A Fishy Party!

Ryan had his party yesterday. He wanted a fishing party, so I did my best despite a dearth of fishing themed items at the party stores. Daddy, Mommy, and Ryan all donned our fishing attire, I baked a fish cake, we had a waterfall complete with salmon running, and various other fishing decorations in addition to the usual streamers and balloons (which were varying shades of blue like water).



We had eight kids and five adults present, and it felt a bit chaotic at times. Overall, though, it went smoothly. The kids played for a while, then we started the games. We played "Pin the Fish on the Hook," which was pretty fun to watch. We had fish all over the place, and only two even made it on to the poster!


Next we brought out a small wading pool filled with packing popcorn (all the parents took a collective breath and said something or other about us being brave). We mixed in some paper trout, blindfolded the kids and each got a turn to see how many fish they could "catch." It was much harder than it looked! I thought Abby was going to win, but she got beat out by one fish.



Lastly, we rigged up a fishing pole with a plastic hook and each child fished a treat out of a pond of goodies. Again, this was harder than it looked and a couple kids (Ryan included) ended up needing some help with it. But each child got a small toy, and they liked that a lot!


Next Ryan opened presents and somewhere in here I lost control of the party! Everyone was throwing their gifts at him and he was opening them and then it was over. I was glad we gave him our gifts earlier in the week, except for a set of Nerf guns and ammo to go with it.


Finally, we sang to Ryan and cut the cake. After cake and ice cream (and Goldfish and Gummy Worms) the kids played a bit more until parents came to get them and/or packed them up to go home.


Ryan and Abby were both overexcited all day long and were pretty hyper during the party, but they both had a good time. Ryan was blessed to have all but one of the kids he invited attend, and the other little boy is having us over tomorrow for a special birthday lunch! He got to celebrate with some new friends, current friends, and even one friend we haven't seen in quite a while. He received some neat gifts, including two Lego sets, which he is really getting into these days.


It was a success, it was fun, but I'm so glad it's all over! It took 90 minutes to put the house back together. We had to move all our living room furniture around to accommodate all our guests and the party games! I think next year we'll go back to the small intimate celebrations we usually do.

He's Six

11 days old.
Several years ago not long after we adopted Abby, we were eating at the Olive Garden and I noticed a family with two tweenage kids eyeing us periodically. They were smiling at Ryan and Abby and seeming to enjoy watching our babies. As they were leaving the mom looked at me and quietly said, "Blink and they will be this age" indicating her two children. She was smiling but I could see tears brimming in her eyes. I'm not sure why, but that one comment has remained with me. I can still see her face.


Showing his new watch and Lego kit he got today.
Today I feel like I have blinked. Ryan is six. Those years are gone and can't be retrieved, only reminisced over while turning a scrapbook page or clicking through our thousands of digital pictures. There are other memories too, ones only captured by a Mommy's heart. I treasure those mental snapshots and look forward to the new ones yet to be made. To us he is our miracle, and I love being his Mommy.


Happy Birthday, Ryan!

Being Thoughtful & Helpful

Ryan has been showing some neat signs of maturity lately. He has really been trying to be helpful, not only to me but also to his sister. He made her bed for her this morning just to be nice to her. He often will "rescue" her if looks like she's going to lose her toys because she isn't cleaning them up or if she's going to be disciplined for not putting things away, but the last couple of months I've seen him do little things to help her for no reason at all.


Last week both kids eagerly helped me get the house cleaned up before some of guests arrived for a playdate. Ryan cleaned the floor and toilet while Abigail did the sink, counter, and mirror!


Then this morning Ryan decided he was going to make my coffee for me! I took a deep breath and said, "That would be wonderful, Pumpkin." I knew he would have some difficulty with the task, but in the end he needed only a little guidance and a towel to clean up the spills. He did make my coffee (and a big mess too, but it's the heart that counts!). He even inquired about how much creamer he should put in for me. I was very blessed by his thoughtfulness.

Making Invitations

Ryan is very excited because he is going to have his first "real" birthday party this year! We have had a friend or two over before, but usually we keep it really low key and just do a family activity to celebrate. Now that we are settling in to our new church and neighborhood, he has enough friends to have a larger party. He chose a fishing theme for his party, and yesterday he helped me make his invitations.

Enjoying His Job

How this big of a tube is deemed to be only
one inch of precipitation is beyond me!
When we first signed Ryan up to report the rainfall I wondered if he'd soon tire of it and have to be prodded and threatened to go do his daily reading. I have been pleased to see that that isn't the case. Though I do remind him most days, he eagerly runs out at 8:00am to read the gauge, then reports the numbers to me so I can submit them online. He's learned how to read hundredeths of an inch, and this week he got a lesson on a different kind of precipitation...snow.

After correctly reading the gauge for a few weeks, he's been
released to read it on his own without me hovering over him.
Normally he just reads the numbers on the tube to see how much rainfall we've had, but when we woke up to snow yesterday, he had to bring the gauge inside so we could melt it and then do the reading. It was a bit of a cumbersome task, but fun nonetheless.


Replacing the gauge after melting the snow.
Of course, he couldn't wait to get back outside to play in the snow. Unfortunately, he ended up having to wait a few hours, but at least the sun was shining when the went out to play.

Gaining Confidence

My dad got Ryan this gear building set for Christmas. At first Daddy or I were helping him and doing most of the building, but recently he wanted to play with it and I didn't have time to help him. After a little persuasion, he tried it on his own, and now he builds like crazy with it! Though you can't see it in the picture, it is remote controlled and even has flashing lights.

First Reading

Promptly at 8:00 am this morning Ryan and I went out to read the rain gauge so we could submit the data to the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network (CoCoRaHS). It didn't rain at all, but we had freezing fog this morning (yep, weird but true!) and the fog was all frozen on the outside of the gauge. We submitted our data online and an hour later I looked out the window and it was snowing! So much for a dry day today. So tomorrow instead of 0.00 rainfall he will get to report a T (trace).


He is pretty excited by his new job, and we're all having some fun with it. If you want to see our station on the map and see our precipitation for any given day, click here. Currently there are four stations in our county, and we're the northernmost station.

Gauging the Weather

I've mentioned before that Ryan is fascinated by all things weather-related, so when I saw an ad on our local news website looking for people to measure and report on rainfall in their area, I submitted an application in Ryan's name (with me as a helper, of course). We were assigned our station number, we ordered and received our rain gauge, I mounted the gauge to a post, and today I got the post put up in the back yard! Tomorrow at 8:00 am Ryan will go out, read the gauge, and commence his "career" in weather reporting for CoCoRaHS! Unfortunately, it's not supposed to rain for the next three days. Hey, I had to wait for a dry spell! Who wants to go dig a hole in the rain?

Lots of Reading

Almost every January hubby and I have made a decision to not watch movies or television or anything for a month. Usually we don't include the children, but this year we decided to have them join us. Ryan is not really much of a watcher anyway. He'd much rather be playing with his toys or a game or something, so this wasn't a big deal to him...at first. Abigail has said every day that she wants to watch something, but this week was the first time Ryan has admitted he would like to watch a movie too. I suggested I could build a fort for them or they could play one of their new games, but next thing I know, Ryan is reading to Abby out of a Disney storybook we have. He was reading Toy Story, just the movie he wanted to watch! I got a kick out of them huddled over the book enjoying the story. I have noticed this week that he has been reading to her quite a bit and he's even been reading more to himself than usual. I'm loving the quietness and am ready to get rid of the television completely, but I think I'm the only one!


Reading the Tale of Cuffy Bear.
It's also been neat to see how much progress Ryan has been making in his reading. He is loving a series of books written by Arthur Scott Bailey. A few are included on his reading list for his homeschool curriculum, but I've printed out more of them from Gutenberg.org (love that site!) since they are old, rare and usually too expensive to buy. When he first started reading his first book in the series it took him about 20 to 30 minutes to get through one chapter, and today he whipped through five chapters in 30 minutes!

He Can Tie His Shoes!

I have been negligent. I've never taught either of my children how to tie a knot or bow. I just simply don't buy shoes with laces! But since Ryan is approaching six, I figured it's probably something he ought to know, so we got out the book I've had for ages that has a bunch of shoes with holes to lace up and comes with a string. I sat down on Saturday and showed him how, then we reviewed it on Monday. Voila! He now knows how to tie his shoes (should he ever have shoes with laces). Why did I put that off for so long?

Sunshine Sunday

Since the sun was shining and it was nice and dry after church, we decided to head to the zoo for a couple of hours. The zoo is up in the hills though, and it was still pretty cold, even when you're walking for miles. We first went to the Lorakeets since we have been missing them the last few trips to the zoo. Then we went to the jungle area where the jeep is to let the kids play on it for a while. For whatever reason, they love this jeep, but Mommy and Daddy usually skirt it so we can see the actual animals when we come. But they played for quite a while today and had a good time.


It's amazing to me: we don't watch television except for a couple of shows on PBSKids or Discovery Channel a couple times a month, we took the kids to exactly three movies last year (Artic Tale, Ratatouille, and Meet the Robinsons), we always skip the commercials when we watch DVDs, and we don't get any magazines or newspapers or catalogs that the kids look at, but STILL when Ryan saw this telescope at the giraffe exhibit the first thing he said was, "Look, it's WALL-E!" I have to admit, it does look like him. It's just incredible to me how easily kids pick up on things...I've barely heard of the movie, let alone remember the name!

Moon Sand

Knowing how much I love Play-Doh, my sister-in-law gave the kids Moon Sand for Christmas (okay, it was from my brother and their two girls too, but we all know who actually chooses, buys, and wraps the stuff!). Wow, what a mess this stuff makes! But the kids loved it, and it kept them entertained for over an hour, so it's hard to complain about a little grit when it occupies them so well. That reminds me, I need to start thinking about a birthday present for my niece...

Playing in the Snow

As we watched the snow fall yesterday, Ryan begged to go out and play. Unfortunately, the flakes were so small that the accumulation was very small as well, even though it snowed for the majority of the day. Finally when it looked like the snow was turning to rain, we let them go out to play.


The Weather Channel said it was 35 degrees outside but felt like 26 degrees. I believe it! It felt really cold to me, so I stayed inside and made hot white chocolate to warm the kids up when they came inside. It must have felt cold to them too because they wanted to come in before I even finished making the hot drink!

Christmas Day

It has finally happened. I wondered if and when it would. I remember having the same problem when I was a child. Ryan couldn't get to sleep on Christmas Eve because he was too excited. I was especially surprised because we have had such long days with no naps or quiet times, so I thought he'd just crash.


He did finally fall asleep, but he was up bright and early at 6:45 dressed and ready for the day. He was a bit impatient when I reminded him that we were going to wait for Abby to wake up and we were going to eat breakfast first, but finally Abby got up about 7:30 and we began the day.


We got our stockings down first. Ryan was pretty excited by a couple of things in his. I've been saving a Cars car, DJ, for a while to surprise him. He has been collecting all the cars (well, lots of them anyway) and this was one we had trouble finding. Then we opened presents from grandparents and cousins. As usual, our generous family sent way too many gifts, but we are grateful for their giving hearts!


After playing games (we got quite a few!) and enjoying our new things, we had a yummy dinner that even Ryan enjoyed! One of the best surprises of the day was the snow that fell all day long! It didn't stick, but it was such a joy to watch it drifting through the air throughout the day.

Christmas Cookies

We baked two different kinds of cookies to give to the neighbors as love gifts, and there were only a couple of each left. I also baked a favorite of mine growing up, Russian Teacakes, but it turns out neither of my kids really like them. Ryan has been wanting to make cut-out cookies for a while, so we made a batch of those to please him. I don't often make them, mostly because I haven't found a recipe I really love (anyone know a good one?). It's a lot of work and mess to roll out, cut out, and decorate cookies that really don't taste that great. I also get frustrated because they all seem to lose their shape so much, but I digress.


I tried yet another receipe, and the kids had fun rolling and cutting. Abby was overtired and had to be sent to bed for a nap, so Ryan did most of the fun job. He sprinkled a few with some colored sugar, but we saved the rest to frost with icing.


Little did I know we wouldn't be able to get back to frosting them until Christmas Eve! But then Daddy joined in on the decorating, and that made it even more special. Since he's usually at work when we do all the baking and crafts and fun stuff during Christmastime, it was nice to include him. In fact, he may have found a hidden talent...his cookies turned out really cute!


In typical kid fashion, both kids frosted about three cookies, and then they were done, leaving the rest for Daddy and I to finish. (To be fair, Abby would have kept going but we had to take everything away from her because she kept putting it all in her mouth!)

Something Different

We had a change of plans for the weekend before Christmas, and Sunday evening was spent at Daddy's office. Ryan was thrilled though because we let them each open on gift early so they could have something to play with while we were there all night. He opened the gift from cousin Alisha, a marble run!


I also brought a new Color Wonder packet for each, and Ryan enjoyed coloring for quite a long time. Finally, the projector was set up in the conference room, I popped some popcorn, and they watched a couple of movies on a big screen!

Christmas Program

Our church had its children's program Sunday evening, and after MUCH arm-twisting, Ryan finally consented to participate. I knew he'd love it once he tried it, and sure enough, he had a great time!