mckay, emily & henry

saturday we had a party

2012-02-13T11:04:00.001-08:00

we celebrated Henry’s first birthday over the weekend and oh did we have fun! the day started off with some Birthday french toast and the babes very own package that came in the mail, all the way from auntie in New York.

Months ago I daydreamed of throwing the cutest little themed birthday boy party, pirates, robots, monsters, whatever. but when it came right down to it, I didn’t want to go “theme” crazy with something that wasn’t distinctly Henry. I’m hoping next year he will have more defined likes or obsessions but for right now he really just seems to love everything. so I decided to forgo a theme this year and just focus on things being all about henry, fun and colorful. and despite my poor planning and having the party right in the middle of Henry’s nap time he seemed to enjoy it.

the food. we decided to serve kid’s food and had peanut butter and jelly or honey sandwiches, without the crusts of course. my mom made homemade macaroni and cheese, lysa brought a delicious salad and because henry loves yogurt we had a yogurt bar complete with toppings of mixed berries, chocolate chips and granola.

the food was simple and tasted great, Henry loved it all. after we ate it was time to sing Happy Birthday and celebrate with a little birthday cupcake which Henry ate quite daintily. we were expecting much more of a mess.

we were so grateful for our family that came to celebrate Henry’s big day with us. one of my favorite things about the weekend was having all of my family together. I am so happy that Chris, JJ and Marty were able to come down. We really missed Chris, Mairin and Bryce but were so glad when Mairin joined us via Skype to open presents.

so sad I didn’t get a picture of my mom and grandma.

We are saving for a trip this spring and so I challenged myself to make as many of the decorations with craft materials we already had and spend as little as I could. It was so fun for me to have some craft projects to work on.

details. with a lot of help from pinterest I made a few things, a felt celebration garland by DANA, not the best picture. this was one of the easiest things to make ever, just cut circles of felt in different colors and sizes, feed them through the sewing machine one after the other. this took me maybe an hour.

photo wall. I made numbered tags with my cricut and developed two pictures for each month. I hung them using twine and clothespins. this was probably one of my favorite things, I just might leave it up for a few more days.

another tutorial I got off of Pinterest. This birthday hat was also easy and quick.

I had to join in the trend of water bottle labels, also found this on Pinterest.

Vanilla Buttermilk Cupcakes from Martha Stewart

at the last minute I decided to hang these “H’s” that I had from when I was decorating Henry’s room. I simply covered them with patterned paper and hung them lopsided with twine.

it was such a fun and quite perfect day celebrating our wonderful boy. he has been such a blessing to our family and we are so grateful to be his parents. we can’t believe we now have a one year old.

monday.

2012-01-30T09:26:00.001-08:00

it’s monday. and I’m feeling like I really just want to be lazy today. seriously considered staying in bed reading books with this little man all day. until he realized it was more fun to push the books off the edge of the bed than to read them. he is always on the move and today I am tiiiii-herd. he’s at least freshly bathed…can I call that good for the day?

I might have told myself, and the husband that I would limit my trashy, guilty pleasure tv shows this year, but the bachelor’s on tonight and I’m not even going to pretend I’m not planning on watching it. I like Casey B. and that model girl is the weirdest. sometimes nothing hits the spot like an hour of lame dramatic “reality” tv. in other news, our new home came with a new kitchen which means I’ve been having lots of fun cooking up treats for my boys. I’m thinking a recipe blog update is in the near future. happy monday!

new space

2012-01-23T20:33:00.001-08:00

we are finally almost entirely unpacked and settled into our new little home. we’ve been here a week and a half and despite all the craziness of a new semester of graduate school, packing and unpacking with an 11 month old, having to buy all sorts of lame stuff we didn’t keep around for the last two years (ex.: garbage, mop, broom, any food….) and three birthdays to celebrate we have been in complete heaven in our new place. people who have come to visit have almost always said the same thing, “this place is perfect” and I couldn’t agree more. all of our searching and prayers paid off and we feel truly blessed to have found this home. we’re just a little bit excited…and as annoying as unpacking is, opening boxes filled with things we haven’t seen since 2010 is a bit like a mini Christmas.

Henry’s favorite feature and one of ours as well, is all the big windows. He loves to stand and stare at all the students and cars passing by.

and whether it’s that he’s in a new room or he’s just growing up Henry has decided to boycott his morning nap, which makes for a lot of impromptu naps on mom and dad come afternoon time.

and in the spirit of the beginning of a new year we have made a few changes in our family. we have never been believers in any of the extreme diets (maybe it’s because we lack discipline), we’ve always believed in moderation rather than cutting things out completely, eating real/healthy food and a balanced diet. granted we could do a whole lot better at avoiding sweets but I’m proud with the changes we are making. ultimately we are eating less red meat (we don’t eat it a ton in the first place) and sticking more with chicken, turkey and fish, choosing more fruits and vegetables, smaller portions and drinking a lot more water throughout the day. we are also paying a lot more attention to the source of our meat and dairy products. we try to buy eggs, meat and chicken from an organic source where the animals are cage free, fed an organic diet and there are no added antibiotics or hormones. we also avoid meat with added nitrates and nitrites. it is important for us to know that the producer pays special attention to the animals wellbeing and makes sure they live in a healthy environment (Kirkland brand Organic Brown eggs are wonderful). I know these may sound like small, no brainer things to some but focusing on a lot of little changes can make a big difference, we’ve noticed. and it makes us happy : )

baby shark

2012-01-12T13:57:00.001-08:00

I’m taking an intermission from packing (packing you say? that’s right we are moving! more on that in a minute) to have a proud mama moment and provide proof that the babe has not one but two teeth making their way in. it’s a big deal. getting a snapshot of those teeth was not an easy feat, since once the camera came out this is what I would get:

so I waited till after naptime, I love that this is what I get to see after a good nap

and this is what happens when he realizes I am too busy taking pictures to get him out

I kind of feel bad that I did manage to get a picture of those teethers while he was under such distress. but I made up for it with lots of cuddles and building some block towers for him to knock down. so all is well.

anyways, tomorrow is moving day. we are over the moon excited to have our own place. it has been such a blessing to live with Mckay’s family while his graduate funding was getting sorted out. and now that it is we are off on our own little family adventure, right into the heart of cougartown. I never would have thought. but we are literally seconds from campus now, which means we will get to see Mckay sooner than 630 pm! oh the lunch dates we’re going to have. I can’t wait.

2011 was good to us

2012-01-05T20:58:00.001-08:00

I decided to join in with everyone else in blog land and do a little 12 month recap of the Rytting family. I just love the idea of looking back at what we were up to the past year, (through whatever pictures I have, since I cant remember a full year month by month). so:

january

we celebrated Mckay turning 25 and participated in what was easily the most insane sporting event we’d ever been to. jimmer and his fellow team mates beat nationally ranked SDSU. I think they were ranked 3rd at the time? it was madness I tell you.

february

what could be even wilder than that basketball game but baby boy coming a full month early!? Henry Ray graced us with his presence on February 11th, almost exactly one month before his due date. those days he was in the hospital were probably the hardest of our lives but they strengthened us as a couple. I got to spend my birthday driving to and from the hospital to cuddle with our baby and cheer him on as he made progress. what a joy it was to finally take him home 5 days later.

march

we spent our second months as parents trying to figure out what in the world we were doing, enjoying our sweet boy and trying to sneak in an afternoon nap when we could. we spent lots of time cuddling, taking baths and just taking in all the joy of our little boy. we also had henry’s first baby shower. mckay was nearing the end of his last semester at school and driving an hour to and from byu made for a lot of really long busy days.

April

with April came Mckay’s much anticipated graduation from BYU. the morning after graduation we loaded up the car and made our way to southern California for some quality family/beach time.

may

may we enjoyed the beautiful Utah weather. Henry turned 3 months and got cuter and chubbier by the day (and balder). and I celebrated my first mothers day (which is quite close to becoming my favorite holiday. and I clearly was still too busy to get my hair done…

june

we spent nearly 2 weeks of the month on one of the funnest most memorable vacations ever. Henry met Pickles the talking Parrot in Vegas, hiked amid the Giant Sequoias in Yosemite, relaxed in Lake Tahoe and caught a Major League baseball game in San Francisco. it was a once in a lifetime kind of trip and our little 4 month old handled the hours upon hours of driving like a champ.

phew

july

we celebrated the fourth all weekend long this year. just how I like it. we took a trip to the cabin, had a beautiful view of fireworks all over the valley from Alpine and got a close up view of the Stadium of Fire fireworks. we skyped with adam in Jerusalem and got in some quality pool. Henry had his first bite of rice cereal, not too much of a success. later in the month we took a trip with my family to Idaho and visited Yellowstone for a day.

august

mckay finally cut his hair…almost all of it. the babe was finally blessed and we enjoyed another wonderful weekend at the cabin. the following week we sent mckay and that hairdo off on a boys kayaking trip down the green river. and brother chris entered the MTC.

september

we enjoyed the fall weather by going on a few lovely hikes as a family. we also managed a third trip to the Rytting cabin

october

we picked pumpkins, eventually carved pumpkins and dressed the babe up as Mr. Pan himself.

november

brought “mustache movember”. it also brought back two missionaries, chris (for surgery) and Marty after a long 2 years in Australia. henry finally figured out crawling (hasn’t stopped since) and we were lucky enough to enjoy to wonderful thanksgiving dinners.

december

oh christmas-time how we love it so. we managed to sneak in a performance of the nutcracker. delighted in getting gifts for family members. had an incredibly fun family weekend in SLC and enjoyed our first christmas as a family of 3.

amidst all the fun and adventures 2011 had to offer we also had our share of tough times and lessons that had to be learned. sometimes its hard to know what to do, what is best for your family. being an adult can be stressful. at times we’ve had to completely rely on our faith that the Lord has a plan for our little family and we’re where we are supposed to be. we’ve grown stronger of a family because of that. we’re grateful for those opportunities to grow. we loved this past year with all its ups and downs and are looking forward to another great year together.

our Christmas

2012-01-03T19:28:00.001-08:00

our christmas break was busy. even hectic at times. with the house-sitting, dog-sitting, looking for an apartment, taking care of baby, and trying to get as much time with both of our families as possible we are a little pooped. but our break also included a wonderful first christmas with the babe, sweet sweet afternoon naps, movies, delicious food and quality family time. some of our Holiday highlights:

~this little man is becoming even more mobile. its amazing. he’s found the stairs and he’s pulling himself up on things. he’ll be walking before we know it.

~Christmas eve morning with the Ryttings. Christmas jammies, Croque Monsieurs, almond raspberry french toast. it was picture perfect. Henry attempted to open his first present ever. he got lots of surprises this Christmas, including his first tooth! finally. which is why his guppy mouth looks the way it does in these next pictures.

~Christmas Eve night in Alpine. We played a serious game of Minute To Win It, Christmas style. I literally almost peed my pants a couple of time. we had fun.

~Christmas Day shared between Alpine and Orem. Henry got completely spoiled.

~lots of games of Cities and Knights, lots of movies, and lots of family time.

~Lasting till midnight on New Years Eve, we didn’t think we would make it.

Our break was wonderful, we hope everyone’s was too. bring on 2012

weekend in slc

2011-12-21T20:46:00.001-08:00

this past weekend it was once again time for our favorite Jacobs Christmas tradition. every year near Christmas we spend a weekend at the Little America in Salt Lake City. Its always such fun and this year was no exception. we love the Little America, the hotel is so charming, especially when decorated for Christmas, and the rooms are huge. we love it there. Friday night we celebrated Nick’s birthday by a much anticipated trip to Benihana’s. I have dreams about that place. it. is. so. good. completely worth smelling like cooked meat for the rest of the night. Henry was definitely intrigued by our chef, and his skills and loved his sampling of chicken fried rice.

After dinner we put Henry down for the night, and thanks to my mom, we were able to go to a late showing of Sherlock Holmes. I love the first one and was so excited to see the new one. and oh my. it was so good. perhaps even better than the first.

Saturday we drew names for our family gift exchange, then spent the morning shopping around Gateway. After an afternoon of napping and relaxing we headed out to the Stoneground for another amazing meal and then a late night showing of Hugo. I wish I could say I liked this one, I probably would have, if I had stayed awake. a 1020 show is just a little too late for me nowadays. but Mckay loved it.

Sunday morning my family went to the Choir’s Christmas Program and then Henry met the big man in red at the Christmas Brunch with Santa. another family favorite where we ate and ate to our hearts content. We were so curious to see how Henry would react to Santa, and this picture shows it perfectly. He stared, mouth open at him for awhile and then was over it. Maybe next year he’ll show a little more interest.

Fun with uncles and auntie all weekend.

After a quick nap and some Football Henry went swimming in a real pool for the first time ever. He got really scared when Mckay jumped in the pool and disappeared under water but once he realized his dad was fine Henry was all about kicking his little legs with all his might around the pool. it was the cutest. This got us really excited for summertime when we can spend even more time in the pool.

After our swim we relaxed some more in the room, watching football and Home Alone. We had plans to walk around Temple Square but Henry is not loving his stroller right now and it was a little colder than even I can handle so we just took a family drive around downtown and viewed the pretty lights from the warmth of our car. We got Wingnutz for the boys Fantasy draft that night and spent the rest of our Sunday with more football, drafting and board games. It was such a fun weekend with family. If only it could have snowed even just a little, then it would have been perfect. we are wishing for it pretty hard at our house. hopefully we’ll seem some pretty flakes before Christmas.

little mover and 5 more pages, finished.

2011-12-12T16:49:00.001-08:00

the babe is finally on the move and he can’t be stopped! I keep watching him crawl in amazement, thinking this can’t be my child. and he did it just one day shy of turning 10 months. all of a sudden he’s crawling around like it’s no big deal, when in fact it is a skill he has been trying to master for awhile now. friday night we could tell he was getting so close. he would sort of crawl, drag, scoot along but it wouldn’t take long for him to get frustrated. Saturday morning we woke up and he could just do it. crazy. and you can definitely tell he’s proud of himself.

other than that major milestone the past month has been pretty eventful for this mister. He had his first case of the major sickies. a fever of 105 sent us to the after hours clinic where our poor boy was subjected to several different tests, including a run to the emergency room. it was a long night and he was so miserable. thankfully his temperature eventually went down and after a few days he was back to his normal sweet and happy self. this month also brought his first little phase of rebellion. he was pushing stuff out of our hands, banging on stuff, didn’t want to eat anything ever, wouldn’t laugh or smile and lots of high pitched screaming. this only lasted about 2 days but for a mama who has only experienced pure sweetness from her baby it felt like forever and I may have been a little dramatic about it. in fact I may have had nightmares and a constant fear that our boy was going to grow up to be the meanest kid on the block. this was the first time I ever really got nervous about disciplining our kids. but that too has passed, although I’m sure not forever but we’ll just take these phases as they come.

not everything was tantrums and fevers this month. he is becoming even more independent and curious and loves to explore wherever he is. he understands the few signs we’ve been using, “all done” “food” “milk”, etc. he is so friendly and loves smiling at everyone he meets. he loves being outside, still. loves music. is the easiest eater. still no teeth, not even a sign of them. he sleeps like a dream at night, but think’s he’s far too busy to nap. he’s great at giving kisses. loves watching dogs and other babies and he really really loves his grandmas, grandpas, aunts and uncles. 10 months. wow. double digits, he’ll be one before we know it. please time, slow down just a little.

also, I’ve been able to finish 5 more quiet book pages. only 4 left! I would love to have it finished by the end of the year. but that seems a little ambitious right now. anyways, I loved doing these few pages, a couple of them I really didn’t know what I was doing, I tried a few different things, and ended up really liking how they turned out.

W-Watch. Henry is fascinated by watches, if you’re wearing one you can bet he’s going to go for it. so a simple watch with embroidered numbers and felt hands that rotate around the button was in order for W.

O-Opposites, or Octopus. This is one of the pages where I wasn’t really sure how it would turn out until it was all finished and it ended up being one of my favorites. I embroidered the word along with a picture on each leg. The legs are velcro-ed to their opposite.

N-Numbers. there are a million different things I could have done for Numbers and that’s why it took me so long to decide on what to do, but a simple abacus worked great. double layered felt beads slide up and down the thin ribbon to help learn counting.

V-Vroom! I knew I wanted to do something like this for V but I was a little intimidated by all the stitching and detail it would take. I was inspired by Homemade by Jill’s car play mat she made for her son. if you haven’t seen it I definitely recommend looking it up. it. is. insane. The car (look familiar? it was Mckay’s idea to replicate our own Toothless. yes that’s the name of our car, confused? refer to How to Train Your Dragon) is attached to a thin red ribbon that is long enough to ride the car along all the roads on the page to stops which include: the beach, pizza parlor, car wash, school, ice cream shop and the park.

J-Jigsaw Puzzle. This is the second attempt at this page. The first puzzle turned out really awful. this one was a little tricky to figure out but once everything came together it turned out great. too bad the top pieces chop the owls heads off. a little morbid I suppose but I’m definitely not willing to redo it a third time. :)

22 pages down, 4 more to go. H, M, R and Y. There’s a reason I’ve saved these ones for last. lots of ideas but not 100% sure what to do yet. and Y? that one has me totally baffled.

our thanksgiving

2011-11-30T17:48:00.001-08:00

living so close to both of our families means we often get to celebrate holidays with both sides of the family and the celebration extends over multiple days, something we are so grateful. Thanksgiving day was spent with the Ryttings. Mairin was home from New York so we were all together, something we didn’t think was going to happen this year, since injured Chris should have been in Chile and we were supposed to be in Grad School out of state. So being all together this year was a pleasant surprise. We went for a little fallish walk, watched Greenbay continue to be undefeated and ate some seriously delicious food.

The Friday after Thanksgiving, like every year, we went and picked out our Christmas Tree. It was so fun to start celebrating the Henry’s first Christmas season.

Thanksgiving round two took place at the Jacobs home, where I was too lazy to take any pictures. this also included yummy food including one of our newer favorites: upside down caramel pecan apple pie. sounds complicated but it couldn’t be more simple. even I can make it and I am no baker. we had a great time with family once again and if I could just toot my own horn for a second, I did happen to beat the boys at Settlers. twice. in a row. (I got lucky.) it was such a pleasant break, it’s always such a treat to spend time with mckay. so many things to be grateful for. our wonderful, supportive families, friends, the gospel and the knowledge of eternal families, our health, and our sweet little babe who is the biggest joy. I could go on forever. we are incredibly blessed and I’m grateful for this time of year to reflect on all our blessings. I should really do it more often. we hope everyone had a wonderful holiday, looking forward to Christmas and all its fun!

weekend projects

2011-11-22T13:51:00.001-08:00

henry is tending to be a little high maintenance lately. he’s fed up with his immobility and trying with all his might to become a crawler, it just hasn’t happened yet. He gets on his hands and knees and bounces back and forth trying so hard to propel himself forward. when we set him on the ground to play with toys he instantly goes from sitting to his stomach and then screams in frustration because he cant move anywhere. so most of my time is occupied with the effort to get this babe moving. despite all this we managed to squeeze in a few crafty crafts over the weekend. we decided to spruce up Henry’s room a little bit.

Project #1 was inspired from an idea I have seen all over the internet. and I’m sure I’m not the only one. I couldn’t even guess what the original source is but I remember seeing this done when I was just barely pregnant, so it’s definitely been around awhile, and on our “to do” list for quite some time. we bought wooden spice racks from Ikea and spray painted them white, attached them to the wall and they became little bookshelves.

project #2 came from the always inspiring Pinterest. I downloaded these free alphabet printables, printed them onto white cardstock and hung them clothesline style. only thing purchased for this project was the clothespins from hobby lobby.

these pictures don’t do justice to how cute these printables are. ( no windows = poor lighting. but I love them. a lot. such a fun way to add visual interest in a room. I’ve already caught henry looking at them every once in awhile. we also gathered up some things for our next project. also for Henry. Mckay will be helping with this one which is wonderful. projects with the husband are one of my absolute favorite things.

weekend

2011-11-15T09:44:00.001-08:00

complete picture overload coming up. this weekend was amazing. all the Jacobs under one roof again, total heaven. we had so.much.fun! Henry was an instant fan of Marty. We played non stop, ate way too much, and started Monday wishing the weekend had been just a little bit longer.

big week.

2011-11-09T13:46:00.001-08:00

big things happening this week. Last night we welcomed brother Chris home from the MTC. foot surgery. he’ll be home for about 2 months. bittersweet. such a bummer to leave the spiritual high of a mission to come home, instead of heading to Chile with his district, but we’re a little excited that he’ll be home for the holidays. I guess if you had to come home for surgery, now would be the ideal time. So with one brother home we have another one on the way! Marty is coming home from his mission in Australia on Saturday. and boy are we excited. It’s been almost 4 years since my entire family was all together so it’s going to be loads of fun. Aaaand, this little gentleman turns 9 months on Friday. I can’t even believe it.

still no teeth (so cute), still no crawling (although he sways back and forth on his hands and knees building momentum, so we’re close. just need to move that hand forward… he is excellent at scooting backwards.

new skills: clapping, which is super recent, and giving kisses, which just melt my heart. A henry kiss entails him leaning forward, mouth open until he reaches your cheek where he then drools all over you. I love it. he’s such a happy easy baby, and loud… always talking and cooing to himself which is cute, but makes things like church a little rough. For some reason he is the most high maintenance at church, doesn’t want you to put him down, but doesn’t want you to hold him either. he gets fussy and loud and by the end of sacrament I am exhausted and my arms feel like they’re about to fall off. I have yet to make it to a full 3 hours of church.

lots of firsts coming up especially with the Holidays. like his first experience with snow the other night. he was intrigued.

and first wearing of a tie. we are so blessed and love our sweet babe more than we ever thought possible.

we carved pumpkins

2011-11-02T16:58:00.001-07:00

or I guess I should say Mckay carved a pumpkin, whilst the babe supervised.

I, for the second year in a row gave up after about 20 minutes. One day I’ll actually complete one. But a fussy babe, picture taking and the roasting of the pumpkin seeds kept me too occupied. The carving got a little competitive this year when we learned there were prizes. Had I known the winner would get a gift card to Café Rio I probably would have tried a little harder, although I did benefit from Mckay’s second place prize. also a gift card. I on the other hand was cheated out of my last place prize (apple pie caramel apple) when brother Adam ate it. the night was complete with delicious steak sandwiches and corn chowder and The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Mckay replicated the mom tattoo, pure brown-nosing skills at their finest (my mom was the judge).

Monday we continued the Halloween celebration with some epic chili courtesy of Mrs. Klappoth, Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cake (thank you Paula Deen) and my first Zombie movie ever. ew. I love celebrating a holiday over an entire weekend. Next up, Thanksgiving which means a visit from auntie Mairin. hooray!

Mr. Pan

2011-10-29T14:47:00.001-07:00

As of the beginning of the week I had all but given up on finding Henry a costume I liked. I was pretty sure I wanted him to be Peter Pan but wasn’t willing to spend 30+ dollars on an outfit he would wear for a day, plus I wasn’t obsessed with any that I saw online. Tuesday I found the most perfect Peter outfit on makeit-loveit.com, a site I used to frequent all the time but hadn’t been on in awhile. I remembered she always made the cutest costumes for her kids and was so happy when I saw her tutorial for the Peter Pan outfit. it looked so simple, even for me. I got the supplies Wednesday (poor Mckay had to experience the line to cut fabric at Joannes, which is always insane) and had plans to make the costume on Thursday, talk about last minute... It took the majority of the day but I have to say I love it, mostly because of the little man that’s wearing it. Those of you that are experienced sewers please be kind… :) this was my first time sewing any sort of clothing and my sewing skills are limited at best. but, thanks to the tremendous help of my mom it all came together. Not bad for less than 11 dollars.

thanks to husband for indulging me in a little impromptu photo shoot. Hope everyone is enjoying their Halloween weekend! This has just got to be the best time of year, love love it!

Halloween puppets

2011-10-24T10:09:00.001-07:00

since we don’t have our own little space to decorate for the holidays this year I’ve been finding other crafts to do to celebrate. Last week I made a bunch of Halloween finger puppets during nap time. These were fun, easy and relatively quick to make. an ideal craft. Henry’s already shown some interest, by putting them straight in his mouth. I’m sure he’ll enjoy them more in a year or two.

the letter T and Z.

2011-10-19T14:36:00.001-07:00

I finished two more quiet book pages this week, t and z.

T- for Train took me awhile, mostly because I was looking for pictures of the each of us that I liked and that were the size that I needed. I cut out the shape for the window and then lined it with a clear page protector to cover the picture.

I was kind of figuring things out as I went along, so there are definitely some flaws, but I like how it turned out I suppose.

Z- for Zoo. I started this page months and months ago, but for some reason just finished it this week. I loved the animal finger puppets from the farm page that I decided to make some more. These are so quick and easy to make! So easy in fact that I got a little distracted and kept making more puppets in honor of the upcoming holiday. more pictures to come!

photos from our weekend

2011-10-17T15:31:00.001-07:00

school has pretty much been a full time job for mckay this semester and homework often has to take the place of playtime so weekends are much anticipated around here. Saturday morning we took a spur of the moment trip to the local beto’s for breakfast burritos and headed for a drive up the canyon still in our pajamas. I live for those moments. it was beautiful.

Later we enjoyed a late night at Cornbelly’s with the Klappoths.

Sunday brought some quality family time, relaxing, eating, board games and football. hooray for weekends!

october, how I love thee

2011-10-13T13:41:00.001-07:00

sometimes my obsessive picture taking embarrasses Mckay.

8 mos

2011-10-11T12:09:00.001-07:00

our little man is not so little anymore. he turns 8 months old today. I’m kind of sad, time goes way to fast. but it is so much fun to see him learn and grow. he is so curious and I absolutely love watching him experience new things. babies make everything new and exciting. today we will celebrate with some family pumpkin picking, a little lunchy with friends, and a flu shot. big day.

quiet book progress

2011-10-04T08:06:00.001-07:00

I’m slowly getting closer to finishing the quiet book I started two years ago…I tend to work in it like crazy for a few days and then get sick of it and take a break for a few days/months. I’m making progress though, thanks to henry being a phenomenal napper so as of right now I have three pages in the works plus six new pages to do. that sounds like a lot, but it’s a lot closer than where I was a month ago.

I finished these pages a few months ago:

I- for Ice cream. nothing fancy here, just a variety of scoops to customize an ice cream cone. I like to have each page target some sort of learning skill but it’s not always easy to come up with one, so this one could help with decision making I guess.

L is for “Lift Off”. I had to get creative for some of the pages just so I could do the ones I wanted. I couldn’t decide whether to do rocket or robot for R, hence the “lift off” page. The rocket slides from the earth to the moon on a thin ribbon.

These pages I’ve done in the last few weeks:

Q- “Quack” The ducks are velcro-ed on. pair the babies with the mom.

S- Shapes. I embroidered around each shape to create an outline onto the page, match the shape to its outline.

P- for Potato Head. the top of the body is velcro-ed to the page and holds the extra pieces. this helps with learning the names of body parts

X- is for X-ray. another body parts page. again, all the pieces are attached using velcro.

U- Under the Sea. a few years ago I saw this template for ocean felt magnets on purlbee and was obsessed and that’s what I used to make this page. the fish are just attached to the page and since everything is so colorful I guess it can help with learning colors.

the Z,T and J pages are almost finished, so hopefully I can move on from those soon.

swing

2011-10-03T12:12:00.001-07:00

there is nothing better than a quiet morning at the park. oh how I love this boy.

pictures from our weekend

2011-09-26T10:56:00.001-07:00

weekend trips to the cabin are always heavenly and this weekend it was extra wonderful. lots of lounging around and relaxing, pretty drives, beautiful fall leaves and a sweet little hike to Ruth Lake.

DIY Camera Remote

2011-09-20T19:53:00.001-07:00

For a few weeks now, I’ve been thisclose to buying a remote for our digital camera. I’d like to try my hand at some star trails like this one taken by Declan McCormak:

To get pictures like that you need to use an extremely small aperture (large f-number) and a long shutter time. The shutter time for this shot might have been 10 minutes or more. The longest possible exposure time on our D60 is 30 seconds, so any star trails would be almost impercepticle. The camera also has a bulb setting, where the shutter stays open for as long as the release button is pressed, but it would be a huge pain to hold the shutter release down for 10 or 20 minutes. Your best best is to use a remote, like Nikon’s ML-L3:

With the remote, the camera can be set to open the shutter when the remote button is pressed once, and then close it when it is pressed a second time. The remotes are between $15 and $30, depending on where you buy. Every time I thought about buying one, I decided that I should just wait. The other day, I stumbled across an application called PhotoIRmote for Android. This application creates an audio signal that can be converted to an infrared signal by a couple of photodiodes (basically LEDs that emit infrared radiation instead of visible light). Simply put, it turns almost any Android phone into a programmable camera remote. This remote can control most new Nikon, Canon, Olympus, and Sony cameras with an infrared port (probably mostly DSLRs). It can also be programmed for time-lapse photography, delayed shutter release, and extended exposure times. It has more functionality than the Nikon remote and at $4, it’s a bargain. The only thing missing was the infrared emitter.

The PhotoIRmote website has instructions to make one using two infrared photodiodes and an old pair of headphones that you don’t need anymore. Like everyone else, I have about 12 pairs of Apple headphones lying around from a decade of iPods that me and Emily have gone through. I decided to use one of those old, beat-up pairs of Apple buds for my IR emitter. When I cut it open, there were four different wires inside. One copper, one red, one green, and one with both green and red bands. After some time, I found out that the red and green are the audio signals, while the red+green and copper are the ground wires. If you use iPod headphones, just cut off the red+green and copper wires and don’t use them. The second hurdle is that these wires are all covered with acryllic. Acryllic makes for bad electrical contact. What I did was use a crème brûlée torch to burn off all of the acryllic. It burns pretty fast, and you don’t want to keep heating the metal after it’s gone because before too long it will melt. The acryllic burns brightly, so it’s not too hard to tell when it’s gone. Once you’ve burned off the green and red acryllic, go ahead and wire up your photodiodes and you have your emitter. Honestly, it took me about 10 minutes to go from iPod headphones and photodiodes to a finished, working IR emitter. It’s extremely easy to do. My finished emitter looks like this:

The PhotoIRmote application has a feature that lets you check to make sure your emitter is working. I tested mine and it worked on my first try, so I tried it on the camera. It worked perfectly! In fact, I took this picture on the kitchen table using the application:

I still have to clean up the exposed wires, but other than that it’s done! This has been one of my easiest projects ever and It ended up costing my under $6. The application was $4, the IR photodiodes were $1.65, and the headphones were free! As soon as I get a star trails photo that I’m happy with, I’ll throw it onto the blog.

MIA

2011-09-20T15:26:00.001-07:00

I feel like we’ve inadvertently neglected our blog. Lately our life has been filled with the following: fall semester, football season (and with that, the all consuming fantasy football leagues…Mckay is in two and it’s pretty much equal to a part time job). We’ve managed to squeeze in a few lovely hikes over the weekends. The first was up Dry Fork, where I did more complaining than I probably should have. but me and steep rocky hills don’t get along. In fact, we’re in a fight. and judging by the scrapes near my left knee cap I’d say the hill is winning. I’m going to be honest, I hated hiking that day. but it was good to get in some quality family time and enjoy a pretty view I suppose.

We also hiked around Squaw Peak, right around sunset. Romance. and it was the babe’s first successful ride in the backpack. so fun. we only had the film camera so no pictures of that. but definitely a hike we recommend, the views are incredible.

We also enjoyed a weekend with Chris and JJ, and the rest of the family, where we all had a good laugh over the epic fail of BYU (eventually it just got ridiculous). and our sweet babe turned 7 months on the 11th.

aaaaaaaand, as for me whenever I’m not cooking, cleaning, laundry-ing or …henry-ing, I’m working like crazy on this thing:

yes that would be the old quiet book. the one I started forever ago, even before henry was a blip on our radar. I’m in the middle of completing 6 new pages (probably some of my favorites so far) and once those are done I only have 8 left. I can finally see the light at the end of what’s been a very long tunnel. but I’m excited to get it done and move on with my life. Hopefully I can post an update on my progress in the next couple of days. or maybe I’ll wait till it’s all finished, but who knows when that will be. I guess we’ll see.

Pinterest!

2011-09-08T18:14:00.000-07:00

McKay here. Emily and I have made our way onto Pinterest. Maybe you all know what it is. I didn't until today. It's a kind of online corkboard where you can pin pictures of stuff you think is cool or that you want to remember or anything else you can imagine of doing with pictures. She explained it to me better than that. Anyway, if you get bored and you've already gone through the archives of this blog and read and commented on every post, then you can also come and see what we are thinking about on Pinterest. She requested an invitation from the website and got it pretty fast I think, but if you are waiting for one then either of us can invite you. It's a pretty great idea, and even though I didn't know about it until like 7 hours ago, I'm already pumped about it.

I really should do a blog post about some of the things I've been up to lately, but there is a Green Bay game and we are going to watch it with the Klappoths. And don't worry. I won't bore you with transport phenomena or anything else chemical-engineering-related. I probably will mostly talk about photography. I've recently gotten very enthused about it, but the Packers come first and so it will have to wait. Thanks for reading.

-McKay

Quick craft for sir henry’s room

2011-09-08T10:35:00.001-07:00

I’m slowly finishing some projects for Henry’s room. Awhile ago I made a fabric mobile to hang over his crib and we finally got around to hanging it up this week. This project was so quick and easy, I did it during naptimes.

Sorry for bad lighting, this is as good as it gets in a room with no windows :(

While choosing toys and decorations for henry’s room I knew I wanted lots of bright color and varying patterns and this mobile has both. another perk to this project was that it was super cheap. Supplies: embroidery hoop (about $1 at hobby lobby) paint (already had), fabric (I used fabric scraps I already owned) ribbon (hobby lobby), fusible webbing, and fishing wire to hang it. so I don’t think this project cost more than $5. wonderful. if only all projects could be so cheap and easy, then I might actually finish a few…

I was worried Henry would hate it. He loves his old mobile, a plush car musical, rotating thing we got as a gift. but I cut the cars off so he got some new toys, and the one I made is always swirling a little so I’m hoping he likes it. so far he hasn’t told me otherwise.

big days

2011-09-01T10:22:00.001-07:00

we’ve had a few important days recently. first, our anniversary on the 21st. since mckay was on a kayaking trip we had to wait until he got back to celebrate. since dates with just the two of us are scarce we decided to splurge and get a hot stone couples massage, fancy pants. we’ve gotten massages one other time in our life, so this was a treat. once I got over the initial weirdness of letting some stranger rub oils on my body it was heavenly.

so four years of married life with my sweetheart. so much I could say. so much mushy stuff. what fun we have had. of course we’ve had our ups and downs, just like everyone, but I couldn’t imagine life with a better husband. and now with a babe, oh my goodness did I get lucky. mckay is the most wonderful dad. we love our little life and are so excited for what the future has in store for us.

and on to the next big day, Chris entered the mtc yesterday. it was sad to say goodbye, but he was so excited and so prepared that we couldn’t help but be happy and excited for him. He will be serving in the Chile, Osorno mission and we know he is going to be incredible. for anyone keeping track…this is the third brother in a row we’ve sent out on a mission, and the second time two brothers have overlapped (marty comes home this october). we are very proud of our brothers for serving missions and grateful for the blessings our families receive because of them.

lastly, school started this week, which means the rat tail is no more, a noteworthy day indeed.

misc. and a new trick

2011-08-20T11:38:00.001-07:00

after henry’s blessing the rytting group headed up to the cabin to spend a few days together. we read, relaxed, talked, played hand and foot (me and mckay were destroyed) took a pretty drive and explored a little. it was a fun little trip though too short in my opinion. mckay was experimenting with the cameras and snapped a couple fun photos:

love those stars.

on wednesday we helped mckay get ready for the boys kayaking trip in canyonlands. which means hen and I have been spending some quality time with nana jacobs.

on a sidenote: (and since we’re still in that phase where we think everything our child does is the cutest and worth documenting.)

the babe has found his feet. so funny.

blessed

2011-08-20T08:01:00.001-07:00

last Sunday our little man received his blessing. that’s right, at 6 months old. a little later than normal its true, but mckay wanted a small gathering of only our immediate family and grandparents and with all the summer travelling both families have been doing August 14 just so happened to work for almost everyone. Adam had just returned home from Jerusalem, our celebration was just missing chris, jj and marty. the day was beautiful and mckay did a wonderful job with the blessing. the feeling was so peaceful and all day I felt so happy and grateful for all the love and joy my little family brings me. how amazing that I get to spend eternity with these two.

half birthday

2011-08-12T00:19:00.001-07:00

mr. henry reached his 6 month birthday today. can’t believe our babe his half a year old. whether it was residual trauma from last nights failed attempt at weaning off swaddling, or his poor irritated gums, our little man was not in the mood to party. we did end our day with a family date out for pizza and a walk through the park.

as for an update, Hen is gobbling up baby food like a pro. we haven’t dared to try rice cereal again but he certainly is enjoying his mashed up fruits and veggies. We have definitely seen an improvement in tummy time, which is saying a lot. he’s rolled over a few times though we’re pretty sure they were accidents... we have high hopes it’ll happen for real sometime soon. his new favorite thing is to arch his back, its pretty funny and sometimes a little inconvenient, mostly when it’s in the middle of a diaper change. the worst is when he arches his back while I’m holding him, like he wants me to put him down….he’s already trying to get away from his mama, so sad. we’ve found a few tricks to make him laugh like crazy, and those moments I must say, are the best.

happy half birthday sweet babe.

(I realize this orange striped top has made quite a few appearances on posts in the past, but when you go through 2-4 outfits a day, repeats are bound to happen.)

new do + new tunes.

2011-08-10T20:22:00.001-07:00

every summer mckay grows his hair out. this summer was no exception. an upcoming river trip and a new byu semester meant it was time to chop it off, but he decided to have some fun with it. mckay’s definitely had some interesting haircuts but this one beats them all.

before:

After:

front shot. looks good right? wait for it……

there it is. oh my.

ps. we have finally added some new songs to our blog playlist and that makes me happy. (you should check it out!) but not quite as happy as I’ll be once that rat tail’s cut off. I deserve some sort of treat for putting up with that for awhile, don’t you think? : )

July Reads and how life is funny.

2011-08-10T18:04:00.001-07:00

Not all that exciting of a post but I have a few things I feel like writing down. Since we have been consuming books like crazy at our house I’ve been meaning to write a little about them, so I can remember what I thought of them when I’m thinking of reading them again. Plus I like hearing about good books and what others are reading, so hopefully this interests somebody….

first up: Lunch in Paris by Elizabeth Bard

4 out of 5. This book was made for me. Recipes and falling in love in Paris, how can you go wrong? This was fun to read, basically just an autobiography of her building a life in Paris. The descriptions of the city and the food made me want to hop on a plane and fly to Paris that day. The recipes are mostly things I would probably never attempt to make but they were tied into the storyline ex. what they had on their first date, the first meal her husband made her, etc. pretty cute.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

4 out of 5. or 3.5 I cant decide. this book has been widely read and highly reviewed. I was excited to read it and see what all the fuss was about. The book was very well written, beautiful descriptions of life in the circus years ago. although the story was really interesting overall the language and **adult content** in the book was just a little to mature for me…. I’m kind of a sissy.

my antonia by Willa Cather

5 out of 5. most people read this book in junior high or high school, but I had never read it. I needed a book to read in Yellowstone and this was what I found. this was a beautiful story, so well written and you really fall in love with the characters. it was interesting to read about the midwest so many years ago. classic read for anyone.

POISONWOOD BIBLE by Barbara Kingsolver

5.5 out of 5. this is the book me and mckay chose to read together this month. We both loved it. I read this book back in high school and was excited for mckay to read it. This is one of those books that you think about days after reading it, one of those books we have had multiple conversations about. I cant recommend it enough. its long, 649 pages in fact. but it’s worth every single page. The story is about the Price family whose father is a minister. He takes his family to the Congo in the 60’s intent on baptizing as many Congolese as he can. The story is told through the perspectives of the mother, and four daughters. This style of writing helped develop each character individually, which made us feel more emotionally invested in the story. love love love.

on to another matter of business. people have been asking us about Grad School and what our plan is so for those of you who are still curious I will explain. it’s been quite the process.

Back in January Mckay applied to a number of Graduate Schools for both Chemical Engineering and Nuclear Engineering Programs. In April we slowly started to hear back from a few schools and after awhile we still couldn’t figure out what was taking all the other schools so long to make a decision. While we were still waiting for answers from several schools we started hearing a few things. From people who worked in Academics all over the country we learned that Congress had cut funding for the sciences. Because of this lack of funding professors aren’t getting the money they need to do their research and the Universities can’t afford to accept as many students as they had in the past. (Science programs usually pay their students since they are benefiting from their research.) In fact we heard that a lot of professors were going to schools in Europe where there is better funding for research. We were pretty discouraged to hear this since research is primarily what Mckay wants to do. It’s also disappointing that the government doesn’t view scientific research as very much of a priority. Anyways, so schools weren’t accepting as many students and with the recession a lot of people were leaving the field and applying to get more schooling. We heard that all this made it at least 5 times harder to be accepted into programs this year. - another issue. The nuclear crisis in Japan made the future of Nuclear power very unpredictable in the United States. so, pursuing a doctorate in Nuclear Engineering would be a little risky, Mckay might not have the same opportunities as he would with Chemical Engineering.

So after a long, and very anxious wait we finally heard back from everybody. We did get into a few great programs, but in the end none of them felt right for our family. And so, just when we thought we were leaving BYU forever, life threw us back into Cougar-land for another 2 years. (poor Mckay…) Mckay has been working for a company run by some professors at BYU. They asked him to stay on with them to continue doing work and research for them and they would put Mckay through BYU’s Chemical Engineering Masters program. At the end of the program Mckay will apply for a doctorate again. cross your fingers for us : ) After all is said and done we’re grateful for how things have worked out. Of course we were looking forward to experiencing Graduate School outside of Provo, but we have faith that this is the right decision for our family right now. There are benefits to staying here for sure, the main one is that we get two more years living close to our families. major plus for mr. henry. and us. so we’ll be around for a couple more years, let us know if you want to play! : )

henry takes a bite

2011-07-27T18:46:00.001-07:00

we finally got around to adding a little rice cereal to henry’s diet.

(game face)

from a babe who refuses to take a bottle, we weren’t that surprised when the food went in

and very quickly back out.

Jellystone

2011-07-21T11:22:00.001-07:00

Last weekend we took a little trip with my family up to Rexburg to visit Chris and JJ. Part of our time there was spent in West Yellowstone, which we were pretty excited about. We got to Yellowstone Friday night, just in time for some Rocky Mountain Pizza (much to Mckay’s delight) before my family went off to a play while us and the babe walked around main street. We had all day Saturday to explore the park. We first made our way up to Mammoth Hot Springs and spent some time there.

we drove around the park enjoying the sights and trying to get henry to nap. we ended our day with a stop at the lower falls, not really sure what they’re officially called.

such a fun weekend where we enjoyed pretty scenery, fun in the pool, yummy food and some much loved family time.

5 mos.

2011-07-19T11:45:00.001-07:00

our little man turned 5 months old on the 11th. time is just flying by a little too fast, makes me kinda sad. but oh how I love seeing his personality grow and develop, seeing him starting to figure things out. he has such a fun personality and we are obsessed with him if you couldn’t tell.

at 5 months old he is growing into quite a chubs. at his last appointment he measured above average in height and weight. he is drooling constantly and anything he grabs goes straight to his mouth. we’re working on tummy time, I guess that’s more my fault than his. I just hate it. he just seems so content to hang out on his back. he loves his daddy. he loves movies (does that make me a bad mom? I have to shower somehow…) it looks like he’s getting over his baby baldness and recent hair loss, we’ve got some pretty blonde hair growing in. he sleeps about 12 hours a night, (we’re a little spoiled) but I have a feeling that wont last forever. he still refuses to take a bottle. bummer.

oh sweet babe we love you so.

book club.

2011-07-11T14:04:00.001-07:00

mckay thinks book clubs are lame. I think they’re awesome. so imagine my delight when for an fhe last month mckay suggested the fun idea of reading one book together each month. we’ve read books together in the past, basically me reading the hunger games trilogy aloud (cool right?). but our trip last month really got us back into reading so we thought we’d keep it up.

our book for June: born to run by Christopher McDougall

This book was so interesting to read, we talked about it for days. in fact we’re still talking about it. The book talks about the Tarahumara tribe in Northern Mexico, their lifestyle and their barefoot racing traditions. It also talks about ultra racing, races that take place over 50-100+ miles , where runners race non stop for hours and hours. Some of the stories in the book were so incredible (and crazy) it was almost hard to believe. It also talks about our bodies and how they were built to run.

We are not runners by any means but this book has really influenced us. More than anything we realized how capable our bodies are and the importance of staying active. The book taught me that I have been running wrong, and after changing my shoes and my stride, I have already noticed a difference in my running (and by running I mean slow jogging :) and more importantly, how good I feel after. We cant stop recommending this book to people.

our book for July: Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Fourth of July Festivities

2011-07-06T15:41:00.001-07:00

oh how I love the fourth of july. it is truly one of my favorite holidays, and the fact that we had an extra long weekend made it even better this year. Apparently we were too busy having fun to take very many pictures, but Mckay did capture Henry’s first dip in the kiddie pool.

(us and our matching potbellies…sigh)

We’re pretty sure he enjoyed it. Saturday was spent in alpine with a tasty bbq, massive water fight, sub zero ice cream (not our favorite) and the best stadium of fire works we have seen in a long time. We were pretty curious to see how the babe would react to the fireworks. He hardly even noticed them, he was too busy people watching.

Sunday we headed up to the Rytting Cabin in the Uintas. I was excited to be up there in the Summer, since I’ve only been there in the fall. but as luck would have it there was still snow on the ground and ice in the lakes. still beautiful though. we spent the night and enjoyed relaxing with a bunch of Rytting family before coming home on Monday. And because I cant do a post without mentioning food, Dicks in Kamas, oh my they have the best marshmallow shakes and fries (potbelly explained)

we finished off our Fourth of July weekend with a fire works show courtesy of Papa Jacobs. we also enjoyed the view of the valley from our driveway, so many fireworks! so fun that we can do aerials now.

such a fun time of year! Happy Fourth to all! : )

bad wife.

2011-06-30T19:36:00.001-07:00

I’ve been meaning to do a Fathers Day Post since the day itself. I just needed a picture of my boys in their Sunday best, but after two failed attempts I’ve decided to just do it, without the shirts and ties because regardless of the fact that Fathers Day was forever ago, my love deserves a special post all to himself.

So here’s to Mckay who is the best husband and papa to baby boy that I ever could have hoped for, he takes such good care of us and always keeps life interesting and oh so fun.

lots of fun adventures so far. excited for the ones ahead.

Lake Tahoe

2011-06-17T15:13:00.001-07:00

Our 2 week long vacation ended with one last day in Lake Tahoe and thankfully the weather let us enjoy the place. We were finally able to see the lake and all its prettiness.

of course food has to be mentioned. we had lunch at the Burger Lounge where we enjoyed tasty burgers, 3 types of fries (cheese, pesto, garlic) and chocolate malts. definitely no calorie counting on this trip.

{WHAT WE READ} with all the driving, stormy weather and napping baby, a lot of books were read. I didn’t read much while I was pregnant and since having Henry have only read a couple parenting books, so I was grateful for the chance to read for fun.

Born To Run- Mckay read this and loved it. It taught him a lot about the body and running, and he in turn taught me some of the things he read. It’s about the incredible Tarahumara runners in Mexico and it sounds so interesting. (I am reading this next.)
The Help- I finally followed the crowd and read this book. I got it as a Christmas present and finally had a chance to start it. I’m so glad I did! I couldn’t put it down. It was such a good story, definitely one I will read again.
Sarah’s Key- I grabbed this at Costco before our trip. This book was interesting and well written but it was so heartbreaking.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society- I grabbed this book on sale at Borders when we were in Carson City. This was probably my favorite. The format of the book is a collection of letters back and forth between the characters. I fell in love with the people in the book and even though it’s set a year after WWII there was a lot of humor in it. I definitely recommend this book.

Since I’ve been done with school I feel like my brain’s gotten a little lazy…so I have loved getting back into reading. I have a few books on my list to read next but if anyone has recommendations I would love to hear them!

SAN FRANCISCO

2011-06-16T15:15:00.001-07:00

None of us had ever been to Lake Tahoe. We were expecting warm sunny weather with lots of poolside fun. not so. Lake Tahoe was cold. and wet. there was still snow on the ground in fact. We spent the first day driving around Carson City. It rained all day. The next day was just as stormy. We weren’t really sure what to do or how we were going to spend the rest of the week in Tahoe, the weather forecast wasn’t looking good. so what did we do? We took a little three day trip down to San Francisco! we were pretty worried about how Henry would do, we were already a week into vacationing and he was starting to get worn out. but it was either go, or stay cooped up in the condo for a week. and we are so glad we went! Henry did great! We packed a lot into the few days we were there and we had such a fun time! I had never been to San Francisco so everything was new to me, so of course…pictures, pictures, pictures!

We got to San Francisco late Monday morning and headed straight to the waterfront (along with the other tourists) where we walked along the piers. We of course had to see the sea lions at Pier 39.

they were the funniest. and oh so smelly. next we headed over to Fisherman’s Wharf where we enjoyed some fish and chips and clam chowder at the Chowder Hut.

We kept walking until we found ourselves at Ghiradelli Square where we promptly spent $40 on chocolate. that’s okay right? only on vacation. this is also where we enjoyed a delicious ice cream sundae (cable car) and salted caramel hot chocolate. I was too busy throwing all my anxieties aside and finally nursing in public (I was discreet) to get any pictures of this stop. but are you noticing a trend? our trip revolved around food…

We drove around the city, saw beautiful houses and parks. took a windy drive down Lombard street and ended the day at Coit Tower where we enjoyed amazing views of the city:

alcatraz

Lombard Street

on Day 2 we took advantage of the nicer weather to do some sightseeing. after a delicious breakfast (more on that later) we made our way across the Golden Gate Bridge.

we took a beautiful drive along the coastline.

We drove through Sausalito, the cutest little town and then through the Muir Woods. We didn’t get out of the car, so no pictures. We were trying to keep Henry asleep because that night we had tickets for the Giants game! hooray! we knew Henry wouldn’t make it through the whole game so we got cheap tickets ($3 each!) and enjoyed the beautiful view from way up high.

We only made it to the 5th inning but we still had a great time. We ended the night with a little drive through Berkeley.

Day 3- we were lucky to have sunny weather again! after another amazing breakfast we drove around Presidio and took a little peak at Lucas Film (their grounds are beautiful) at least what we saw of it. and we just couldn’t stay away from the bridge. this time from a different viewpoint.

Chris’ face…..

we couldn’t leave San Francisco before eating one more time. Tony’s Pizza. and that ended our spontaneous trip to San Fran. We loved it even more than we thought we would.

{WHERE WE ATE} -because this deserves to be mentioned.

Mama’s- a cute little café right across the street a park and a beautiful church. we enjoyed warm apple crumb cake, various types of eggs benedict, and yummy French toast. Vegetarian Eggs Benedict- avacado, tomato, mushrooms, delish.

Smokehouse- on Telegraph in Berkeley. we were trying to find somewhere open, it was late, and this was one of our only options. we lucked out. they have great burgers, hot dogs, fries, shakes, etc. perfect for a 1030 pm dinner….

Brenda’s-probably my favorite. oh my goodness. we were told to go there for their Beignets but those weren’t even the best part. everyone ordered something different and everything was good. Shrimp and grits, Maple Pecan French Toast, Croque Monsier. I had a little love affair with my salad: brie en croute on top, dark greens, dijon vinaigrette, red onions, candied walnuts, grilled chicken. we. must. go. back.

Tony’s Pizza- definitely worth the last minute stop. we tried the:

*Margherita (which one the world pizza cup in 2007,hooray)

*Cal Italia-(asiago, mozzarella, italian gorgonzola, sweet fig preserve, prosciutto de parma, parmigiano, balsamic) this won the gold medal at Food Networks Pizza Challenge

*The New Yorker- my personal favorite (mozzarella, pepperoni, italian fennel sausage, ricotta, chopped garlic and oregano) I usually don’t like meat pizza’s but this was amazing, especially with the Ricotta

Tartine: we were told to go here for the best sour dough bread in the city and it did not disappoint. They also have amazing desserts and pastries.

We weren’t hungry for days after this trip. We had one day left in Tahoe before our wonderful vacation was over. We were happy to have good weather. which (sorry to be obnoxious) means one last vacation post….

Yosemite

2011-06-15T17:56:00.001-07:00

*Sorry in advance for the picture overload and many notes, but I have the need to document everything and so it cannot be helped.* our trip started with a stop in Las Vegas. Not only was this a desirable stop to break up the 14 hour drive to Yosemite, but it is also home to our wonderful Skouson friends. There’s always something going on at the Skouson home. This time we were entertained by their new parrot, Pickles, who was quite the character. We still aren’t sure how Henry felt about him.

We stayed with them for a couple of nights before heading on to Yosemite.

Its hard to describe Yosemite in words. simply put it is unbelievably beautiful. we both agreed it was one of the most amazing places we had ever been and we hope to go back.

Day 1- We got our first look at Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View. So pretty it was unreal.

After taking some pictures we drove around the valley, we did this a lot, everywhere you look there’s something amazing to see. We stopped for some lunch by the river before making our way over to the visitors center. We browsed around the Ansel Adams Gallery (exciting for me especially since I did a project on him for a Humanities class), then took a short walk to the base of Yosemite Falls.

(big tree. notice Henry’s “rock on” fist pump. awesome. this tree is dated back to 325 AD.)

(Yosemite Falls)

Day 2- We spent the morning in Mariposa Groves, where the BIG trees live. since we forgot our camera that morning all our pictures are courtesy of Chris.

(The Fallen Monarch)

(this day was cold. and wet.) Note for futures trips, the stroller wasn’t the smartest idea. Our little Maclaren was pretty tough through this hike and so was Henry. With the cold, the rain, and the off-roading we were surprised that both the stroller and Henry did so well. but a front carrier or a backpack would have made a lot more sense. we got quite a lot of stares carrying the stroller up some of the rougher parts of the trail.

(The Grizzly Giant)

(Wawona Tunnel Tree)

(Faithful Couple. Two trees that grew together, cute.)

Mariposa Groves left us cold, wet and with a tired baby. After a little break at the cabin we drove up to Glacier Point, where you can get one of the best views of the Yosemite Valley. there was a lot of filming and picture taking.

Day 3- we started our day by stopping at El Capitan to watch the climbers.

El Capitan is amazing. It’s the largest piece of solid granite in the world, and I am so impressed by those who are skilled enough to climb it. The climb to the top takes more than one day so the climbers will pitch their tents against the wall for the night. I can safely say I wont be doing that anytime soon. or ever.

After El Capitan we went on a hike to Vernal Falls. We started out the hike like this:

the hike was beautiful:

our goal was to make it to the top of Vernal Falls, but our out of shape bodies and sleepy/hungry baby made it so we only made it to the base. just another reason to go back I guess. and so we ended our hike like this:

while henry slept in the car we went to see more of the sights.

whew. quite a post. Yosemite was heavenly. We were sad to leave, and felt like there was so much left still to see. We are already dreaming about going back.

We left Yosemite for Lake Tahoe where we decided to take a surprise side trip to San Francisco! but that is for another post.

we are back.

2011-06-13T10:56:00.001-07:00

we are back from our vacation and we’re not too happy about it. playing all day and sleeping in every morning is really too much fun for our own good. and although henry was a dream, travelling with a baby is quite a task and we are still trying to recover. we are also trying to get back into normal everyday life.

we don’t need to mention how many pictures we took, but it was a lot, so hopefully I can get to posting some pictures in the next day or two. but for now just a picture of baby boy, he turned 4 months this weekend.

rainy days

2011-05-25T20:44:00.001-07:00

I have to admit, I have love love loved the weather in utah lately. I know most wouldn’t agree, and don’t get me wrong I love the sun too, but rainy days are probably my favorite. they’re cozy. and the rain makes everything so fresh and green and I just happen to think our little utah county looks so beauteeful right now.

our rainy days have been filled with lots of relaxing in our sweats. we have been staying current with the playoffs,

and reading some dr. seuss,

as much as we like the rain though, its time for a little sun. I have a little one who absolutely loves being outside and it has been wonderful getting out and enjoying the nice weather the last few days.

I have to share a photo mckay took of the birds nest near our front porch.

it’s basically like a planet earth episode right in front of us : ). we’re pretty excited to see those pretty blue eggs hatch.

exciting news of the week: chris got his mission call today. orsono, chile. it looks like an amazing area and we are all so excited for him.

in other news. saturday we are leaving for what has been called the last big family vacation since chris will be leaving (oct. 12), mairin will be moving to new york in august, and who knows where we will be. we are spending some time in Yosemite and Lake Tahoe, both places neither of us have been before. we are pretty pumped. mckay and no work for two weeks = heaven, and I am delighted I’ll get to spend so much time with both of my boys.

love them.

3 months

2011-05-11T16:27:00.000-07:00

our baby turned three months old today. I really can’t believe it. we celebrated of course by enjoying a bubble bath and a nice long nap (henry, not me), playing with monkeys, watching a little how to train your dragon ( he loves watching the bright colors and lights):

a little stroll outside between rainstorms,

and dancing in the kitchen with grandma. we sure do love our sweet boy.

mothers day and our other blog

2011-05-09T22:18:00.001-07:00

Mothers Day might just be my new favorite holiday. Henry’s present to me was starting to sleep 7-8 hours a night this week. I’m starting to feel human again.

it was so fun to spend the day with family, and to talk to brother adam in Israel and brother marty in Australia, at the same time, on speakerphone.

also. we started another blog. I decided to start a food blog to keep our favorite recipes all in one place. mckay contributed by coming up with a title. check it out if you wish : )

henry goes to the beach

2011-05-04T10:55:00.001-07:00

the trip. like I said, it was wonderful. we left saturday morning, the day after graduation. at this point husband and I had a total of 8 hours sleep in the last 48 hours, and we were tired. skeptical of how the 10 hour drive would turn out we left early in the morning hoping for the best. we just so happened to be blessed with a child that does great in the car. he slept practically the whole way. we did have to stop to feed him a few times, which added quite a bit of time to the already long drive. and we are also entering into the world of massive blowouts. im pretty sure we went through 4 outfits by the time we got to carlsbad.

sunday came. easter. I was disappointed I hadn’t had enough time to put together baskets for henry or mckay. I realize henry isn’t even 3 months old yet, so I’m sure he didn’t mind. but it was his first easter. and I didn’t even take pictures of him in his cute easter outfit. fail.

the majority of the trip was spent eating amazing food, shopping, and relaxing.

we are lucky enough to have family to stay with in Carlsbad. Henry loved being around the Greenwood ladies. he also met Cooper, the Greenwood’s king charles spaniel who desperately wanted to be henry’s friend.

we took a few trips to the beach, the weather was perfect. we learned that henry ray truly loves being outside. whenever he would get fussy we would take him outside and he would quickly calm down and look all around with big wide eyes. this was especially the case at the beach.

we also made a trip down to the San Diego temple to walk around the grounds. henry seemed to enjoy that as well.

mckay and brother chris accidentally matched that day. cutesy.

it was a good day : )

and a good trip.

baby blue eyes

2011-05-01T16:39:00.001-07:00

we are back from vacation. it was so so wonderful. although I must say travelling with a baby is completely new territory for us and we are quite exhausted. I’m hoping to write more tomorrow….or maybe the next day.

college grad

2011-04-26T22:20:00.001-07:00

April 22 was a special day for us. mckay graduated from byu with a BS in chemical engineering. HOORAY! we are so excited and proud of him.

(it was a big day for the Rytting family, sister Mairin also graduated with a masters in Accounting)

honestly sometimes I felt like this day would never come. so many many late nights for mckay and lots of hard work. its exciting that this day marked the end of his undergraduate career and we can now move on to the next phase of our life. we only wish we knew exactly what we will be doing or where we will be. yep, still waiting to hear from a few schools before we can make a decision on grad school. we’re in a weird state of limbo you could say.

but at least for now we are experiencing that state of limbo in beautiful southern california! the day after graduation we packed up the car and headed out on our first vacation as a family of 3….pictures to come : )

snapshots

2011-04-26T21:58:00.001-07:00

photos of the ryttings lazy days the past week or so.

lots of relaxing and lounging around.

got it. proof that the babe is officially full of smiles.

hello sun!

2011-04-15T20:50:00.001-07:00

this week mckay attended his very last class at byu. I dare say forever. it’s the end of our byu era and it feels wonderful and a little strange at the same time. mckay has only one final and then graduation next week. we are so excited. and I am so proud of all his hard work.

we have certainly enjoyed having mckay home a little more the last few days. today took us down to provo for henry’s 2 month check up. our chubs is growing wonderfully. 12 lbs .5 oz.. not really looking forward to immunizations next week. breaks my heart just thinking about it.

speaking of being 2 months old, we still really cant believe how fast time goes. henry changes every day and it is so much fun to see him grow. he’s starting to smile, haven’t been able to capture it on film yet. nowadays we are loving the bumbo (thanks sandersons! ) he just sits and stares at the lights, so funny.

he truly enjoys bath time.

and we’re pretty sure he is already a jazz fan. watching the jazz beat denver on wednesday was bittersweet. happy gordon hayward played so well, and for the win. sad the season is over.

while in provo today we enjoyed the most perfect weather and took a few pictures.

the top one was sent out with mckay’s graduation announcement : ) so exciting!

a little progress

2011-03-30T11:47:00.001-07:00

I realize this blog has kind of turned into the “henry show”, but it is a record of rytting life, and he’s pretty much what’s going on right now.

last weekend we experienced Henry’s first case of the sickies. we’re still not sure what it was exactly, probably just a sore throat, or a tiny cold, or allergies but being the nervous new mother that I am, I called the dr. at the littlest sign of congestion. the visit to the dr.’s office might have been a little premature, but we learned on our visit that henry is certainly eating well, in fact he gained about 2 pounds since his 2 week old visit. that puts him at a whopping 9 lbs. 5 oz., which makes us oh so happy. I looove his squishy little cheeks and double chin.

taking care of a sick babe was a little stressful, but we survived and feel a little more confident in ourselves as parents. go us!

so with henry’s added weight he is starting to sleep longer through the night, which is very very appreciated. of course sleeping longer means sleeping 3.5-4 hours at a time instead of 3, but I’ll take what I can get. he actually made it 5 hours last night, a true miracle : )

more sleep equals more playtime with dad.

more progress…I actually finished one of my henry projects from a very long list.

car seat canopy. I like it. it’s far from perfect, but it was quick and so simple (my kind of project) and most importantly its functional! with the nasty weather lately it has definitely been useful.

progress with school. mckay is slowly coming closer to graduation and we are so excited. we’ve been hearing from schools, we’re still waiting to hear from about half. it’s fun to day dream of where we might end up in august. mckay applied to both chemical and nuclear programs, and with what is happening in japan, it might not be the right time to get into the nuclear industry. so that might effect where we end up. in other school news…. the mrs. might be graduating sooner than we thought…. things are still getting worked out, but those who know of my current school situation will understand what a miracle it is.

HENRY’S PARTY

my family had a shower for me and henry this past weekend. it was originally scheduled for February, in fact the invites went out the day I went into labor, oops. I love playing hostess so I was so happy that my mom let me help. she wasn’t sure on a theme, so we used some books and toys I had ordered from henry on amazon. we made it really bright and colorful. considering we came up with the idea a few days before I think it turned out great if I do say so myself! : )

and my cousin and aunt put together the cutest favors, a cd of lullaby songs for henry! what a good idea. we’ve already put it to good use more than once. it was such a fun day and im so grateful for all the family and friend that came. henry was still a little sicky that day so the plan was to keep him downstairs with mckay. I took him up before people started coming, he had been a little fussy. but the second he came upstairs he was so calm and content, he ended up staying around for a little bit, he loved being surrounded by women! so funny. he is definitely a ladies man.

happy baby

2011-03-18T13:24:00.001-07:00

when I was pregnant I had every intention of reading as many books as I could about parenting, babies, etc.. but as I got more pregnant, I tended to fill my time with sleep, instead of reading. I did manage to read two books though and one has proven to be quite a gem.

This book teaches how to handle a crying/colicky baby and while the book got a little repetitive the skills and techniques we learned have been a lifesaver in the rytting house. despite the fact that Henry is an extremely mellow baby he does still tend to have his tantrums. when he does happen to be throwing a fit, we simply use some of the steps from the book and he quickly (like we’re talking seconds) goes from red faced and screaming uncontrollably to a peaceful, content baby. its seriously amazing, especially when these tantrums come at 3:30 in the morning. so im so grateful that I just so happened to read this book, because it’s definitely been a blessing. right now I’m reading a book on setting up a sleep schedule for the babe, hopefully it is just as helpful.

our babe is 5 weeks old today. he’s starting to stay awake for longer periods of time which is so so fun. we love seeing him alert and so curious.

we’re also keeping track of byu in the tournament. excited to watch the game against gonzaga tomorrow. its been fun watching byu do so well this season, and fun to attend a few of their home games.

mckay took these pictures at the byu v sdsu game. probably one of the most exciting sports event we’ve been to. hopefully they do well this weekend.

recent obsessions

2011-03-13T13:47:00.001-07:00

the husband and I have fallen victim to some major obsessions lately. first, these gentlemen:

this obsession has been going on for a few months now. they are wonderful, and we love them so. we’re pretty bummed we missed them perform at the grammy’s. thank you youtube. our bucket list now includes seeing them perform live. we fantasize about eating in an irish pub one day, and having them come out of nowhere and surround our table and play just for us : ). what a party.

Parks and Recreation. thanks to netflix we are quickly making our way through season 2. we can’t go to bed without watching a few episodes first.

Mckay’s obsession: lately he has been glued to his phone, playing classic nintendo games like Super Mario World and Zelda. its almost impossible to have a conversation with him while he’s playing.

and finally:

this particular obsession is just mine. I swear I have more cravings now than I did when I was pregnant. mckay wont waste his time with them since he thinks they’re not a real cookie. but I cant get through my day without one. well three. I only allow myself three a day. and it makes me happy.

hot date.

2011-03-09T12:21:00.001-08:00

last night my parents offered to watch henry while me and mckay went out on a date. the first date in quite some time so although we missed the babe (and wondered what he was doing every few minutes) we were grateful for it. we saw this:

which we enjoyed. its pretty hard to find something to complain about in a matt damon movie : ) and the movie made me like emily blunt even more.

then we got dinner here:

since it just so happened to be taco tuesday, our entire meal was under $8. not too shabby. I’ll be honest, we think about their fish taco’s more than we probably should. they’re so tasty, and only $1.25 on tuesdays. wonderful. so there it is, a date night for the ryttings! pretty low key but still delightful. it was nice to get out for a few hours. even nicer to have a sweet little babe to come home to.

3 weeks old and some gratitude

2011-03-05T12:07:00.001-08:00

this little gentleman turned three weeks old yesterday. can hardly believe it. it feels like time has gone by insanely fast, but thinking back to being in the hospital, that feels like forever ago. we are having so much fun with our little man,.and even though I am so looking forward to the day I get more than 2.5 hours of consecutive sleep, we are enjoying every single day.

thinking about all that’s happened the last month we have a. lot. to be grateful for. in fact there’s quite the list, but just to name a few:

grateful that henry is eating well and gaining weight like it was his job. we love the little fat wrinkles he’s getting. in fact we celebrated this week by moving on from newborn clothes and into some 0-3 month duds. still fit a little too big, but that’s okay.

grateful we have no more dr.’s appointments for 6 weeks, getting his blood tested multiple times a week was a little too rough on me.

grateful for my love and the amazing dad that he is. love that he takes such good care of us and rocks at changing diapers. in fact he’s so good, I might just let him takeover all diaper changing duties. forever.

grateful the weather is getting warmer. I cant wait to play in the sun with our little family.

grateful for all the friends and family that have done so much for us the last few weeks.

grateful I get to stay home all day with my sweet boy, which makes me realize I’m also grateful for hulu, I have to stay up on my shows somehow right? I admit I watch a few minutes while henry is eating. which makes me remember I’m also grateful Michelle got sent home on the Bachelor :) ridiculous that I watch I know , but we all have our guilty pleasures. and I’m telling you, she was bad news.

I could go on, and make this post really really long, but I wont. so to myself I will count the rest of our blessings. and once again end this post with some pictures of our chubs. ( a little blurry, hopefully I can get the hang of our new lens)

tummy time with dad

also, these lovelies came in the mail recently:

after searching for months for some baby bedding that I liked I finally gave up and decided to make my own. crazy since my sewing skills are so limited, but I fell in love with this cloud 9 fabric. I might be in way over my head. luckily I have a few months before Henry moves from the bassinet to his crib. considering how long it takes me to finish the laundry or even shower lately, I’ll definitely need those months. wish me luck!

henry.

2011-02-20T16:25:00.001-08:00

this is henry. henry is now one week and two days old. it has been quite the week and two days for the rytting family. its amazing how quickly your life can change. looking back on the last week it seems like some sort of a dream. since he’s arrived he’s completely stolen all our time and attention. and we wouldn’t have it any other way. we are obsessed, to say the least. we think he’s pretty much the cutest.

as for his arrival story, it was completely unexpected. thursday day (the 10th) I wasn’t feeling quite right. the baby wasn’t moving as much as he normally does and I was having some major back pain. I had been having back pain for the last few weeks so I wasn’t too concerned about that. that night the pain was getting worse and I was starting to have feelings similar to cramps. around 1 am we called the dr. just to be safe. he told us to go to labor and delivery just to get checked out and make sure everything was okay with the baby. we drove to the hospital, expecting to be 20 minutes. the nurse checked me and surprise, I was 3 1/2 centimeters dilated and 90 % effaced. we were shocked. apparently I had been in active labor and had no idea. I kept asking, “so I’m not going home tonight…?” over and over. I was two days away from being 36 weeks. we had no bags packed, very little baby stuff set up at home, hardly anything purchased for that matter. panic.

I don’t remember the exact timing, but things progressed pretty fast. in what seemed like no time at all I was far enough along to have the epidural, which was lovely. my water was broken and things went even faster after that. the hardest part of labor was how sick I felt. I was throwing up constantly. other than that I feel extremely lucky with the way labor went. contractions felt more like mild cramps and I only pushed for about 30 minutes. baby boy was born at 11:59 am on Friday, February 11, 2011. he weighed 6 lbs 7 oz and was 19 inches long.

because he was early, he is considered “late pre-term”, he couldn’t stay with us for very long. we both (me and the baby) had a fever and he was taken away to the special care nursery. he was put on an iv, antibiotics and oxygen. they started running tests to check for infections. he also was having a hard time maintaining his temperature so they had him under a heat lamp. he was strapped to so many wires and had iv’s in his hands and his heels were bandaged from where they drew blood. it was so heartbreaking to see him like that. it was such a helpless feeling knowing that your baby was so uncomfortable and struggling and not being able to do anything.

the dr. let us know that he would have to stay in special care for a while, 5-10 days. on saturday we named him henry. he didn’t look like a nixon or a william, which was our second choice. henry had come up on our list of options when we first found out it was a boy, but mckay wasn’t too sure about it. but he was a henry. the name just fit.

we were discharged on sunday and left the hospital without him. this was the hardest thing. it was so strange to go home after the hospital and not have our baby. we weren’t really sure what to do with ourselves. while we were waiting for his blood tests to come back we started working on weaning him off the iv. with every good feeding they were able to lower the amount of fluid from the iv. every 2-3 hours, day and night, we drove from home to the hospital to feed him. luckily we live about 7 minutes from the hospital. this was such a stressful and exhausting time but every time we left for the hospital we were so excited to see our guy. slowly he got better at eating, late pre term babies struggle with eating, and often fall asleep while eating, they also limited us to 30 minute feedings in special care. not knowing if he was getting enough to eat was so stressful and I felt guilt and anxiety constantly. he soon was able to maintain his temperature and no longer needed to be on oxygen. two steps forward. then he developed jaundice and high blood pressure. two steps back. the jaundice and the blood pressure postponed him leaving the hospital even more. he was put under lights for his jaundice. trying to improve his eating was difficult considering we were dealing with so many tubes and wires, etc. and the lights were making him very agitated. the tests came back clear of infection which was wonderful news. now we had the jaundice and the high blood pressure to worry about. we were told we would be able to take him home tuesday. we took care of all the necessary discharge stuff and were so excited that our baby was healthy enough to finally come home. tuesday morning we got to the hospital early only to have the dr. tell us he still wasn’t ready to go home. we weren’t expecting to hear that. we had the diaper bag, the car seat, all the nurses had sounded so optimistic. we had to leave again without our boy and start another day of back and forth for feedings. wednesday came, and the dr. wanted him to stay under the lights until the afternoon but he was almost certain we would be able to take him home that day. in between feedings we ran errands to make sure we had everything we needed. that afternoon we were finally able to take him home. it was an amazing feeling. our little family was finally together :).

(newborn clothes fit a little too big)

since bringing him home we have been in heaven. a very sleepy, sleepy heaven… its amazing how one can live on such little sleep. we’ve had dr’s appointments the last few days to check on his billiruben level (jaundice) and to check his weight, he had lost quite a bit while he was in the hospital.

henry is doing great, we’re working on fattening him up. already he has such a personality. he is so mellow and pleasant. he’ll cry every once in awhile but it never lasts long, it seems like he’s only crying because he thinks he’s supposed to, but he calms down almost instantly. he is incredibly strong. the nurses nicknamed him squirrel because he was so wiggly and he would push himself out of his bed with his skinny little chicken legs.

sorry this is so long, but I don’t have time to write this down anywhere else. being the proud mama that I am I have to share some pictures of our sweet boy. we love him more than we can say.

he did not love his bath.

but loved the warm towel after.

8 weeks and counting….

2011-01-15T15:33:00.001-08:00

a few recent noteworthy events for us Ryttings:

{1} Mckay completed 12 Graduate School Applications. yes 12. We probably could have done half that, but we like the idea of having options. Well, hopefully we’ll have options. Our top two choices are Berkeley and University of Washington in Seattle, we just feel like we could adapt to West Coast life pretty easily.

{2} baby and I hit our 32 week mark. cant believe we’ll actually have a sweet baby boy at the end of all this. 8 weeks is going to be here before we know it. speaking of the babe, the last month or so has been filled with almost non stop movement, which is so unbelievable. Its amazing for Mckay to be able to feel so much. so weird to look down and watch my stomach being kicked around. The non-stop kicking and pushing can get a little tiring and uncomfortable at times. We found out that speakers on my belly calms him down for a little bit. little man likes brahms. at 32 weeks:

I’m feeling ginormous. The tummy is getting in the way of things , especially at work and I’m starting to waddle. 2 more months to go, lets hope I can make it.

I’m also a little worried that I won’t get through the long list of baby crafts/projects I was hoping to have finished before the mr. got here. Hopefully once I’m done working I’ll be able to get some things done. I did do a few appliqued onesies, so that’s something at least. cant wait till he can actually wear these.

festivities

2011-01-15T12:25:00.001-08:00

Well December came and went, much too fast I think, and its time for a little update. Better late than never. Once again, there aren’t many pictures of our Holidays, we didn’t really feel like hauling the camera around with us, something I would regret more if I was a lot skinnier and tanner right now.

Our month was a busy one, with both Rytting parents working in the music world we are pretty spoiled with all the Christmas concerts and shows we get to go to. We went to the Utah Valley Symphony Christmas Concert, they played music from Home Alone, which sounded so amazing and festive, among other great Christmas classics. The Nutcracker, which is always a must. We also made the trek up to the Cathedral Madeline for the Children’s Choir concert, which was once again, one of our favorites.

Not the best picture of us, we look a little too tired and chubby. Well I do, so ignore that fact and direct your eyes to Mckay’s chest hair. This is just one of the only pictures we got of us during the entire month so I felt like I should use it.

We also made a stop at the Christmas tree at Gateway. Just a little nerd fact for you ( I know this because I married one) but that tree was named “the Brightest Tree in America”. This didn’t really make sense to us, but, since the tree was only 48 feet tall and used 90,000 lights made it have more lights per branch than any other tree in the country. Compared to the Rockefeller tree which was I think close to 100 feet tall and only used somewhere around a third that many lights, that’s pretty impressive. also impressive is the fact that the Gateway tree used a lot less power than the most of the other trees that made the top 10. the end.

Christmas break is also time for my favorite Jacobs tradition, the Salt Lake weekend. We always stay at Little America, which is always decorated so amazing for Christmas. We shopped at Gateway, saw Tron, ate at Stone Ground and Tucano’s (a pregnant girls paradise), went swimming, watched the Jazz game, and finished the weekend off with the Christmas Brunch with Santa, too perfect.

This is the only good picture from that weekend. didn’t even get one of the entire family : (

With this potentially being our last Christmas break living in Utah we tried to spend as much time with each of our families as possible, and since our families live 20 minutes apart we spent a lot of time driving back and forth. Our break was full of family time, movies, games, puzzles, amazing food, relaxing, shopping. It was heaven. We seriously got spoiled by both families this Christmas but I have to mention a couple gifts that completely thrilled us. Mckay got a bike trainer so he can ride his road bike in the house during the winter, so great. I got some new lenses for our camera, soooo excited, and just in time for the little man, I have a feeling Im going to be one of those annoying moms that takes pictures of anything and everything their baby is doing. I also got the most dreamy diaper bag:

I just have to say I have had my eye on Petunia Pickle Bottom bags since even before I was ever pregnant. Embarrassing I know, but just imagine how thrilling it is to finally be the proud owner of one. Its beautiful.

December also meant our last month with our beloved Primary Class. We’re now teaching the 8 year olds, which is a lot less crazy, but we loved and miss our wild little class. We made them some Christmas goodies for their last day with us:

These little pretzel bites were so easy and fun to make and we were surprised that something so simple was oh so addicting. The white ones are Hershey’s Kisses, fudge filled I think, and the others are Rolo’s. You stack mini pretzels (the square window shaped ones work the best) with the chocolate and stick them in a 200 degree oven for 3 1/2 to 4 minutes pull them out and press an M & M into the top. I think I might have to make these every year.

and Melted Snowman Cookies. I got this idea online. I only wish I was creative enough to come up with something like this on my own.

Anyways, wonderful, busy, fun month. Next year, Christmas with the babe, I think that might easily top this year.

forgotten goods from the camera

2010-12-06T17:14:00.001-08:00

oh goodness it’s been awhile. And I am quite sick of looking at Paul Millsap’s floating head every time I open our blog so the time for an update is past due. I have some catching up to do. Our quiet life has had its busy moments lately, especially with the holidays and I’m sad because I’ve been neglecting our camera lately, so the pictures are few and far between but just for the record:

Our Thanksgiving Break was much enjoyed, and needed. Our week was filled with mountains and mountains of food ( we literally cooked for two days straight), jazz games, family, a killer Rock Band jam session, movies (Tangled was too cute), a little Black Friday shopping, and lots of relaxing.

While I’m catching up there are some pictures from October that I just need to post. I have to pay tribute to our Halloween weekend trip to the Rytting cabin. Halloween weekend at the cabin is becoming a tradition, it was seriously a weekend straight from Heaven.

We got to play in dreamy places like Christmas Meadows, Lilly Lake, and Provo River Falls. It felt more like Christmas break than Halloween weekend, we left the cabin surrounded by snow. We did make sure to celebrate Halloween properly, with a serious pumpkin carving. Mckays pumpkin was quite a thing to behold, he carved some lobster character from Futurama, I cant remember its name. but it was amazing, I wish I had gotten a picture. I was being ambitious, and attempted to carve Mr. Harry James Potter in honor of #7, but quickly ran out of steam and ended up with a picture of Harry, taped to the front. It was a nice thought, anyway. Okay, I feel better now that October and November are taken care of. We’ll see how I do with December updates.

Go Jazz!

2010-11-10T22:00:00.000-08:00

The past two days have been huge for the Jazz, and so I thought I should put this up to celebrate. We love Paul Millsap! I made this in Photoshop to celebrate the Jazz wins!

no more “it” baby.

2010-11-07T18:48:00.001-08:00

21 week ultrasound was much anticipated in the Rytting house. Like I said we were counting down the days. I for one was super anxious to see if baby was growing great and healthy, and I couldn’t wait to find out what we were having so I could get busy making lots of little goodies for the babe. Going in to the appointment I was still thinking it was a girl, and it took all of 0.2 seconds for the doctor to tell us it was a BOY! very, very clearly a boy I might add :) It was amazing seeing our little mister moving around, he was super active! Sweet baby boy also apparently has a big head…thanks to mckay, and is measuring 5 days bigger than average, sounds like we might have a big baby on our hands! The only downside to the ultrasound is the mister was facing away from us so we never got to see a profile. and because people have asked, no, I wasn’t disappointed that it wasn’t a girl, I knew I was going to be so happy with either. In fact when the doctor told us it was a boy the first thought I had was “perfect”. Adding a little boy to our family is absolutely perfect, and we could not be happier. And if he looks anything like his papa:

he is going to be quite the little heartbreaker.

After the dr. we made a quick trip to baby gap to buy a little outfit. We met my family for dinner and showed them what we bought:

We are all so excited and grateful for our sweet boy and can’t wait for him to make his appearance in March!

We do have a name picked out, we’re pretty set on it, but I am just a little hesitant to completely commit to it. It’s just a little intimidating naming a human, especially since the name we have in mind isn’t exactly traditional. a little background on the name, Mckay thought of it a couple years ago, and I instantly hated it. It took awhile but it slowly grew on me. Then we had family members who heard about the name and they loved it, and it was talked about so much that it kind of just became the baby’s name. And now when I think about it it just seems like his name and I cant imagine him being called anything else. Still, if you know me you know I am terrible at making decisions, especially one as big as this. So while we have a name basically picked out, we wont be putting it on walls or in frames or on clothes or anything, and we’ll probably just refer to him as baby boy, I think I’ll have to just wait and see when he gets here. but just because I always want to know what people are naming their kids I’ll fill you in on the name: Nixon Ray. Ray is set in stone, for my sweet grandpa. We’ll see if Nixon sticks around till march, though I have a feeling it will. Whatever his name ends up being we are so excited for him to get here!

Look what Mckay let me do…

2010-10-27T20:50:00.001-07:00

16 weeks

20 weeks

7 days and counting till we find out if the babe is a hims or a her!The first trimester I had a feeling baby was a boy, but I’ve changed my mind, don’t know why, but I’m thinking girl now. Honestly I have no idea really. A lady at work stared at the shape of my belly for awhile then said it was a girl. She sounded pretty confident…Mckay thinks she’s full of it. I guess we will see! and you better believe we have a few names a-waiting.

party party

2010-10-27T20:31:00.001-07:00

Last week we had a little Halloween party for our sweet little primary class. We love these kids but they are seriously a h.a.n.d.f.u.l.l. In an attempt to encourage a tiny bit of reverence during class starting in September we brought a “party jar” to church. Throughout September and October they got to fill their jar with candy corns depending on how good they were that day. A full jar meant a Halloween party, but lets be honest there was always going to be a party.

We had a pizza party to be more specific. The kids got to build their own pizza’s with the few toppings they requested. We had Vampire Blood-Sauce, Mummy Dandruff-Cheese, Monster Meat-Sausage, ham, pepperoni, Bat Eyes- Olives, and Witches Teeth-Pineapple. too cute :) And Mckay made his famous root beer aka, Witches Brew, bubbling and smoking like it was the real thing.

Eyeball Cupcakes for dessert. fun to make and easy, I thought these looked super gross, but the kids loved them.

We played a couple games. Lots of high pitched squealing, running, screaming, sword/broomstick fighting, a few tears (look at poor Emarie on the couch). total chaos for an hour and a half.

The game ended with a little scavenger hunt. I wish I had more pictures but they literally are all blurry. They were going non stop. But the scavenger hunt was super fun. We had hidden black cats all over the house and in the yard, each cat had a name of one of the kids on it. On the back was a clue for that kid to read, leading them to the next cat. They loved this.

The hunt led them to a stash of Halloween gift bags each filled with dollar store goodies and some homemade treats. I didn’t want to fill the bags with all candy, so I got Halloween pencils, tattoos, tops, a deck of playing cards (random but fun), etc. These were all found at the dollar store or at Joanne’s for 60% off. good deal. I got the idea for these suckers on ohdeedoh and decided to try it. They were a little time consuming but pretty easy to make, all it took was tissue paper and chenille wire. Lesson learned, Suckers with the wrapper twisted at the stick (like tootsie pops) work and look better than ones that twist at the top, like blow pops.

fun fun. the kids asked on Sunday if we could have a party every month. ha! so glad they had fun but my goodness it will take us months to recover.

Well Hello October!

2010-10-27T20:00:00.001-07:00

October is definitely one of my favorite months. We’ve kind of had a lazy/fun October this year. Here are some highlights, sorry, this might be a long one…

We have taken advantage of our nearby canyons and changing leaves and gone on a couple of drives. These pictures are from earlier in the month. Me and Mckay decided to grab some tasty Mexican at Tarahumara and then head up the Alpine Loop with Cascade Springs being the ultimate destination. Apparently every other Utah County resident had the same idea that day. It was so crowded we decided to skip it and kept driving till we hit a “rough and narrow road”. Understatement of a lifetime. The views were amazing, but they don’t capture the sheer terror that came later in this spontaneous off-roading. It started out like this:

and we crossed a couple of these which was pretty cool, not to mention beautiful.

After these pretty delights things started getting a little treacherous. The road got really rocky, narrow and STEEP. One side of the road just dropped straight down hundreds of feet. I seriously feared for our lives. I didn’t get pictures of this part, my hands were too busy clutching on to the arm rests. I was slightly traumatized. It was funny later, after I realized we had made it out alive. Silly Mckay, he went back later in the month and drove the road again. With the dog in the passenger seat instead of me this time.

Highlight two of the month was a busy day for us. We got to play with both families. We went to the BYU game with my family and witnessed one of their few wins this season, it was so fun to have Chris and JJ down, I wish I had pictures. Earlier in the day we went up to South Fork to take some Rytting family pictures! After an hour or so of awkward posing (the pictures actually turned out amazing) we took these gems…

poor Dad Rytting had just been to the eye doctor.

so funny. This was also the first time I had seen my pregnant self on camera. It was shocking.

This is my family’s dog Toby. He’s unbelievably irritating but ohhhhh so cute. We were house sitting/ dog sitting for my parents one weekend and decided to take this little man up to Silver Lake. We were all three of us completely worn out after this outing.

Pretty views

Play Date with the Ducks

This is what happens when fishermen leave without saying goodbye.

We think he enjoyed himself.

Hi it's me McKay

2010-10-16T23:21:00.000-07:00

So...I'm not really a regular on here, but I got on the other day and noticed that the ESPN widgets were messed up and the music playlist was old and dry. I updated the widgets and got them working again (you're welcome) and took off some of the old music. I started putting music on, and then Emily flipped and said that she wanted to be involved and that everything had to be approved by her, which meant that like two of the songs I had chosen got through. I just did what she said because it's easier than dealing with pregnancy hormones. We did realize we needed to update the music with stuff that we're actually enjoying and listening to these days. We weeded through my picks pretty quickly and added some of hers (at least one of which I despise, I just want you to know) and we'll work on rounding out a full-fledged playlist for you guys.

In other news, I got a new phone! I've been jonesing for an Android phone for about a year now, and I've been looking for one to buy since my iPhone broke in April. I finally settled on the HTC G2. I didn't love the idea of a physical keyboard but I did love everything else about the phone. So I ordered it two weeks ago and got it on the 4th. I've been using it for over a week and a half now and I love it. I'm not obsessed with the physical keyboard still, but it's not as annoying as I thought it would be. I am obsessed with the Swype virtual keyboard. It, along with Google Voice Actions, have changed my life. It has increased my laziness to another level entirely. I haven't dialed a phone number or looked up a contact since I got the phone. I just say "call Lysa Rytting mobile" and it calls my mom. Or I say "navigate to Chipotle" and a few seconds later an enchanting female voice (we're trying to decide what to call her) gives me directions to the nearest burrito heaven. I can say "SMS Calendar. Meeting with Brian on Thursday at 5" and it will automagically add a meeting with Brian on Thursday at 5 to my Google Calendar. For anyone who's considering a smartphone, I'm going to say you have to go the Android route. There is just no comparison between what an Android phone can do and what you can do with any other smartphone. When I do cool stuff with my phone, maybe I'll post it here. Or maybe not, because I'm guessing most of the people that read this couldn't care less about my total nerdiness. Here's a picture of my phone, since we haven't really done pictures lately.

Also, I'm not as fat as I look in some of those pictures. I swear.

long time, no blog.

2010-10-05T17:33:00.001-07:00

I hate that I'm doing another post without pictures. boring. I have to admit pictures are my favorite part about reading other peoples blogs. So I understand if any of you want to skip this post, I just get this guilt when I don't post for a long time, like I'm abandoning our sweet blog or something, so I guess this post is to ease my conscience. Here are some Rytting updates, all which contribute to the lack of pictures.

{1}Life's been pretty quiet in the Rytting household the past few weeks. School is definitely back in session and Mckay has been completely engulfed by it. He is busy busy. With work, school, tutoring, etc., so we haven't had much time to go out. We did have a hot date to Costco last week. Nothing says romance like greasy jumbo slice of pizza and a churro :) but really, I'm grateful for any time I can get with my man. And Costco seriously thrills me. Senior year of school also means the GRE for Mckay. He took this test in September and I have to toot husbands horn a little and say he did a great job! I am so proud of him and all his hard work. with the GRE out of the way we are one step closer to Grad School, something that is on our minds a lot. I love thinking about where we might be living this time next year. We are so excited to move somewhere new for awhile. we're up for a little adventure. The hard part is narrowing down the schools to apply to, we tend to be somewhat indecisive humans. we have a list that's just a little too long. We would seriously have to sell a kidney to pay for all the application fees.
Whats on our list? :

MIT
Berkeley
Stanford
Princeton
Michigan
USC
Penn State
Wisconsin
John Hopkins
UW-Seattle!
UC Davis
Rochester
Cornell
Ohio State
Purdue
Oregon State

16 schools. about 6 too many. So we still have some narrowing down to do. anyone have suggestions? I'm not really sure where I'd like to go most, I think I'll be happy wherever we get in, and happy for a new experience :)

{2}baby. i must say baby likes making me feel sick-y. since we dont know what baby is yet I can't really start making things or sewing anything and it's driving me crazy! I'm dying to dig into my stash of fabric I've been saving up and start making some goodies! I'm still not feeling too great, dont have much of an appetite. I haven't really had cravings, except a one time trip to krispy kreme. so. good. I definitely havent been able to eat meat, or chicken. yuck. my meals tend to be filled with fruit, veggies, salads, soups, bread, cereal. not because I'm being trying to be ambitiously healthy, thats just what sounds good. I should be pregnant all the time because it's definitely made me eat healthier :) I haven't been able to cook really, unless you count warming up food in the microwave. poor mckay. I did attempt to make eggs one time, which brought on the throw up simply because the egg whites looked like boogers. I'm also super cool, and am usually asleep by 10. oh alright, 8. I am grateful that I've still felt okay enough to work, but I'm looking forward to feeling a lot better! hopefully sooner rather than later.

We had our 17 week appointment today and baby is a kicker! We got to hear our baby kick and it was amazing, and I cant wait to start feeling those kicks. I jokingly asked the dr. if it sounded like a girl heartbeat or a boy heartbeat and he said it sounded like a calm baby girl or a really active baby boy. that doesnt get me anywhere. but we did set our ultrasound appointment for the first week of November and I am counting down the days :) as for the bump, it kind of appeared out of nowhere a couple weeks ago, so now i look a little more pregnant rather than just chubby. but, husband feels a little weird about posting pictures of just the growing belly. thus, another reason this post is pictureless. So when we finally do something that's photo worthy and blog worthy, I'll be able to post some picture proof of our growing babe.

Other than that, love the rain this week, love the sweater weather (I finally gots me some maternity clothes) and thinking of the upcoming holidays. life is good.

baby mama.

2010-09-08T17:27:00.000-07:00

someone's got a bun in the oven and that someone is me! hooray for the rytting family :) wonderful Mr. Stork will be circling the rytting home sometime mid march and we couldn't be happier. The word has slowly been spreading around, so we're not really sure who all knows. but baby is now 13 weeks along and we feel like its time to celebrate and let everyone in our little blogging world know.

There is so much i could write about, how much i hate food right now, how i wear my pants unbuttoned, held together by a stretchy hair tie (so attractive but i have no shame), how it takes me a week to do the laundry so by the time its folded and put away its time to do another two loads (gross), how i truly look more pudgy than pregnant. but, sweet baby is healthy as far as we can tell, and actually quite shy. at 9 weeks it wasn't wanting to pose for the camera right away, and at yesterdays appointment, it was curled up cozy deep inside my belly and proving a little tricky to find. So i am grateful. This pregnancy thing is becoming more real by the day and so i really have more excitement and joy to think about now than the somewhat frustrating and undesirable side effects of pregnancy. We feel so blessed and a little overwhelmed at times that Heavenly Father is trusting us with such a special gift. We are really excited to be parents and I am so looking forward to seeing my love be a daddy.

three is a magic number

2010-08-28T12:07:00.000-07:00

Husband and I celebrated our three years last week. He's such a hunk and I love him to pieces. Thanks my love, for making me the happiest woman around.

One Last Hurrah

2010-08-28T11:01:00.000-07:00

before school starts on Monday. We got to spend a lazy 10 days in sunny Southern California with family. It was heaven.

We spent the first few days at Newport Beach. Lots of time was spent at the pool.

an intentionally awkward brothers photo:

We got to spend our days with these people:

During our trip Mckay also delighted me by going from this:

to this: much better.

One day we made our way down to the farmers market in San Clemente. Me and Mckay went there on our honeymoon so it was fun to go back a day after our third anniversary :)

lots of fun things to see and yummy things to taste

lots of looking through beautiful custom made kaleidoscopes.

lots of photo taking.

and lots of entertainment provided by miss caroline.

lots of sunsets at the beach were a must.

this is what happens on vacation: no hair done, no make up, its a glorious thing.

racing waves

The beach made husband happy. He just couldnt get enough.

along with lounging at the pool and playing in the waves we definitely took advantage of the many restaurants that we had never tried.

I have to mention some of the restaurants that filled the Rytting family bellies. oh my did we eat well on this trip! some of our favorites:

Pedros Tacos in San Clemente- killer fish tacos and fried chicken tacos

Rudy's Taco Shop in Carlsbad- probably the most amazing carne asada we have ever had. boys loved the California Burrito, we went back a third time

Rosana's Italian in Carlsbad- between the six of us we probably ordered half the menu, and everything was homemade and so tasty

Thanks for the memories California, you treated us well.

Hiatus

2010-07-31T09:17:00.000-07:00

Well we've been a little absent from the blogging world lately. This will be the first, and only post of July, cutting it a little close I must say. I can't believe it'll be August tomorrow. crazy. Anyways, despite the lack of posts we have been pretty busy playing this month. we've been climbing, to movies galore, and had lots of family time. We've also ventured out to do a little offroading. I have a love hate relationship with it I think. I like that at first the bumpy roads feel like a nice little massage, but it gets old pretty quick. I have to say though, its always fun going down an unfamiliar road, and the views are definitely worth all the bumps.

We also took two trips up to Idaho this month. The first was for the 4th of July. I neglected to bring the camera along for this one. The second trip took us up to Rexburg over Pioneer Day weekend to see big brother graduate. yahoo!

The boys did some climbing:

and we took a fun little canoe trip down the river. I have to admit, Idaho is not one of our most favorite destinations, except to see our sweet fam, but the weather was amazing and the river trip was such a good time!

The last day of the trip we found ourselves at the Idaho Falls Air Show. It was so hot and so crowded but still a good time.

love.

This isn't the best picture, but there was a woman standing on top of that plane. an insane woman. This plane flew around for at least 15 minutes, spinning, doing loops, dropping straight down to the ground, and all the while this woman ( the pilots wife in fact) was strapped to the top of the plane just having the time of her life. I would have died.

The Blue Angels were the finale to the show and worth the wait. It was so impressive the stunts that they did, this picture shows how close they fly together, 18 inches separate their wings when they fly in formation. going hundreds of miles per hour. pretty impressive.

Now on to August! August is a little bittersweet for us. It means back to school for Mckay, but it also means its time for the epic California road trip with the Rytting family. its going to be a serious party.