Ryleigh's Special Day

Today is a very special day. This is the day that my youngest baby turns ONE. We will never again celebrate this special occasion for our own children. It is a bittersweet day in that the first year of milestones and celebrations are over. But at the same time, our family is growing older together. The first birthday will be replaced by all of the other birthdays that are yet to come. I'd say the most relieving part of this day is knowing that there are no more heartburn infested nights or morning sickness ahead. No more 2, 4 and 6 AM feedings in our future! We move forward. ONWARD MARCH!

So, Little Miss Ryleigh officially turned one at 7:31 this morning. She's no different today than yesterday, except now she is twelve months old.

She still isn't walking, but for some insane reason, I keep encouraging the walking!!! LOL She will step away from the table or sofa and take a few steps on her own. She'll also walk about six or seven steps towards me before she totally loses her balance from excitement. Its so wonderful to see her try so hard and the look on her face is priceless. I love it.

She has lots of little curls that are so adorable. Her curls are only at the base of her neck and on the back of her head. When I wash her hair it straightens out and her hair goes all the way to her shoulders!

She has four teeth, but they aren't the four teeth that the average one year old has. She has her two teeth on the bottom. That's normal. And then she has her two front teeth on the left. Her two front teeth on the right are beginning to come in. Needless to say, she looks a little goofy when she smiles. lol

Ryleigh is the sweetest girl ever. She absolutely adores and loves her big brothers and they of course feel the same for her. She is very quiet and doesn't take to strangers very well, but once she opens up she is such a lovable baby. She loves on Mark and often gives him kisses now that she has adjusted to him.

Well, that's our little girl in a nutshell for you. She is the angel that has made our family complete and today she turned one. Where has the last year gone! Time flies, that's for sure.

Our Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Yeah, yeah, so I seem to be slacking on this blog thing, but hey, I try! lol. Saturday we also went to the Pumpkin Patch at Cobb's Ranch in Fresno. I took Taylor last year with a friend of mine, Heather. Taylor had so much fun, and there were so many pumpkins to choose from. This year, it was a family event.

The kids had a blast. We thought we would go through the corn maze first. It was pretty interesting and kind of cool to be surrounded by corn. It was also really creepy. (The next day Children of the Corn was on TV..haha) The boys had fun, running (even though they weren't supposed to) everywhere. They kept finding corn on the ground, and they thought that was the coolest thing. We were told that it would take approximately thirty minutes to find our way through the maze. Mark says we are obviously smarter than the average bear because we were out of that sucker in fifteen minutes, tops! We were kind of bummed that we made it through so fast, but it was still a lot of fun!

After the maze, it was off to the monstrous pumpkin patch. Taylor took charge of the wheelbarrow and Austyn took charge of the running around like a mad-man. We found a good spot and it didn't take long for the boys to find their pumpkins. Mark and I tried to find a big one that the two of us could share, but they all seemed to be around the same size. We have pumpkins growing in the backyard that are bigger than the ones at the pumpkin patch. Of course, our pumpkins are still green!?!?

After we picked out our pumpkins we visited the farm animals. Austyn loved petting them. Taylor especially loved petting the donkey. lol. The donkey just stood there with his eyes closed and his head was tilted back. He was really enjoying the ear rub. Ryleigh even thought she would pet one of the miniature horses, but he tried to nibble her fingers. I put an end to that right away.

Next was the Pumpkin Corral, where they have hay and pumpkins on the ground. It's a great spot for taking pictures. We had a stranger take our family picture, but Taylor's face was covered by Ryleigh's head and Austyn was looking down. It was a good attempt. All in all, our visit to the pumpkin patch was a lot of fun. Long, but fun. So, here are a few of the pictures from that. We hope you enjoy!

Taylor's 1st soccer game!

I should have written yesterday, but it was such a busy busy day that I didn't have time to. Well, I did, but I was tired. Anyway. Yesterday was Taylor's first soccer game of the season. We don't entirely like his coach, and his coach definitely doesn't like me. The assistant coach has made it clear that earrings are not to be worn, because those are the "rules and regulations." He thought he should address it because Taylor goes to practice with his earrings in. I really feel like he is being a jerk to us because Taylor is a boy and has his ears pierced. It isn't his business. So, I spoke with the director of Youth Sports. Guess what? Taylor can wear his earrings all he wants during practice, and he can wear them during games, so long as he wears band aids over them! So, just to be a brat, we left his earrings in! I know I should be the bigger person, but I just wanted to be like "IN YOUR FACE!" LOL. Anyway, the other team had a little girl with earrings in and no one said a word to her. Hmmm. Odd.

At the end of the game, the coach sort of gave a "lecture" of, "You guys need to get that ball, protect the goal...blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. IF you guys were to get with it, we'd be running circles around these guys!" "Oh and by the way, you guys did great!" That really upset me. I was like, okay they are 5 and 6 year old kids. They don't need to be put down and then praised as if to make up for the verbal beating they just got. Any one of Taylor's other coaches would have said, "You guys did great, and now we know what we need to work on for the next game!"

Taylor requested that his coach put his nickname on his jersey "T-Bone" and his coach's response was, "I'm putting your name on it and that's that!"

Okay, okay, so enough complaining. Taylor's game was good. He did really well, although he wasn't as aggressive as he was when he first started. A lot of the kids on his team aren't as advanced as he is. (I'm not saying that he is like a superstar) But, he really is a much better player than most. I think he is hanging back with the other kids because he "thinks" that's what he is supposed to do. He did get in there and get the ball a few times and even almost scored a couple of times. None-the-less he did awesome, and we let him know how great he was!

So here are a couple of pictures from the game! I hope you enjoy. And I apologize for turning this blog into a bitch-fest! LOL

Hello!

First let me say Thanks to Laura and Jenn for getting me on here! If it weren't for the two of you, I probably wouldn't have found the site. So, this will be our first official blog. Yay! Let me explain the title of our blog for you, because I'm sure some of you may be wondering what that is all about. There are 5 members of our family. People refer to Mark as Rum, and sometimes refer to the family as The Rums. So, we are "Five Times the Rum". Aside from that, sometimes at the end of a long chaotic day, Five Times the Rum is the recipe for a peaceful, relaxing night. HAHA! By the way, that was a joke. I haven't made it to 5 times the Rum...yet. LOL. Anyway, I hope that our family blog keeps everyone well updated and in the know. It's hectic getting to the phone to call loved ones and update everyone individually, not that this would replace any phone calls. We will post updated pictures and write as much as possible. I hope you all enjoy hearing about our days!