What's for Dinner?

I absolutely love staying home with Ryan everyday. It's such a joy to watch her grow and see all of her new developments. She's been working on a tooth and it popped through today! After a few hectic months during the summer ended, I knew I had to create a schedule for myself during the day. I was determined that I was going to TRY to stay on top of everything...housework, bills, service, meals, V.T., etc. I have always been an organized person (important papers are filed alphabtically, clothes are hung according to color, towels are folded and put away by color, Billy's ties are hung on a tie rack; not so tidy, but still hung, etc.), but was never one to have a schedule (ironic right?). I always knew in my head what needed to be done and then I'd do it. Since I'm home now I decided that it was about time to have a somewhat consistent schedule. For example, I always dust everything in the house on Monday. Tuesdays I sweep, mop, and vacuum. Each day I do something different so that I'm done with everything by Friday. I babysit my niece and nephew on Fridays and this was the best way to get things done so that I don't have to worry about doing anything when they're here and on the weekends. I am pleased to say that it is working out great! I love having a clean house. It's also really nice having the weekends open to do things together as a family other than cleaning. Billy is in charge of the yard. If you were to have looked at it a couple of weeks ago (Billy just did a bunch of yard work) you would have been afraid to see the inside. Trees needed to be trimmed, weeds needed to be pulled, a palm tree was falling over b/c of the wind, etc. I have been trying really hard not to make it a big deal b/c he is so busy right now; so it was nice when he decided (on his own) one morning that he was going to do yard work.
In addition to my new found schedule, I also created a monthly dinner calendar. I hated not knowing what I was going to make for dinner everyday and then going to the grocery store just to come home missing ingredients b/c I didn't plan anything out. It has also allowed me to try new recipes, instead of eating the same things over and over. My dinner calendar has been a success. Tonight we ate this: pork tenderloin with mashed potatoes and homemade gravy, zuccinni, and baked apples. It's not the greatest picture, but it was delicious! I love to cook and Billy loves to eat. It works great!

1 Photo Shoot, 10 min., 1 Happy Girl!

A couple of weeks ago we got Ryan's 6 mo. pictures taken. Every picture turned out so cute! Those places get you...they give you these beautiful pictures of your children and make you pick which ones you want. Needless to say, we had a hard time picking. After 1 hr. of looking repeatedly at each picture and Billy wanting every one (he's such a softie), we ended up with the CD. What can I say: Ryan's just so photogenic! So I know there are a lot of pictures, but we had to share some of them! Enjoy!

Pretty Ryan!

Ryan 6 months!

All over the place!

Ryan started crawling a couple of weeks ago and she is now all over the place. She doesn't do the army crawl....she does the full on crawl! She is so cute, but I'm quickly learning that I have to watch her extra carefully around everything, esp. since she started to pull herself up onto things. She now tries to pull herself up to get to the buttons on the TV, pulls herself up when she sees something on the couch, etc. She's only stood up a couple of times, it's usually a kneeling position, but either way, it makes me nervous that she's going to fall over. I don't know when most babies do these things, but she still seems kinda young (6 1/2 mo.) to me to be doing this. She doesn't have her balance down yet, which usually results in me catching her as she starts to fall over. I haven't let her crawl on the tile yet b/c she still will face plant or sit up and lose her balance and fall over and I don't want her hitting her head on the tile.
Although she's getting into everything, she's so much fun! She has a walker that she likes to walk around in usually resulting in her following me around while I'm cleaning, taking a shower, or even going to the bathroom. She wants to be wherever I am! Every stage has been so much fun and I look forward to continuing to watch her grow!