Autumn in Kentucky

I had been dying to go hiking before it got too cold, but Brad had been so busy with the last few weeks of one of his classes that we just hadn't had time. But finally last weekend was the perfect weather and Brad finally had a weekend at home so we decided to go hiking at natural bridge in Slade, Kentucky. It is a hike up to a bridge made out of natural stone. It was a beautiful hike and was difficult enough to get some decent exercise, but still not too hard with kids. Aiden had a few break downs on the way up over goldfish snacks, but was happy the rest of the time. We missed the the full color of the trees  because lots of the leaves had already fallen off, but it was still really beautiful.

 I am king of the tree stump!

 Yeah the sun was directly in our eyes...

We didn't have any pictures of the bridge from a distance, but here is a picture I found on the internet so you can see what we were standing on top of.

 Daddy's are the best :) Especially when they pretend to be a race car with you the entire way back down.

Halloween Arrgh

This Halloween was so much fun for Aiden. I asked him if he wanted to be a ghost or a pirate and he chose a pirate (much to my delight!) I bought a costume online, but it did not come in time for our church Trunk or Treat, but it came in time for Halloween hence the two different pirate outfits in the pictures. Aiden was so excited. When I asked him if he wanted to go get his pirate costume he yelled "YEAH!" And ran as fast as he could towards the stairs. It was so cute :) I found great pirate accessories such as his sword and eye patch at target for a dollar! The accessories also included a little pirate telescope, pirate hook, and pirate coins (he carried those around in his bucket.) Ryder was supposed to be a parrot for Halloween, but all I managed to make for him was a orange beak for his head that he wore to the trunk or treat and I wanted to make more for his costume before Halloween....but what can I say? I failed. I was just so busy and I realized last minute that the fabric glue I needed and thought I had somehow leaked and dried up in my craft box so....Ryder had a beak at Trunk or treat and he just wore a cute raccoon beanie on Halloween and that was his costume. I know...lame. 

But we all had fun and on Halloween we went with our friends Matt and Mallory and their cute little girl Gatlin to go trick or treating. She was a cupcake and they had fun riding in the wagon together. For days after Halloween Aiden kept asking to go trick or treating again. He loved it!

Give me yer booty ye scallywag!

We also had lots of fun carving pumpkins and Aiden was also SO excited for this Halloween activity. He had fun helping Daddy carve out the gooey insides and drawing the outline of the face on the front.

 Eww...slimy.

 I think I want Dad's lollypop.

 easy success.

Growing Boys

Just thought I would post some recent photos of Aiden and Ryder.

Ryder is now a little over 2 months and at his six week check-up he weighed 11 1/2 pounds. He is getting so big and it is so fun to try to get him to smile and to coo. He has not given us a full out laugh yet, but he sure loves to smile.

Aiden is becoming more and more independent and he loves to try to do everything by himself. Which is sometimes a little frustrating, but that is part of growing up I guess. He also has discovered the fun of dancing and the other day we had him dancing to Maroon 5 for at least an hour. We also got him his first pet the other day- a blue Beta fish he named Blackhead. He changed over to a big boy bed a while ago, but here are the pictures I never got the chance to put up of him in his bed.

I Love My Boys

"Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."

~Elizabeth Stone

Someone posted this quote on Facebook and I just loved it because it is true to how I feel about having my children. My children and Brad are the joys of my life and they truly bring out my deepest and most sincere feelings of love and happiness. It is falling in love all over again every time one of them comes into this world. What a miraculous and wonderful thing! I am so grateful for my sweet boys.

Ryder Michael Griffitts

Ok, so it has been almost two weeks now, and we feel it is about time to put up pictures of the

new little guy! Ryder was born July 25 at 12:55 in the afternoon. He weighed in at a skinny 6 lbs 7 ounces and 18.5 inches. We weren't expecting him to be a big baby, but we were kind of expecting him to be bigger than Aiden who was 7 lbs 5 ounces.

And when he decided to come he came in a hurry! I started to have uncomfortable contractions Sunday night starting at 11 or 12, but I was able to still sleep through them until about 3:30 in the morning. So, I woke Brad up at about 4 or so and told him that we should go to the hospital. Our wonderful friends Jim and Tina came over and watched Aiden while we were gone so that both Brad and my mom could come to the hospital. All weekend I had been really crampy and having lots of braxton hicks so I thought that I was for sure dilated to a 4 or so since they had just checked me the Thursday before and I was at a 2-3. Anyways, they checked me and I was still only at a 2-3. So, they waited an hour or two and checked me again and I still hadn't progressed, which was crazy because some of the contractions were really strong. So, I stayed another hour or two and then my midwife came and checked me and I had progressed to a 3-4, but she told me she thought I was just still in early labor and that I should probably just go home where I was more comfortable and come back when I could not talk or walk through contractions. I was pretty skeptical of going home just because I felt like if I just walked around some that things would get going pretty fast, but my mom and Brad were pretty uncomfortable and tired at the hospital. So I decided that we should just go home and try to get some sleep and take showers. But by the time we were almost home I was already feeling pretty painful contractions again and I almost wanted to tell Brad just to go back to the hospital, but I decided to stick it out a little longer. When we got home I took a shower and tried to nap, but I could barely stand during the contractions I was having after my shower and I could not sleep because I was so uncomfortable. When I stood up after trying to rest they were so painful I knew we had better hurry and get back to the hospital. So, I woke my mom up and told her that we need to leave right now! Brad had to take Aiden to his sister's house so me and my mom headed to the hospital and Brad was going to meet us there after he dropped Aiden off. Well, the car ride to the hospital was TERRIBLE. I was having REALLY painful, strong contractions and once we got to the hospital and my mom was wheelchairing me to labor and delivery I started thinking that maybe I waited too long to come back to the hospital. My plan was to try to have an epidural this time around, but like I said I was starting to realize that things were going way to fast, but I was still desperately clinging to the idea that I would be able to get one. So, as soon as we got into the labor and delivery room I was feeling even worse and when the labor nurse was able to check me I was at an 8! I could not believe it! Well, I kinda could believe it because I was in so much pain, but I was still kinda shocked. My mom called Brad right away and told him he had better hurry because I was about to have the baby. And just about 3 or 4 bad contractions after arriving I felt like I wanted to push. The nurse called my midwife and told her she had better hurry if she wanted to deliver my baby and the nurse checked me again right before the midwife arrived and sure enough I was at a 10. As soon as my midwife came in she told me I could start pushing if I wanted and I was SO happy to hear her say that. She asked if I wanted to wait for Brad or go ahead and I said no I was not going to wait. But right after she asked that Brad came in and I started pushing. I pushed through 3 contractions and Ryder was out! I still cannot believe how fast everything was! The nurse told me afterwards that it was only 20 minutes from when I got to the hospital to when Ryder was born. I could not believe it! I was happy everything went so fast since I ended up not being able to get an epidural, but it was crazy to think what could have happened or gone wrong if I had waited any longer to get to the hospital. I feel so blessed and happy that everything went well and that Brad was able to make it on time. I was just kind of expecting things to go similarly to how things went when I was in labor with Aiden, but I was way off.

We are so happy to have little Ryder in our home. He is such a good baby! He does not fuss at all except for when he gets his diaper changed. When he is awake he will just lie there and look around and is just so content. And he only wakes up once or twice at night to eat and he goes right back to sleep. When he was in my belly he was always very calm and laid back. If we tried to push on him or interact with him in my belly he would just kinda move away and not really try to push back (which was opposite of Aiden who would kick and move around a ton). So, we were thinking he was maybe going to be a really mellow baby and we were right! He is so sweet and mellow and happy. He has definitely made the transition to having two kids much easier than I thought it was going to be. Although, the true test will start tomorrow when Brad starts school again and I am totally alone with just the two of them :) I might change my mind haha.

Happily at home

In his car seat for the first time coming home.

Aiden already being an awesome big brother.

What a handsome stud!

Proud Daddy :)

One of the only times he cried after he was born.

Happy mom and grandma :)

Aiden Turned 2!

So Aiden turned 2 years old last week. He is getting so big, Jessie and I can hardly believe it. It feels like we just took him home from the hospital a couple of weeks ago. We have loved every minute of our time with him and are so grateful to have him in our lives.

These past couple of weeks Aiden has grown so much and made some HUGE steps towards becoming an even bigger little boy. Aiden, for one thing, is now POTTY TRAINED!!! He now goes all day in big boy Cars underwear with Lightning McQueen and Mater on them. I for one never thought we would be able to potty train him before he even turned two years old, but he was definitely ready. For months he has been very aware of when he had to go to the bathroom. We were a little hesitant to try it, but figured it would be worth a try. One weekend, we decided to just have him run around naked and try to get him to go to the bathroom in his new little kid potty (thank you for the potty, Jim and Tina!). After peeing on the floor 3 or 4 times we finally got him to pee in the potty, and everything has actually been very smooth sailing since. In fact he hasn't had an accident in over a week. He is such a little stud. At night and during his naps he is still using a diaper, and we are at a loss about how and when to tackle that next obstacle. In any case, we are so proud of him. We don't even have to hound him too much about going to the bathroom. A lot of times he will be playing with his toys and just pop up and say "Pee!" then run to the bathroom and take care of it all by himself. No help from mommy and daddy.

Another big accomplishment that brings Aiden more freedom...and Mom and Dad much less freedom...is that he can now open doors. This one was a complete surprise. He never really tried to open doors, so we never really worried about it. One day we were in his room playing, his door closed, and he just simply walked up to the door, opened it, and left. Jessie and I just kind of watched him walk out, and I'm almost positive that she thought the same thing I did: "Shoot..."

Aiden is a brilliant little kid, and we are trying to teach him as much as we can. I don't think we can keep up with him. He absolutely loves his books and loves to read all the time. He has known his entire ABCs now for about 2 months. We bought him some fridge ABC magnets, and loves them. We quiz him all the time on his letters, and he is rarely wrong. He is such a stud. Our next challenge is numbers. He has 1 and 2 down, and occasionally gets 3, but we still have some work to do. Maybe some more fridge magnets will do the trick.

Aiden has also become a bit of a traffic expert. When we are driving, Aiden has always been very aware of where we are and where we are going. If a sign on the road was there one day, but missing the next, he notices it...and lets us know... "Sign GONE!!!". When we were in down in Savannah for vacation last month, out of the blue we hear him yell, "PIRATE! ARRRRGGG!" Sure enough, a few hundred feet down the road there was a pirate flag flying. And his favorite traffic pastime is to let us know the color of the traffic lights. When we are stopped at a red light, he repeats "TURN GREEN!" over and over until the light does actually turn green, to which he screams "TURNED GREEN!!!!!!". He has even figured out that when we have to turn, we can only go when the red arrow turns green. That one, however, took some patience and explaining as Aiden would get upset at us when the other lights turned green, but Mom or Dad didn't go.

We love our little boy, and are so happy to have him in our lives. He is growing up so fast, and we are having such a fun time with him. HAPPY BIRTHDAY AIDEN!