Time Flies...

I can't believe how fast time passes. My mom informed me that I needed to update my blog, it seemed as though I just had but as I look at it, I see, it's been nearly a month. This picture was taken on Ryker's 6 month birthday. I was in Rochester, MN, so my mom took it and sent it to me. I can't believe he's 6 months already. We had to go get immunizations last week... YAY us! Ryker finally hit 15 lbs, 15 lbs. 5 oz. to be exact and 25 inches long. He is growing so well. He is so smart and alert and can hardly sit still, the last few Sundays I would swear I had a two year old on my lap... up and down... back and forth... it's fun though. We've started feeding him baby food, he makes the funniest faces but with practice, he's started understanding what it means to push it back instead of out. I can't even remember what life was like before him, he has brought so much love and excitement!! Ohhh, I know what else is new... Ryker is learning to clap. It cracks me up. We say 'clap, clap, clap' and he'll spread his arms as wide as he can and swing them both in just as hard and as fast as he can... he'll clasp his little fists and get this really excited look on his face. If I can ever learn how to upload video, I'll add it.
This week finds me in Seattle, Tacoma and Portland. I was so excited to get up this way. I've never been here before. It's absolutely beautiful. I have a lot of work to do so it doesn't leave much time for sight seeing. I did see the space needle as I drove by on the freeway. I'm hoping i'll finish up a little early tomorrow and maybe i'll be brave enough to venture out. This is my first trip alone, so far, so good.
Not really much else is new... or exciting. We are trying to get ready for Christmas at our house. We took the easy way out again this year, instead of buying a tree we opted to use our little decorative trees that are in our family room all year long. I did, however, put lights on them... and decorations. They look really cute. As I said when I started this post, time flies... I feel like it was just the 4th of July. Where does the year go?? I can't believe the holidays are upon us.
I hope everyone has as wonderful of a Christmas as we will at our house. Happy Holidays!!!

Our First Tooth...

I can't believe it! My little man is growing whether I want him to or not. I have been travelling so much the last month, the first week in Phoenix, the next two in Orange County, this week in St. Paul, Minnesota, it's hard being away from home, but last night Scott gave me some crazy news over the phone. We were talking about our day and very casually, Scott tells me that he got bit. I wasn't sure what he was talking about, I said 'you got bit? by what? a dog? a spider? what?' He then told me 'Ryker'. I wasn't sure what he meant because when I left, Ryker was gumming his binkie. He informed me that Ryker had a tooth coming in... I am so excited to get home and see him. It's amazing how fast things happen. He's only 5 months old, how can he be teething? Maybe he'll just get one little tooth and we'll have to wait a long time for the others... I'm not ready for him to have teeth... I love his little gumline. Huh... I can't get over it. As soon as I get home, I'll take a little picture and post it.

Thought I'd take a second and tell everyone that Cazley got all A's in her classes this last semester. She was pretty excited so we took her to see Madagascar 2 last Friday. She is such a smart girl, her teacher told her mom that she is at a fourth grade reading level. She loves her school and loves that she wears a uniform but can wear whatever shoes she wants.

MY LITTLE MONSTER...

Quirky Me...

I just noticed that my cousin Chrystie tagged me in one of these crazy 'tag' games... I have to list 6 quirky things about me... is she hinting that she thinks i'm 'quirky'??

1. I am a check book balancer fanatic... I can't stand to have the ledger not balanced. I check my online account nearly every other day... I don't know why, nothing changes.. money doesn't 'just appear'... but I watch for it.

2. I set my alarm for almost an hour before I have to get up... just so I can snooze a dozen times with out running late.

3. I like to seperate the silverware in the dishwasher... I have 8 compartments for silverware: steak knives, butter knives, big then little forks, big then little spoons, then any misc. utensils then bottle nipples... don't know why, I guess it makes it easier to put things away.

4. I NEVER develop film. I just barely took my digital disc in to have it put on a CD, ONLY because my camera said my disc was full. I am proud to say that I will now have another 375 something photos to add to my collection... (REALLY??)

5. I WILL not eat meat on the bone, steak, chicken, ribs, whatever... if it is on the bone, don't put it on my plate.

6. For the longest time, I wouldn't make left hand turns unless there was no other way to get to where I needed to go. I would take as many right handed turns as necessary to avoid a left hand turn. Especially when I worked at the clinic on Washington Blvd. Instead of turning left (south) to go home, I would right turn, drive half a mile up the road, right turn into the grocery store parking lot, right turn again, and again, just so I could make a safe, comfortable, left hand turn at a light. (Hello... waste much gas).

Hehe.. hope this was as enjoyable to read as it was to write...

Now, I want to 'tag' Kathryn K. (I'm excited to read yours)... Jyl... and Sheena S. along with anyone else who wants to actually think this hard about themselves for a few minutes....

Travelling...

I actually have time to think about my blog, to update my blog, and to read everyone else's blogs. Being on the road leaves a lot of time to do.. well, whatever.. I spent last week in Phoenix and it's surrounding areas. It was my first week really working in my new job. I liked it pretty well. We spent the week visiting the WIC offices in the area and updating the software on their Hemocue equipment. It was a good way to break me in. This week I am in Lake Forest, California, this is where our U.S. office is located. It is a small office, only about 40 people actually have an office there. I've been spending the day in appointments with a bunch of different people and learning what they do and how their role supports my role in the company. Everyone is so nice and very excited that i've joined the team, that makes it nice, I feel very welcome. I have had a hard time being away from Scott and Ryker though. The good thing is my mom is cell camera crazy and she sends me pictures of Ryker nearly every night before I go to bed, that really makes me feel better. I couldn't believe how much he changed in a weeks time. I'm excited to get home this Friday and dress him up for Halloween, even though he is too little to 'get it', it'll be fun to put his little monster costume on him and drag him around and show him off.

I don't want Scott to feel left out on the blog because I never have much to say about his life adventures so since we've got a momentous occasion, I'll take a second to touch on it. I wish I had a picture, but Scott shot a deer this season. (About time). He hasn't killed anything since before we met so I had almost given up hope. Scott and his best friend Brady spent some time in the hills around Bear Lake and both came home on day 2 of the deer hunt with a buck.. YAY! I'm so happy for him. I don't know who was more excited... Scott, that he finally got his kill... or Grandpa Nay, that he'll finally have meat in his freezer again??

Here is a sweet picture of my little man that my mom sent last week... no wonder why I miss him so much eh??

I love this picture of Ryker...

Things Change...

I can't believe as I look back over the last year how things have changed in my life. Obviously having Ryker was a major adjustment and going back to work after my leave was a very hard decision. Do I go back full time? Part time? Not at all? Because I carry the insurance I needed to go back and it wasn't worth the money to go only part time so I dove in, full time. I had only been back to work for 2 days when I received a call from a friend of mine that I met through his company, Hemocue Inc. He wanted me to apply for a position that had come open through this company. The position was for a 'training specialist'. When new accounts buy the point-of-care equipment for their clinics or hospitals, the training specialist would go to the site, get everything set up and teach the team how to use the equipment and software. I told him he was crazy because it involved travel and Ryker is still so small but after I decided that i'd really give it some thought. After a few months of back and forth with the supervisor of the position, I said I'd give it a go. Leaving North Ogden Clinic was the hardest thing i've ever had to do... my coworkers there were closer than family and I loved having everyone around me all the time. This week was the first with my new job, it's been nice because I work from home part time and travel the western U.S. part time, luckilly this week has been spent getting my computer up and running, getting things lined out for the next few weeks.. which has been nice because Ryker and I have both been down with the cold. Next week will begin a new adventure.. I'm off to Phoenix because their WIC department uses the machines and the company is in the middle of a huge software upgrade, so I get to go be trained there, then the following week I'll be off to the U.S. corporate headquarters in Lake Forest, CA. We'll see how that all goes.. I'm pretty excited but nervous at the same time.. leaving Ryker and Scott for 3 or 4 days at a time.. traveling alone.. driving in new cities (I barely can find my way from my front door to Primary's)... I think this will be a good thing for our family. Change is always hard but I think this is a move in the right direction.

Just A Little Update...

Ryker had his 4 month well child check yesterday, he finally outgrew the 10lb stage and is now 11lbs 15oz and 24.5inches long. When I'm lugging him around in his carseat, however, I feel he is heavy enough to be walking on his own. I am also happy to announce Ryker passed his hearing screen. When he was in the NICU, he failed his newborn screen and they told us it was because of his cleft. The doctors told us that once the tubes were placed, he'd be fine but I was still worried about him, I was very happy when they tested him yesterday and said his hearing is just fine!

He has been doing so well since his surgery. It seemed that first week home was the hardest. He didn't want to eat and wasn't sleeping well. It took a week for him to snap out of it and really start eating even better than he was before and finally after a week and a half of him not sleeping at night we realized it was because his nose tubes were plugged. We've started pulling them out and cleaning them each night before bed (this is the worst job ever.. I did not sign up for this when I said I'd be mom to Ryker, he hates me for like two hours after) and this helps him sleep better through the night.

Ryker is getting to be so much fun. This is a picture of him with his first tomato. Yesterday, my mom came over and was holding him in the kitchen and he just stared at the tomato. When she handed it to him, he pulled it to his mouth and licked it for about 5 minutes. Lately, everything goes to his mouth. I can't believe how big he is getting so quickly.

Fair Weather

Last weekend Scott was out of commission with the stomach flu so I decided to load up Caz and Ryker and head to the State Fair with my mom and dad. It was a great day to go.. and so thought everyone else in the state, it was packed. I love being able to look at all the smelly animals.. it really is fun. I enjoy looking at the crafty things that people have made. I love all the choices of things to eat, deep fried PB&J, churros, navajo tacos, hamburgers, ice cream, fudge, licorice ropes, gyros.. anything your heart desires and more! I hate the clusters of people, I hate trying to cram the entire city of Salt Lake into a little building where a man is trying to sell pots and pans and another is showing those wonderful little knives that will slice a garden hose. I must admit, however, I was sucked in.. I spent about 15 minutes watching the guy selling the steam mop. I have laminate floors in my kitchen and they NEVER shine like they should. The guy in the booth assured me his mop would do the trick. Not only would it make my kitchen floors shine, it would get gunk out of grout, the hard water off the shower wall and.. because this happens every day at my house, it will get pancake syrup out of the carpet!! Well, that was all I needed to hear! I was so excited to get it home and try it out, I've already used it twice on the kitchen floor and am very happy with how easy it is to use.. and my floors do shine!! We promised Cazley that after we had seen everything possible from the 3000 lb cow to the butter statue she could ride some rides. I was very happy that I was successful in talking her out of the farris wheel, instead she jumped on the big tramp thing and then rode the ponies. I think the ponies were her favorite part, she is sure a cowgirl at heart!! Ryker even had a good time, I think he liked his first fair. We had so much fun.. can't wait for next year!!

The New Man In Our Life...

What an emotional day we had yesterday.. We were told to be at Primary's at 9:00 to check in and by 10:30 we were walking Ryker down the hall to surgery. We were only allowed to carry him half way and then we stood where the carpet met the tile, gave him a few goodbye kisses and handed him over to the anesthesiologist. Scott and I just stood there long after they had passed through the double doors, not quite sure what to think or what to do but we knew that he was in the best hands. Ryker was in surgery for nearly 3 hours. Scott had gone with my mom and dad to get some food from the cafeteria when the nurse called to tell me that Ryker was out of surgery and would be going directly to his room. Scott's mom, dad, grandpa and I walked to the same spot where we had left him just a few hours before, but this time Ryker was being wheeled in a big crib towards us through a different set of double doors. I was so nervous to see him. I didn't really know what to expect, but as I finally caught a good look at his little face it was hard to keep back the emotion. All I really remember was rubbing his little head and saying..'oh my goodness, look at your little face'. He was absolutely beautiful. His little cleft had been erased. He looked perfect!! I can't believe the skill of the artists that worked on him.. his little lip is truly a masterpiece, perfectly shaped.. it is amazing. I was most nervous about his recovery, I was afraid he'd be in terrible pain and spend most of the afternoon crying. He didn't. He has such a high tolerance for pain, I can't even begin to imagine how his little mouth must of felt. They had him on morphine most of the afternoon but once he started eating they gave him liquid lortab. The nurses couldn't belive how good he was and how easy he was to take care of. They told me that most cleft repair babies spend a few days in the hospital because they don't want to eat but Ryker's hunger was stronger than his pain because it didn't take him long to finish the bottle they'd given him. I was so proud of him too when he slept most of the night.. (I camped out on the little pull out chair that was about as wide as my thigh). This morning the resident that works with the plastic surgeon Dr. Siddiqi came and evaluated Ryker. He was very pleased with how he was doing and told us we could go home. I was so glad to be home by lunch time today. Ryker is still getting pain medicine every 4 hours and antibiotics every 6 hours. He is such a good boy! He has little stints in his nostrils that help them from swelling shut and he has to wear these for a month. He has splints on his arms so that he can't touch his face and he'll wear these for two weeks! Doesn't he look like a new man? I am so grateful for all the prayers that were said for Ryker and for all the people that kept us in their thoughts. I know with out a doubt that is the reason we had such a fantastic experience and Ryker is doing so well. He is so tough.

I have a few minutes before it's time for church, it's nice a quiet around here because Scott is gone to bishopric meetings this morning and Ryker is down for a nap. Today is a special fast Sunday for us because this week is Ryker's surgery. I'm excited to head to fast and testimony meetings with special prayer in my heart that all goes well with him and he will recover quickly. I thought it would be a nice time to quickly share the testimony I have of the gospel. I'm not one to stand in sacrament very often and share it but I would like everyone around me to know that I love the gospel, I love the knowledge that I have a Heavenly Father who loves me and knows me and my needs. I'm comforted in the fact that He knows the true intent of my heart. I'm grateful for prayer and the peace that comes from the Spirit, in a world so chaotic and crazy it is the peace I find through prayer that keeps me sane. I'm grateful for the work of Joseph Smith and all he gave to restore the Church so that we could have it in our lives, I don't know how we would make it through this life without the knowledge we have. I'm grateful for the priesthood and the power that comes along with it and the fact that through Scott, Ryker can be directly blessed by our Heavenly Father. I'm grateful for President Monson and the example he is to us. I'm grateful that he continues to receive direct revelation for us today and that he leads this church with such exactness. I'm grateful too, for all of my friends and family that offer so much love and support and i'm thankful for all the prayers that have been offered in our behalf. Thanks to everyone who loves us so much.

3 months old!

Ryker is 3 months old today! I can't believe how fast time goes by... Today Ryker weighed 11 lbs. 5 oz. He is growing more and more each day. It's been wonderful for the last few weeks he has been sleeping so good! I put him to bed between 9 and 9:30 and I have to wake him up to get ready for day care at 6:45... Yay! His fantastic new sleeping habits have made a dramatic change in my attitude!!
We also had a orthodontist appointment today, Dr. Yamashiro said that Ryker's soft tissue is in perfect position for his surgery! He checked his retainer and also took a mold of his mouth so that he can make his more permanent prosthesis that will be placed next week! This whole process is amazing! Ryker was such a good boy, he hardly cried at all.. I remember when I had to have a mold for my retainer I thought I was going to pass out because I couldn't breathe, I can't imagine what he was thinking through the whole thing...

Labor Day Weekend

We got to spend Labor Day weekend at the cabin at Bear Lake. It was so nice. Saturday was beautiful! We spent most of the morning at the beach playing in the sand and throwing the ball for Daisy.



Ryker slept the whole time, he loves the fresh air.

After lunch we spent some time wandering around the shops and getting shaved ice from Yellow Snow. We also got candy from Barbara's candy shop, she has the best chocolate dipped ultimate smores. :O)

Later that night, we had a campfire and roasted marshmallows. We had so much fun! Cazley loves going to Bear Lake and we were all sad that we had to come home. We are so lucky to be able to go there whenever we want!

Ryker's NAM

We've been going to visit Ryker's orthodontist Dr. Yamashiro at Primary Children's, every other Tuesday since July 8th. Dr. Yamashiro made a small retainer called a NAM for Ryker and since he doesn't really have anything in his mouth for it to hook to, there are two small posts that come out of his mouth that we tape to his cheeks to hold it in place. Over the last month and a half adjustments have been made that have caused his cleft to come closer together. It's an amazing process, at first his cleft was large enough to stick the bottle nipple into and now I can barely slide a Q-tip in it to clean it out! The latest adjustment was a paper clip size wire that goes from the retainer into his nostril, at the end is a pink ball that pushes out on his nose, this is stretching his nostril so that it isn't so collapsed. Ryker is such a tough little man, he hasn't been bothered by any of it, except when the nose piece was first put on, the wire was rubbing on his gumline. I didn't know it except that he was really fussy. After a few days, I pulled it out to clean it and it started bleeding really bad. We were able to go back and have it adjusted around his gumline and almost immediately, he was back to his usual happy self. I can't believe how much such a small little appliance can make such a huge difference!! His whole face is changing before my eyes. We only have 2 more weeks until he's changed forever, Dr. Siddiqi is our plastic surgeon at Primary's and we'll be in for surgery on the 10th of September. His lip will be permanently repaired, his soft palate will be temporarily stitched and he will get a more permanent prosthesis screwed in over his hard palate, at this time, Dr. Grimmer, our ENT will also place tubes in his ears. It sounds overwhelming but we are lucky they can do so much at once and he will only have to be in the hospital for two days. It's scary to think our little guy will be changed for the rest of his life, it's a change that we have to make, but we've grown so used to how he was sent to us that it'll be really hard to let him be taken into surgery knowing that he'll come back completely different. He's so brave.

This Is How We Roll....

I am so excited! For my birthday this year my mom and dad bought me a new bicycle and a baby carrier for Ryker. He absolutely loves it! Every night, we get all loaded up and take off. We usually go for about a half an hour, through the block to my mom and dads, over to the park, around the holding pond.. It is so much fun for me and it helps Ryker wind down for bed.

Sometimes, if we are gone too long and he knows it's 9:00 (bed time) he starts crying which just makes me pedal faster. The last few nights though, i've started taping his pacifier in his mouth.. is that bad? It keeps him happy but I'm probably giving him a complex. He's probably the only 2 month old that is already embarrassed to be seen with his mom...

FINALLY!!

I've finally got this page put together! It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. This will be fun. I"m going to try to keep it updated so everyone knows what is going on with us. Most of you know the scoop with Ryker and his procedures and all things like that so I won't put it all up here again.