Ryan's New Job & Lydia Updates

Ryan started his new job as Engineering Specialist with Marathon Oil this Monday.  He has had a great first week.  On his first day they sent him home with a new backpack full of gifts and he mentioned they hung a banner outside his new office that said "Welcome to the Marathon Team - Ryan Becker!"  He said people would stop in all day and introduce themselves and welcome him to Marathon.   Along with his new office they gave him a computer, blackberry phone and a dodge truck to take home.  

Lydia is doing great, she is starting to become so much more social lately.  She loves to wave bye-bye and to give kisses and hugs ( I call them "loves").   She is completely off the bottle now.  She never was really attached to it so I just stopped giving it to her last week and she has done just fine.  She gets a sippy cup of juice and a sippy of toddler formula during the day.  She loves eating big girl foods.  Her favorite is cheese and crackers.  She is always pointing at things and saying "dat".  Then we tell her what "dat" is.  It doesn't take long before we can then ask her where things are and she can point them out herself.  She loves books and LOVES to climb!!! Her favorite thing is to be barefooted so she can crawl over to the leather couch and climb up it all the way to the top.  Her favorite TV character is Chica on SproutTV.  Everytime she hears Chica's voice if we have the TV on she goes to the living room to watch her.  She is in 12 month clothes and size 3 diapers.  I think the next time we buy diapers in the next month she will be into a 4 though. Her next well baby checkup is on Monday, March 2nd.  She is suppose to get the MMR, Varicella (Chickenpox) and Prevnar vaccines.   She will only be getting the Prevnar this time though.  I am going to hold off on the others until later.

Tonight we have a dinner at my Grandparent's with the Bishop Eludi from Tanzania, tomorrow night I am going to a Lia Sophia party one of my girlfriends is having, then on Saturday my friend Lee Ann and her family will be coming to have dinner with us and visit.  Sunday is Ryan's 26th birthday and I think we may go to Rapid City to get him some new jeans.   

Frosting Recipe & Update

Ryan will be starting his new job this Monday - the 23rd!  We are very excited!!

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Here is the recipe for Lydia's whipped frosting:

INGREDIENTS 

• 1 (8 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed
• 1 (3.5 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix
• 1 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

1. In a medium bowl, combine pudding mix with milk and vanilla. Mix until smooth. Gently fold in whipped topping until no streaks remain. Spread evenly over cake.

Lydia's 1st Birthday

It's Lydia's 1st birthday today!  I had plans to have a nice quiet birthday for Lydia today with just us.  Ryan had to work most of the day so we waited until this evening to celebrate. I made birthday cupcakes last night with confetti cake mix and a special frosting recipe made with pudding and whipped topping.  I wanted to make something a little less "sugary" for Lydia and it turned out great.  I decorated them with a pink "L" on the top and a single pink candle.  The batch made 24 cupcakes so I packaged all but 3 (for us) and used the plates and napkins we had left over from her party.  I delivered them to a few family members and all the guys that work at Matheson Drilling.  

I made her her favorite meal, macaroni and cheese for dinner with her cupcake for dessert.  She really enjoyed it.  She had a bath this morning but we had to have another bath after dinner!  She fed herself her dinner and dessert.  Such a big girl! 

For her birthday her dad and I got her a toy box and a little fun tent toy.   Here are some pictures of her birthday gifts and our day today.  Enjoy!

NEW TOY BOX

INSIDE HER NEW TENT TOY!

A Valentine's Day to Remember

Ryan made my Valentine's Day so very special this year, I just wanted to share with everyone my evening.   Last night he made me a wonderful home cooked meal and then handed me a gorgeously box wrapped in red paper with a big white bow.  In it was the most beautiful bracelet I have ever seen!  It is white gold with diamonds and tanzanite!  It's so gorgeous! I don't have any bracelets but I really like them.  What a wonderful gift.   Then later that night he sneaks out and picks up the flower that he ordered for me earlier that day.  A dozen lavender roses!!!! My favorite!  It was such a special night.  Here are some pictures.  My camera wouldn't let me get close enough to the bracelet to take a good picture so I am posting one from Riddle's website.  The stones look much more lavender in person.  They look more blue in the picture.  :)

Lydia's First Birthday Party

Lydia's party was a huge success!  Everything went smoothly and I think everyone including Lydia had a really wonderful time.  Thanks all of you for making it so special.   I have created a slideshow of the pictures, but you can also see all of them as well as the video's on our Photobucket under "Lydia's First Birthday Party".  The video's are listed first and are labeled "VIDEO".

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Update on Ryan's Job

Ryan got an email from Marathon's HR today.  He was told his tenative start date is March 2nd.   They are Fed-Exing him an acceptance packet which he should get Monday with a bunch of information and paper work for him to fill out including a health history that he has to fill out and fax back right away. After he gets the packet he is also to schedule a hair sample drug screening at OTI.  We are so excited for this ball to finally be rolling!!!

Good News!

Ryan got his job! He got two calls today, one from his soon to be supervisor who made him a salary offer and asked if Ryan would accept.  Which of course he did!  Then the HR person from the corporate office in Houston called to congratulate Ryan and let him know about what his benefits package will include, and it is even better than we expected!!  They only small bit of bad news was that she said they would have to complete a background check, drug test and physical exam for him which could take up to 3 weeks to complete everything.  So he might now be starting until the first week of March.  I'll keep you all posted!

Here are a few new pictures and a video.

Pediatrician Troubles..

I have the book "The Vaccine Book" By Dr. Sears and was reading about aluminum and different things. I decided to call Lydia's pediatrician to get a list of all the vaccines she has had so far and also ask for info on what brand of vaccines they use with info on the ingredients in each one. 

The receptionist wasn't able to help me with the vaccine information but said she would have a nurse call me. She faxed over her record and as I was looking it over I started to get worried.. It showed she had Polio 5 times already, no rotavirus, and she went in for what I thought was a HIB shot in December and that wasn't even on there! 

I called them back right away and after 2 hours of me calling and talking to the receptionist and the receptionist to a nurse going over her file they re-faxed me her record with everything corrected.  I have to mention that I have THREE faxes from them.  They would fix something and then I would go over it again and see something else and call them back about it.  It took THREE times until they got it right!  So she has had Polio 3 times but I notice still no rotavirus. So I talk to the nurse and she tells me that the vaccine was new and they didn't get very many so the doctor decided not to give it to Lydia. The doctor never spoke with me about this at all.. I had NO IDEA!! She asked if Lydia was in daycare and I told her no and she said that sometimes he decides not to give it to babies that are not in daycare... I don't even remember him asking me that! They can only give it to her at 2, 4, 6 so she said that she won't ever get this vaccine... This really upsets me that the doctor didn't at least discuss this with me or let me know. Is that too much to ask!?

Then I asked the nurse about what brands of vaccines they use and she said that our state sends them vaccines, they don't ever know what they will get and sometimes its this or sometimes its that.. argh.. like they don't even care!!  I was hoping to get a pamphlet or something on the brand and ingredients in the vaccines they have done on her.

Ryan will be starting his new job soon so we will finally be getting some great insurance. They don't cover any doctors or pediatricians in our town so we will be traveling to South Dakota for Lydia's doctor visits, which is where I had Lydia and went for all my prenatal visits. She had a birth pediatrician there that I chose for her before birth, but I see on their website now that they have a new pediatrician there that has amazing credentials so I'll probably go to her.  It's an hour and half drive but well worth it.   Her 12 month appointment here in Gillette is for March 3rd but I'll be cancelling that shortly to reschedule with Spearfish.  I am hoping that Dr. Joan Gibson will be much more thorough, clear and attentive to these important matters.   I like Dr. Fall okay, he is a pleasant person.  But I feel he is too "in and out" for me.  He kind of has a "yeah, what ever you want to do is fine" attitude (for instance when I asked him about the best food choices for Lydia)  which I am sure some parents are comfortable with but I want to know what is the very best for my child, and I want my pediatrician to be able to answer my questions very clearly and thoroughly... Oh.. AND GET THEIR PAPERWORK STRAIGHT!  GOODNESS!!