Bye Bye November, Hello December

It's hard to believe that we are down another month. I don't think I remember time flying by like it has been since I had Rylie. November came, had our Thanksgiving holiday, Hunting Season started up, and November went. I have 18 days until John comes home and then it's off to our new place for however long. Thanksgiving, btw, was ok I didn't remember the camera so there was no pictures taken. Another holiday without John. But we made it through and are very excited to have him home for Christmas. There isn't much to write about. I just thought I would start off the first post in December with a little video taken of Rylie. Setting the scene... We had gotten out the Christmas tree and the decorations for it. After putting it up and decorating it (and going behind Rylie to redecorate) Rylie played with "Frosty the Snowman". She was dancing and dancing and dancing. It was funny. Until... yip.. until I got out the camera and she stopped. I had to make her dance. HEHE. It was still cute. December is going to prove a trying one again. Last year we moved in December too. This year I am looking forward to seeing my friend from High School. We haven't seen each other since Graduation (my way back in 1998- we're old farts). Her husband is in the US Air Force (currently deployed) and she gets to come home for the holiday. Anyway.. December.. what a marvelous month. Now it's rushing around for those last minute gifts, mailing off gifts so they'll make it to a place before Christmas, packing up all those gifts and clothes and everything else that was packed, and heading out of State. I guess that's about all I got to say for this post. So enjoy the video.

Pics for Sarah and Justin

I have been meaning to post these pictures for Justin and Sarah. They got Rylie a couple little outfits and a little "hola baby". So I took pics. Yea.. we can all see that she doesn't like the camera. HEHE!! Anyway.. she looks cute in the pictures and the outfits.

First snow of the season

Hello everybody. I just thought I would post these few pictures I took. Check out what I woke up to this morning. Yip, the 1st snow of the season. It's still fall but yet.. it's Pennsylvania weather for you. It wasn't much snow but it did snow all day and the ground was wet but if the ground was frozen it would have stuck to the road and caused some freezing and slipping and all them kind of problems associated with snow and vehicles. HEHE!! Tuesday of this week we had our 1st flurries of the season.. a few big flakes here and there. Not today... HEHE!! Oh well. Gotta love it. NOT!! I like snow but.. I like it on Christmas Eve and Christmas day and well that's it. Ok maybe I liked it more when I was younger and we had snow days and get out of school but well I don't get those anymore. I am sure my views will change once Rylie is older and on school while I am at work begging to have a day with her to myself. Anyway.. I got off track there for a second excuse me.. Enjoy the pictures

More videos

Thought I would try and post a couple more videos taken. It was a slow day so we didn't have much to do. Plus I wanted to try and capture my lil Cheeks on video. We don't have enough of them.

Video from OBX trip

Hello all, I thought I would try yet again to get the video posted on here. I sure hope it works. This is probably the 4th or 5th day at the beach. Anyway she really enjoyed her time at the beach. I am sure there will be more years to come where we head to the beach. Whether at OBX, Seattle.. whereever the ARMY sends us, I am sure we'll always find our way back to the beach. I love the beach, John loves the beach, Rylie loves the beach... HMM maybe we should live at or by the beach. HEHE!! Anyway hope the video works. It does have sound so make sure your speakers are turned on. Please send comments letting me know.

Another month gone

Well here it is November 1st. I can hardly believe it. Another month gone which brings us closer to John coming home, leaving Pennsylvania, closer to seeing Justin and Sarah in the summer and many many more awesome things. October has flown by as a lot of other months did for me. Since I havent been worrking, the days just run into each other and I find it hard keeping track of what day it is. Whether that is a good thing or bad thing I am not sure. October seemed a big month for us as Rylie has said her 1st sentences. Yes she did it finally. My little girl is growing up. One night while in the room with mom and dad she said "Pappy geyou, geyou Pappy." Which in translation Pappy close the door apparently. HEHE!!! I dunno. Spelling of course is always an ifie, I try to spell how she says but anyway geyou sounds like get out to us but apparently it isn't. She also said "pee poyie" which one can only know what that is (for those who can't think- pee potty). She knows her color yellow and purple.. all other colors are yellow. When asked how old she is she will tell you 2 and try to do the fingers (to no avail). Somethings she says we wonder how she can say that and not others... i.e. "nanie" is for Amanda and banana. Well if she can say nanie then why can't she say Anni (for our dog).. Anni is of course "hedie" (again the spelling). Yea we don't know why. Since Rylie was 8 months old she has had nothing to drink but water and milk.. no formula or bottle I mean. Well she has yet to say milk. HMM... I don't know. Naps (my worst fear) are dwindling down. Although she went from taking naps at noon to 1530 (330 for civilians) to taking them at 1300 (1 pm) to 330.That is ok. Still its good time. Well now a days we're lucky if she is sleeping by 1400 (2 pm). Well mean ol' mommy over here says oh no we don't do that, mommy needs rest time. So although she isn't sleeping she is still in her crib during what we have now called "quiet time". She is still content with it although she is louder than before. Oh well as long as I have an hour to get some things done or even to relax. Umm... oh yea.. another thing.. yea we had another Emergency room visit just a week ago. While visiting my nan (she isn't doing very well and had to go back to Pittsburgh) my cousin Amanda had her at her house. Well Rylie apparently was visitin Mike in their garage. Shera (their dog and I have no clue on the spelling of her name) apparently jumped up on her. We don't know what happened next. When getting ready to leave my nan's we saw the cut on the cheek. But we didn't see the marks above the cut. Oh well I said it happens. Well the cut was bleeding pretty bad so we cleaned it out 2 times and put ointment on it 2 times. The next morning she awoke with a huge swollen , red and purple cheek and had a 100.1 temp. So off to the ER for us. Now after having some antibiotics in her, it looks good. Still a cut and still a little hard under and around the cut. But it looks good. Sorry I won't post any pictures of it.. Well, I think that is about all that has happened in the month of October. Can't wait to get started with this month and get it finished (except for the eating part-mmm holiday food).

HAPPY HALLOWEEN (yesterday)

Well I hope everybody had a Happy Halloween. It wasn't so bad for us. We were only gone about an hour but in an hours time we had an Elmo bucket full of candy and a juice. I think she had fun, was kind of confused as to why people had large bowls and buckets full of candy and then only giving her a couple pieces. We only had 2 kinda scarey moments for her. The first time was when we stopped at uncle Chris' house.. actually he isn't her uncle he is cousin Chris on my brother-in-laws side. HEHE!! But anyway, he goes all out on Halloween every year. And well it was ok until she saw him. He was all decked out in a Dracula costume and paint and eyes and everything. HMM.. enough to scare anyone. But she cried and said "bye bye" so we got the candy and left. Then a little bit further down the street we saw a little boy ( I think it was Patrick- my niece and nephew's cousin) wearing a Freddy Krueger mask and hand. She didn't like that either. Other than that she did fine. At home we searched through the candy like good mommies do and gave her a couple pieces to eat. Then it was time to get ready for bed. Cha right after eating candy? HEHE!! No she did good. Pictures follow of course.

Pumpkin Carving

On the 30th of October, Rylie and I decided to do a little pumpkin carving. Well It wasn't so easy for me so I enlisted some help from Pappy. HEHE! After I made the little face on the pumpkin with the sharpie, We proceeded to carve it. Hmm... what fun. It was just a little pumpkin so Rylie wasn't able to take the guts out by hand, she used a spoon. I think she enjoyed it although.. can you believe she didn't get any of it on her except when she picked up the seeds. HEHE!! I was going to dry the seeds out and have her try them but I decided not to. Anyway Pappy came outside to help us out some more. Later on we were able to put a tealight candle inside. WOW!! Her eyes were big. It was funny. She kept trying to play with it but we told her once its lite we don't touch it's hot. So that wasn't fun it brought on a fit. Anyway.. that was that. Enjoy the pics.

New T-Shirt

Hey everybody.. I thought I would post these 3 pictures. While at the beach John and I stopped in at the Hooters to get some wings (for him not me) I was browsing through the shirts and stuff. Well I found me a Hooters tank and then we got Rylie one. Hey every kid needs a Hooters shirt.. Its too big but she'll grow into it (it's her sleeping shirt). We were trying to get her to say Hooters but all that came out is "hoodie". Ahh how cute and hilarious. See Rylie knows what an owl says and so that's how she says hoodie if you can picture it (drawn out o sound like an owl).I can see it now.. first day of school or even day care.. she has on a cute shirt that has something cute on it like cats or something and the teacher asks "what's on your shirt, Rylie"? Rylie's answer "hoodies". AHAHAHA!! Now that's funny. Anyway here's the pics.

Rylie's room

Like her mom and Sarah, she loves stuffed animals

Yes, she does sleep with these all in her bed

As you can tell, she loves "hokies"

Thanks for my books and Pooh chair

Picking up the "blos"

I thought I would take a few pics of Rylie's room for everyone. Why you ask??? Well this gives people an idea of what Rylie loves. It really isn't hard to tell. I also thought I would shoot a couple shots of Rylie picking up her blocks.. this only happens on occasion. And most importantly.. it is so wonderful to have family and friends who have kids. It's called hand-me-downs people. AHHH!! It's like Christmas in October at the Crooks' house. I went to my sister's house the other night and got a bunch of books and a pooh chair (thanks a bunch Brandon for the chair-hehe). I kept saying how expensive books were and well, that's what friends and family are for. HEHE!! I love it!!! Thanks for the books Kelly.

OBX pics

A Wild Pony that was captured

Nice waves

Rylie and pappy

Watch out for the wave!!

John and his good looking self

Rylie squirting people with hose

Watch out daddy

Mostly the whole crew

Playing in the sand

Playing with Morgan

Having fun

Rylie and daddy

Rylie and mommy

Me, Amanda, Morgan, Taylor

I thought I would get busy and post some pictures of Rylie and the trip to the Outer Banks. I think she enjoyed herself more than words can explain. Getting to be in the same house with some of her favorite people for a whole week. What a treat!! The beach.. OMG.. she loved it from the very first evening we took her (evening we got there). She slept real well.. ok so she didn't sleep real good becuz of all the noise from the other kids and the partying from all us adults, but for the first time she did not cry being in a new place. She had a blast. "Wawie" everywhere. Sand was fun as well. Getting to sleep in the same room with "Nanie" (Amanda) I think she liked as well. She went to the Aquarium for her first time (which we forgot the camera so sorry no pictures). All in all I think she had a wonderful time. As for me, well I got to be with John and my family, and for the first time ever I went out into the water (not knee deep either). It was wonderful. The water was gorgeous. The last day we were in the water, UNFORTUNATELY, it was rough water (the day before it had rained) and well I ain't ashamed to admit it, (trying to get out if the ocean) I got slammed with a major wave and rolled like 3 times. HMM.. now that was fun. Actually it was pretty hilarious and everyone else thought so as well. Well the unfortunate part about it was, I LOST MY SUNGLASSES!!! (The only pair that fit me that didn't look like little kids). Anyway, I think John had a good time. He was excited to get to see Rylie pee for the first time. Rylie was very excited to see him the next morning. See we all got in Saturday evening. Mom, dad and I dropped my Jeep off at the naval base in Norfolk for John. He got in that night. So when we awoke the next morning and went to the top floor, Rylie was of course already awake. As soon as she saw him she got a huge smile on her face and practically jumped out of my sister's arms to him saying daddy daddy. It sure was cute. Anyway, there is plenty more to talk about but I don't feel like typing it all. This just gives you a gist of things. Well enjoy the pictures.. who know's maybe I will be able to post a video on here soon.