Thankful

Yes, it’s the time of year to be thankful.

Sleepless nights, exhausting days, dirty diapers, and loads of laundry…it’s easy to get caught up in the day to day. I’m glad that once a year I am subtly reminded to be thankful for all that I have.

I am thankful for Josh, who is a wonderful father and an amazing husband. We celebrate eight crazy years together next month, and I couldn’t be happier with him.

This year my world has been turned upside down, and I’ve loved the ride. I am so thankful for my sweet son Ryker. He is my joy.

I am grateful to have our extended family close by. They have been a wonderful support to us this year. I am thankful Ryker will grow up surrounded by his grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Well, I could go on and on, but I think I’ve hit the big ones so I’ll stop. Here are some pictures from Thanksgiving.

Ryker takes after me...he loves cranberry sauce. I think his clothes are permanently stained.

Ryker and his Grandpa Andersen reading a book at the Grand America. Ryker LOVES his grandparents.

The whole family at my parents' house. Jamber...I bet making that funny face seemed like such a good idea at the time...

Parenting advice from Leanne

1. Never toss your baby up in the air when he has a fist full of your hair.
2. Exercise all other options before taking your baby into a public bathroom with you. Peeing with him sitting on your lap is weird.

Zombie babies eat brains

When I was pregnant my friends told me I'd get pregnancy-brain. Symptoms of pregnancy brain include forgetfulness, absent-mindedness, and basic craziness. I think it was my sister Amber who told me that the fetus eats your brain cells - making the baby smarter, and the mommy dumber. It sounded to me like a fetus-zombie that craves mommy brains for dinner.

Anyway, I thought it was just an excuse other moms used until my mom produced a study showing how the synapses of the brain are affected by pregnancy. Apparently your brain re-wires itself to a certain extent during pregnancy. Until the re-wiring is finished, the mom will experience "pregnancy-brain". The bad thing is, pregnancy-brain can last months into after the baby is born. I have friends with older kids who say they never recovered!

Now, I'm a fairly smart person I like to think. Maybe not Harvard potential, but certainly capable of completing mundane household tasks. However, I find myself completely incompetent now that I have been hit by pregnancy-brain. My 8 1/2 month old zombie baby must have seriously feasted on my brain synapses when he was in the womb. Just when I think I'm getting over it, I have a day like yesterday.

I'm enjoying this week off of work. Yesterday I decided to catch up on laundry. I put the soap and fabric softener in, and started a load. After 45 minutes the buzzer went off and I went in to switch the clothes to the dryer. Well, apparently my baby zombie ate my brain cells that should have told me that I had neglected to actually put the clothes in the washer. I had now completed an entire wash cycle of absolutely nothing.

Later that evening I went to the post-office. I was trying to balance my purse, a huge box, a diaper-bag, and my 22 pound zombie baby, but really that's just an excuse. In reality my zombie baby ate the brain cells that should have told me that it is bad to leave my keys in the car and then lock the door. The result left me stranded outside the now closed post-office, without my purse or cell phone, and holding my cold zombie baby in the dark. Thank goodness for my wonderful dad who has AAA and came to my rescue, and for nice lady in the parking lot who let me borrow her cell phone. Maybe she once had a zombie baby.

Anyway, my zombie baby is now sleeping, with apparently a very full tummy of my brain synapses. I hope he appreciates them. Maybe he'll be the next Einstein for my troubles.

The pressure is on

So now that I've told everyone about my blog, I'm feeling the pressure to make it good. I'm lucky Ryker is so cute that he distracts everyone from my formatting issues. Jamber - maybe you can help me sometime - I'm blog-illiterate.

We recently got a new camera. These are some fun pictures I took while playing with the options. The 2nd one is my favorite. But I don't know...I love his bad-ass hair in the top one.

Fall 2008

Y-O-D-A
Didn't Yoda have a binkie? He should have...

Here are a few random pictures from the last few weeks. Ryker was Yoda for Halloween. He looked so incredibly cute in his costume, and we even let him stay up past his bedtime for the festivies (very unusual). We went to Amber & Rodger's for dinner and trick-or-treating (thanks for dinner!), then we went to Grandma & Grandpa Andersen's to trick-or-treat and hang out for a while. We also let Ryker have his first "treat" ever that night. We wanted to let him have a sucker, but nobody handed them out, so we ended up letting him have part of a popcicle. He LOVED it.

Here are all the cousins:
Hanna - Dorothy

Gibson - Scarecrow

Madi- Princess Leah

Carter - Luke

Ryker - Yoda

Interesting that all 5 cousins are movie characters from movies that were popular when their parents were kids. I guess Ryker didn't really have a choice though...

This is Ryker choosing his pumpkin. Grandpa Partrige grew these pumpkins in his garden this year for all the grandkids. Thanks Grandpa!!

Here we are at the Jordan River Walkway. It was so warm a couple of weeks ago that we went for a walk there. Ryker loved looking at the water and the ducks.

Cute baby cute daddy.

Ryker and I went up to Little Cottonwood Canyon one evening to look at the leaves. It was pretty cold so we didn't stay long, but Ryker loved looking at the leaves and the river. It was hard getting a good picture because all he wanted to do was eat the leaves.

I tried and tried to get a good picture of the two of us together in the canyon, but it's pretty hard when you're taking it yourself. This is the best one out of I think 20+. I love the mischevious look on his face.

This is all new to me...

I have joined the world of blogging!

The purpose of this blog is to keep you updated on our lives...work, play, and of course the star of the show - Ryker.