January Happenings...

I guess since I have a baby sleeping on me and Parker is at school I'll sit down and write out this post!

January always seems to be full of a lot of randomness. There are no tremendous holidays to celebrate or birthdays to honor in our little family. It's cold and we are usually coming down off Christmas. But since I'm trying desperately to preserve every tiny miraculous moment of Rayleigh's life I have an obscene amount of pictures to share. Like:

That one time I was rocking her and was super tired.

And how I threw her in the Britaxi, grabbed Parker and we gardened in the backyard...

Oh you know, just some selfies while holding my angel. I was talking to Andrea about planning a trip to Hawaii that we can't take and said, "I can't complain when I've got this princess!"

And what a little darling she is!!!

I asked our little neighbor friend, Abby, to come over and teach Parker some of her rainbow loom skills. She's adorable. I want to keep her.

Ok, ok. I know. I know. But, I wanted to take a picture of myself so I will remember what I looked like 3 months after having Rayleigh. This picture is incredibly flattering. I still have about 15 pounds to go...

We try our best to have a good time when Tanner is home over the weekend.  We usually hit the spa and then go to lunch. We run errands and see friends and explore some new part of town we havent seen before. It's fun!

I hate running errands alone. I don't know why. But, Tanner is a good sport and indulges me when he's home. He is the MAN! He ran to Costco with us and even carried the baby in the Britaxi!

It was the most adorable thing when she fell asleep there with him. Sweet thing.

We went out to dinner with Kyle and his family. Rayleigh fell asleep on the way there and then slept the whole night! (almost) We just brought her in in her seat and put her in her room!

Her bow kept falling into her eyes and she looked like a cute little pirate.

When Tanner is away I try to send him little pictures throughout the day. Now that Rayleigh can grab toys and such she'll stick out her tongue when she's concentrating really hard. It's adorable.

And this was all the hotel toiletries that Tanner has been collecting! He's stayed over 70 nights in hotels since he started working for Plum! That's a lot of soap.

It's always best when we're together. :-)

My Mom sent me this picture of her with her Mom and brother.

 I just love it.

I had to snap this sad picture of Rayleigh when we ran to Target really quickly: it was a little too bumpy as she sat in her seat in the cart. She did not like it. Poor thing. She kept sticking her little lip out. Broke my heart!

Oh! And this was us at the library. We go once a week and do homework and pick out some books. Parker loves to play with the Legos and always makes friends. Or we meet friends there for story time. Either way it's a blast and it's helping us reach our goal of reading 50 chapter books this year. My little smarty pants is doing 2nd grade homework!

Tanner helped me with a photo project and we printed a bunch of pictures to put in frames around our house. These beach pictures we took and had printed for Rayleigh's "California Girl" room. We also replaced all of the old family pictures we had around the house. The family is ever expanding!

I love this face.

Parker's school celebrated their 100th day on January 31st. They had a party and each child was asked to make a poster of 100 things. He did this ALL on his own. I don't even know when he did it! He just presented it to me one morning! He's amazing. I just love this kid! He's been such an awesome son and a terrific big brother these past few months!!!!

Little miss started rolling over all over the place! I was upstairs getting ready one morning when Parker came screaming up the stairs, "She's rolling over! She rolled over!" He ran up like 8 times before I could get my clothes on and come down and see it with my own eyes. She was a rolling machine all day! Since then she's been too cool to roll and simply tries to sit up from the laying down position using only her ab muscles.

Rayleigh was about the same age as Parker was in this picture. Everyone tells me that they look alike so I was trying to compare and see!

This was hilarious. One day we came home and there was a phone book on our driveway. Parker picked it up and said, "What's a phone book?" That just goes to show you how old I am. This kid was born AFTER Google was invented!

Oh! And we got a BOB! One of the mom's from school was practically giving it away. I'm in love with it. I can hardly wait to start using it to run to the pool every day this summer! 

Another week went by and Tanner came home. Friday's are such a fun day and Saturday's are the best! This particular weekend was awesome because Tanner didn't have to leave on Sunday night! We were leaving for Lake Tahoe the next day. But man, we just love the spa and this Saturday morning in January was warm and bright! I love the sun! My sweet daughter just LOVES her Daddy.

We've started giving Rayleigh a few little things to eat, mostly to keep her quiet. :-) She was going to town on this graham cracker but they are soooo messy! It all pretty much gets sucked on, mushy, and then wiped onto her shirt.

This Saturday was fun. We went to lunch with some friends at Buca Di Beppo and then ran some errands. We went to Buy Buy Baby and got Rayleigh one of those balls with the holes in it so she can grab it easier. She LOVES it!

Oh! And one of these Saturdays we went to The Fountains which is an outdoor mall in Roseville. We had CPK for lunch and then walked around until it was time for dinner. We had clam chowder in bread bowls at Boudins. So yummy! There was some fro yo action in there somewhere too. :-) Rayleigh is tolerating her stroller a little bit better lately...

And she's much too small for her bouncy bounce but she seems to enjoy it for a few moments. It helps when I'm trying to get dinner on the table!

Milk drunk.

Oh man, I could kiss that face all day. And she LOVES kisses. They could put her to sleep. Literally, I don't think there's many things she loves more than soft kisses on her face. Oh, I just melt when I think about her!

Did you know that she LOVES her Daddy? Whelp, she does. It's always fun when she sees him for the first time on Saturday mornings. Even if he has creepy facial hair...

Showering after a little spa session. Gotta hit the town ready to roll!

My princess!

She was a little fussy in the car on the way up to Tahoe so I gave her a little whip cream from my Chick Fil A Oreo milk shake. Yum. She wasn't as into it....

Tanner took this of us one morning. Yep... we are not morning people. But it sure would be nice to sleep through the night! Let's be honest....

Well, as sad as it is to have Tanner working so far away and not being able to see him every day (and we are SOOOOO ready for this to be over) he is doing really well. He's had a ton of excellent feedback and is learning so much about the job. He tries so hard to be a good boss. This particular Friday he held a BBQ for all his employees and even wore his red neck shirt and donned his red neck facial hair. When in Rome...

Yes, we are ready for Tanner to come home but we certainly are being watched over, protected, and blessed. It's helped me to step out of my comfort zone and meet more people and try harder to serve others and Tanner has learned a ton and is proving to be an amazing resource for Plum. We are happy and healthy and our love is endless for each other!!! And that is what life is all about.