Merry Christmas Eve

Time sure flies with an active, talkative, slightly-bossy-but-still-super-sweet 2-yr old. We've been busy preparing for Christmas and Ryan is very much anticipating Santa's visit tonight and the goodies that will await him in the morning. :) I'll post a few Xmas pics in the coming days, but for now, here's a quick glimpse at some of our holiday fun to date!

We visited grandma and papa Trammell in Ohio for Thanksgiving and went to see the lights at their zoo -- it was f-r-e-e-z-i-n-g, but beautiful.

Ryan built his first gingerbread house. And by Ryan, I mean that he decorated 90% of it himself, but mommy is unfortunately responsible for the very sloppy icing job. (Hey, there's only so well you can do when a 2-yr old is screeching at you about wanting to put "da candies" on and you're trying to prep it as fast as you can.)
Ryan's currently enjoying our white Christmas with daddy all bundled up and playing in the snow.
Actually, he's really just playing on all the play equipment he's been missing for so long like slides and swings - he could probably care less about the actual white stuff. :) What can I say, our kid LOVES playgrounds.
Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Halloween Fun

Happy belated Halloween, everyone. We hope you enjoyed the weekend as much as we did. Birthdays, trick or treating and family visiting made it a full but very fun one at our house. Here's two quick shots of Ryan in his costume and some sweet PJs. Enjoy!

These glow in the dark, which is quite entertaining, especially for a 2-yr-old, but also kept him awake much, much longer than usual at nighttime. :)

Here's our little Frankenstein. We trick or treated around our cul-de-sac, and Ryan had a ball.

ABCs!

Just a quick post to show you Ryan's latest and greatest talent. He'll be 2 in just 2 more weeks, and he's already got his ABCs down! Enjoy!

Apple picking

The cooler fall weather has made its way to St. Louis, and apples are ripe for picking at Eckert's. We recently headed over to the Millstadt Family Fun Farm and had a blast! After our summer peach picking adventures, Ryan was more "'cited" and "reddy to pick apples off da tree" this time around.

Here's Ryan driving an old tractor -- anything with a steering wheel is a huge hit these days:
Daddy gave Ryan his first golf lesson at the mini golf putting zone:
To daddy's dismay, Ryan had his own technique for getting the ball in the hole:
There's even a petting zoo area where you can feed baby cows, rams, deer and sheep - Ryan dug giving carrots to his new friends:
The farm has great views - check out the downtown St. Louis skyline over the orchards:
We finally got down to business. There was plenty of fruit at Ryan's level, so he picked much of our 10 lbs of golden deliciousness:
I taught Ryan how to eat an apple like a big boy -- and he carried that thing around for most of the rest of the trip, munching on it like a pro:

Want to see how much he liked it?


And last, a parting shot of Ryan and daddy enjoying their apples - perfection!
Watch out pumpkin patch, here we come!

Balloon Race 2010

Every September brings one of our favorite family outings -- the Forest Park Balloon Race! We get to attend in style in a VIP tent with food and drinks that is parked smack in front of the field of balloons, so it's extra exciting for the kiddos (and the adults get to avoid some of the crowds). (Thanks, Purina!) This year it was HOT...but we had fun, of course. Here's a few quick shots from the afternoon.

Daddy and Ryan watched skydivers kick off the afternoon:
Haedyn and Aunt Kelly came with us, and everyone got to meet the Energizer Bunny up close and ahem...personal. Some more so than others:
Ryan enjoyed a snack from his front-row seat:
Seriously....front row! Haedyn was amazed - and also slightly frightened when the bunny started to drift our way while inflating. Notice that Ryan's just being a boy, climbing on the fencing, rather than caring about the balloons. :)
Here's a shot of the field after many had taken off -- it was a gorgeous sight!
Each year we attend we get to bring someone new and watch our kids experience this unique sight. What fun - we can't wait for next year!

Polly want a cracker?

First off, I know it's been a while since I posted. We've been busy with vacations, playdates and the usual ho-hum routine at our house, and I suppose I've gotten a little lazy. Today, we had a complete conversation at lunch that was so cute it made me want to share it with you.

You see, our Ryan has become a regular little parrot. He repeats EVERYTHING. When it's singing the ABCs or repeating an "amen" after the congregation at church, it's adorable. When it's "oh, crap" - we silently curse our inability to cover a swear with a more toddler-friendly word.

Beyond repeating words, he's also mimicking our actions as well. It brings tears to my eyes watching him recount a story or reenact an event from his point of view. The little dude understands and retains sooo much of our daily life, at least for the short term, and it's beyond precious.

Here's a conversation that happened today during lunch. You need his little facial expressions and inflection to really do it justice, but here it is verbatim:

Me: Ryan, what did we do today? (we had just gotten home from a park playdate with his cousin Autumn)

Ryan: I did go to work.

Me: You did??? Where do you work?

Ryan: Right there! (pointing at kitchen doorway that leads to garage)

Me: I see. What do you do at work?

Ryan: I go work today. Open work 'puter. (computer) Leave for little bit....Come back a work. Home....I back. I back a work.

Me: You're back already?

Ryan: I'm back today. Leave for little bit. Drive daddy's car. See ya! Have good daaaay.

And...repeat. We play through this same scenario several times a day. Sometimes he's "goin' a grosssery store" and sometimes it's "work" -- but it's always the repeated mimicking of the leaving and coming home process, which is the part he witnesses, so that makes sense.

To the outside world, perhaps this is boring. To me, it's a beautiful sign that my little boy is watching us, listening to us and learning every single day. And it makes me so grateful to be able to stay home with him every day to experience these conversations. (And I guess also the whining that is happening next to me at this moment....which means it's naptime. Adios!)

Peaches!

It's that time of year -peaches are ripe and ready for picking at our nearby orchard! My two sisters, one brother-in-law and my niece accompanied Ryan and me to Eckert's in Belleville yesterday, and we had a sticky, sweaty good time.

It was probably only about 90 degrees while we were out there, but with the sun beating down on you in the field, it felt like you were in an oven. The kids loved the experience, despite the heat. Haedyn loved actually picking the peaches (and eating them, of course!) -- they were so ripe they were literally falling off the trees. Ryan mostly loved smooshing the fallen, overripe peaches and pulling leaves off the trees. Eh...boys will be boys.

Here I am with the kiddos in front of the tractor that drove us out to the orchards:

Ryan entered the orchard with his aunt "Yado" and uncle Tom:
Aunt "Koggy" picked a perfect peach for Ryan and peeled a bit of the skin back - Ryan took a bite and excitedly declared, "SNACK!"
Haedyn shows off a peach she picked, pop-star style (is there any other way?):
Here's Ryan attempting to pick his own peach...except once he got it off the tree, he just stuck his thumb into it and smashed it. Sigh...
We capped off the day with a trip to the Eckert's custard shop. Our peach pie concretes were delicious. Haedyn insisted on a sugar cone...and while most of it melted down her arm and body, she ate every bit she could, including the paper around the cone (whoops!):
There's a fresh peach pie in my house, as well as about a dozen more peaches sitting on the counter. Life is good!

Storytime

We've been reading to Ryan at bedtime (as well as throughout the day) since he was only a few months old. As a result, he loooooves reading, especially if it means reading the same stories over and over and over. It's a normal kid thing, but it's been driving us crazy for months now.

The last few weeks of storytime, however, have been really fun, as we're now seeing the results of so much story repetition. You see, Ryan is now reading parts of his stories to us -- or at least, repeating words from memory -- and it's really fun to listen to him and hear his little brain hard at work.

Don't believe me? Here's a recent reading of "I'll Always Love You" with daddy. It's 3 min long (you are forewarned) - enjoy!

A trip to the Magic House

I've been waiting for what seems like forever to take Ryan to a children's museum. I wasn't sure if he was old enough to enjoy most of the exhibits, or if he'd get trampled by "big kids" -- so we've stayed away from them so far. Tonight, however, Purina had the entire Magic House rented out for a private party for its marketing department, so we took the chance to avoid the crowds and give it a whirl. Man, have we been missing out.

The Magic House is incredible...if you haven't been there since they completed the massive addition and renovations the last year or so, you need to go again. They have a HUGE area for kids under 6, and another separate area for kids under 2. Here's a few shots of our visit:

Daddy helped Ryan play mechanic on this car -- you can change the tires, check the oil, change the air filter, and press all kinds of buttons that make noise. Ryan's favorite? A button that "honked" the car.

Here's Ryan gassing up a more simple car.

Ah, the beauty of simplicity. Here, Ryan practices his "on-off" skills with a wall full of light switches.
There's a grocery store where kids can shop -- Ryan stocked up on milk more than anything else. (That's 3 gallons in his basket!)
Ryan's always a fan of the "beeper" at the grocery store checkout, so he loved that he could do it himself at the play store.
Ryan enjoyed a lot of opportunities to climb and slide (this place is designed to wear your kids out)!
In the little kids area, there's a big water play area, including the opportunity to squirt a water gun (inside a case, thankfully). Notice the sweet smocks - kudos to the person who thought of that one!
Here's Ryan enjoying the water table.
Ryan usually loooves bubbles, but the bubble room here was just a little out of his abilities. Here, mommy tries to get Ryan inside a bubble.
Finally, I leave you with a shot of another potential future profession for Ryan. Hail to the chief?

Ryan's 1st trip to the beach

We just returned from a week-long trip to Destin, Fl. -- Ryan's first time being at a beach! It was beautiful there -- great weather, great food, great company, and best of all, NO OIL. :) While we were there, we celebrated grandma's 60th birthday, dug in the sand at the beach, splashed in the waves, swam at the pool, took a dolphin cruise and enjoyed the sun with grandma, papa, uncle Lucas, aunt Karyn and cousin Autumn. Here are a few favorite pics:

Ryan wasn't so sure about the beach at first. It took some time to warm up to the feel of the sand and water, as evidenced by his uncertainty with having his feet buried soon after arriving. :)
Here's Ryan checking out the ocean with daddy.
The kids took a sweet ride to the beach each day - it was a very short walk, but with all the gear that two toddlers require, the wagon was quite helpful -- as well as super fun for the kids.
Here's one of my favorite shots of our niece, Autumn - little girl + pig tails + a cute swimsuit + beautiful landscape = no way to not love this shot.
We had a day or two of pristine sand and ocean, and then the unfortunate "june grass" made the water thick with green algae, and by the last day, it was washed up on the beach in chunks. It seems yucky, but serves an ecological purpose for fish spawning and keeping little fishies safe from predators, and we enjoyed the beach despite the "hairy" feel of the ocean. Here's a shot of Ryan in the washed up muck.
The dolphin cruise was fun - we saw so many swimming and playing alongside our boat. Here's a shot of Ryan and mommy on the boat.
Here's everyone on the boat, though Autumn's hiding...the boat was jumping over huge waves at this point so we were all more focused on not letting the kids fall overboard than on the photo opp. :)
If you've ever been on one of these cruises, you know the kids get to "drive" the boat for a photo opp. Let's just say that a 2-hr cruise is waaaay too long for a toddler, so both Ryan and Autumn were hot, cranky and tired at this point (hence Ry's binky accessorizing the sweet captain's hat).
Here's a family shot outside of our house.
And last, here's a shot of the whole group on our last night.
I'm so glad we got to take Ryan to experience all of this while he's at this age - it was awesome watching him discover each little thing. (Even though I know he won't remember any of it.) :) Now, back to the real world.

Our little Picasso

Ladies and gentlemen, I'll start the bidding at $100,000....
This, of course, is Ryan's first official art project. Ryan loves coloring with his "markas" and crayons at home and has gifted several family members with original works of scribble...but today we tried our first art class at Gymboree and this was the result.

Yes, he had help -- the kid's only 19 months old for goodness sake -- but those are his handprints, his "clouds" and he used the glue stick to stick on the rest of the goodies. It's going in his memory box, and while to the rest of the world it's a sticky mess, to me it's priceless.

A spontaneous trip to Grant's Farm

When rain has you cooped up in your house with an active toddler for an entire week, it can drive you crazy! You can imagine how a normally un-spontaneous mommy would turn spontaneous when the rain broke for a few hours this past Sunday morning.

We'd gone to church on Saturday evening, so with no plans ahead of us Sunday, I took a look at the radar when we got up, we got dressed and were out of the house within a half hour of deciding that we'd be going to Grant's Farm! (For some people, that's nothing special...but for moi, well...let's just say it was pretty out of character.)

Ryan loved feeding the animals, and in general, running like a banshee around the place. It wasn't as big as I remembered, but it was the perfect short trip for the short attention span of a toddler. Enjoy a few pics below of our Sunday morning fun!

Here's Ryan and I on the tram tour of the deer park.

Here we are passing a spotted long horn. That steer was clooooooose.
Daddy braved the goat pen armed only with Ryan and one bottle of milk. They quickly attracted a furry little friend.
And as you'd expect, one quickly turned into two.
Which, quickly turned into three.

And then four....

Things got out of hand quickly. Ryan stayed calm through it all, intently watching the goats while daddy kept them from eating his jacket. :)
We also fed a camel. Yep, a camel. You pay 50 cents and get a handful of pellets that apparently taste like filet mignon to these guys. Here's Ryan and I carefully feeding our new friend (and yes, I held most of his hand covered with mine so that he didn't get chomped). Ryan kept saying "more?" after each time we gave a pellet or two - it was cute, cute, cute (and slobbery, slobbery, slobbery.)
Last, but not least, Ryan and daddy rode the carousel on the way out. Note to motion-sickness prone adults: this sucker spins FAST...I was sooo grateful that Stephen bit the bullet on this one, or we might have been in trouble.
It was a whirlwind morning, but Ryan had a ball. Poor Stephen walked to our departing tram looking longingly back at the free beer sampling area, but Ryan had had enough and it was starting to sprinkle on us. There's always next time, right?