Alice's 5th Birthday - Pie in the Face

Five is such an exciting age I could hardly get a photo of Alice she was bouncing around so much!  She got a cute "French" outfit from Aunt Janelle's family and some legos from Clyde.  Aunt Shelley got her some golf clubs because she'd told me she wanted to golf.  Shelley and I went to the driving range at the McCall course with her and she had fun but she said she didn't think it would be so hard. 

Alice and Marnie Smith shared a party again.  Alice had asked for a "pie in the face" birthday so I put together a carnival with games, tickets and prizes.  It was fun but a little crazy.  Clyde and Mackenzie volunteered at the "Pie in the Face" booth.  Alice really seemed to enjoy it.  We served corn dogs, popcorn, fruit, homemade mac'n'cheese, and cupcakes.  I couldn't have pulled it off without Teresa's help in the kitchen!

Mommy turned 40!

I had a great time in the spring meeting up with Duke friends in Las Vegas, and then I got to have my very own birthday hosted by Shelley Davis at Jug Mountain.  Friends from childhood (Joe Aburusa, Kendall Hayes), friends from law school (Shelley, Katie Ball, Jill Twedt, Kristin Bjorkman, Charina Newell, Meghan Sullivan who's also a friend from childhood), neighbors (the Wards), friends from Boise (Hollis Brookover, Kay Hardy, Heather Glass), and my dad all joined me and it was really fun to have people from all different parts of my life celebrate with me.

Babies, Babies, and Baby Showers

We've been getting a lot of these new babies at the ranch:

And two of my dear friends are expecting their own babies, so I've been doing a lot of showering, which means a lot of baking, cooking and crafting. 

I made two of these "fabric beachballs" - one with stars and a multicolor animal print, the other with brown and green animal prints.   They were pretty easy and a good toy/decoration combo.  We decorated my mother's front entry with some vintage baby clothes:

 I made a diaper cake for the first time... there are about 100 diapers in there!

Here's the other beachball and the lion cake.  I "invented" a new mode of cake decorating, cute and less labor intensive.  I make a fondant cake topper that I simply place on top of a buttercream frosted cake.  I painted a lot of the pieces with gel food color thinned with vodka.  It worked really well.  You could even reuse the topper.

For the other shower, I also added marshmallows for texture and then even used them instead of a piped border to "caulk" the line between cake and plate.  

So excited to meet the new babies and I hope they aren't too much like this:

Stories with Santa 2011

We headed to the Arid Club again for "Stories with Santa" accompanied by Aunt Shelley (who was a little tired but always fun), the Wises (look at Martin's bright blue eyes!), the Overalls, Mumsy and Kay.  It was the first year that both kids were really happy to see Santa.  There weren't quite as many people as previous years but the kids seemed a little wilder this time.  Another little Harrison (not our sweet one) befriended Alice and they ran around like mad people.  We all had fun.



Visitors & Pony Rides

Ben was really busy working and we weren't quite up for company through the winter. We made up for it these last two weeks. On the 30th, we had dinner for Mumsy, Gayle, Tommy, Sharon, JG, Rollins, Kay & Gregory (turkey dinner, mmmmm). The 1st Ben's family & some friends came for lunch and pony rides (about 35 people). The 2nd my childhood friends Joe & Mike came with their families (that's who the photo is of - 5 kids & 4 adults plus us). The 3rd Shelley called and wound up coming over with 3 Seattle area friends and their 3 children. We had just gotten the house clean when Erin's family came to town, so we had a big Rydalch dinner on the 8th (about 35 people again). Then on the 9th it was branding day so I made homemade rolls, potato salad and banana muffins for that and Janelle's family came over for our 0-1-2-3-4 photos and breakfast (huckleberry pancakes, elk sausage and fruit). On Sunday the 10th, Merche called and brought Chispe and her 5 kids out for pony rides and to feed the calves. So our tally was around 100 for the last couple of weeks and we have more coming this weekend. It's fun to be able to share our home, yard & animals with so many good friends and our families. The kids love seeing their cousins and friends.

Swimming at Zim's

We took a month's worth of lessons at Zim's Hot Springs in New Meadows. The instructor was nice enough to let me have two kids in the same class. Clyde worked with her most of the time and I worked with Alice. Auntie Shelley came up this past weekend and we went up to Zim's again. It's a really funny place, hasn't been updated in ages. There's a giant pool they keep in the 90-100 range and a large shallow hot pool they keep around 105. My great great grandparents actually built the first bathhouse there in about 1905 and their photo is up on the wall still. It was called Yoakum hot springs then. It's fun to think that 6 generations of my mom's family has been swimming in the same hot springs. The kids love it.

Animals...

We went to the zoo because they got some new animals and my dad (and Uncle Josh) made some cool benches to go with them. Here are the benches:


There were some cool elephants, but they didn't move, not even when I touched them:

You know what did move? The lion! When she saw me, she ran over and tried to give me a high five, but there was glass in the way. Mommy was kind of scared and Daddy was really surprised. They said that lion wanted to eat me! Another animal that moved pretty fast was the giraffe. It was scared of a squirrel and ran back to its barn. Here I am looking at the giraffe with my Auntie Shelley:

I like seeing all the animals and their nice new cages. There was even a little cage for me:

But I don't have to go to a zoo to see animals. Our neighbors got about thirty chickens. Mom thinks that's too many. Here they are, trying to come into our yard...

It took a week or so, but they finally figured it out:

Happy Halloween!!

My mom keeps dressing me up in this uncomfortable orange sack with a hood. I can't hear anything and it falls over my eyes! Everyone smiles and laughs at me. I don't get it.



This is my "Abuela" Merche. She is my mom's godmother. She comes and visits me and sings songs.


Elliott and I went for a ride in my new red wagon in our pumpkin outfits. It was kind of cold!



I'm eating cereal now, and sometimes vegetables. I like food. I see my mom and dad eating all kinds of good smelling things and I wish I could too!


My "auntie" Shelley came for trick or treating and she got a silver can full of liquid. She's a fun lady.



This is my friend, Olivia. She lives down the street and comes to visit me sometimes. Her parents put a funny outfit on her too. I think all parents might be crazy!!

My Second Month

Mom and I go to the doctor's office every week to see how big I'm getting -- I'm getting huge (I was 11 pounds 2 ounces on July 13th)! It's been over a hundred degrees here in Boise and our house gets pretty hot, so I like to hang out like this:


This is the outfit I wear so mom won't call me "the baby":


This is one of my cowboy outfits; it came from Georgia:


We've been taking more baths now and I sure like it. I've gone in a couple of pools too. Daddy holds on tight so I won't drown, but I float pretty well.


Here I am with my Grandpa Rydalch:


Twenty three of my Rydalch cousins and ten of my aunts and uncles came over for a barbecue so we could meet before I had my surgery. They are really fun. All my cousins were having a water fight with my daddy, but I was too little to play (maybe next time). My Aunts Britta, Kristen and Erin held me a lot and it was fun.

This is my "Auntie" Shelley. She comes over to see me a lot and we hang out.

Here I am at two months with my bunny. See how much bigger I am!