Category: 24-30 months

We took a weekend break before our move from #304 to #118 in the same building.  If you don’t have our new address we just switched apartments and everything else is the same.

On our weekend getaway we stopped by (first thing in the morning) to the Children’s Museum in Everett, WA.  We had heard great things about this museum but it was even better than we could have imagined.  It was very difficult to convince Ryan that it was time for lunch after we had been there for almost two hours.

Here are some photos and a brief description of some of the things we saw.  The cool thing about this museum is that most of the parts were real – it was a real cockpit of an airplane and a real inside of a bus.  But as you can tell, they chopped off the remainder of these things in order to fit them all into the museum.

Making some food for daddy	Pizza is yummy
Taking care of the animals	Wildlife Clinic
Driving the bus	This was way cool!
I want to live on a farm – just like Grampa	Ryan loved the tractor
Riding the horse	Checking out the fire truck playground
Is this really a plane?	I can’t believe I am flying an airplane
Peek-a-boo!	Finally, I don’t have to put up with daddy’s driving

Things have been very exiting for us as we prepare to move.  Ryan has been growing up super fast and with summer in full gear we’ve had our hands full with picking strawberries, riding his bike, playing hockey (on the ground), skating (on the ice), watching the Zamboni and just plain being silly.

Tonight, I took some boxes to my office to store there as they should have been there a long time ago.  Moving has a way of making you organize your life and throw away the useless stuff that has accumulated over time.  Anyway, in my office tonight, Ryan decided to sing a few songs for you.  These have the influence of Charles Ives – maybe because daddy just recorded Ives’ piano trio last week.

Check ‘em out!

The first video is a medley of Ryan’s own creation and the second is Ryan’s own take on ABC.

Also, I wanted to include a few recent pictures.  One of Ryan’s good friends is a 5 year old boy that lives on a floor in our building.  It might seem strange for a 5 year old and a two year old to play together but they really did have a lot of fun together.  Anyway, Jared had to move away.  Here is a picture of him and Ryan playing on the day that he left.

 Also, here are two summer pictures of Ryan hanging out.    One lounging on a chair and the other hanging in the grass!

One of Ryan’s birthday gifts was a red walking bike.  We had heard lots of great things about these bikes and decided to get one for his birthday.  We did a lot of research and bought one that would fit Ryan at such a young age.  We were worried about him falling and wiping out, or if he would even enjoy it.  We kind of had a few hints from Ryan when he would stare at other kids on their bikes and then try to steal their bikes when they weren’t looking.

When we first gave the bike to Ryan we told him that he can only ride the bike with his helmet, and we’ve been trying to lead by example.  Once, I tried to give Ryan his bike (I forgot about his helmet) and he would not get on because he didn’t have his helmet….a good start!

Here are some photos of Ryan on day 1 and a video of Ryan at the end of his first week.

can you figure out what is wrong in this picture?

 
Here is the video showing how much Ryan loves his bike after one week.

On Saturday we celebrated Ryan’s birthday with all of his friends.  We rented out a toddler gym for the party and had 10 friends come over.  It was a lot of fun.  Here are some photos of the kids playing and having a good time.  After the play time in the gym we all went to the party room to eat lots of good food and treats.  It all ended with a nice Thomas the Engine Birthday cake.

Make sure to check out the video at the bottom!

Ryan and Olive in the hot tub	Adam checks out the trampoline	Mommy, Daddy and Ryan	Ryan loves gymnastics!
Hellllo everybody!!	Stella and Oliver having fun	An overview of the party	Ryan showing off some more

Here’s a video of Ryan blowing out his birthday cake!

Ryan’s birthday started off by him waking us up.  He came into our room and saw Bootsie his kitty cat and gave him a big hug.

After that we took him out to the living room to see the ballons and decorations.  He was very excited.

After that Jasmine, Craig and Suzanne woke up.  We all had breakfast – Ryan loved eating with Jasmine.  Check out the mess!

After lots of playing and fun Ryan went to daycare where they threw him a party with all of his friends.  I stopped by in the afternoon to get some pictures and a video.  In the video, you will hear my voice over all of the kids singing – I was barely making much sound (as I embarrassed by my singing voice) but I had forgotten that the mike was right in front of me.  Grace still yells at me for that one – why would I ruin all of the cute kids singing Happy Birthday to Ryan.

Check out the pictures

and the video:

After daycare we did a lot of celebrating and eating of cake at home.  Here are the photos:

As you can probably tell from the photos – we got Ryan a red walking bike for his birthday.