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?

Chef Ryan

Ryan has always loved "cooking" like mommy with a bowl and spoon. (Don't all kids?) He has his own kitchen cabinet filled with various cannisters, tupperware and toys as well as a hand-me-down play kitchen, so he gets a lot of practice. The other night, while I made a labor-intensive recipe (Giada's dirty risotto, one of our favorites), we gave Ryan some noodles to "cook" -- and wow...he worked like a focused little sous chef for most of an hour on the kitchen floor, measuring, scooping, pouring, and yes, of course spilling.

Here's a peek at his new favorite activity. Enjoy!

*Update: sorry for the very poor video quality - not sure why it's so jumpy...

Dance party

Like most kids, Ryan digs music. From when he was a teeny tiny thing, he'd stop crying if we sang "Wheels on the Bus" to him. Now, we're in a music class at Gymboree that has him playing instruments, dancing and feeling the beat of all different musical genres. He's started to demand music while he's playing in his playroom, and if I start to sing a song and stop, he'll ask "Mo?" so he can dance.

Speaking of dancing, I have some awesome moves on my HD camera, but have yet to buy software to make it usable on our blog...but I did grab a short clip today on my old camera before it died.

Enjoy a peek at the dance party that happens in our kitchen more days than not. Today he perfected his twist:

The great outdoors

Thanks to a month of gorgeous weather, we've spent a lot...wait, "a lot" doesn't do it justice...let me try this again. We've spent pretty much every waking hour in the yard, at a park or on a walk -- and to the zoo (twice!).

Thanks to about a zillion park visits, Ryan has perfected his climbing/sliding skills to where I finally don't need to climb the jungle gym with him (yay!) and he'll even swing on a "big kid swing" and hold on by himself. He's a regular playground pro.

Because we're outside constantly, he's also befriended our Irish neighbor, Pat -- and talks about him constantly. Whenever he hears a lawn mower, whenever we pull down our street, whenever he hears a wind chime, I hear "Paaaaaa?" He's pretty much his best buddy...which is funny, b/c every other word out of Pat's mouth is usually a curse word. Maybe not the best influence for a kid just learning to talk, but Ryan adores him, nonetheless. :)

I wish I could say that I tote my fabulous Canon digital SLR everywhere we go, but alas...I don't. I did grab a shot or two at the zoo this morning, and have taken one or two cute random ones lately, so here's a few of our big boy!

Here's one of Ryan's favorite pastimes -- getting in and out of a cardboard box, no matter what size.
Ryan loves "blowing" (a.k.a. spitting) on his pinwheels and was hamming it up for the camera one day this week.
Here's Ryan and cousin Autumn on the Zoo Line Railroad this morning.
Ryan looooved this train ride. He was squealing "happy!" while we road it around the zoo.
I'm buying stock in sunscreen and hoping for this beautiful weather to continue into the summer. Here's to sprinklers, pools and of course, more parks!

An Egg-cellent Easter

Whew! We just returned from a trip to Columbus, Ohio to celebrate Easter with Grandma and Papa Trammell and boy are we wiped out. (Traveling with a VERY active and talkative 17-month old boy is exhausting.)

We had a fabulous time in Ohio. Thanks to some awesome weather, we played outside a ton, spent a lot of time blowing bubbles and even made a trip to a neighborhood playground. We also enjoyed several egg hunts and Ryan's first time dyeing eggs. Check out a few photos from our trip below.

Ryan's music classes must be paying off, because he loved playing grandma and papa's piano -- and he didn't bang all over it like you'd expect of a toddler. Rather, he played chords with his fingers intently. Maybe we have a genius pianist on our hands? Here's our little Mozart.

Here he is again, playing a duet with papa:

Some strong wind gusts gave us a playground completely to ourselves one afternoon (and a lot of speed on the swings and slides). Here's Ryan enjoying a ride in a swing:

Ryan also enjoyed a more relaxing tandem ride with grandma:

Ryan's favorite thing to do on a playground (besides climbing anything he can get his little mitts on) is sliiiiiiiding:

On Saturday afternoon, Ryan dyed his first Easter eggs. Here he is concentrating hard on getting a green egg out of the dye cup (notice the Michael Jordan tongue):

Here's Ryan finishing up some eggs with grandma and papa:

Easter Sunday came at last -- Ryan looked sharp in his tie, although a dress shirt doesn't stay tucked in well when your toddler is as squirmy as Ryan is. He behaved beautifully at Mass, even clapping to extend his appreciation to the choir after each song. Here's the complete ensemble (minus tucked-in shirt):

Ryan got to show off his egg hunting skills, of course. Here he is trying to hold as many as he can without depositing them into his basket:

Here's a cute shot of Ryan with grandma and papa post-hunt -- such a happy group!

What a great holiday and a great trip. Enjoy this parting shot of our little GQ model. We have so many poses like this now that we could make him a modeling portfolio:

Ah, such personality -- that's our Ryan!