Choo Choo Ryden's 2!

Apparently I can only plan outdoor parties when the weather doesn't cooperate.

We had Ryden's party last Sunday, and it was the windiest day ever.  I don't have room at my house to have more than like two extra people here so we were planning for the park.  Ummm, not working out so well.  

Windy, not so happy.

Good thing I have amazing friends and we moved the party inside.  I also took NO pictures so good thing that was taken care of too :)  Thanks Audrey!

Did I mention that the boy LOVES trains?  Train cake, train cookies, train presents ... got the theme?  Oh, and an awesome (if I do say so myself) train birthday shirt I made.

 Fun with all of his BFF.

Ryden is 2!

Two years ago Ryden was born.  So much has happened in our lives in those two years, but he is the highlight of most of my days.




The kid LOVES trains.  He can play for hours - HOURS - with a good train set.

He still loves nursing.  He is always ready to go to bed when he knows that he'll get milk.  Who knows when we'll be done with that.  Speaking of bedtime he still has his pacifier at night - another highlight of bedtime.  I know that he shouldn't anymore, but I really don't want to mess with bedtime because 15 minutes of book and nursing, give him his paci and he's in bed for the night (unless of course he loses his paci).

Harper is pretty much awesome.  Unless she's not.  Usually he wants to do everything Harper is doing, but there are times when she drives him nuts!  Like her obsession with giving him a hug and kiss before bed.  It's cute, but he hates it.


Language is still coming.  He's gaining new words and he says a lot more than I (or anyone else) understands.  He definitely has trouble putting sounds together.  He is able to communicate most of what he wants without words.  I have to keep telling myself that words will come.

I can always count on snuggles when I wake him up at 6:00 in the morning.  This time is getting harder because he wants to pick his own clothes and there isn't a train shirt for him to wear everyday :)

It's hard to think that he is officially out of the baby stage and into toddler stage.  He is happy, easy-going, and loving.  I can't imagine what my life would be like without him.

Blogging break

Hi blog, it's been awhile but I haven't forgotten about you.  I just hate posting without pictures and my camera is broken and I'm a little slow with technology and haven't take time to figure out how to upload pictures from my phone.  These are just excuses I'll try to make a better effort going forward :)

Snow angel

Today was a snow day!  Harper woke up and I opened the door to show her the snow.  The look on her face was priceless, pure awe and excitement.

I didn't really prepare well for a snow day though because I didn't really think it would happen.  My plan was to bake, but I forgot to think about the whole list and we didn't have any eggs.  We made some shortbread cookies and gingerbread cookies, neither of which required eggs but did require rolling and cutting (yuck).

Harper got to play in the snow while I scooped the driveway (I'm also fortunate to have great neighbors who finished the last half of my driveway for me).  Tonight she wanted to make a snow angel, so she did!  She was so excited.

Ryden at 18 months

Ryden officially turned 1 1/2 last Monday.  He is growing up so fast.

He loves cars and his blanket. 





















We're still breastfeeding, but he's going to be gone all week so maybe not anymore :(.

Harper is A-MAZ-ING.




















He says hi and bye.  That's it.  Sometimes things sound like dog, ball, book, but only because he's pointing while he's saying it.  LEARN SOME WORDS!

He could play with blocks all day.
















Bedtime is SO easy, but he still wakes up one or two times a night to nurse.

He's a little obsessed with plungers (gross I know).

He would be outside all the time if he could.

Pretty much, he's the coolest 18 month kid I know :)

Leaf Hunt

Last weekend we went on a leaf hunt.

I had this brilliant idea because the leaves are such pretty colors right now.  I'm pretty sure that when I was little, I would draw red, orange, and yellow leaves for fall, but I really thought they just dried up, turned brown and fell off the tree.  Getting Harper to really see all those colors seemed like a good idea.

So I made a list of the things we needed to look for on our leaf hunt.

We headed out on a walk toward the park.

We found lots of leaves.

And other fall nature things.

Then we played at the park.

When we got home, Harper took all of the leaves we found and made a picture.

We will definitely do this again.  As they get older we will definitely identify the types of trees that our leaves come from and learn why leaves turn color and I'm sure that I'll think of more things they will need to learn.  These poor kids with a Biology teacher for a mom.

Weekends

I love weekends!  I like my job, most days, but weekends I get to spend with my kids.  Sometimes they frustrate me, sometimes I have a short temper and snap at them, but I love them all the time.

Last weekend, we went to Touch-A-Truck at a local church.  I thought the kids would totally be into it.  However, I forgot that Harper is ridiculously shy in new situations.  There was a bounce house there though that she HAD to do, wouldn't do anything else until she jumped.  We did get to move past that and this is the point where Ryden discovered the little cars while Harper got some cotton candy.


We really need to get some toy cars.

















The kids did art too!  I found this idea on Pinterest but I failed to think through the fact that my kids are not perfectionists (yet) and wouldn't want to just put their handprints on the tree.  They still turned out pretty cute.

She wanted to be in the picture.  Goofball.

We also went to the pumpkin patch and did not get any pumpkins.  Grandma and Grandpa have supplied us with pumpkins this year.  But we had lots of fun.  Thanks to Audrey for taking pictures ... I wish I had a nice camera.

 Grandma and Grandpa have also supplied us with copious amounts of squash which I have been baking into all sorts of things.  I've made a couple batches of 'pumpkin' bread and this weekend made some pumpkin gingersnap cookies.  

I made some delicious glazed muffins too.  I'm addicted to Pinterest . . .