Ryan -- 11 Months

Dear Ryan,
 This month has been so much fun!  Your first tooth, your bottom right tooth, decided to show up, but even when it did it came in s l o w l y. I hope that tooth, as sharp as it is, is helping you chew your food because you are a voracious eater! You love to eat so many things, especially black olives, fresh and dried strawberries, cereal, peaches and just this month, bananas. You also discovered that you really like using Jake's old sippy cup (which was missing a piece, which I finally replaced so you could use it), and now you drink water out of that. One time Mommy went out for a night with some friends, and you had a bit of Mommy's milk in the sippy cup, and that worked out just fine.

It's fun to see you being such a happy, active little boy. You discovered the stairs this month, much to our amazement and exasperation. The gate on the bottom of the stairs quickly went up when we found the missing pieces to that, but every chance you get, you exercise by crawling up the stairs. You also LOVE music, and most days will demand we play music by directing us to the music player. 'Bananaphone' is your favorite, and you haven't gotten tired yet of hearing that one. You like some others as well. Luckily, you and Jake have the same taste in music at the moment!

Lots of work on your gross motor skills this month! Lots of pulling yourself up to a standing position, walking along while holding onto furniture, seeing the various ways your body can move. Also lots of bumps and falls and bruises but nothing some cuddles and milk can't cure.

It's been a fun August. We've spent quite a few days out in the backyard, with you enjoying the little baby pool. Although, with the heat this month, bedtimes have not always been easy. You do not like to sleep when it is hot. Previously, if you were filled up with milk but still not asleep, I could stand up and rock you to sleep. All of a sudden this month you were having NONE OF THAT. No matter how sleepy you were or not, you kicked and screamed and flung your little body about and simply. refused. to. be. rocked. So Mommy had to work with you to get you to sleep other ways. Not easy!

At least it is easy to entertain you during the day. You enjoy playing with anything that is not a baby toy. But you really go nuts for balls. You love any size ball and if someone else has it you strongly let us know that you want it! Your throwing and passing skills are already amazing.

Ryan, we love you so much, and more every day. You are very much a part of our family. I love seeing both yours and Jake's smiling faces in the back seat of the car and anywhere else. I'm so glad you love to be carried in the Yamo or any of the other slings we have. Your sweetness is just as great as your assertiveness -- you figured out how to give us raspberries along with kisses! You love your Mommy, Daddy, and Jake equally, and will go to any one of us depending on your mood. You laugh (most of the time) when Jake picks you up and carries you, and demand to be included in everything (which is only right!) Keep growing, sweet baby, soon we'll celebrate your first birthday!

Not-Beach Trip

Every summer we try to get to the beach at least once for a beach day. It's tricky because the Oregon beaches are very finicky with their summer weather. We'd already been thwarted the weekend before ... and we were thwarted again.

Going to the beach, everything looked good. The Apple weather app showed 70's with a sun. It was beautiful, hot, and sunny on the drive there. 3 of us already had sunscreen slathered all over, and we were excited. Then, just ONE mile from the beach: cold, wet, misty fog. Noooooooooo!! We were at Cannon Beach at that point but up north it looked nice and sunny, so we decided to try our luck at Seaside. Apparently many other people had the same idea as there was traffic and we slowly crawled toward Seaside. Yuck. However, when we got there it looked good so we found a public parking garage and got all of our stuff and headed out. As soon as we got out of the parking garage, the cold, misty fog hit us and it was cold and not sunny. DRAT! So disappointing. So we all got back into the car and decided to find a state park to eat lunch.

Got back on 26 heading east and after a few miles turned off into Klootchy Creek County Park. It was beautiful and sunny and warm but not hot. Perfect!

We were happier than we look in this picture. It was a nice picnic spot and we kicked a soccer ball for awhile after we ate.
We found a little hiking loop trail that ended at this tree.

Then we went to the creek. We couldn't believe how perfect it was for playing!

Ryan loved picking up the rocks and throwing them into the water.



We played in the water for a couple hours. It was a wonderful afternoon.


Jake liked finding the tiny little fish in the water.

Then we headed home. When we got closer to Portland, we saw the thermostat on the car going up, and up, and up and realized that where we spent the afternoon couldn't have been more perfect -- we were able to be in the sun without overheating, which is what would have happened had we been in Portland.

We got home, showered, and headed back out to my friend Sara's house for a small dinner party. Guthrie and his mom cooked us a fantastic meal.
I love their backyard/deck overlooking the Willamette River.
Wonderful day!

2011 Multnomah Days

It was time for Multnomah Days, including the parade, again! Mike went down early with chairs, iPhone, and got some coffee and nabbed a spot in the shade for us (it was a day that was predicted to get up to 90, which it did).

By chance, Ali and Skylar joined us for the parade-watching.

You can see Jake waving his arm "throw candy my way!!" He had his arm up practically the whole parade. Very cute.

Our gang.
Kids scrambling for candy.

Home from the parade with a slightly-smeared shark and cherry-red lips from a popsicle. Fun!

That afternoon Mike and I rolled up our sleeves, donned aprons, and processed about 80 peaches. We got Jake to take a picture of us.

Garage

This past weekend we had no plans on Saturday afternoon and Sunday's planned day-trip to the beach got cancelled due to cold, wet beach weather. Saturday just after lunch it dawned on me that with the cool weekend temperatures, it was the perfect time to do the garage clean-out/re-organization that we'd been planning to do for awhile.

So we got started... we made piles -- garbage, electronic waste, Goodwill, etc.
The boys played. We even found play sand that we'd forgotten about and made a little sandbox that kept them occupied for a long time.
End of Saturday/start of Sunday.
Sunday afternoon. One car back in the garage!
Even better, now room for the second car.
The final result.

The garage wasn't that bad to begin with; we were able to get both cars in before we even started. So you may ask what prompted this? Well, before this, we could only open 3 car doors on the Subaru while inside the garage, one door was blocked because of the big white cabinet. This wasn't a problem before Ryan was born, but with 2 car seats in the car, Jake's had to be moved over. What Jake has been doing the last 10 months is he had to crawl under Ryan's car seat to get in and out of the car, and then I would buckle him up through the open window (which doesn't even go all the way down). This worked but was a bit annoying.
Good thing Jake is limber! But, he is growing and is not finding it quite as easy to get in and out as he once did.
Now he can open the door on his side!