Category: 24-30 months

Daddy made some Banana Praline muffins for Ryan – a really easy and yummy muffin recipe.  Here are some pics of Ryan chowing down.

Ryan has been getting really good at riding his bike.  He is known and somewhat famous around this area as a very good biker.  Ryan really gets a lot of attention when he is on the bike.  I can’t really show you just how fast he is on the bike but when you see it in person it really is quite funny.  Whenever he is on his bike I am running (not jogging, but running at top speed!) to catch him.

Ryan did have a pretty close call to a major wipe out the other day.  We had gone on a bike ride, which was great, but when I wasn’t looking Ryan decided to just ‘go for it’ and let loose down a MAJOR hill.  We aren’t talking a slight decline – think of dad’s hill but half as long but the same incline.  Anyway, this hill doesn’t end nicely.  It has cement road barriers spaced every 3 feet, and if you happened to be lucky enough to make it through the barrier, you would end up on a street followed by another hill that continues for a long time (which continues to go through more streets).  None of the streets are particularly busy but nonetheless, certainly not a hill I would let a two year old bike down with NO BREAKS!

Anyway, Grace and I took our eyes off of Ryan for 1 second and “boom!” he just bolts down the hill.  Luckily daddy saw Ryan out of the corner of his eye and was already on his bike.  At top speed daddy caught up to Ryan as he was going down the hill, but what can you do?  I thought to grab him but that wouldn’t have worked.  I sort of pushed Ryan to the side (which was grassy) and at this point Ryan realized that he was in trouble and you could see it in his eyes.  He made it to the grassy area and the moment  he made it on the grass, the speed difference made him flip over and he landed on his back with a THUD! (thank god he was wearing a helmet).  Ryan was not hurt but was really freaked out and started crying!  Since that incident whenever we pass by that hill, he looks at me with a grin and points to the hill and says “Daddy, down the hill?”  That crazy bugger!!

Here is a video of us on our first family bike ride.  The video gets a bit bumpy but you might forgive me a bit more if I tell you that I, too, was on my bike when I filmed this.

Ryan and daddy have been going to the park in the evening to play.  We sometimes go for a bike ride, play with the big yellow bouncy ball or go down the slide.  Ryan discovered a small apple tree at the park and loves to pick and throw the apples.  The other day Ryan discovered (in the community garden) that there were some blueberry bushes.  Well, let’s just say that he has now become a blueberry monster and whenever he gets the chance – he runs over and picks as many blueberries as he possibly can.  I taught him how to distinguish between the all blue, the somewhat blue/green and the green blueberries and he has been pretty good about just eating the all blue ones.

Here are some photos of Ryan the blueberry monster:

This weekend getaway was a lot of fun.  We were able to go to the children’s museum, do some shopping, visit with Maya, Sasha, Nisha and Rob and on Saturday night we had dinner with Mijung, Yong Chae, Frank and Jennifer.  Frank is Grace’s grandfather (Hero’s husband’s) brother.  Mijung is his daughter.   We only had the chance to visit with John and Josh, their 2 sons and unfortunately did not have a chance to see Julianne.

It was a lot of fun to visit with them.  They have a little dog named Lilo which Ryan liked.  They had a strange relationship – Lilo really was excited to see Ryan (someone closer to his size) but Ryan was a little scared of how excited Lilo was.  Ryan did try throwing the ball to see Lilo fetch….although, Ryan didn’t understand why Lilo wanted Ryan’s ball so badly.

Ryan found a big stick when we went for a walk in the woods and Lilo ended up chewing it and breaking it into little pieces.  Ryan was very very upset that Lilo ‘ate’ his stick.

At the end of the night Ryan ended up singing and dancing for everyone.  It really was a great visit.

Ryan, Grace, Frank, Yong Chae, Jennifer and Mijung

On our second day of our getaway we stopped by for a visit with Sasha and Maya and their parents Nisha and Rob.  Ryan and Sasha used to play together in the hallway when Ryan was one and Sasha was two.  They were great friends and always had a lot of fun together.  Sasha gave Ryan some of his favorite toys when he was just 12 months old – like his farm with the little people and animals and the Fisher Price big yellow bus.

Sasha and Maya moved to Seattle almost a year ago and Ryan still remembers her.  He was so excited to visit them that a few nights before we left Ryan was being difficult going to bed and kept coming out of his room.  Mommy said that if Ryan didn’t go to bed he wouldn’t get to visit with Sasha.  He then closed his door and went to bed immediately.  Ha Ha!  That’s love!

They had a blast together.  We went to the beach to play and then went back to Nisha and Rob’s place for lunch (homemade pizza!!).  Here are some photos