Miss Aubrey at 2.5 Days Old

We finally got a chance to meet the newest Moore on Wednesday. I just can't believe that Ryan was ever that small! She weighed in at 8 pounds and has lost a little bit of weight (all newborns do), but still, I can't believe Ryan took over a month to get to 8 pounds! It's craziness. It seems like Mom is doing well. She was all dressed up when I got there and is looking good. Aubrey already has a head full of hair and if you ask me, it looks curly already! I bet Jessica can't wait to buy lots of cute bows. :) Congrats again!!!

Ryan and Santa Claus

Ryan did great with Santa! After patiently waiting in line (and climbing all over me), Ryan crawled over to Santa and when I put Ryan in Santa's lap, he tried to pull Santa's beard! Once we got him settled down, Ryan smiled for the camera, and this was the first shot. Luckily, we went after Ryan's My Gym class, so he was a little tired and in a great mood. It's all about the timing. :)

I tried to look for a really cute classic Christmas outfit for the picture, but I couldn't find anything that I liked, so we ended up with this outfit from Babystyle that has a Santa Pirate (there's an eye patch over Santa's eye) on the front that says "Yo Ho Ho" and on the butt of the pants, it says "Pirate's Booty." It's not exactly the pristine cute outfit I was hoping for, but that isn't my baby anyways. :)

Welcome to the World Aubrey Lynn!

On Monday, November 26th at 9:21 AM, Ryan got a new friend by the name of Aubrey Lynn. She weighed in at 8 pounds even and measured 20.9 inches. We can't wait to meet the new lady in Ryan's life. Congratulations to Mama Jessica and Papa Ken!

Ergo Baby

My favorite new piece of baby gear is the ergo baby carrier. It's kind of like a backpack that can carry Ryan. It puts the baby's weight more on your hips as opposed to your shoulders. I thought that once Ryan was old enough to go into a regular stroller as opposed to his snap 'n go, that he'd like being in there and wouldn't mind being strolled around. It turns out that his stroller happy time is only about 10 minutes with a form of distraction. He does better if the stroller is constantly moving, but he still can get pretty fussy. Wearing him is the only way that I can get any shopping done!

I tried putting Ryan in the Baby Bjorn a little over a month ago and my back was killing me within the first five minutes. I loved the Baby Bjorn, which is rated up to 22 pounds (my guess is that Ryan was about 17 pounds at the time), but it was time to move on. I did a ton of research and found www.thebabywearer.com. It's an excellent resource with reviews for a lot of baby carriers. I've only learned how to wear Ryan in the front carry position, but I hope to get comfortable enough to use the side and back carry positions. My only complaint is that you have to be a little bit of a gumby to get it on!

Da-Da-Da

The weekend before Thanksgiving, I went on a mad shopping spree and Steven stayed home to watch Ryan (and college football). When I got back, Steven said that Ryan was babbling all day long. Ryan is generally pretty mute. Ryan usually cries when he's upset, hurt, hungry, etc and he shrieks/yells when he gets excited about things. Before bed time, he's more prone to laugh and just vocalize, but never really babble. Most of the time, he's fairly quiet. Sure enough, Ryan was just babbling away. He kept on saying da-da-da. It was so cute in his high pitched baby voice! He did it again on Sunday, a little bit on Monday, but that's been pretty much it. He'll say it sometimes if you urge him too, but otherwise, he's back to being fairly quiet. We're counting da-da as his first word.

When we got back into town from Corpus on Sunday, Ryan started saying "hey Daddy" in a low voice. It was the weirdest thing ever and Steven and I couldn't stop laughing out loud! We don't know what happened to our sweet high pitched da-da-da! Now if we can only get him to realize that when he says da-da that it's Steven he's referring to!

Congratulations to Neha and Rootvik!!!

Neha and Rooty tied the knot in an extremely elaborate affair this past weekend in Corpus Christie. We went to the garba on Friday night where EVERYONE, I really mean everyone, danced the night away. All I have to say is that stick dance is pretty impressive! The ceremony was on Saturday morning where the groom arrived in a horse drawn carriage. We were hoping that he'd come in on an elephant, but there was no such luck. The pics on the left were taken during the ceremony. The reception was on Saturday night. It began with a video, dances and speeches and ended in some more serious dancing. I now know where "raise the roof" came from! We had a fabulous time. We wish the newlyweds all the love and happiness in the world and if their new life together is anything like their wedding, they'll be one happy couple.

It was the first time for both me and Steven to leave Ryan Lion and guess what? We made it through and I think Ryan had a great time making Grandma, Grandpa, Tio Loco and Tia Maria chase after him. He's been going through some serious separation anxiety lately, so we were a bit worried, but he took to the grandparents really easily, so we knew we didn't have to worry. He did take awhile to warm up to Tia Maria though, he even went to RJ first!

I almost forgot to mention that while we were in Corpus, we ate at THE two story Whataburger. Yep, it's practically legendary! We also drove to Port Aransas during the break on Saturday. The road dead ended into the ferry line, so we actually had to drive on the road, in the wrong direction to get to the other side. It kind of reminded me of the Houston flood where we drove in the wrong direction on Beltway 8. Good times. It was good to hang out the PPA'ers too. It's been 4.5 years since we graduated and it felt like no time had passed at all. I miss you guys! Another fun thing was getting to see people that Neha has introduced me to over the years. It was fun chatting with them too. Anyways, it was a great weekend. I can't wait until the next PPA wedding. Hint hint people!

I know, I know...I'm the WORST blogger ever

So much has been going on with Ryan Lion that I just haven't had any time to blog about it! Ever since the time change, he wakes up at 6:30 and goes to bed around 7:30 and only takes two naps during the day for about an hour each and the rest of the time, we like to call him our little path of destruction. Ryan is all over the place these days. About a month ago, he started crawling on all fours and climbing like crazy. He learned how to climb the stairs on the third try and every chance he gets, he bolts over to the stairs to start climbing. He can pull up on almost anything now, including his swing, the piano bench and my legs. As of a couple of weeks ago, he's really gotten good at getting himself into the sitting position from whatever position he's in.

Ryan's favorite toy is still his Laugh 'n Learn home that he got from Tia Maria and Tio Loco for his baptism. He's figured out how to spin the sun/moon wheel so that it sings either way he turns it. He uses the stool at the base to stand on and turn the dials of the clock and pick out shapes from the shape sorter. Ryan also loves knocking down his stacking cups. He's gotten so good at it that he doesn't even have to look at them anymore! Sometimes he's so eager to knock them down that he won't even wait until you've finished building the tower. Ryan loves playing with his lift-the-flap books. He pulls on the flaps so hard that a lot of them are practically torn off of the book! He loves the books that makes noises too. His favorite is the Baby Einstein book that plays the classical music.

It is now impossible to place Ryan in either his jumper or his exersaucer. He's learned how to pull up on both and he'll play with the toys from the outside. If he's in a fairly good mood, you can put him in his play pen. If he's not in a good mood, you'll certainly hear from him that he wants out! At the kid's gym, he's learned how to hang from a bar, so he's been doing that on the bar on the side of the play pen. It won't be long before he climbs over the top!

We've finally put up baby gates to block off the living room as a safe place for him to play. He plays a game we like to call "baby jail" where he sits or stands right next to the gate and pulls on it while crying. Let me tell you, it's a really sad sight.

Ever since he turned 9 months. we've started giving him table food. He loves being able to feed himself, but I do have to admit that it gets pretty messy quick! He loves bananas, just like his daddy. He's also a fan of cheerios and as of lately, blueberries. He's really not a waffle fan, but he'll still eat some if it's in front of him. We still try to give him jars of baby food from time to time, but he still tries to feed himself by grabbing the spoon and sticking it into his mouth, that is, if he's aimed correctly!

Ryan's 9 month doctor's appointment went well. Ryan weighed in at 18 pounds and 12 ounces (30th percentile) and was 28.5 inches tall (75th percentile). He's back to being a string bean. Luckily for us, there was no shots this time around. Yay! But, he did have a blood draw; all of his test results came back normal.

We had a fabulous Thanksgiving where Ryan got to meet a ton of his Great Unlces and Aunts, and his first cousins once removed. Yes, we looked up all of these terms online. :) We are HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE parents and did not get any pictures of him on his first Thanksgiving. Hopefully Auntie Al (who is really his first cousin once removed) will post the pics that she took of him. I'm so bummed that I don't have a scrapbook page for Thanksgiving! He was dressed in one of the first outfits that Steven and I ever bought him. It's an argyle sweater vest with plaid pants. It's the dorkiest/cutest outfit ever. We'll have to do a photo shoot with him wearing it, it's so cute! We also did the traditional hot pot for dinner. Ryan even had turkey and some mashed sweet potatoes. Yummy!

I've been feeling really crafty lately. Whenever the weather starts to get cooler, I always want to knit. This season of knitting all started with the pumpkin hat that I made for Ryan for Halloween. Since then, I've made him a Snowman hat (isn't it the cutest thing ever?) and a red and white stripped hat. The striped hat was my first time making a pompom. They're so much fun to make, I'm definitely going to make more soon. I also knitted Gryffindor colored leg warmers for K Ry's birthday and a newborn hat. As far as paper goes, I've been trying to scrapbook more, but I'm really not getting much done since I haven't gone to a Scrapmania in forever. I made personalized stationary for Mel and Al for their birthdays. Right now I'm working on making baby shower invitations, bachelor/bachelorette party invitations and Christmas cards. Making invites/cards is a lot of fun, but it kind of makes me sad to give it all away! There are so many more things that I want to knit/make, but Ryan keeps me really occupied during the day!

Okay, that's all that I can think of for now. I will really try to update more and definitely take more pictures of my growing boy!