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!

Ryan: Professional Egg Hunter

With Easter quickly approaching, we've taken on a new pastime in the Trammell house - egg hunts! We helped organize a hunt for our Young Families group at church this year, so we knew we had to get some practicing in so that Ryan wouldn't be trampled on the big day.

With Ryan as young as he is (and his attention span as short as it is), I wasn't sure if he'd really grasp the concept. Who knew it'd be such a hit -- some days we do half a dozen hunts throughout the day and Ryan's gotten really into it - even looking under furniture, pillows, etc. to find eggs.

Thankfully, all that practice paid off. The church hunt was today, and Ryan had a blast. He was walking around the house this morning saying "hunt, hunt, hunt" (his new favorite word, along with "bubble").

It was hard to capture any real egg hunting on film b/c Ryan wouldn't hold still (go figure). He did collect a few eggs, but had more fun climbing the cafeteria steps and sharing his eggs with others who "hunted" from his basket. :) Ha. That's what happens when you get 50+ toddlers and preschoolers in a room together. Here's a few pictures that I did grab on the move -- enjoy!

Thanks to the not-so-awesome weather, we held the hunt in the school cafeteria. You can imagine the chaos when we opened the doors -- here's one shot of some of the first kids to enter running for the loot:

Here's daddy and Ryan on the hunt -- you can barely see the top of Ryan's head and his little hand holding Stephen's hand. We had about 330 eggs on the floor and chairs in a pretty small room, so they were everywhere:

Here's Ryan showing mommy what he found in one of his eggs:

We ordered bunny masks for the kids - sooo cute! Here, Ryan models his for the camera:

Happy Easter!

Butterfly House

Today we met Aunt Karyn and cousin Autumn at the Butterfly House at Faust Park. We'd never been, but have heard that March is the best time to go b/c of the Blue Morpheus butterflies in massive quantities (making what is already a surreal experience surrounded by gorgeous creatures even more incredible).

What an awesome place to go -- there were butterflies EVERYWHERE, even one landing briefly on Ryan's belly. :) At times we felt like they were dive-bombing us, but it's incredible to watch them fly all around you. The conservatory is kept a steamy 85 degrees at 75% humidity year round, which means my camera lens was fogged up until we got used to the Amazon-like climate, but we still got some great shots!

Here's Ryan and daddy in front of a giant butterfly statue:

This is the beautiful Blue Morpheus -- looks pretty from the outside....

But check out the inside of its wings - the blue is so vibrant, it's breathtaking!

Here's a shot where you can see both colors:

There were so many different species -- some of which seemed more like hummingbirds, never stopping their wings, like this one, whose wings look almost transparent in this photo b/c he was flapping so fast:

This one had black and white spots:

This one looks like someone painted it - so gorgeous:

There's a strict "no touching" rule, but, Ryan did his darndest to reach out and grab one. Thankfully he was under daddy's watchful eye. :)

At last, here's Ryan and Autumn together on a sweet butterfly bench - you can't tell in the photo, but butterflies were zipping all around them -- and they loved it!

If you can make it in the next week or so before the Blue Morpheus butterflies are gone, I highly recommend it!

A date with Sienna (and some beaver poop)

Today, Ryan and I met my friend Chrissy and her daughter Sienna at Powder Valley Conservation Center (near I-270 and I-44). I haven't been there since I did a 6th grade science report on it in 1991. As you can imagine, it's changed quite a bit since then.

If you have kids in the STL area, it's a great (free!) place to spend some time watching fish in a giant aquarium, observing a working bee colony, gazing at deer roaming just outside the window and listening to birds chirping all around. (And there's an area where kids can learn about animal skins, tracks, and yes, even poop.) When the weather warms, they also have a few miles of trails as well.

Neither of us brought our cameras, so the trusty old blackberry filled in -- so pardon the low res images. Here's a few shots from our visit.

Ryan and Sienna pose in a bubble window overlooking an exhibit. Of course, Ryan's trying to escape. He didn't stay still for more than 3 seconds the entire time we were there. I pretty much chased him around the place. Boys will be boys, eh?

Here's Ryan checking out some beaver poop. Not real poop, of course - but gross, nonetheless.

There's a cute area with puppets that you can stick through holes in a mural -- although Ryan chose to try and climb through the holes, of course:

Here's Ryan checking out the big fish in the aquarium.

It was a fun way to get out of the house without spending any $$$ and staying warm (although maybe a little too warm - they could conserve some serious energy by lowering their thermostat about 15 degrees and people would still be comfortable). We even got a sticker of a "green stink bug" when we left as well as a calendar -- talk about a great deal! If your kids love nature, it's worth a trip!

Happy Mardi Gras!

Happy Fat Tuesday! Here's a little Mardi Gras greeting from our house to yours. :)

Stephen and I celebrated this past weekend in Soulard for the parade, including tossing beads to the masses from the Beggin' Strips float:

Ryan is celebrating today via the beads mommy and daddy brought home (and loving it):

Here's proof. Each time we put on a strand, Ryan asked for "mo?" Here he is wearing every strand we have...22 in total. :)

Happy Mardi Gras!

Curious Ryan

Ryan's little brain is working in overdrive in recent weeks. He's starting to repeat words and sounds more frequently, and he notices EVERYTHING. Every beep of the microwave, phone ring, airplane overhead, or bird chirp yields an "uh oh" or even better, an extremely serious face and an "oh no."

We went to our first Gymboree music class this week and Ryan spent most of the class exploring the classroom, trying to open every cabinet (and successfully finding one without a lock, of course), trying to pull out toys and supplies that weren't for our class, and trying to look out the classroom door to see what the kids in the lobby were doing.

The kid can now climb, open, and empty just about anything -- which means we've found him in some interesting places already, such as Nana and Papa's liquor cabinet (yikes), pushing buttons on our printer and trying to jam a baseball bat into the paper output tray, and pulling a kleenex box down so that he can "wipe" his nose and mouth about a thousand times (with a fresh tissue each time, of course).

I'll admit, his curiosity tests my patience every single day -- but it can also be so much fun to watch him explore and discover his surroundings. Enjoy a short clip of one of his new favorite morning activities -- checking out the sunlight that's reflected through our front door glass onto our walls. :)