Pages

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Date night?

I love my mom, really I do. However, I think she's in over her head tonight. =) She has volunteered to babysit Aiden (7), Brooklyn (3) AND Bella (2) over night. Originally I had planned a girls night with a few friends, but that changed into possible just a night out with the men-folk too if we could all find sitters. I had originally asked my parents to watch one of the older kids over night, I was going to have my in-laws watch another, and then another friend was going to watch Bella (IF she was OK with a new sitter). But, my dad volunteered to keep all 3 over night.

Our plans then changed to just the hubby and I having a date night. And now I am SUPER glad to say a really great friend and her boyfriend are joining us. So, dinner at a super yummy restaurant, followed by a possible trip to a bar to listen to some music and have a couple drinks.

I can't tell you our last night alone. OK, well I can. The last time we spent ANY time alone without any children was the Summer of 2006. Alayna was with her mom, and Aiden stayed a week with my aunt Traci. However, I was also pregnant with Brooklyn at the time. Still though, that is almost 4 years since the last time we were alone for more than a few hours. Our actual last REAL date was on our anniversary last year in July. We went to dinner and watched a movie.

So, back to my mom and the kiddos. I don't think it'll be too bad with Aiden and Brooklyn. My grandpa, my aunt Jodi, and her son our cousin Jake are in town as well (Jake is about 6 months older than Aiden). Aiden and Brooklyn are always super good. However, this is Bella's first night away from us. Until recently she's always freaked out when we tried to leave her anywhere. My bestest friend (the same one who's doubling with us tonight) has been watching the girls for my temp job with the Census. Bella has done AMAZING with her! She cries for a bit, and is totally fine. The only difference is that tonight Bella is staying the night with my parents.

I hate to admit it... But, Bella is still in bed with us. It's 95% my fault. (OK, probably 100%)... I miss having a baby. She's our last baby and I HATE the idea of her growing up. She sleeps better with us, and I like knowing she's there. So, tonight, my parents going to have Bella AND Brooklyn in their bed.

We're going to pick the kids up in the morning by 10. So it really shouldn't be too bad for my parents.

I am SO glad to be able to have a nice date with my amazingly wonderful husband and not have to stress about being late to pick the kids up.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

POOP (yes, the real thing, don't read if your squeamish)

Poop is disgusting. It's not so bad when your children are babies. The easiest poop in the world to clean up is from a breastfed baby. It's not even that smelly. And then, they make you start feeding your child "solid" foods. What does this do to their poop? It makes it completely disgusting. Then they turn 1 and start eating like a regular person and are still months (and sometimes even years) away from potty training. It's horrible. Seriously, the only thing worse than poop is vomit. Thank God that's not something children do daily, the human race would cease to exist.

Brooklyn (my 3 year old) would have been potty trained  by about 18 months if her sister Bella wasn't born when she was 16 months old. Brooklyn has been completely potty trained (a few accidents here and there, but nothing regular) for a couple months now, even at night. The only problem is that she won't poop in the potty. She holds it in until the last possible minute and then poops in her underwear. This giant ball of poop that is so big it won't even go down the toilet when you flush. Getting it into the toilet is a whole NOTHING story, and I'll spare you of that.

I am SO sick of it. I hate poop! I have no problem helping her wipe when she goes in the potty (which has been a whopping 4 times in the last couple of months), but this has gotten SO far out of hand it's not even funny. She refuses to wear a diaper or pull up, she screams "NO! I'm not a baby! I'm a big girl!" And honestly, there have been times when I've yelled back "BIG GIRLS DON'T POOP IN THEIR UNDERWEAR!" Did it fix the problem? Absolutely not. And I then had to apologize because good mommies don't yell at their kids for accidents.

I've tried everything I can think of to get this girl to poop in the potty. No luck. She did poop 3 times for her daddy.

On top of all that poop, my 2 year old is a poop machine. The girl poops 3-4 times a day! There is no end to the poop! If I'm not wiping one butt, it's another! If I could hire a nanny I would, and her only job would be to clean up the poop! And occasional vomit.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

My baby is 2!





My youngest daughter, my last baby, Isabella McKenzie is now 2 whole years old! She was born April 17th, 2008 at 9:17pm weighing 7lbs 13oz and was 19 inches long. She was my biggest baby =). The first picture is of Isabella just seconds after she was born, the second picture is Bella at around 2 months old. The third picture is Bella at her first birthday party, and the final picture is Bella now.

I can't believe how big she is. All grown up and walking, talking, and trying to use the potty.

Happy birthday baby girl! Mommy loves you SO much!

Picture game! =)



Me getting my first tattoo, a celtic love knot and gaelic word meaning faithful. (I thought it was a bit tacky to get my husband's name tattooed to the inside of my arm, LOL)


So here is what you do:


1) go to the first folder in your pictures

2) Post the 10th pic in that folder

3) Tell the story behind it!

You read this, then you have been tagged!

Monday, April 12, 2010

Mornings...

I am not a fan of mornings. I never have been, and as a mother I have learned that I almost truly hate them. It works like this almost EVERY morning. I'm lying in bed, peacefully asleep when I hear what sounds like a herd of elephants thudding down the stairs and into the hallway. The herd of elephants, also known as my son Aiden, then THROWS my door open slamming it into the wall and yells into my room, just in case I could SOMEHOW still be sleeping, "Can I play the Wii?" The biggest problem is that this usually happens when we don't have to be up yet. Usually a good hour before the alarm is set to go off.

WHY? I love my sleep, I really do. I cherish it. Especially now that all of our children sleep through the night 99% of the time. Except that now I am the one who's up every couple of hours all night long. I can only guess that someone my body misses having a baby around, so it's mimicking having a baby around by waking me up every 2-3 hours at night. It's awful. So, that last hour of sleep would be really nice, but I don't get it. Instead, I lay in a nice warm bed for a little while longer contemplating how to get Aiden to sleep until the alarm goes off in the morning. I think he needs an alarm clock in his room. So regardless of when he wakes up, he knows he's not allowed to wake up the rest of the house until the alarm goes off.

And honestly, it's not like I expect to be able to stay in bed until 10am or something (although, that would be really REALLY nice, LOL). I'd just like to sleep until 7am when the alarm goes off (or 8am every other Monday because of this weird late start the school district does). The kids know that if they need something (they had a bad dream, need a drink of water, have to go potty, etc) that they are allowed to get up and take care of things. So it's not like they are forbidden to leave their beds before the alarm goes off, but does he really need to request Wii time like that? It doesn't help that I am a HORRIBLY light sleeper, and Joe got up at 5:30am, so I get woken up then, and randomly pulled out of my nice peaceful sleep by Joe getting ready for work. It gets nice and quiet after Joe's left for work and then the elephant runs down the stairs...

I might as well just get up with Joe. It's not like I actually get much sleep after he gets up. And he's only up at 5:30 three days a week. I wish I was more of a coffee drinker. That would probably help. But I don't really like coffee much. And energy drinks are just so awful for you, but they're all so huge that it's a waste of money because if I do get one I can't even drink half.

Who needs an alarm clock with a child like Aiden? LOL

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Taking Alayna back

Tonight we took Alayna back to her mom. It's always sadder after a long visit. Alayna was home for a week this time and the kids had so much fun together. It's hard to explain to them why she has to go back, why she can't stay, and why the other kiddos can't go with her. She's always asked to have Aiden go with her when she goes, and each time we've had to say no.

We do our best to keep her from getting upset, telling her how much her mom would miss her if she didn't get to see her, and how lucky Alayna is having 2 families. She has 2 mommies, 2 daddies, a brother, 2 sisters, and LOTS of grandparents who love her so much.

Recently Alayna told Aiden that she couldn't stay here because she has to go to school and that his school probably didn't have a 2nd grade class. Aiden got really excited and told her that his school DID have a 2nd grade class, in fact they have 3! I was so worried that the next thing they were going to say was that Alayna could just go to school with him... We've never discussed the parenting plan with either of them. Neither of them know that without a judge changing the custody plan that Alayna can't stay here and go to school, and how do you explain that to children? Soon enough Alayna will figure it all out, I'd like her to be an innocent child as long as possible. There's no reason to drag an innocent child into the disastrous mess that is family court.

So, we're 1 child down for nearly two weeks. The next time Alayna comes home we'll be having Bella's second birthday party. And in just 2 short months we'll be having Alayna's 10th birthday party... I can't believe it.

Ham is love

Gawd, I love ham. Is there anything better than ham at Easter? Better yet, a $30 ham from Wal-Mart with cinnamon glaze that turns out to be one of the best hams ever?

I've watched Food, Inc, a documentary about the food supply chain and the crazy stuff going on in the food industry, specifically in agriculture, none of us know about or are shielded from finding out about. It's crazy, like the E. coli level in cows going up due to the forced feeding of corn instead of grass, meaning it is more likely to contract E. coli in undercooked beef than any other time in humanity's known history. Ham is no different, with pigs being slaughtered in unclean conditions, so unclean that workers in these pork abattoirs have infections in their fingers due to feces lodging itself under fingernails.

Wal-Mart is certainly a catalyst for this, with so much pressure to overperform while under budget. Wal-Mart alone could set a farmer for life in as little as a few years of purchasing, if the farmer was willing to sell his soul (translation: give up his control of how to farm).

But when ham turns out like that, cooked to perfection so as to rid the meat of its impurities as much as possible and glazed to a dark red, it makes all that melt away as I sink into a ham-induced stupor.

We love ham at the Ryder house. Sorry, Muslim audience and the Muslim friends we know, but it's true. In the Ryder household, chicken is the other white meat.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

April 9th, 2010

Today has been crazy so far. I can't trust the weather so the kids have been inside. There's only so much that can keep 4 active kids entertained for hours on end. Joe's at work and won't be home until shortly before 7. So, while I am trying to do training online for my job placing foreign exchange students with host families, I'm also trying to keep the kids busy, oh and laundry and dishes and all those other household chores that have to get done.

I hate, HATE using the TV or video games as a babysitter for my kids. Honestly though, there are times when it just has to happen. I'm not talking about hours at a time. But, when all I need is a half hour to get some phone calls made, or send a couple e-mails, or start dinner I'll turn on Nick Jr for the girls and let Aiden and Alayna play Wii. And honestly, it barely lasts a full half hour. Oh the craziness that is my life.

Thankfully the girls napped a bit while Aiden and Alayna were gone this afternoon. Aiden had the end of the season party with his football team at a bowling alley, and Joe's dad took Alayna bowling at the same time. Amazingly in that time I was able to return a call to the US Census Bureau about an 8 week position as an "Enumerator", basically going around to people in the area who didn't fill out their census and getting the questions answered for the government. I was also able to send about 10-15 cold e-mails to churches in the area asking for potential host families. Hopefully that gets me some type of response.

I'm excited about the Census position. Hopefully we can make it work. Joe was out of work for 4 months, and there just wasn't enough money coming in to meet all the bills going out. With the Census position we would be able to catch up completely on our bills and even put some money into savings, YAY! We haven't been able to do that in a while. The only problem is Joe works an hour from home and we only have 1 car. I've already figured out the daycare issue, now we just need to figure out the transportation issue. There's a guy Joe works with that lives not too far from us, I'm hoping that I'll be able to drop Joe off with him to carpool. We can pitch some money in for gas, and I'll still have our van during the day.

I got about half done of what I needed to get done today. Thankfully tomorrow is a Sunday and Joe's off. After church we can catch up on housework (specifically laundry and dishes, LOL) before we have to head out to take Alayna back to see her mom.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Introduction











We are Morgan (the mommy), Joe (the daddy), Alayna (the oldest), Aiden (the only boy), Brooklyn (the terrorist), and Bella (the terrorist in training). Together we make up the Ryder family. Here's a little bit about each of us:

Morgan, the mommy. She is a work from home mom placing foreign exchange students with host families through the company International Student Exchange (ISE). When she's not doing that she's taking care of the kids.

Joe, the daddy. He works full time (45-50 hours a week) and drives an hour each way to and from work. He is also the volunteer web designer for the Vancouver Warriors Pop Warner football team. In his spare time, what little there is of it, he does web design. He works very hard to provide for his family.

Alayna was born June 26, 2000. She is a very wonderful little girl. She has a disorder called Peter's Plus Syndrome, but it doesn't slow her down one bit. She loves reading and drawing, especially fashion design. She is loving, and very energetic. She always has a smile on her face.

Aiden was born January 29, 2003. He plays football for the Vancouver Warriors Pop Warner football team. He loves math and thinks reading is boring. His favorite activities are playing Lego Batman on the Wii and anything active outside.

Brooklyn was born December 10, 2006. We call her our little terrorist. Nothing gets in her way, and if it does it doesn't take her long to completely destroy it. She never slows down and learns very quickly from her older sister and brother.

Bella was born April 17, 2008. Bella used to be a sweet mild-mannered little girl. But the closer she got to turning 2 the more her little attitude jumped out. Bella is the baby of the family, but don't let that fool you, she can keep up with all the big kids no problems.

We love our big family and look forward to sharing our adventures with you.