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!

Savannah

This past weekend we had a little family getaway and we went to Savannah with my mom and brother. My mom's house is almost exactly the half way point to Savannah so it worked out perfectly to stop half way at my mom's and then all car pool together to the beach. It was such a nice vacation! It was short, but it was just so nice to escape for a little while and relax. And Aiden LOVED the beach :) It was his first time going and he had so much fun. The first day we got there we went downtown to the riverfront and ate some yummy seafood and just walked around. Then the next two days of our trip were spent mainly at the beach and then eating more seafood. On Monday morning before we left we made a final stop at the river front to go the candy shop where we got some gelato ice cream and all kinds of delicious things to take with us on our drive back home. So like I said it was a pretty short trip...just three days in Savannah, but it was well worth all the driving. The beach that we went to was perfect! It had tidal pools and an inlet where there weren't any big waves to knock Aiden down, but then as the tide came in the big waves were just a walk down the beach so we had the best of both worlds. The current and waves were REALLY strong though. I wouldn't even get very deep and would have a hard time staying up. So the strong men (Brad and James) had a great time swimming out further and playing in the big waves while the rest of us stayed in the shallower water.

My favorite Aiden story from our trip was his encounter with hungry seagulls. He was eating some trail mix and we had been throwing a few nuts and raisins to them and Aiden thought it was pretty cool to feed the hungry birds, but a little later we were busy moving all of our chairs and stuff further up the beach to avoid the tide coming in and I turned around and the seagulls were just flocking around Aiden holding his little bag of trail mix. I don't know if one of the birds knocked the bag out of his hand or if he dropped it running from them, but in any case he was bullied by the birds and his trail mix got dropped all over and he came running and crying to me. He was so devastated that his nuts and raisins were all in the sand. He just sat there crying and pointing to his trail mix and trying to pick them up, but they had sand all over them. He quickly learned he was bigger than the birds and he took his revenge. He learned to chase them and soon enough he was chasing them all over the place :)

Sorry that the pictures are not really in order...I messed up somehow during the uploading process. I also have to apologize for my filming in the video...I was trying to walk carefully through the waves and sand and was very up and down with the camera. But overall the video shows how much fun Aiden had in the water! :)

Aiden chasing the seagulls.

Loving the water!

Aiden was so worn out everyday after the beach he would automatically just pass out in the car.

Aiden looking sadly down at his lost trail mix.

More seagull chasing.

Playing in the sand and building sand castles that were very quickly destroyed after construction by Aiden.

Swimming in the little inlet area.

Aiden focusing on walking through the water on the sandy bottom. At first he was pulling his legs all the way out of the water and trying to walk over the water instead of shuffling his feet on the bottom. It was pretty funny to watch. He kept falling over and losing his balance at first.

Zoo Trip

We have been wanting to take Aiden to the zoo for a long time and finally with casts off for Aiden and time off for Brad we were able to go. Things did not exactly go as planned though....we ended up stuck in over 3 hours of traffic to get to there because of road construction. It was supposed to take an hour....whoever planned construction on the freeway on Memorial Day Weekend was not thinking. So we were all tired of being in the car and hungry when we got to the zoo, but we made it there and the day was beautiful and warm! In the end we had a good time and we were able to see almost everything at the zoo. I think Aiden enjoyed himself despite being pretty tired and out of it...I think his favorite part was getting dippin dots at the end and seeing the elephants. Here are some pictures of our adventure...

Playing at the kids park.

I love you!

Looking at the penguins.

Cute sleeping tigers.

That is a zebra behind Brad...

The gorilla creepily staring at us...haha.

Waiting for ice cream.

Best buds.

The elephants were pretty fun to watch. One of them was splashing itself with a bunch of water.

I love my Aiden!

Easter Sunday

We were excited for Aiden to experience Easter this year because last year he was too little to know what was going on or to participate in any egg hunts. So when he first woke up he got his Easter basket with little toys from Gigi and LOTS of candy. Our big gift to him was a plush monkey backpack. Lately he uses anything he can find with some kind of strap or handle to sling on his arm and he walks around saying "backpack, bye bye." He likes to pretend to be Daddy going to school. So we decided to get him a real backpack that he can put things in. At first I think he just thought it was another stuffed animal, but the other day we went to the mall and I showed him how we can put snacks inside of it and he wore it all around the mall and thought it was pretty cool :)

After church we went to the Zastrow's house for an egg hunt and a delicious ham dinner. We didn't know if we were going to be able to do an egg hunt because it was raining off and on all day, but luckily it was just cloudy when we did the hunt. So, we wrapped Aiden's cast in plastic wrap and duck tape and he was able to run around on the wet grass to find the eggs. He had so much fun and we are so lucky to have family close by to celebrate holidays with :)

Aiden opening his basket before we left for church. He ran up to the basket and right away started opening the eggs to get the candy out.

He loves his Pez dispenser. Here he was just laying on the floor playing with it for like 15 minutes. And once we showed him that candy goes in it, well... he loves his pez dispenser.

Broken Bones

So this week has definitely been eventful....On Tuesday morning Aiden and I were playing upstairs in his room and he was spinning, which is one of his favorite things to do because it makes him dizzy, and he all of a sudden fell down kind of funny on his foot and started to cry. I picked him up and looked at his foot which just looked a little red, but he kept on crying for a good 10-15 minutes which I thought was weird for just falling down. He kept saying "cuddle" and he didn't want me to put him down. His foot did not look bruised or swollen so then I started thinking maybe he was just being a drama queen and maybe he just needed to get his mind off of it. So I made us some lunch and he started acting more like himself, but then when I put him down on the floor after lunch to see if he was walking okay he started bawling and kind of limped and fell towards me. It was so sad :( That is when I knew something was seriously wrong.

So Aiden went to the emergency room and sure enough he fractured the bone in his foot right below his big toe. They put him in a splint that was angled purposefully to not allow him to walk, but the next day we went to an orthopedic surgeon and luckily the break did not damage his growth plate and they told us he should be good as new in 4 weeks. And once they put the cast on they told us he can walk around as much as he wants on it! yea! That made me so happy because I did not know how I was going to keep him off his foot for a month. So now Aiden is hobbling and crawling around the house with what he calls his "big boot" on his leg. We are so happy he is ok and that it wasn't a major break. We hope this is not a foreshadowing of things to come...but luckily we will have a doctor around :)

He finds many creative uses for things on the couch now that he is not so mobile.

He does this a lot lately. It is like he is happy to be able to touch a foot that does not have a cast on it. And holy cow he is felxible! haha.

He is always such a happy boy!