Newest family member

So we added a new family member on Tuesday December 21. Her name is Bella (and no she is not named after the Twilight character!) and she was born on October 26th. She is a yellow lab puppy and soooooo cute. We had talked for quite a while about getting a dog. Timing wise it may seem like she was supposed to be a Christmas present but that was not our intention. Jason found out on Monday that a coworker had a litter just turning 8 weeks and so we went out to see them. We then came away with Bella. It was between her and one of her brothers but you could tell that her brother (even though he was super mellow) was going to be a really big lab. So we decided on Bella since she was smaller and very sweet. She is also pretty mellow but absolutely loves to cuddle!

This is just after her first bath at home.
How could anyone resist!!!
Need I say more?

(Oh yeah, I'll let you know how housebreaking goes)

Recap of April's activities.

April was a busy month for us. Grandma and Grandpa Sturm came out to visit for two weeks. Danica had a blast playing with them. She even got to take Grandma to preschool with her for a day. Very handy that her sharing day coincided with their visit. One of the things that we did while they were here was drive east through the mountains for a little ways. I had not taken them in that direction before so it was all new scenery for them. It was pretty nice when we left Salem but in about an hour and a half we were driving through some pretty good snow! We had to stop and get out to enjoy it!

Danica absolutely loves snow. Most likely because it is pretty rare here. I'm sure if it was cold and snowed all the time she wouldn't like it any more.
Throwing snowballs with Grandma.
You can kinda see the snow falling in the background. She was so excited by the snow she wouldn't stand still for a picture.
They left Minnesota in April definitely not expecting to see snow in Oregon!
We also spent some time at the beach. It is a requirement when they are here. Not even kidding about that. My dad is happy as a clam at the coast. Danica spent quite a bit of time sticking sticks in the sand. Any stick she found she would try to stand it up in the sand. Most of time pretty successful at it too.
I swear this rock was not staged. It looked like that when we found it. So cool. And much less creepy once it was out of the sand. But still cool.
She loves the beach! But hates the wind. So definitely a love/hate relationship with the Oregon coast for her.
Daddy showing her how to skip rocks. She though he was very cool for being so good at it.
Danica also took a music class during the winter and spring. One of Jason's coworkers is a music therapist and started doing a kids music class in her home during the evenings. It was really nice to be able to do that with Danica since so many of those types of classes are during the day while we are working.
Danica really enjoyed the classes. She loved the story time and playing the instruments. And dancing around too of course!

The drums were always a big hit with the kids. She doesn't go to the classes anymore since this summer. She was the oldest in the class and was getting beyond it. Maybe in the next year or so she will get to start piano lessons. We'll see.

I took my folks out to the tulip farm here. I love going out there. It is just so beautiful. Fields of colors as far as you can see.
I have a picture of Danica sitting in these shoes when she was a baby! I was so happy to see that they still had them there and that I found them.
It was very hard for her to not touch the flowers. When she sees a flower she is compelled to pick it. Not a problem when it is a weed...problem when it is someone else's yard or there are signs saying "do not pick the flowers!"
She also got a two wheeler bike from Grandma and Grandpa. I had been waiting until they got here for this because as much as she wanted one we could not get her to sit on one in the store without her freaking out thinking that she was going to fall over. However...since it was special from Grandpa and Grandpa she was willing to give it a try. (after a little freak out in Walmart--but hey it's Walmart, I know she wasn't the most annoying person there by far!)

Her first time on the bike inside the house. It is now only ridden outside but for the most part she only rode her trike inside. It's Oregon, it rains all the time. And she could steer that thing like nobody's business.

Playing catch-up

Worst blogger ever award goes to.....Me!

I'll give you a rundown of what has been happening in the Oregon Ryther household over the last few months.

• My Mom and Dad (Bill and Lou) came out to visit for 2 weeks at the end of April.
• Danica finished up her first year of pre-school in May.
• We had our house on the market trying to sell so we could get into something a little bigger that suited us better out here in Oregon. Unfortunately we weren't able to get it sold before the tax credit expired and nobody (and I mean NOone) was buying houses after it did.
• We took our house off the market and are now trying to make it a little better for us since it appears that we will be staying in it for the time being.

Needless to say we have been in such a state of limbo for most of the summer. Not knowing if our house was going to sell or when it would sell and timing everything really sucked. But now we are doing our best to make some changes to this house including a new shed and re-organizing the garage. I am also redoing Danica's room since we had told her she was going to get a new room in a new house and was very excited. Still working on her room but it should be done in the next week or so and then I will post some pictures.

I will do a few catch up posts with some pics from the summer. Danica has changed so much in just the last couple of months! Gone is the toddler/preschooler type to definite little girl. She has also gotten taller which sometimes throws me off guard when I'm not expecting it.

We are very excited that we will be coming to MN for 3 weeks in November. Danica will be turning 5 and I am happy that we will be around family for that milestone.

Jason and I still have our jobs (in this economy you never know!) and for the most part are happy with them. We've had a very weird weather summer out here. It didn't really seem to start until July and now it is over already. Hopefully the winter isn't too terrible. (I know it's all relative to where you live!)

Hopefully I will keep up with the blogging more. I know that some of you have been missing the pictures of Danica.

Happy 90th Birthday Grandma Lillian!

We just wanted to send out a big Happy Birthday to Jason's Grandma Lillian Ryther. She is turning 90 and we wish that we could have been there for it. We also wanted to wish all the Moms out there a Happy Mother's Day on Sunday!

First Race!

Danica ran in her very first race last Saturday. Here in Salem there is the Awesome 3000. It has been going on for 28 years and is a race for kids through grade 5, I believe. This year they had over 3200 kids participate in the race. Danica's age was the second to last to run and thankfully the weather was good for it! Fortunately we didn't have to be there any earlier than half and hour before the race started.

She was so excited to run in it. For the kids ages 3, 4 and 5 groups a parent has to run with them. So Jason got to run it with her. The length of her race was 300 meters.

Danica and Daddy before the race. It was very crowded but very well organized as well.
Waiting out on the field for the race to begin. Fortunately her friend Sophia was running in the 3 yr old race and they were able to wait next to each other. I was up in the stands so I was very happy to have my zoom lens with me!
Coming across the finish line! She did very well and ran the whole way. I was happy that they were more towards the front of the finishers because once you got farther into it it became difficult to see the kids.
I had a great seat for seeing them cross the line!
Waving to me while getting off the track.

After the race she got a medal and a Clifford book. She also got her orange tee shirt with the awesome 3000 alligator on it. She loves it.

When you ask her about the race she says "I had to keep up with Daddy!" If you ask "did he run fast?" She replies "Just a little bit...not too fast"

They are supposed to be putting the race online and when they do I'll check and see if you can see them. If so I'll post where it can be seen.

Snow!

We had one of our rare snowfalls a little after Christmas. Danica absolutely loves snow. Probably because it only sticks around for a little while and isn't too cold. We had a good amount (and by that I mean an inch) on the ground and so she went outside to play. Her little neighbor friend Ryann was already out playing and the two of them had a blast in the snow.

They chased after each other and tried to throw snowballs. They had a great time chasing after Ryann's two kittens that didn't know what to make of the snow.
They quickly realized that right at their height was a bunch of snow on the bumpers of the cars.
Having to pose as usual.
Very proud of her snow.

The snow falling changed to rain later and by morning the snow was pretty much gone.

Better late than never!

So it has taken me awhile to get these pictures up...at least it is not quite Christmas in July! Just February. Our computer took a nosedive and we have to get a new one. So we converted to a Mac and I am still figuring out how to use it. I love it though! Never back to a PC for me!

Danica had a blast this Christmas. She loved having the tree and was very much into Santa this year. We never really mentioned Santa to her so she most likely picked it up from other kids and Dora (thanks to a Christmas episode). We have decided in our house that Santa brings the presents in the stockings and people give presents under the tree. This is so she doesn't think that Santa is the only one who brings presents and gives full credit for gifts to the givers!

She loved everything that she got this year. Her expressions were priceless and of course I didn't think to record her opening her stocking and that was the best part! We celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve because I worked on Christmas Day. We did the whole cookies for Santa and everything. We let her open the stocking right away in the morning but waited for the other presents until the afternoon.

Showing off all the presents under the tree!

Christmas pic with Mommy.

Christmas pic with Daddy.

Handing out the presents. She loved watching other people open their presents. She gets so excited to see what they got.

Trying to angle her way under the tree to get the present she was aiming for.

Very carefully unwrapping her present. Followed by an enthusiastic "Thanks Mom!" no matter who the present was from

One of her (and Daddy's) favorite presents was the Lite Brite. I randomly ran across one in Target and had to get it. Partly because I knew that she would like it and partly because I had always wanted one as a kid and never got one.