Happy Birthday Ryker!

( I know Jonah's eyes are closed in this picture but the only other one we got of our family that day had Ryker's eyes closed and it was kind of far away so I figured this was was better even though it's not the best we could have done)


Ryker, on your first birthday I want to celebrate the great blessing you have been to our family. You have brought a tremendous amount of happiness into each of our lives because of how sweet and fun loving you are. You help us realize the unparalleled love of our Heavenly Father and remind us to be loving and trusting as a little child. Already you are learning so much and I hope for you to seek after anything virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy. You are a true delight and can always make those around you smile I hope you will grow into a smart and talented young man who will be an example of righteousness to all you meet, I hope you and your brother will enjoy one another and become friends as you grow up together. I always want you to know that I love you and I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ know you and love you too. Happy Happy Birthday!!



Ryker's Birthday was on Saturday November 15th, we went to the local park (yes there's only one park in our small town) and had Uncle Clay, Aunt Amy, and their kids Devaney, Logan, Hyrum, Hannah, Isaac, and Roe come for cupcakes and to play with us. It was a pretty nice day but VERY cold the high was only 50. but we all had fun anyway. Unfortunately after we were done partying Ryker was acting a little grumpy and when I picked him up he was burning up with a fever he's had it for the past 3 days. Last night his temp was 102.3 but today he hasn't felt very hot so I think he's finally getting over it, poor baby! Since his birthday he has suddenly started doing new things like clapping, I've been trying to get him to clap his hands since he was like 8 months old and finally on his birthday as I was getting breakfast ready he was sitting in his highchair and just started clapping without any prompt! He's also finally trying to say words he's so cute he'll point at something or hold something up and look at me like "what is this" and when I say whatever it is he babbles trying to make the correct sounds, its about time!! He even tried saying "my birthday" and when I figure out how to upload videos I'll post the video of him saying it. All in all we had a fun First Birthday for Ryker!

We couldn't get the candle to light we tried for about 10 minutes but to no avail so we skipped it and just started singing anyway, so we could eat the yummy cupcakes!



I know I'm making a weird face but Ryker was so cute trying to eat his candle instead of the cupcake!


I don't think Ryker liked the cupcakes he only ate one or two bites of it. He was more interested in getting down and wandering around the park.

Be Grateful

I have just been thinking about how much I have to be grateful for. I have been working on a lesson about gratitude I am giving for enrichment and through all my research I feel extremely thankful and indebted to my Heavenly Father for my richness of blessings. I wish I could better express myself but I don't seem to always have the words I want. I am truly grateful for Jesus Christ his atonement, giving his life for our eternal lives is the greatest gift someone can give for another. Heavenly Father has given me all that I have and I cannot begin to repay Him. All I can do is offer up my thanks and obedience to Him. As Thanksgiving and Christmas come closer I hope all of us can remember what Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have given and done for us and that we can resolve to focus on the things that really matter in this life that we may help and serve one another and give our thanks to God and praise Him. I was reading in the Book of Mormon 3 Nephi 17 where Christ gathers the little children and blesses them and prays for all the people gathered together and how great his prayer to the Father was on their behalf, it made me feel His love for me I know that He is praying of each of us to come unto Him, He is there all we need to do is let him in. I am thankful for my family, for loving parents who taught me the gospel while I was youngn for a loving wonderful husband for my beautiful boys who share their love with me each day I am grateful for the fulness of the gospel and for the blessings I can recieve from it. I pray that we can remember to follow President Hinckley's counsel to be grateful this holiday season and through out the year.

Things you may not know about Ryker

Now that Ryker is approaching his 1st birthday I thought it would be a good time to let everyone know what he's been up to.

Ryker is definitely our little cuddle bug! He would love to be held most of the day and he sleeps a lot better when we let him sleep with us, which doesn't happen too often, sorry Ryker! The first time he slept through the night was when he was about ten months old and we let him sleep with us. he still wakes up about once a night to eat. He started walking a few weeks ago at about 11 months old. Ryker loves dogs he gets so excited when we see a dog or if he hears a dog barking, he also likes our cat Leo but can't always catch him to give a hug but he tries! He doesn't say very much, the only thing he does say is "dadadada" I'm trying to get him to say other things like "Mama", "Jonah", "more", "milk", and "eat" very useful words to know! Unfortunately he refuses to even try to mimic us and he won't even attempt to sign anything! I think he doesn't because he has found his very own very effective way to communicate: screaming. This can drive me and Michael crazy and after a few of his shrill screams we're ready to give him anything to make him stop! This is how he has earned the nickname of Screech. He is very funny though and he likes to be around other people and smiles at everyone. he loves to eat and laugh and is almost always laughing while eating. He is a huge mooch and will harass anyone with food! He loves to feed himself and has barely tolerated being fed babyfood even now he grabs at the food we try to feed him or if we do manage to actually give him a bite he'll take it out of his mouth and put it back in himself. Ryker loves his big brother and likes to play chase, swords, and cars with him. Right now his favorite toy to play with is any ball. He is very sweet and always gives hugs, sometimes nice baby open-mouth kisses too if we say "give kisses"! I love Ryker so much and love seeing his personality come out. He is so different from Jonah although they do look alike, except Ryker has hair and Jonah didn't until after age 1! Ryker is my very sweet cuddle bug!

Happy Halloween 2008!

For Halloween this year we went to our branch party and trunk or treat on Wednesday. Then to a little parade that was on Saturday, I found out on Sunday that the Mayor officially moved Halloween from Friday to Saturday because the middle school and high school had away football games and would be gone on Friday. We didn't go trick or treating because we were out of town of Friday and I didn't know they were doing trick or treating on Saturday but Jonah got plenty of candy from the branch party and the parade! The boys' costumes were a big hit! Jonah especially likes his he has worn everyday since it arrived last monday! Ryker's costume turned out really cute! Thank you Kelsey for sending me the iron on stuff it worked great!

Technology, friend or foe?

so I haven't scrapbooked for about a year and after unpacking our desk top with all of our pictures on it I decided to organize a file of the ones I wanted to print off to scrapbook. I was almost done and our computer completely stopped working it just wouldn't turn on! we have since bought a new desk top but all of our pictures and files and everything are still on our broken computer so it looks like it will still be a while until I can scrapbook I'm so frustrated!