Ryleigh is Nine Months!!!!!!!!!

Ryleigh at 9 months (July 15, 2011)

What?!  Not my baby.  I refuse to accept it.....


...ok ok ok...Ryleigh is growing up!!  My little baby is well on her way to becoming a toddler and I have to admit, I'm really enjoying this phase.  She is SOOOOOO much fun!!  Personality just oozes from my little munchkin and she is so independent (but still needy when she wants to be).  She loves to be silly and she loves to be scared.  Peek-a-boo is one of her favorite games, as well as watching you hide behind a wall then pop out and yell "boo!"  She is obsessed with blankets and other fluffy things and she will immediately bury her face in them and roll around when she finds them on the floor or on the sofa.  She also loves living on the edge, literally.  She will get as close to the edge of the sofa or bed as possible, then want you to hold on to her legs so she can work her way down to the floor.  She can sit on the floor and entertain herself for what seems like hours and now that she can pull herself up, she seems to always be directly underneath me.  She will look up at and me and give me this look like "Ma, isn't it weird that the place I want to be always seems to be the exact same spot that you happen to be doing something?!"


I'm finding myself saying "no" a whole lot more lately, which is fine.  She is exploring her surroundings.  I wish she wouldn't enjoy exploring Lucy's dog food bowl or the toilet paper roll as much though.  She will usually crawl around and I'll see her turn the corner into another room.  I'll give her a minute then I'll make my way to see what mischievous things she has discovered that I would never think to touch...one day she made her way into the bathroom only to grab one end of the toilet paper and pull it all the way out into the dining room before I noticed.  Good eye Mommy, right?  I'm getting better at disciplining her...I still find is hard to spank or smack my little angels hand, so I've resorted to flicking her hand.  I think she is catching on though :/  She sure is testing lately! 


I'll have to admit, one of my favorite things is when I take Lucy outside, I stand right outside the door (which is all glass so I can keep an eye on her inside) and she will make her way to the door, pull herself up on it and repeatedly bang on it until I look back at her.  And when I do, this HUGE smile appears on her face  that exposes her little teeth and the loudest squeal ever comes out.  It's priceless.     


This month hasn't been as exciting as the last few months, actually, scratch that, it hasn't had as many "new" things happen, but it's been just as exciting.  Ryleigh is still learning to master the skills she has learned in the past few months (like crawling on her hands and knees, pulling herself up using the furniture, walking around the furniture, clapping and giving kisses).  She has learned to wave "hi" and "bye" this month and I have learned that cutting teeth #3 and #4 is a horrific process.  It took her about one week to get 'em through and she learned to really enjoy the taste of baby Tylenol and Motrin ; ) My saviors!!


This month we got to celebrate Fathers Day with Daddy.  He had lots of fun taking Ryleigh swimming.  You can see the pictures HERE.  We also visited Uncle Jason and Aunt Bekah in Buffalo this month.  And an added bonus, Yaya, Poppi, and Great Grandma & Grandpa Elliott were there too!  You can see all the pictures and read about our visit HERE.  Mommy and Daddy celebrated their anniversary this month which meant Ryleigh spent her first night with "strangers".  No, not strangers...but babysitters who weren't family members.  They said she was great, other than a few middle of night cries for "mama", which you know made me smile to hear : )  Other than that, we hung around Greensboro mastering the art of walking around the furniture and exploring how high pitched our voice can go.  We went to the doctor today for our nine month check up and everything looks great...even our wasp sting that we got today : (  Ryleigh weighs 20 pounds and is 30 1/4 inches which puts her in the 85th percentile for weight and 97th percentile for height, so our munchkin is still a tall one!


We have a pretty busy month coming up with visitors, so we should be posting lots soon!  Can't believe time is flying by so fast, but in all honesty, I love being able to interact with her the way I can now.  I hope she continues to stay silly because it makes my days so much better : )

loves her big girl car seat

big baby blues

all smiles at Uncle Jason & Aunt Bekah's house

loves her new toy..she's still trying to figure him out though

Fourth of July spirit

Ryleigh repeats after Mommy

when Daddy's attack!

Mommy & Ryleigh playing with the web cam

for those who would like to see a typical Ryleigh play session...it's a long one

Ryleigh shows off her new "trick"

  

getting to play in Mommy & Daddy's hotel room before they pawn me off for the night ; )

so true

Daddy's attempt at matching PJs...we still love him : )

She got herself up onto the step and got scared when she recalled her last attempt at crawling up the stairs...it would have ended badly had Daddy not been behind her : (

exhausted

"What? Am I not supposed to be in here?"

in preparation for our visitors this coming weekend, Mommy has an air mattress on the floor in the guest room...Ryleigh and Lucy automatically think it's for them to play on

cheesin'

this expression reminds me of a forced school picture...like, "smile for the camera even though you don't want to"

A Sustainable Anniversary

(July 12, 2008)

Today marks 3 years of wedded bliss for the hubster and I.  I can't believe how much has happened these past 3 years!!  We moved to Charlotte, NC, then to Fort Mill, SC, then got our adorable little bulldog, then the hubby got a new job with Volvo/Mack Trucks, we found out I was pregnant, moved up to Greensboro, NC, had our beautiful baby girl, and here we are....1 apartment, 2 houses, 3 cities, 2 states, 1 dog, 1 baby and 3 years later.  Phew....

  

(Many thanks to our great wedding party and great friends...Ashley Levine, Veronica Burnett, Stephanie Moore, Heidi Stilwell, Adrienne Messier, Dave Richardson, Jason Elliott, Drew McDonald, John Onofrey and Jeff Smalarz)

(Also big thanks to our parents, Don & Venus Elliott and Mike & Vicki Richardson for setting such great examples throughout our lives of what a strong marriage is)

It really has been amazing and we have been so blessed.  I am so grateful everyday that I get to wake up next to the man that I love and the man that I have watched over the last 10 years grow from teenager to adult to husband to father.  Each roll he plays, he does it amazingly and I thank God everyday for bringing him into my life : )

So enough with the sappies and mushies...since our anniversary fell on a Tuesday, we celebrated the weekend before by getting a babysitter and spending the whole evening (GASP!) away.  We stayed at a local hotel here in Greensboro called Proximity.  I've always admired it and we have walked through it a few times but what is really appealing about it is that it is a sustainable hotel.  For those of you design buffs, it is a LEED Platinum building, which is the highest rating a building can receive from the U.S. Green Building Council and it is considered to be the "greenest hotel in America" (or at least it was in 2009 which is when the article I was reading was written).  I mean, this hotel has 100 solar panels on the roof that provide energy for the hotel, like heating the hot water for your shower.  The guest rooms have these crazy floor to ceiling windows that let in so much light you don't even need to turn the lights on during the day.  It uses all sustainable materials and uses 40% less energy and 30% less water than a comparable hotel.  And a super cool feature, the elevator is the first installation of the Otis Gen2 elevator which captures the elevator's energy while going down and then uses that saved energy to propel the elevator going up. 

We also dined at the hotels restaurant Printworks Bistro which uses only locally grown ingredients and is just as sustainable as the hotel.  It has floor to ceiling windows on 3 on the 4 exterior walls and there are NO interior walls, so no matter where you sit in the restaurant you have a view of the outside gardens.  Oh, and the food is amazing.  I absolutely LOVE this restaurant...probably my favorite in Greensboro.

Big thanks to our friends Adam and Elizabeth for coming to our house and staying with our babies so we could have a night away.  Thanks guys!! 

So anyways...on to the pictures.  I took 99 of them  : )  Enjoy!!

 Front of the hotel

The next set of pictures are of our room

The shower didn't have a door or a curtain, just half a glass wall and you just stepped into it, which was sort of cool but sort of intrusive.

the door into the bathroom was hung from a track so you slide it back and forth, kind of like a barn door

There was also a small transom window above the bathroom door which allowed natural light in

The artwork throughout the entire hotel was done by a local artist.  Each guestroom had different pieces displayed, so no room was the same.

The last time the hubby was in Sweden, he bought me my favorite champagne.  It's from France and when I visited there in 2003, I toured the Pommery wine caves, so he was thoughtful enough to bring home a bottle for us to celebrate with : )

The view from our room

All ready for a night out.  I would also like to point out that I wore this dress to our wedding shower and I here I am, 3 years and 1 baby later and I can still fit into it...thank you.

The following pictures are of the rest of the hotel

This was the hallway leading to our room.  It was exceptionally dark, had exposed pipes along the ceiling and concrete walls.

This was a little "business center" that was located on our floor by the elevators.  It had computers, a little sitting area, a recycling station, and a little refrigerator filled with soda, juice and water that was operated on the honor system, which we thought was cool.

This was the lower lobby, or what they like to call "the social lobby"

The hotel lobby

The giant light fixture hanging above the entrance outside

Hotel entrance

 This car and the next car are the hotel's shuttles to take you wherever you need to go

(It's a little blurry...I was trying to use my night mode on my camera)

These next pictures are from our dinner

The bar

more of the bar

delicious truffle fries

one of the hubby's favorite appetizers, moules frites

tomato risotto with shrimp and goat cheese

NC mountain trout with ratatouille and tomato bread pudding

outside of Printworks

yummy chocolate beignets

ending the evening with our champagne in our toasting flutes from our wedding