Greetings from Colorado Springs. It's been a loooooong time since I last updated. Life has been busy busy busy and in case you haven't noticed, we have moved across the country AGAIN this year. Let me catch ya'll up on life.
October started off with Ryan deciding he was all done taking a morning nap. Right there. That's a huge reason why I haven't updated in a while. The mornings were when I'd sip my hot coffee, turn on the news, and have "Me" time. That is no more. I now have to wake up and find a way to get myself ready for the day while entertaining him at the same time. My mornings started consisting of me brushing my teeth with my foot on the toilet lid and leg blocking Ry from the plunger and toilet brush. It was not glamorous. As my birthday approached on the 9th, another major life event occurred.
My 28th birthday was, well, memorable to say the least. The morning of my birthday was the last time I ever breast fed my baby boy. I accredit this to the fact that 1. He really didn't need the boob to eat anymore; he was using straws, cups, and eating solids like it was his job and 2. He had an ear infection so as I went to lay him down and feed him later that day/weekend, he freaked out. It was a big event, and it feels SO nice to be done with breast feedings. I've been pumping my veins with caffeine to get me through the one-nap-a-day lifestyle. It's a great compromise.
Back to my birthday. We decided to spend the day in Savannah.. all 6 of us. We started by walking the dogs through Forsyth Park which is this giant park with beautiful trees and fountains and playgrounds. Of course, with every beautiful, peaceful park comes the insane park dwellers who make you feel like you're about to get mugged.
We had to get a room at Motel 6 to put the dogs while we went downtown Savannah to get dinner at Paula Dean's restaurant: Lady and Sons. Oh. My. Goodness. It was the BEST food I've ever eaten. My mouth waters just thinking about everything we ate. It was a buffet full of southern fried chicken, cornbread, mac n cheese, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, shrimp, biscuits and even more I couldn't fit on my plate. We all stuffed our faces to the point the my birthday butter cake (which the whole place sang for me) and banana pudding barely fit, but I made it work. If I could go back there again, I 110% would, not doubt about it.
We walked around the shops of Savannah then ended up going back to the room to get Ryan to bed. As I mentioned, he had an ear infection which meant that we spent 2 hours trying to get him to get to bed and after endless screaming, we finally packed the car back up at 10pm, dogs and all and drove back home.
Okay, let's fast forward a bit. A week or so later, the packers came. We spent a week in our apartment with no furniture. Let me tell you, trying to feed a toddler without a high chair is probably the worst thing ever. Good thing we have dogs to clean up. However we made it out of there with a full security deposit refund and spent our last night in a Motel 6 before driving to Chicago.
We took our drive in two days. Why? Well, we had to bring both of our cars to CO Springs so G drove with the dogs in his truck while I drove with Ry. He did pretty well. During our long drives, he actually reverted to two-nap days which made driving so much easier on me. We spent our first night in Louisville then got to family by the next afternoon.
Visiting family was fun, yet exhausting. Let me tell you, I am never moving across time zones during a daylight savings weekend unless it works to my advantage. Not only did Ry have to try to change his schedule back an hour to central time, but we had to go back another hour only a few days later. Which means we basically spent the first week of our stay waking up at 3:30 and the three of us hanging out quietly in a room not to wake the rest of the house until about 7. Every morning. And then we'd be ready to pass out by 7. Not to mention we had no idea what Ry's schedule nap-wise was going to look like. Safe to say we purposely did not make specific plans to see too many people. It was udder chaos. But seeing the family we did see was great and Ry got to trick or treat with his cousin.
Speaking of... Ry was the BEST trick or treater. Seriously, the cutest thing I've ever seen. He would walk up to every door, grab a piece of candy, and put it in his bucket. He was so happy to just be getting things to put in a bucket. Such a pro.
Okay, so we saw family, then we hit the road again and took CO Springs in another two days. Let me tell you, that drive is BORING. Once you (finally) hit the Colorado boarder, the land becomes slightly hilly. You don't see mountains until you're about at Denver (hour 14) and then it's an hour til the Springs. But I'm so glad we made it when we did because the day after we got here, there was a little snow storm here and the day after that, all of the Iowa was under tornado warnings. We made it safe and sound and snuggled calmly into Motel 6.
Motels suck. It sucks that we can't put Ry down for a nap unless we leave the room. Which means G and I set up camp in the bathroom multiple times waiting while Ryan went to bed. There wasn't much room for him to run around and play, which means that the small space he did have, he occupied. This also means all the dogs escaped him by staying on the bed. Which means most of the time in there, 5 of us were on the bed while Ry ran around. We all had cabin fever by our last day.
Over the last few months, G and I did lots of research looking for a house to buy. We worked closely with our realtor and we were able to close on our house maybe 3 days after we got here. So we are officially home owners and are already living in our house. We got our stuff the next day. Unfortunately, the movers damaged a lot of our stuff. This includes our bed frame, my file cabinet, G's file cabinet, two new lamps, our coffee table, our steam cleaner, one of our dining room chairs, Ry's cube organizer, they lost hardware to our China cabinet, our couch, and then numerous small items like cups, glassware, and picture frames. It was a terrible move. I was almost in tears by the time the movers left. And it wasn't the guys who unpacked the crates's fault-they were really nice, but the packers in GA and whomever else handled our staff in between. It was bad. We're still unpacking and finding more, but once we're done, we'll file a claim and see what we get reimbursed. I don't understand how we moved from GA to AK then back from AK to GA and had barely anything damaged, just minor scraps or dents, and then we move halfway across the country and everything goes to shit. Unacceptable. I could go on and on ranting but I won't. Time to move on.
Ryan has been such a big boy lately! He keeps learning and doing so much. He's still not much of a talker, but he does know his alphabet sounds when I work with him. Every since we lost our furniture, he has become such a picky eater. He's very weird now about textures and one second he loves something, then the next he's over it. This kid eats lots of Cheerios, bananas, and applesauce. Every meal requires lots of creativity to get him to expand his horizons, but I'd say for the most part, he's still a very good eater. He doesn't stop. We ate lunch for an hour yesterday until I cut him off. He LOVES food. And we're at the point where he'll try things that I'm eating (unless it feels weird..) Now that we're all able to stay up past 7 (and sleep in til 5!!) I'm trying to have him eat dinner with us to see if he'll try new foods. So far, he hasn't liked much but it's still fun watching him try.
I'm probably missing a million things about my life right now, but my time is limited til he wakes up. Here's a summery: We are homeowners! We are still adjusting to time so don't plan on talking to me past 8pm MST. I barely have my phone on me anymore so I'm sorry if I don't respond to people's texts in a timely fashion-I'm working on that. We'd love visitors out here! Come hang out with our crazy little family! Anddddd as of yesterday, we have working internet :)
Okay, sorry this was long and picture-less. My phone is downstairs and none of my pictures are synched to my computer. LOVE TO EVERYONE!!!!
