Ryan turns 2!

At the beginning of March, we celebrated Ryan's 2nd birthday!  Wow. I can't even began to tell you how fast 2 years has gone. Here he is on his birthday morning with our special birthday pancake tradition:

We had a small party for him with some friends at the Williamson County park. They have a train that runs throughout the park and I thought he would love to have a train party. The weather was kind of chilly but the rain held off, and we had a great time.

The best babysitters! They loved watching Ryan which was great for me too!

We reserved the train so everyone in our group could go on a train ride!  Here's my little engineer:

Choo choo!

And some shots from our friend on the train.

It was actually a pretty long train ride and Ryan had a blast. He was pretty sad to have to get off!

I of course had to look to do a little "Pinteresting" for the party...

Here's the food: I made train tracks with cars of coal (blackberries), logs (pretzel sticks), and produce (carrots).  

We had train shaped sandwiches and hot dogs.

And we had two cakes! One I bought at Costco. The other I actually made... it was a dairy free, egg free cake!  Not too bad for my very poor decorating skills I thought!

Happy 2nd birthday Ryan! We love you so much.

A quick summary on Ryan:

Loves strawberries, chips, and cookies.

Ryan says LOTS of words at this age. We can usually understand what he is trying to say and he will repeat most things you say (which the older kids find hilarious and love to have him repeat things). Some favorite phrases are: What Happened?, Oh Yeah., Everything is Awesome

Sleeps pretty good. He'll often wake up early in the morning (like 6am) and just talk to himself so we leave him in his crib until usually 7:30am. He takes one nap a day, usually about 2.5 hours. 

He LOVES to be outside... throws huge fits when he has to come in. He particularly loves his bike and jumping/climbing on everything.

He doesn't seem to be afraid of much. Definitely loves his mama :) 

So, that's Ryan! Such a joy in all our lives.

February 2015

This year, Bryce and Caitlin again went to the Daddy Daughter dance.  Caitlin loves to dress up and be fancy so she was thrilled. And a date with Daddy... nothing gets better!

He took her to Firehouse Subs for dinner (her favorite) before going to the dance where she danced a lot! I got to take my two boys on our own date... dinner at Mighty Fine!

Also this month, Evan had a first grade music performance. He did a great job. I'll try to post the video at a later date if I remember to upload it.

After the music show, they had Family Math night at school. We enjoyed playing lots of fun math games. Caitlin especially like the tangrams!

We also had a bit of tragedy.... Evan broke his left arm. He was playing at a neighbors house and fell off their trampoline (no net, too many kids).  He was such a trooper though. It was a pretty bad break (both the ulna and the radius, about 45 degrees). He was in a cast for 7 weeks almost!  But now he is doing great. It kind of ended our basketball season though and he was out for all activities.  

Mommy also ran the half marathon again! This year, I was the fastest Freescale woman to finish the half marathon and I beat my goal, finishing in a time of 1:54:55.  It was a great run. I even met the Mayor at the finish line!

Evan also had a first grade field trip to the Austin Science and Nature Center. I got to join along and we had a great morning learning about animals!

And that was our busy and eventful February!

More January

This year, Evan decided to try out basketball at the YMCA.  It was great because a bunch of his friends were all playing on the same team.

Team picture

Action shots

Unfortunately, his season was short-lived as he broke his arm after just 2 games and was out the rest of the season. But, he still enjoyed going to practice and dribbling and cheering on his teammates!

Also this month, Evan got some awards at the First Grade Fall Semester Awards.

He was a Rising Star in reading, math, and got the citizenship award!  Way to go Evan!

We are proud of how much you are learning this year and being a good role model.  It truly is amazing to see how far he has come in reading especially.  It just clicked in November and since then, he's really taking to it and loves to read chapter books!

Caitlin's Birthday Party

This year, we did Caitlin's birthday party just after New Year's while school was still out and since we had family in town.  We had her party at a jumpy place called Pump It Up.  It was great because the kids got to get LOTS of energy out, and I didn't have to do a ton of work!

Avery loves playing with Ryan which is always a big help to me!

Caitlin got to go in this wind tunnel machine

Girls!

Racing on the obstacle course

The birthday girl!

Lots of friends!

Daddy and the birthday girl

Happy 5th Birthday Caitlin!