My Little Sleeper and Shopper

So a few more fun things about Nyah. First of all, this girl loves to sleep. She sleeps 10-12 hours at night and still takes a 2-3 hour nap every day. Sometimes when we wake her up in the morning she likes to "snooze" us and basically wants us to come back in 10. Plus she wakes up super happy which is lots of fun. I don't know how I got so lucky to have such a good sleeper but it is greatly appreciated. :) Here are a couple of pictures of me waking her up from her nap on Sunday afternoon (evening since our church is so late) a few weeks ago .




She went with me shopping a few weeks ago and when she got back she was excited to show Ryan all of her new clothes. She even wanted to try some on. So here is a picture of her trying some on and modeling for us.

We sure love this girl. She is so much fun and I can't believe she is already 2 1/2!

Bike Trailer

Okay, so this is my first blog in a while and I'm going to attempt to catch up - slowly but surely....

So we have been thinking about buying a bike trailer for a long time, but I would look at the price of them and decide maybe we didn't need one after all. However, I really missed riding my bike so we decided to start looking again a few months ago. We looked at lots of places (especially Ryan) and then I decided to look once more on Craig's list and we found an amazing deal. It had been posted less than an hour ago and we jumped on it! We called and headed right over there (clear on the other side of Denver) and bought it. It's a Chariot, the quality is great and it's hardly been used. The tires still had the little spikey things on them. :) In the beginning Nyah wasn't so sure what she thought but now she tells me, "Mommy.. Faster!" It's lots of fun and I've enjoyed riding my bike again over the last month or so. Plus it's a much faster way to venture to the park, library, etc.

Fun in July

We have really been enjoying the summer. We have spent a lot of time at the park, at the zoo, and in the back yard playing in Nyah's pool or on the swing set.

Here is Nyah in her swimming pool. It has a little slide (I remember a frog pool as a kid with a slide and it was the best) that she loves.



Then here are a couple of her at the zoo.



And then the Fourth of July. We went down to the park by the library and it was good times (even though it was kind of cold). Nyah loved the fire works and told us all of them were her "favorites" but they didn't keep her attention the whole time so she kept jumping on us and giggling. I'm sure the people around us were wondering what was so funny. :) Ryan's friend from work, Tamoya, came over for the evening as well and participated in celebrating an American holiday (but with Mormons so it was probably a bit different....). We also remembered the glow-in-the-dark sticks so those provided a distraction for Nyah while we were waiting for the fireworks to begin.

Swing set Project

So last fall Ryan started talking about a swing set for Nyah. In the beginning he was thinking he would just make one for her from "scratch" instead of buying one of the kits to try and save some money. Then this spring when we started to think more about it, I suggested a kit. I could envision our summer turning into one big swing set project rather than having time to do anything fun. So he agreed and we got a super deal on a swing set at Toys R Us. Little did I know that even with a kit, it would be a big project. In retrospect, I think if we didn't have a kit, it would have been a multi-year project. :)

So this first picture is of all the wood once we opened the boxes in the garage. The first big project was to sort out all the wood so you could even identify which "part number" everything actually was. I know we started this project over a month ago. We worked on it many evenings. Then on the fourth of July weekend we got serious about it and spent basically all of Friday and Saturday on it. On Friday night I even talked Ryan into building the bay windows inside the house once it was too dark to work on it outside. Here are some pictures to show progress that weekend.







Then we were gone the next weekend so we finally finished up this weekend. We are both relieved to have it done and Nyah is thrilled to have her swing set. She loves it. She told Ryan "thanks for my swing set" and I think that and seeing her excitement made it all worth it. :)

Last is a picture of the finished product as well as one of her having some fun using it. Yay!

Father's Day

I am so very grateful for the amazing fathers in my life and I love them so much! First of all, my Dad. Anybody who knows him knows how amazing he is. He has always been an example to me of dedication and commitment. If he says he is going to do something, he does it 100%. I remember even as a child if I committed to a team or an activity, I was always expected to follow through. I think this is a great lesson and hopefully one we can pass on to Nyah. He is also a great example of faith. I admire his dedication in his church callings as well. He truly magnifies his callings, no matter what they are. He has always shown total respect and love for my mom as well. He is always telling us how beautiful she is. Thanks Dad for all you have done for me over the years.

Ryan is an amazing dad. Just this last weekend Nyah and I drove to Boise and then Ryan flew in that night and met us. So Nyah had seen Ryan that morning before we left but when we picked Ryan up from the airport that night, you would have thought Nyah hadn’t seen him for weeks. It was so cute. She loves her daddy so much. I tease Ryan that she has him all figured out, but I love to see how much he adores her and can’t resist her cute little smile with the plea of, “just one?” Watching Ryan and Nyah play together is the best. Since Ryan and I both work, he ends up helping a lot with Nyah and around the house. I appreciate his willingness to jump in and help. Thanks Ryan.

Ryan got a grill for Father’s Day. This is his first grill of his own. His last one he “acquired” from his mom’s house (and actually built when he was a kid). The first is a picture of Nyah helping Ryan put his new grill together. Then I thought it would be fun to post pictures of Ryan with the old grill and then the new one. I'm still reminding Ryan that he is supposed to be getting rid of the old one - he's kind of attached. :) On a side note, there is a benefit to Ryan having a grill he wants to use - him cooking dinner and no dishes! Yay!