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Jesse is on spring break this week so he decided to go to his parents' to help on the farm the last two days; what better weather could he ask for?! His mom is retired so she said she'd love to watch Rya, so mommy got some r&r last night, this morning, and tonight! Last night I went to my nephew Caden's school music concert. The kindergarten class sang first, then the first grade, finally Caden and the second graders (it only took a half hour, but it was during the Iowa NIT game! At least we got to still watch the second half and see Iowa dominate Dayton for their first post-season win in 9 years! =]) The concert was pretty cute- the kindergarten class did The Little Red Hen, the first graders did The Parable of the Rich Man, and the second graders did The Parable of the Builder (Caden attends Holy Trinity Catholic Church school now; he's officially a maroon-in-the-making, eck!) Anyway, after spending time at my parents' afterward, I got home around 9:30 and still wanted to get on the elliptical. Since I was sure I wouldn't have to wake up in the middle of the night with Rya gone, I decided to go ahead and get on the elliptical that late. It was actually relaxing. [I'm really trying to get back into shape/working out more like I used to, so Sunday Jesse and I started Jillian Michaels again. Boy was I sore the last couple of days!] But, as my friends know, I'm not much of a late-to-bed person, so finally getting to bed at 11:00 was late for me! ;) However, I did get to sleep in until 7 this morning! It was GREAT! I got to work early for once (really helps when I only live a minute away). ;)

Speaking of work...I got some flack for not mentioning my job in my last post, so I'd like to go on the record and say, I do like my not-so-much-new-anymore job. =] It's going well. I think it's a great job for me because I can feel very accomplished at the end of the day, and even work ahead so much so that I can be waiting until something comes across my desk. I've only had one CrAzY busy day, that did actually really have me concerned about leaving my previous job, but now that I know those kind of days don't happen all the time, I can handle them when they do happen. I mean, this day I didn't have time to eat, worked 9 hours straight and STILL couldn't physically get everything done that was my job to get done. Thankfully, I work with great people that helped me out. I enjoy the people I work for/with, the small office atmosphere (smaller than anywhere I've worked before), and, have I mentioned how close to work, and Rya, that I am?! :) Today for lunch, I went shopping at Target! It's great! :)

About my job- anyone thinking about refinancing should do so, and do it with Valley Bank in Ankeny. Then I can close your loan for you. =] I have the contact info for the person to refi with, so let me know if you are interested. Jesse and I just refinanced and got a 30 year for 4%. I've seen rates even lower than that. With Valley Bank you can get set up with a payment schedule to make bi-weekly payments, and we're going to shave 7-9 years (at least) off our mortgage, saving us thousands of dollars in interest. It's really amazing to see the savings on paper, so I totally suggest you refinance with Valley Bank in Ankeny. ;)

Anyway, back to my r&r time- tonight I went on a run. It was beautiful out, even hot when running. And I loved it. Perfect temp to run in a t-shirt and shorts. Listened to my iPod for the first time in I don't know how long. I think the last time I've ran outside was when I was on maternity leave in July or August! So it's been a while, and felt great to be back! I just hope I can keep up with it. After my run, I went to the salon and got my hair cut...I mean chopped off! I think it's the shortest I've ever had it. I really like it, and think I'll love it when it won't take me very long to get ready. I'm a little nervous about my natural curl/wave, but I'm hoping it'll be easy to tame. No pictures right now, but I'll try to get one soon. Jesse isn't home yet, so he hasn't seen it, and can't be my photographer. =] I think he'll like it- as he put it "I proposed to you with really short hair." haha If you remember [that long ago ;)], I had no idea he was going to propose so I cut all my hair off and a couple weeks later, he proposed, and I remember thinking, "crap, now I don't have long hair for our wedding!" :) So, yeah, I have a new do that I'm excited about...

...a new do for a new me- turning the big 3-0 this month, on Monday actually- yikes! On that note, I think I'll head to bed now and get my beauty rest! =P
Happy St. Patrick's Day! And happy Spring!

P.S. Sorry no pictures. I'll try to get some posted soon. Rya is 9 months old and has her 9 month check up tomorrow, so I'll have a "Rya update" for you soon. =]

I love...

Driving to the farm this weekend I heard a guy on the radio say the things he loves, and it inspired me to blog about everything I love.

I love my daughter, more than I could have ever imagined. She is the cutest thing in the world to me, even though she is the most squirmy, stubborn, silly baby girl I know! :) I love her babbling, and how she always watches me. I love watching her in the water during bath time, and I love watching her discover new things. I love her smile when I come in the room and say hi to her, and her smile just before she does something she knows mommy said no to! :) I love Rya so much, I can’t imagine sharing my time and love with another child some day.

I love my husband, more today than ever before. He’s a very patient, caring and thoughtful husband, and a wonderful daddy. He’s an amazing man and teacher that is very dedicated to his students’ health, as well as his and his family’s health. [Jesse has been a bit concerned about my heart because I’ve been so tired at night. Since I have heart disease in my family, he worries about mine.]

I love my parents and siblings. I’m so thankful to live so close to them, and thankful for their support and help with Rya. They are very excited to have a baby girl in the family, and I’m very excited for her to grow up with them in her life.

I love my parents-in law & siblings-in law. My parents-in law are two of the most compassionate, christian, conservative, loving people I know. They are also very excited to finally have a granddaughter, and I’m excited to have them in Rya’s life as well. And, being the oldest in my family, I look up to my older brothers and sister-in laws, and enjoy shopping and working on the farm with them. :)

I love my extended family, and wish I got to see them more often.

I love my friends- from Simpson, Ames, and everywhere in between.

I love Simpson College, and all the memories made there.

I love men’s college basketball. More specifically, I love March Madness on CBS.

I love the Iowa Hawkeyes.

I love college football. More specifically, I love college football on Saturdays [and Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit].

I love softball and pitching. I love giving pitching lessons, and seeing my student grow. I love when she all of a sudden gets it and you can see it in the smoothness of her pitch.

I love playing basketball, and really wish I was still in shape like I was when I played in college! :)

I love skinny caramel lattes from Starbucks. I love Mt. Dew. I love chocolate, cookies & candy, oh and Coach. ;) I love Taco Johns and Arby’s. I love Okoboji and Okoboji Bar & Grill. I love country, pop & christian music; I love upbeat music I can sing along to, like Taylor Swift songs. :)

All in all, I LOVE MY LIFE!

Walk to baby cousins--

2 weeks ago today, we welcomed 2 new little babies to the Von Behren family- Jesse's brother Nate and our sister-in-law Jess had their twins a few weeks early. One boy, one girl, named Brant and Natalie. They were just little tykes at 4 lbs 1 oz and 3 lbs 12 oz, but they are doing well, as well as momma. We are so excited for Nate & Jess, and for Rya to have baby cousins to play with! :) We got to go visit the day they were born, but accidentally left our camera in the room when we went to the NICU. But here's a picture Jess sent us.

There was also another addition to the extended Von Behren family this week- one of Jesse's cousin had a baby, and it was a girl! Rya will have so much fun growing up with cousins only 8.5 months younger. =]

Rya is so ecstatic, she is about to "walk" to them- she is now pulling herself up to everything and standing, all on her own. =] She's such a big girl! We even started putting her in a big girl car seat today. She has the tooth on the bottom that was her first tooth to come in, plus the front top two, and now Rya has the next two on the top coming in. These last two teeth coming in may have been part of the reason for her waking up overnight, but she slept all night this whole last week. A couple of days Rya woke up earlier in the morning than we prefer, but we were thankful for the uninterupted night's sleep! In addition to the teething, I think her waking up could have also been b/c we stopped giving her acid reflux medicine. First we cut back to just once/day and then a couple of weeks ago we stopped giving it to her all together, thinking surely by now she is grown out of the need for it. Last weekend we started giving it to her again, and then she started sleeping through the night. It's so hard to know, but I think we'll keep giving the medicine to her for a while longer.



Baby girl is now almost 9 months, but here is an 8 month picture-



Jesse's basketball season ended on Friday night when the Ames boys lost to Ankeny. We love basketball season, but love daddy being home even more! He will start teaching his driver's ed next month, so we'll enjoy a couple of weeks at home. I'm hoping to get some little projects around the house completed now that basketball is over. ;) Unfortunately for us, one unexpected project is having to replace a leaking window.

As for my new job, things are going well. I had a really stressful and challenging day last week, but I got through it and survived, so all is good. :) I enjoy the job and the people I work with, and really love being so close to Rya and home. But, I may always miss Simpson...

Last weekend I went back to campus to play in the alumni basketball game. We also got to watch the Storm women win the IIAC title outright. Rya made her third visit to campus (I forgot to get a picture of her in her cute "SC" Sweet Tee)! I always enjoy going back to play, and missed not being able to last year. =] I've been playing in a rec league on Wed. nights, and that just ended last week.

With the end of some basketball seasons comes March Madness and the end of winter- yay! Soon it will be summer and Rya's first birthday...in Okoboji! Enjoy the warm end of the season!

Looking back--

Today we've had our first snow storm of the winter! I look forward to when Rya and I can play outside in the snow next year, and looking back, I realize a lot has changed over the last 7 months-

• Most recently- I started a new job as a real estate closer at a law firm in Ankeny, about 45 seconds from home. I was very sad to leave Simpson, but the hours, commute and stress of the job with a baby was just more than I wanted to handle, especially since Jesse is coaching and not home at night right away. I found out about the job from the guy we are refinancing our mortgage through- the law firm is upstairs the bank. So far, it's been a bit challenging, and I realized I've never felt this challenged, at least not this soon after taking a new job, so that concerned me a little after the first couple of days. But I like the idea of what I do, so I think once I fully understand my job I will enjoy it.
  


• I've been thinking a lot about Rya's first few months, and my maternity leave, and I kind of feel bad for being ready to go back to work like I was at the end of my maternity leave. I wish I wasn't so stressed back then. But I really think it took me experiencing everything everyone said not to worry about, before I could relax about it all. =) I decided I'm kind of excited for the chance to take on the challenge of a newborn again. Not anytime soon, that is, but I look forward to having another baby some day. I've come a long way over the past couple of months! I remember telling Jesse over and over again I can't imagine having another baby and going through everything again. But now, I look at Rya, and although I look forward to watching her grow up, I'm going to miss the baby stage.
  


• Speaking of Rya growing up- she is officially crawling! She tries to stand up from her crawl too, so she may be a walker sooner rather than later. She's babbling all the time, and has 3 teeth that have come in. I think she is cutting more, b/c she was up every hour for 3 hours last night. She also currently has an ear infection, but she's on antibiotics for that. She didn't show many signs of an ear infection (no fever, no tugging at the ear), but she didn't sleep well a couple of nights, she started not eating well for the sitter, she's had a stuffy nose and a congested cough for at least 2 weeks, and a friend of ours' baby that we were all just around ended up having croup, so I decided to take Rya to the doctor, just in case. Sure enough, she had her first ear infection.
  


• Rya is now eating food with her cereal. She has eaten green beans, peas, carrots, squash, bananas & apples. She wasn't a big fan of bananas at first, but seems to really like food in general.



• After 7 months of not having a bedding set for Rya (remember, I had to send back the paisley bedding I got for Christmas last year for Rya b/c the cribskirt didn't match) I finally ordered the same bedding again. I kept going back and forth whether I wanted the bedding set or not b/c I couldn't really decide if I thought it was necessary, but finally I decided I really did want Rya to have it. =) We still had the matching lamp, and I looked for a bumper and cribskirt separately that would match, but didn't have any luck finding either. I'm pretty excited about the bedding set, and can't wait until Rya can actually use the comforter!
  

Rya slept well with her new bedding today, and now she's up from her nap so I better go get her. =D Enjoy the short winter! ;)

So merry, so blessed

Wow, where to start?! I’m sad I didn’t blog in November. I really want to blog at least once/month. There seems like so much to update since October!

Rya started not eating much all of a sudden for about 2 weeks maybe. On the worst day, the sitter texted me to give me a heads up that Rya had only had 2 oz all day! She only ate 5 oz at home that morning so she ate 7 oz until 5:00 that night when she finally ate some more for the sitter before going home. That’s when I decided to take her to the doctor to rule out anything. She wasn’t sleeping well the week before that and we just couldn’t figure out the deal, because before then she was sleeping pretty well where we only maybe had to get up with her once overnight and it was just to give her the pacifier and she’d go back to sleep until 6:30 or 6:45.

So I took Rya to the doctor, for what’s only been my second non-scheduled checkup appointment! ;) Doc ruled out an ear infection, and he said Rya was a very healthy 5 month old. She started eating better after that, and then a week or two later, we found a tooth! I don’t know if that had anything to do with it or not, but we wonder. Rya has her first bottom tooth coming in.

Rya could have been waking up abnormally overnight because her room started getting very cold. I won’t say how cold, because it was too cold, ;) but at that time she was also still swaddled, wearing layers & wrapped in 4 blankets! We have since bought a heater that has a thermostat so shuts off when the room gets to a certain temperature, and stopped swaddling Rya. She loves not being swaddled, and did very well not being swaddled from the very first night. We decided it was time to stop swaddling her one, because the sitter hasn’t been swaddling her at naptime for a month or two before then, and two, she was at our mercy to get her pacifier to help her get back to sleep when she woke up overnight; we didn’t think it was right to let her cry if she didn’t have her hands free to help soothe herself back to sleep. Now, she does a pretty good job getting herself back to sleep if she wakes up overnight. This last week, so week number two of not being swaddled, she slept through the night without even making a noise =YAY! We’ve been able to get Rya to bed between 8:30 & 9 (I’m always trying to get her to bed by 8:30, but for some reason, daddy isn’t good at getting her to bed that early!) and she gets up around 6:45. She slept this well every night Sun-Friday, except Wed. night and that was because she had her six-month checkup and shots. Sat. night she woke up a lot, but we were in Olin and it was a late night with little naps all day at Jesse’s mom’s family’s Christmas gathering. So we’re sleeping better, and I’m pretty excited about it! Rya is napping a bit better too, but still won’t sleep 2.5-3 hours in the afternoon like she does at the sitter’s. But I’m ok with it now. We usually get an hour to an hour & a half in the morning, and then an hour & a half in the afternoon of naptime out of Rya at home. She still takes a half hour catnap in the early evenings most nights.

Our baby girl weighed 16.12 lbs. and was 26 1/4” tall at her 6 month checkup. So she’s in the 75th percentile for height and weight, I believe the doctor said. She was in the 90th or 95th for weight, but now she’s moving around more. She rolls, and rolls...and rolls! Why learn to crawl when she can just roll where she wants to go. =] She gets fussy when she gets stuck somewhere and can’t keep rolling! Rya can’t quite sit herself up yet, but will sit and play if you sit her up, and she loves to stand on your lap but she can’t stand on her own yet. In the last week, Rya has started getting on her knees and rocking, about ready to crawl. She will rock back and forth on her shoulders to somewhat "army crawl" when she wants something in front of her. It's so cute! She didn’t usually move much in her crib, but now she is rolling and playing in her crib- sometimes she'll wake up around and babble to herself for a little bit before she fusses to get out, and when we go in to get her, she is diagonal in a corner of her crib, looking up at ua like “what?” :) It's cute, but I’m not looking forward to her moving so much in bed, especially when she can stand and potentially crawl out of bed! Rya is also babbling a lot not and we love the sounds she makes!



Rya has now started eating some peas, and started rice cereal two times/day at about 5.5 months. She's doing really well with it, and seems to like the peas. The doctor recommends adding meats at 8 months, and then finger foods at 9 months. So that’s our plan. I know so many babies started eating cereal at 4 months and foods at 6 months, and I’m not sure why our pediatrician recommends it all so much later, but I was ok with not having to buy food for so long! :) I did finally stop pumping about 2 weeks ago. I got down to pumping only two times/day for two weeks, then I went one week pumping only once/day, and finally stopped. It’s quite a sense of freedom, after 6 months attached to the machine, to be able to put the pump in the closet for a couple years! I can sleep in now, until whenever Rya wakes up, woo hoo!

I’m really going to try to get back to working out now, and hope to get on the elliptical as many nights and weekends as possible. I’m also hoping one of these days Jillian Michaels will be able to kick my butt back into shape! :D I did start playing on a basketball team I played on two years ago through the DSM Rec League, and even get to play right down the street from home in Ankeny. We just play one game Wed. nights, and after my first game, I wasn’t as sore as I expected. That was encouraging. I might be back in shape for the Simpson alumni game; the game that I played in every year since graduating until last year when I was pregnant! ;)

We finally got professional pictures taken of Rya and our family...six months later. We went to Target, and took forever picking out pictures to order! They turned out really well, and we look forward to more milestone pictures of Rya in the future.



Well, that’s all I can think of for updates. We had a wonderful first Thanksgiving and first Christmas as a family of 3. Hope everyone had a merry Christmas and has a happy New Year!

Hooray for an update!

I'm able to update again so soon b/c Rya is actually napping! Yay! I stayed home this weekend while Jesse went to the farm- football lost their first playoff game so the season is over for the Little Cyclones. I think being home and napping in her crib rather than somewhere away from home is important to getting Rya to nap on the weekends. She slept 9-10:30 this morning, with a little fussing around 9:35 for a couple minutes. Then, I got her down for her afternoon nap at 1 and she's still sleeping at 2:30. I'm hoping she'll sleep for at least another hour. She sleeps until 4 most days at the sitter's. So, I've been able to eat lunch & relax, watch football, upload pictures, and blog. I have laundry and dusting to do, but that can be done tomorrow. =] We went to the grocery store in between naps, and I'm just a happy girl right now! Maybe the more suprising thing for me today was that I didn't even have to rock Rya to get her down for her nap. She was wide awake, cooing to herself when I left her in her crib, and she went to sleep. I didn't swaddle her for her naps today, since Eski (daycare provider) doesn't swaddle Rya anymore, and that may also be the key, in addition to actually being home this weekend. She can soothe herself, and is able to move. We may try not swaddling her at night now too. Hopefully, that will result in even better sleep overnight. Last night Rya went to bed about 9:10 and slept until 6:30 this morning, with a little noise at 5:40. It felt good to be able to sleep in until 6:30 this morning! I laid down for an hour this morning when she napped, but didn't really sleep. But I feel good right now!

What else? I know I owe some pictures so here they are-








I bought a little fairy costume for Rya for Halloween so we'll get pictures of that this weekend. Until next time...enjoy the beautiful fall weather. Thanks to Starbucks, I know there are only 57 days until Christmas!


P.S. as I was uploading pictures Rya woke up at 2:45, fussed a little & went back to sleep for about 8 minutes and then woke up again for about 5 mins, went back to sleep for about 5 mins and then woke up again for good. So, she was in her crib for 2:15. I'll take that as a good start. =]

Such a big girl!

Rya is now 4.5 months old and at her 4 month appointment she weighed 15 lbs and was 25 3/4 in. Pretty sure the doctor said she's in the 98th percentile for both! She's such a big girl.

I feel like there is so much to update, and I've been meaning to blog for so many weeks. The longer I go without posting, the more there is to update about...ah... =)

We are still trying to get a good bedtime for Rya. We've been moving back the time we put her to bed and are now getting her down between 9:15-9:45. She was able to sleep until 6 or 6:30 for a while and then all of a sudden the last couple weeks she's been all over the place for wake up times. Sometimes she woke up at 4:15, sometimes 5:30, sometimes 6:10. She never seemed hungry, and couple times we could let her cry back to sleep, a couple times we had to pick her up to get her back to sleep, but I stressed a lot about what to do. I'm so afraid to do something that will cause a bad habit. I'm nervous we're going to do something, or not do something, that will make times harder as she gets older instead of easier. So it's been a hard couple of weeks for me, to say the least. Thursday night though, we got Rya to bed at 9:10 and she slept until 6:40! And Wed. night we got Rya to bed at 9:40 and she slept until 6:20. Last night was the last regular season football game for daddy, but a coach's wife kept Rya with her at her house b/c it was kind of cold. I was nervous about finally getting her to sleep earlier and she sleeping later in the morning and then her getting thrown off with a very late Friday night, but she did well sleeping last night. Naptime on the weekends for me are another story!

Rya does so well sleeping at daycare- she sleeps 9-10:15 & 1-4 every day for the sitter. I try to follow the same routine on the weekends as best I can, and Rya just will not sleep like that for me! :( I may get 30 minutes out of her in the morning, and maybe an hour or two in the afternoon after fighting with her to go down and then if she falls asleep it's not until an hour or two after we started naptime at 1. We have been traveling to the farm a lot the last few weekends though, so I think that may be part of it. If we could just be home more often, I think we could maybe get her to nap better. Once football season is over, I think we will be home more, but while Jesse is gone all weekend for football I prefer to be around family so we either go to the farm when Jesse does get a break from football work to then work on the farm, and go to an Iowa game without me :( or Rya and I go to my parents'. And of course the grandparents are ok with Rya not napping and spending time in their arms. :)

With all that said, I think Rya is starting to teethe! She puts her fingers in her mouth all the time now, and not only sucks but knaws on them. I've felt around but don't feel any teeth yet. She does get rosy cheeks, a runny nose, and a random diaper rash sometimes, and I've read that those are symptoms of teething. And she drools a lot. So I wonder if that has something to do with her sleeping shake up.

The pediatrician said we'll wait until 6 months before starting solids, so Rya is still eating breastmilk and a bottle of formula before bed. I've still been pumping at least 4 times/day, but it's wearing me out! Not only is it zapping me of energy, but it stresses me out all the work it takes to pump and then wash all the bottles and accessories. I just never feel like I have time to relax, at all. So, I'm starting to pump less in order to eventually stop in a month or two. Rya hasn't even finished August's milk in the freezer, so I think I have enough to get her through 6 months. That's the plan right now. Eventually I hope to be able to workout again.

My mom & dad think Rya looks more and more like me. Everyone else says she looks so much like Jesse. :) She's a good mix of us I guess. Whatever the case, we think she's sooo adorable! We just want to gobble her up! She's starting to learn to laugh a little, and she just recently started rolling over from her back to her tummy. She found her feet and now pulls them up every time she's on her back. Jesse and I still look at her so often and think it's surreal we have a baby. We love her so much!

Rya was baptized Sept. 25th in the church Jesse & I were married, and where Jesse was baptized. It was a very nice service. She wore a white dress with orange and teal that my grandma made her.

That's all I can think of to update right now. Sorry no pictures, but I'm not on my computer with them. Next time, whenever that is, I'll get pictures posted. We've got some cute ones! ;)

Oh, we're excited for Rya to have TWO new cousins to play with come March- Rya's godparents uncle Nate and aunt Jess are having twins! =)