Category: Ryan

We went over to my dad’s house for dinner on Saturday night, mainly because my grandmother- Ryan & Cole’s great-grandmother- is visiting from out of town for a few weeks.  She is the only great-grandmother the boys have, so she is VERY special. 

She had never met Cole, so it was nice for her to be able to see him.  Unfortunately, he was a total mama’s boy all night and only wanted me to hold him.  Grandma did get to hold him for about 5 seconds, before he started crying, at least she got to hold him.

My dad bought an out-door fire pit, and had a fire in it, under his covered patio.  It was raining, so Ryan bundled up with his older cousin under some blankets and watched the fire, and then they got down to the business of roasting marshmallows.

I was inside the entire night with Cole, but I heard from Joe that his cousin, (who is 13), would roast her marshmallows, catch it on fire, yell, “AHH!”, and then blow out the fire on her marshmallows. 

Ryan watched a few times and then proceeded to do exactly the same thing, including the “AHH,” yell.  Here is a picture of Ryan his cousin took, with his marshmallow success (he is pretty proud of himself.)

It was great to see, and have Cole meet Grandma.  We are planning a trip to her place this summer-she has a beach house on some water, so it will be wonderful to see her then, and have her be able to spend some time with Ryan and Cole.

The last two weekends, we have been able to do some fun family activities.

Last weekend, there was a model train show that we took the boys to.  Ryan loves trains, so this was a big hit for him.  My dad, and Joe’s dad went with us, and it was really neat to have both grandpa’s there.  As expected, Ryan was thrilled with the countless model train exhibits, and there were even a few that had Thomas!  Double bonus!

The big surprise was Cole- he absolutely loved the trains, whistles, and the noises.  I wasn’t sure what he was going to do- he usually doesn’t like loud noises or a lot of people, but this was the exception.  Every time he would hear a train whistle, he would clap his hands, start to laugh, and kick his legs.  I thought one train engineer in the family was enough, but if this was any indication, I think we will have two on our hands.

Here are a couple of pictures- Ryan really was having a good time- he just gets so serious sometimes when he sees the camera out.  And no, that isn’t Darth Vader with us- I have my dad’s face blacked out in one of the pictures, because I am not sure how he would feel about having his picture on the Internet.

Then last Friday, I got to meet one of my really good friends, that I don’t get to see very much, for lunch at a local mall.  It was really nice to visit and catch up, and the boys did really well.  Ryan was pretty shy around her, and Cole let her hold him, and at one point he fell asleep, and I handed him over to her, and he slept for a good 15 minutes in her arms.  It kind of felt like I was in a time-warp, because she came to visit Ryan in the hospital after he was born,  and now she was holding Cole who is 9 months old, and the “little” baby she came to visit back then, is 3 now!  It just made me wonder where the time has gone. 

Then on Saturday, we went to butterfly / bug museum.  We had always heard really good things about it, but we have never been there.  Ryan instantly loved the “Nemo” fish tank- there is a tank there with all the fish from “Finding Nemo.”  He was so excited to see Nemo and Dory.  Cole had a blast too, seeing the fish swim by.  He is in a major phase where he wants to pound on anything and everything as hard as he can, so it was a challenge to keep him from beating the fish tank, but we managed.  🙂

We saw the butterflies, and it was really neat.  They are in a seperate climate controlled room with lots of tropical plants and flowers, and they get to just fly around free.  Here are two shots I got of some butterflys before they flew off.

 Here is a picture of a hibiscus that I loved:

 Ryan started to get bored in the butterfly exhibit, and Cole did great, just sitting in his little stroller, looking around at the fluttering butterflies, and grabbing his toes.  His hair started to curl up, due to the humidity in the room and it was really cute.  Here is a picture of him:

Ryan was set on pushing Cole the entire time in the stroller- I guess it was just his size.  Neither one liked the bug display, and I didn’t either; especially the cockroaches- yuck! 

Ryan informed us he was bored, so we went back to look at the Nemo tank one more time, and Ryan asked us, “where is the shark?’  When we told him there wasn’t a shark, he kept saying, “I need to see the shark.”  Maybe we will have to upgrade to an aquarium next time. 

On Sunday we had some errands, and household stuff to do, but we had time to go fly a kite.  There was a light wind, so we went to Joe’s parent’s house, who have some acreage, and tried to fly the kite.  It was one that was just around, and it was terrible.  We would get it up in the air, and it would nose dive.  Ryan was bored again, but decided to push Cole in the stroller all around the field again.  Finally, we managed to get the kite airborne for about 2 minutes  (okay, confession time…Joe managed to get it airborne, but I tossed it up for him.), and the boys loved seeing it fly.  As soon as it started to nose dive, Ryan would let out the loudest scream he could, just to be goofy.  After about half an hour, of trying to get that silly kite to fly- we gave up, and Joe and I both raced Ryan a few times, until he decided every few feet, he would stop, drop, and roll around in the mud!  Fun for him- not so fun for Mom, who has to clean his shoes and clothes.

We had a nice time being together as a family, and I hope as Ryan and Cole get bigger, they won’t remember so much what we did or didn’t do, but remember that we were together and always managed to have fun- even if that means I have to spend the next two days cleaning the mud off Ryan’s clothes! 

My sister who is expecting her first baby in April, had her baby shower today.

We started the day off with taking Ryan and Cole to a friend’s 3 year old birthday party at a bouncy castle place.  Ryan had fun bouncing with Dad, and Cole did surprisingly well playing with an exerciser, the facility had.  We had a nice lunch and Thomas cake, and it was a great party!

I was playing it by ear, on whether to take Cole or not to the shower- we already decided Ryan was going to stay home with Joe, because we knew he really needed his nap.  My sister lives about 50 miles away, so it is a bit of a trip.  I didn’t really want to take Cole, because he doesn’t do that well with crowds, and noise, and he also needed to nap.  But he is having major separation anxiety right now, and I wasn’t sure if he would be fussy today or not.  To be totally honest, I thought it would be nice to have a few kid/baby free hours, to just enjoy the shower.  But I was waiting it out to see how he would be.

BINGO!  Both boys fell asleep on the way home from the birthday party, and I carried Cole upstairs, and laid him on the bed, and he stayed asleep, so I took off.

The shower was really nice, with lots of family, friends, and good food.  Almost everyone asked where the boys were, so that was nice they were missed, but they completely understood why they weren’t there.  🙂

My sister and her husband, are having a girl, and they decided to name her Maelyn.  It is a name her mother-in-law suggested, and I think it has Norwegian decent. 

I knew all along for my main gift, I wanted to do something special with letters, once they decided on a name, but a few months ago my sister, just out of the blue, told me she was going to order the letters for Maelyn’s name off of a store on e-bay.

I HAD to tell her I wanted to do that for her gift, and she agreed, so my sister has known about the letters, but she didn’t know what I was planning to do with them. I was going to order the letters off  a web-site, but then saw some at a local arts & crafts store, and my sister had seen the same ones, and liked them, so I got them.  I bought them white, but added the design, and ribbons to them.  I am very happy how they turned out.  But more importantly, my sister said she really liked them.  I asked her to take a picture of them, once they were hung up, because her nursery theme is coral and lime green, and the wall these will be hung on, is lime green and I think they will look better hung up on the wall then just laying on the tissue paper I put them on to take a picture of them….

I hope Maelyn likes them as she grows older, and they help her learn to spell her name.  We have the letters for Ryan’s name, and he loves pointing out the letters, and spelling his name.  We just got some for Cole’s name as well.  I really had fun designing these, and I can’t wait to meet my sweet niece, Maelyn.  We can’t wait for her to be born!