Category: 5 Years

While we were down in LA we were fortunate to be able to attend Tyler’s 5th birthday party.  It was a blast!  What birthday party isn’t?  While we were down in LA Ryan was introduced to transformers and was quite intrigued.  When Uncle David (bunny) took Tyler and Ryan out for a drive he wanted to show off his awesome car.  Uncle bunny showed Ryan how his car could transform and Ryan loved it!!

After hanging out with cousin Tyler and getting to travel around in the super cool convertible (I mean transformer) sports car we went out to pick up the cake at a real Mexican grocery store, where they couldn’t speak much English, and had a some really good Tacos and Quesadillas (at a grocery store of all places!).  By this point the wives were calling and yelling at their dear sweet husbands – it was time to rush back to the start the party.

Tyler had party entertainer who organized a potato sack race.  Check out the video!

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Also, Madeline had fun making a friend with her Uncle’s cousin (2nd cousin??).  Pretty cute video.

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We’ve been going to LA to visit with the kids ever since they were born.  The one thing we haven’t done yet is go to Disney.  We don’t want to go until we think the kids are ready – that day is getting near.  We decided to take Ryan to Knott’s Berry Farm (a big amusement park close to Grace’s parents house).  We thought this would be a good warm up to what Disney is going to be like without as much craziness with the lineups.

Grace took Ryan and her sister Esther brought her son Tyler to the amusement park and it was a huge hit.  Ryan has no fear when it comes to riding the scary rides.  According to Esther, Grace was screaming much louder than Ryan.

While Grace and Ryan were enjoying the rides, Daddy and Madeline went to the aquarium in Long Beach.

Here are some photos from their Knott’s Berry Farm day.

On Ryan’s birthday we got him a scooter which he has had a lot of fun riding.  Earlier this year they opened up a skateboard park just across from our house (you can actually see it from Ryan’s window).   This new skateboard park has been very popular with the young kids.  There are a few young kids that ride skateboards there but most of them enjoy riding their scooters.  Ryan is no exception – he asks to go there quite often.

A lot of the time there are crazy kids doing crazy stunts so we try to time our visits there when things are a bit calmer.  Here is a video of Ryan riding his scooter around early in the morning (crazy skateboarders don’t get up early!)..

Ryan loved going to Little Raven.  He started there one month before Madeline was born and has loved every single day.  He made many great friends, loved the teachers and had many great memories.  But, it was time for him to move on.  Ryan wasn’t sad and was actually very excited for his happy good-bye party.  Here are some photos of his last day.

By this point Ryan had already celebrated his birthday twice – this would now be his third time.  We invited a few friends over for dinner and cake.  It was nice to have people over to help us eat the cake and sing happy birthday.  The Carpenter family are great friends and their kids are both close to our kids in age.  Mia is just two weeks younger than Madeline and Emily is a few months older than Ryan.

Here are a few photos from the party and a video of Ryan blowing out the candles.  The first two photos are of Ryan and Madeline earlier in the day and the bottom photo is of the kids before the cake.