9 months

My blog was due for some pictures (sorry, don't have a good one with my new hair-do yet). I decided to upload some while watching North Carolina and Harrison Barnes almost get beat. :-/ Good thing they won [in overtime], because Jesse is going to win my office's pool if the rest of his bracket is accurate. =] The guy leading the pool right now has Duke winning the championship- ha ha! :)

Anyway, Rya had her 9 month doctor appointment last week. She is now 28 3/4" long and weighs 19.04 lbs. Long and lean the doc says. She used to be in the 90th percentile for weight, but now that she is more active, she's down in the 50th percentile. Still in 90th for height, doc said. Rya had her iron level checked and we learned her iron is a tiny bit low, so we have to give her an iron drop once/day until she's a year. Other than that, she's very healthy, and doc said we've done a great job. whew =D

Rya isn't quite walking yet, but she will take steps now if you hold her hands and walk a little with her. Everyone says it won't be long. My mom said I walked at 10 months, but I just don't see Rya walking that soon, because that's only about 2 weeks away! Time will tell though.

Baby girl has been sleeping really well. When she got back from being at the farm last week with daddy, she was off a little overnight for a night or two, but nothing too bad, and then she got right back to sleeping 8pm-6:50/7am. I love it, and am SO happy! :) FINALLY! She still randomly may wake up but we haven't had to go to her, and she's woken up at 6 when my alarm goes off, we give her the pacifier and she's back asleep until 7. There's another benefit of working in Ankeny now- more sleep. I've noticed Rya getting hungrier earlier and tired earlier at night now too. Tonight I fed her about 6, which is about 15-30 mins earlier than usual, and then we went on a 35 minute walk at 6:35. She was asleep by the time we got home. I wasn't sure she'd go to bed that early so I let her play a little in the living room until about 7:20 and then she didn't seem interested so I took her up to her room. She drank some of another bottle, I read her a short book (she barely sits still long enough to read to her, even right before bed), and then turned the light off and rocked her a little. I put her down in her crib at 7:40 so about 20 mins. earlier than when she's been going to bed. It's still a little light out, so I think she wasn't quite ready for bed, but she just played for about 10 mins and then she was out. It's so nice to finally be able to put her down and she go to sleep all by herself. It's also so nice to finally have some time to myself (and to spend with Jesse). I remember thinking when Rya was an infant that it seemed I'd never have time to watch tv or workout again. I'm glad that's no longer the case- Monday night I watched 5 tv shows after Rya went to bed (thanks to DVR)! :)

In other news- we traded Jesse's Monte Carlo in and bought a Chevy Traverse!

Out with the old... In with the new...


Jesse was pretty sad to say goodbye to the first car he bought on his own, and has had since 2004, but I think he wanted the Traverse almost as bad as me. ;) It was quite the night last Thurs when we bought it. We didn't decide we were going to buy it until 8pm (after test driving a couple that afternoon, and Jesse spending all day negotiating). We gave Rya a bath quick, got her ready for bed and then headed down the street to the dealership. We didn't pull out in my new car until 9:45, so it was a late night, but a good one. =] I love it. I don't like seeing the gas gauge go down faster than the Monte ever did, but since I don't drive nearly as much as I used to, I can still go over a week without having to fill up, so at the end of the day, I'm ok with it. ;)

Something else new to me is the year 3-0. ;) It was just another day to me (Jesse was teaching Driver's Ed Monday night so we didn't do anything special, which was fine, since I got a Traverse! We went to dinner with my parents last Friday night for my birthday.), but it is kind of weird to me to think I'm 30. 30 used to seem so old to me, and now, I think 30 is the new 21. =] I definitely don't feel old, and hope I always say that!

As I think I may have mentioned in a previous recent post- life is good. Really good. So good, that I'm a little nervous it's too good. We refinanced and are saving a couple hundred dollars a month. Then we got an escrow refund from our previous mortgager and it will pretty much pay for the new window we had to put in Rya's room b/c the original was a cheap one that leaked and rotted out the wood under the siding, in addition to dripped through the ceiling of our front room. :-( Then, we learned we are getting a good size tax refund, which we were not expecting b/c I rolled a chunk of my traditional ira to a roth one so we thought that would wash any refund we had coming (I wonder how much a refund we would have had if we hadn't done that!). I guess having a baby really does help, a lot.

But happiness isn't all about money, and I know that... I'm happy to get to spend quality time with Jesse and Rya, and to be able to look back to when I was afraid how my life had changed and would never be the same, and I just couldn't seem to imagine life being so nice and easy again, and to see now that I'll never have to go through that time again! Next baby I'll have an idea of how it all turns out as the baby gets older. And that's such a good thought to me. I'm excited to play with Rya outside soon, and to go to the park to swing, and then to Okoboji in June. I am reminded every single day how much I love my baby girl. I never knew I could love someone SO much, and it's a great feeling!



March Madness isn't just about basketball this year- the weather has been somewhat crazy, with 80 degree temperatures in the middle of March. :) Enjoy!