Fun, Fun, Fun!

Oh the wonderful fun the boys have had lately!  We started it off with Halloween, which Ryle love (after the fact) and ended it with A Day Out This Thomas.

Here are the boys preparing to go Trick or Treating at the Village Walk Plaza. 

 And afterwards they managed to sneak in some neighborhood Trick Or Treating as well. Here is Ryle's friend's house (aka - next door).

Post Trick Or Treating bath and winding down --- yep, he's back in the Buzz Lightyear Costume!

While the boys had fun with Halloween, Aunt Gaby and I ran the Marine Corps Marathon. 

It was a fantastic race and the sights along the course were spectacular!!! 

And someone must have been extra good (or his parents are extra suckers) because 

we also drove all the way to Perris in Orange County to visit with Sodor's 

most beloved train... Thomas The Tank Engine!!!!!

Ryle is very excited about riding Thomas.

 

And we even got to "meet" him afterwards. 

All in all, it was a great week of events!

October revisited

I can't believe that October is over and that November is halfway gone as well. Where does the time go?  Ryle had a couple of visits to the Pumpkin patch . He loved the train and the first time would not go on any of the rides. Which was a shame.  The second time we went we got smarter! We invited Michael and Bibi so Ryle would have a buddy to go on the rides with. 

Here's Ryle hogging the train bell (now missing since our last visit)

Would you believe that Michael is camera shy? He apparently hates having his picture taken

Gray thought it was great fun...

Ryle getting brave on the side

Hello!

Look who decided to join the fun

In addition to the Pumpkin Patch, we also had fun at Ryle's Fall Festival at school.

Ryle and one of his favorite teachers, Ms. Denise

Ryle getting a tattoo from the Asst Director, Ms. Christina

Daddy and Gray watching the fun

Ryle learned how to play Bingo. Watch out!

Next post I will finally get around to putting up the Halloween pictures that Ryan took.

Some days you're the windsheild and some days you're the bug....

Today is a bug day. Actually it's been a bug month. Let's see, where to begin? I will start with what I can remember, because I used to have an awesome memory. Awesome. Now I feel like there are big swiss cheese holes of memory lost in there!


Gray turned 11 months old last Wednesday. Yay Gray. Also on Wednesday we found out that he has a "raging ear infection" (quote from the pediatrician), herpangina, and oral ulcers. Great.... poor kid. The good news is that she was amazed at what a great mood he was in because he should be in great discomfort and moody. So he is infant advil and amox. Grayson really has it rough since Ryle started school, I think he has been sick once his whole life before Ryle started school.  And he's been sick since school started in September.


The next day Ryle vomitted at breakfast. Fun. Also he is still coughing from him cold last month. SO back to the doctor's office. And did I mention that visiting the doctor's office with 2 kids under 3.5 is no fun at all. Ryle has an ear infection and is getting tested for whooping cough (she doesn't think it is, but better safe than sorry since Gray can catch it from Ryle if he does have it.). Ryle is allergic to amox, so he had a diff medication.


Gray has decided to boycott sleeping at night. The last 2 nights have been ugly to say the least.  We have had 2 mornings this week that started at 530 am. Yes, 530. The other 3 days started at a much more reasonable 630.

So, let's recap. 2 sick boys, 3 meds, 4 different doses of meds.  6 hours of sleep, 2 days... is it any wonder that I am looking forward to going to DC on Friday? Even if I do have to run 26.2 miles... I get to sleep!!!!  (poor Ryan)

The big news this week, we finally replaced our small camera!  Here is a little video of Gray scooting and attacking me. 

Birthday etc

I think the only real reason I haven't blogged about Ryle's birthday yet is that I am trying to block it from my mind. It was that bad. We had his birthday in sections. We had a few of our friends over and grilled out and had cake. That was a hit. the next day we woke up, did presents and then headed up to Anaheim to spend the next day and a half at Disney. Things sort of spiraled down from the drive up....

Things that went horribly, horribly wrong:
1) We goofed and he didn't get to ride the train to Anaheim
2) He fell asleep before we got to the train
3) We broke the small camera
4) He bit, hit, yelled at, and basically was a holy terror the whole 2 days
5) Do you really need more things to have gone wrong?

But, he was great the day before his birthday when we had a cook-out and his cake.

Excited about Aunt Gaby arriving

Loves his cake!

He ate a lot of cake.

 The boys cozying up on the bed at the "hometel"

The last good thing that happened that day.

Anyway.... That's over with and now we can catch up in the next blog.

Let's catch-up

Oh my! I wish that I had remembered to take pictures.... Last weekend Ryan mounted the hardtop to the garage ceiling with the help of Marvin. I'm not really sure who was more surprised that the hardtop has stayed up this long, me or Marvin! But, as you can see it is a miracle of engineering and pretty cool to look at (once you get over the fear for your life feeling of seeing this over your head!).


We also had a visitor last week. Michael stayed with us for part of the day and it looks like the boys had fun. Ryle has a different approach to finger painting than Michael, he refused to use his hands at first, then he changed his mind!

Gray appears to be a chip off the old block.

See, he's just softening him up for.....

The boys also enjoyed getting dressed up for the 4th. We had a BIG day! There's a new fish tank in the house!!!

Another day of making sure the water is right and we get to add fishies to the tank.

It's Monday

Ok, Ryle is definitely goofy, and I'll even explain what I mean by that! His new favorite thing is to steal my phone (no, that's not new) and to push the voice recognition button and make phone calls. Who he gets is always a mystery.... the voice recognition asks "say a command" and Ryle thinks she says "sing to the man" so he says "sing to the man." Today he grabbed the phone, hit the button and scooted under the coffee table to hide from me while he was trying to phone someone. Giggling madly the whole time. And more antics.... Last night at dinner when I was just soooooo tired and hungry (ok, cranky) and he made me laugh so hard by repeating "I farted, I farted, I farted" and before you ask, yes, we were at a restaurant and yes, people could probably hear him.

This weekend we had a chance to visit with some old friends. Suzie's daughter Jillian had her 2nd birthday and we saw Suzie, Jillian, David and also the Sweeney family (Dan, Summer and Aidan). It was a blast!
Ryle ate (and LOVED) hotdogs! I think it might have actually been Ryan's proudest moment.... I may have seen a tear in his eyes. Ok, I exaggerate slightly, but it was a surprising moment. He literally snatched the hotdog off the bun and stole it from Ryan. Then demanded another. That kid....
It was a Alice in Wonderland themed party, so both of the boys got bow-ties.

The most surprising thing from the party --- Ryle patiently waited in line to get his hand painted! Waited for about 5 kids who either got painted or balloon animals.
He chose Lightning.... or course.

So proud of his car.

He also created a masterpiece right before we left.


Well, now we have to find a spot in his room for it to hang.

Apologizing and misc Garden

I really hate apologizing. It means I was wrong, and I hate to be wrong. But I think that I have to do it this time.

Dear Birds,

I am sorry to have accused you for being the responsible party for the "Great Edamame massacre". I still blame you for all of the missing ripe strawberries, but I think that another guilty party may be to blame for the edamame. During one of my morning garden inspections, I noticed one of the edamame sprouts I had protected from the birds had been "de-seeded" and a little slug was curled up next to it in a food induced coma. Let's just say that slug won't be bothering the garden in the future. So.... maybe it was slugs and birds, because 19 seems like a lot for slugs to accomplish overnight. The edamame seeds I planted in the raised container seem to be doing well, so let's hope that we will be eating fresh edamame beans later this summer.

So please stay away from the strawberries and I'll stop accusing you of eating my edamame seedlings.

Sincerely,

Apologetic Gardener

Well, that was a relief to get off my chest! So here are the plants in containers that are thriving so far.


They are the broad plants in the middle and the others are radishes planted to try and keep up with Ryle's voracious radish appetite.

Here are the two that survived the first planting.
Don't they look sad? All alone and small?

Well, they have friends close by, a team of burpless cucumbers, a scalloped squash (photo below) and some arugula.


In another container on the patio are these beauties.... Cherokee Purple tomatoes. I am really excited to taste these! They are supposed to have a deeper/richer taste than plain red tomatoes. Yum!
I bought this plant for Ryan, it is a "Tomatoberry" which I hope are very similar to the Strawberry Tomatoes we used to find at Costco. Looks like he will be able to let me know if the plant is a hit or miss very soon.


And this curious guy is my Green Zebra tomato. I'm sure he is very tired of me feeling and prodding daily to see if he is ripe yet. This tomato should be green and yellow when ripe. So I think the feel test may be the only way to see if he's ready.


And on another gardening note, I am pretty sure the Fairytale Eggplants I purchased are actually not Fairytale. I kept monitoring them waiting for the distinctive striping to occur and it still hasn't. Looking at some photos of this type of eggplant seems to show that the marbling occurs from the one-set, so I have a different plant. Oh well, maybe next year.
Ryle has been asking me the last few days if we can eat the purple eggplant. So I finally caved tonight and we harvested the largest of the 3 that are edible sized. Since we were finally going to eat one of the eggplants, I decided we might as well at the scallop squash I picked earlier this week and the zucchini that was sizing up. We can't eat just 1 squash/zucchini, so might as well combine them all for a side dish. We washed them up, sliced and tossed them on the grill with the rest of dinner, and they were so good! Ryan's response to the eggplant was "I didn't hate it." True praise indeed.

The jalapeno below (1 of about 4 good sized ones on the plant) was used in a last minute batch of black beans.
Hmmm..... Dinner was grilled chicken legs, rice, grilled eggplant/zucchini/squash, braised collard greens and some black beans. Yum! Summer is here and the garden will hopefully produce us lots of treats.