Painting

Ryan got a new paint set out of one of the geocaches that we found recently, so today he painted several pictures using his new paints.

Frozen Bananas

I am not a big banana fan, but the kids really like them. I decided to try making some frozen bananas today for Ryan and Abby to share with the neighbor kids who were coming over to play this afternoon.


Ryan really enjoyed making the treats, and better yet, he even liked eating them (I wasn't sure he would). Unfortunately, neither of the friends we invited over liked them, but you can't win them all!

Memorial Day Weekend

We were pretty tired after all our yard work this week, but we did take a couple of days to go out and enjoy some family time. We hiked on some trails, played in some parks, hunted some geocaches, and even visited a couple of Veterans' Memorials that are nearby.


Ryan really liked the mural and reading the names of the people listed on the memorial.

Taking a Day Off

The last two weekends we have been putting in long hours weeding and preparing our yard for our new lawn. We got rained out last Sunday evening and couldn't finish, so we decided to take a break on Monday and go do something fun, especially since Daddy had taken the whole week off. It was still drizzling a bit, but the weather was supposed to clear up in the afternoon. We first went to a terrific children's park where there happened to be a couple of geocaches just for kids nearby.


Unfortunately it was too wet and slippery for the kids to play on the playground, so we went under the cover of the trees and found the two caches we were looking for. It started pouring rain in between the two so we sought shelter in The Elephant House for about 15 minutes while we waited for the rain to let up a bit. We will definitely have to come back to this park sometime soon so the kids can actually play!


We then went to the zoo for a few hours. They just opened a new exhibit with black bears, mountain lions and another small cat. It was nice to see something new at our little zoo, and the habitats were quite impressive. However, I don't think our favorite sight today was even an official zoo exhibit. There was the cutest little group of downy ducklings nesting in the mountain goat habitat!


This R2 mailbox was out in front of the zoo, and we all got a kick out of seeing it, particularly Ryan.

Helping With Yardwork

It's been a rough week for Ryan and Abigail. We have been working 10- and 12-hour days all week, and they have felt a bit neglected, I think. Whether it's feeling neglected or our usual routine being disprupted or all the quickie food we've been eating, I don't know, but they have been at each other's throats and acting up a bit. Ryan did have some fun sitting in the Bobcat and watching Daddy drive it around, and he also helped me a bit rolling out the sod. They both had fun washing all their outside toys on Thursday when it was pretty hot outside, but I think they're glad the majority of the yardwork is over!

Another Use For Toy Cars

When you tire of playing with Cars the old fashioned way, there's always this option:

He's All Boy

From time to time Daddy and I play a computer game called Age of Empires, and Ryan is captivated by this game. It's a civilization/battle game where you have to balance building up your economy with fighting the enemies as you progress from the Dark Age to the Imperial Age. I often let him choose what he wants to write during his writing time during school, and one day he chose words such as trebuchet, catapult, castle, etc.! He didn't know they were "hard" words, he just thinks they're cool and wanted to write them. He has been wanting to play the game himself for quite some time, but we just haven't felt he was really able to yet. But last weekend, Daddy loaded the game onto the kids' computer and showed him how to play. He was in heaven! He did pretty well during the tutorials he's completed thus far (we made him read all the history of each age and he's learning about the each culture and its weapons and economy, and so forth). He's all boy...loves the weapons, hunting, and military aspects the best.

Mother's Day Weekend

Ryan loves "special" days, and Mother's Day is no exception. We had a fun day celebrating early on Friday, and then we got to work in the yard the next two days. We put Ryan to work collecting rocks and fircones, and he did it for a while. But most of the time he spent playing, digging in the dirt, climbing and sliding on the play structure and pestering his sister. He was terrified of the weed burner that we had rented, but he calmed down a bit as the weekend progressed.

Buddies

Ryan and Abby were playing nicely together today, and when I went in to watch them for a minute I found this cute menagerie of Ryan's buddies all stuffed into the microwave of their play kitchen. According to Ryan, they were all hiding and sitting really still so they wouldn't be seen.

Eye Update

Ryan had another eye exam last weekend, and the surgeon is very pleased with the results of her last surgery. His eyes are perfectly straight when he is wearing his glasses, which was pretty much what we had hoped for. They do cross a bit when he takes off his glasses, but we didn't expect to be able to fix that completely. One of his eyes has a bit poorer vision than the other, but it wasn't enough to warrant changing his lenses. It was a great report, and it made me really happy we opted to do the second surgery!

Nighttime Reading

We instituted a new policy for Ryan last week. His usual bedtime is 8:30, but we told him he could stay up 15 minutes longer if he wanted to read in bed. I figured he would like the idea, but I was surprised at how excited he is each evening. He has been sleeping on the top bunk ever since Granpa was here and Abby was sleeping in his room on the bottom bunk. He likes being up high! He likes to read by flashlight, and I tried to snap a picture of him reading in bed, though it didn't turn out very well.

Why There's Been No New Posts Lately

I have been having a very hard time getting pictures uploaded and posts written on my blogs. I simply don't have the time available that I used to have since we began doing "Abby's school." However, today I have a "free" day, so I am going to publish quite a few posts. Some of these posts are pretty old, but since I use this as an online scrapbook of sorts for each of the kids, I am going to post them anyway. We have had an extraordinarily busy month, and we took lots of pictures!

Our New Play Structure

Ryan helping install the deck.

We have been dreaming of getting the kids a play structure for years, but our former house did not have room for even a swing set. So when we bought our new home, we knew this was one of the first major "improvements" that we wanted to make. Costco has a different play structure made for them each year by Rainbow Play Systems, and after much shopping and comparing, we concluded that it was truly the best value for the type and size structure we wanted.


About step 11 of 24 steps!

Each time we shopped at Costco, we would look at the structure, and one time Ryan wanted to know how the swings were going to fit in our van. He thought it came fully assembled! Wouldn't that be nice?


Being a good helper.

Last fall we laid down the weed block and spread the cedar chips so our play area was ready for the structure. My dad graciously agreed to fly up and help us assemble it, so Ryan and Abby were even more excited about the weekend than they normally would have been.



End of day one.

Ryan desperately wanted to help, so he was put to work putting washers on bolts and putting screws in holes, and even installing some of the screws himself. Even so, he was very impatient for it to be ready to play on. We spent about 12 hours putting it together on Saturday and less than two hours Sunday morning, and overall it was easier than we anticipated, thankfully. Best of all, it didn't rain all weekend!



We need to get another unit of cedar chips to expand the play area a bit, but other than that, it's done. We all love it, and I'm very pleased with how it looks in our backyard!

Hiding Out

One day last week Ryan asked if he and Abby could color, and I said sure. I was busy doing something in my bedroom, and when I came out I didn't see them in their usual coloring spot at the little table. They were down on the floor in the corner of the dining room. When I asked why they were back there instead of at the table, Ryan whispered, "Because we're hiding out from the bad guys. We don't want them to see us." Okay, whatever. I guess coloring is a risky activity these days!