2011 was good to us

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

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

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.

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.