camping Trip

We went camping in Yellowstone last weekend with my sister-in-law and her family. It was so much fun. We camped right off of Yellowstone lake, which was beautiful. It did however, get kind of chilly at night like in the 30's so Ryker and I had to share a sleeping bag. He did pretty good for sleeping on the ground and having to cuddle right next to mommy. We also went to the Playmill Theater in West Yellowstone and saw Hello Dolly! and Ryker loved it, he was singing along and clapping during most of the show until he fell asleep. Anyhow, here our some of the pictures we took (we took almost 200 pictures)!

This waterfall is down in a canyon, right by yellowstone's grand canyon. We had to hike down to see the waterfall, there were 328 steps down the falls! I was exhausted after the climb.
We went to see Old Faithful, which isn't so faithful anymore. The geyser used to go off every hour on the hour but its starting to vary a little. Its still pretty neat.

This is Yellowstone lake right by where we camped out.
Before we went to the Playmill, we walked around West Yellowstone.
Ryker and Daddy at Yellowstone lake, we skipped some rocks and my nephew went for a swim. You can see him in the background in the water, he just ran right into the water, he also wanted Uncle Ryan to cover him in sand!
Ryker crawled around in the sand by the lake, he had so much fun putting his hands in the dirt.
We also discovered that Ryker loved to be thrown around. He was laughing so hard in this picture, you probably can't tell though! All in all we had an awesome trip! We hope that Jen and Steve will come out to Yellowstone next year so we can see some more of Yellowstone!

Ryker is on the Move

Ryker has started crawling! I didn't think he would ever crawl since he's always hated being on his tummy. But after working on it, he's finally taken off. Here are some pictures of his first crawls.


Since Ryker can get almost anywhere he wants to in the house, I had Ryan install some child safety locks on the cupboards. But, I didn't want to lock him out of everything! He had lots of fun banging on the pans and screaming away. Ryker can also say "mamma" and "dada" but its just noises, close enough right. He loves playing peek-a-boo and he's really ticklish. He's just so much fun to have and he's growing too fast for me!

Schools out for Summer!

Summer semester is finally over! We have a 7 week break till Fall semester. Tyler will be here this coming Fall semester. I'm excited to have Ty-guy around a little, some of my family nearby will be nice for a change. This Fall I am finishing up my classes and internship. I got an internship in Idaho Falls at Children Supportive Services, it's a partial care and it's one of two internships where you get paid. I have kind of already started, I have to do 15 hours of training before I can even start. But I think it will be a good experience.
Our garden is looking pretty good. Just about everything grew, our oinions didn't grow at all and only about half of our peas grew, but everything else is looking healthy. I'm excited about our melon! Melon is the best in the summertime.
Ryker Update: Ryker has a tooth! It hasn't been the most fun with him waking up a couple times each night but it has finally poked through! He is still attemping to crawl, he can get on all fours and rock back and forth and crawl backwards.
Ryker is getting more interested in books now, he reaches out when we read together and he likes to chew on them...well he likes to chew on everything.

Elknoc Reunion

For the 4th of July we went to Ohio to visit the family. It was pretty exciting to see everyone and for everyone to meet little Ryker. We had a great time, despite the rain!
We went to the zoo in the pouring rain, but there were still lots of animals to see without getting soaked!
We saw the tigers or the Cheetah's, as Alice likes to call them!
Here are all the grand-kids together! They are such cute little kids, I hope we can see them more often!
Ryker's first 4th of July! He really liked the glow stick Grandma Conkle got him and surprisingly he liked the fireworks, okay he only like them for 5 minutes. The he cried the rest of the time, I think he was sleepy though.

We took Ryker swimming, but he didn't like it so much. He lasted maybe 2 minutes and wanted out! The water was a little cold.
Grandma Conkle was super happy to spend time with Ryker and all of the grand-kids.

It was really nice to spend time with my sisters. I'm sad though we didn't get a picture with Erin too. Its cool now that we are older and don't get on each others nerves anymore, now we can be friends.

So almost the entire weekend everyone was playing Corn Hole. It's a fun game, if you've never heard of it, like me, it's pretty similar to horse shoes. Ryan got pretty good at it and I think he kicked some trash!

After all the fun we had in Ohio and the long trip back home, Ryker was pretty exhausted. He slept almost the entire flight and drive home. He was a really good traveler, so hopefully he will do this good next time we go to Ohio!