I heart boys

When I was putting on my makeup the other morning, I found this:

Ryan's cars in my makeup bag :) 

Ryan's teachers told us he was their (unofficial) star student! ha!  

Thank you Lord for sweet teachers.

Post about Ryan #762

No pictures today...just some memories:

Ryan likes dogs.  Sometimes he likes them from a distance only and sometimes he likes to pat them.  He calls them "puppy dawg".  He's got a little Texas twang :)

When we went to see my friend, Carrie, Ryan got to be around her 2 cats.  He was calling them "puppy cats". 

Ryan loves pineapple.  He calls it "apple apple".  I have worked on getting him to say pineapple but it hasn't happened yet.

When we got home the other day, we realized that we were out of batteries for Ryan's racetrack...oh dear!!!  So Michael ran to the store for batteries.  I told Ryan what was going on and he kept saying "daddy...ba ba bee" (batteries).  

A couple of posts ago I mentioned that Ryan was saying his sweet "nnnnOOOOOOoooo" to everything.  I had been working on getting him to say "yes" when the answer to the question should have been that.  Now Ryan says "yeSSSSSHHHHHH" to a lot of things :)  He makes the cutest face when he says it...big toothy smile with "yeSSSHHH" coming out of those teeth :)

Ryan has been walking so much more on his own...meaning without us encouraging him to.  All his own idea. With this walking thing, the whole process has seemed like 2 steps forward, 1 step back. At first he was gung ho, full speed ahead.  Then he drew back some.  He is getting so much more stable, even standing in place some and is steady.  The other night, it was just Ryan and me at home. I was in our bedroom closet and Ryan was playing in the living room. I heard his footsteps coming down the hall and he came and found me in the closet!  Walking all on his own!  This is a major answered prayer.  What I have been praying for lately is that Ryan would want to walk, it be his idea and desire and that he not want to crawl.  So this was very encouraging to me!  He does things like this regularly now.  He walks now in situations where a few weeks ago he would have just crawled.  Progress!!

Ryan is doing better at putting 2 and 3 words together.  I may have already written about this but this is a typical Ryan conversation when I am changing his diaper: "paw paw, paw paw's bi tru (big truck), Nana, mege (what's he is calling Grammy right now) paw paw's bi (bike--motorcyle), paw paw's hat (helmet), Lala (Laura), Kate, She-Shee (Chelle), Auntie, Amy". He likes to go down the list of people he knows and loves.  

I haven't written about his lately but during the past couple of months Ryan has been sleeping better...some nights.  He has random nights where he sleeps great!  And not so much the next night. Who knows.  But I am so thankful for the good nights!!

Ok, I lied.  Here's an old picture:

What happened to our chunky monkey?!

January 5, 2012--my 34th birthday!

I love birthday week!  It's kinda fun to have a birthday 10 days after Christmas because when Christmas is over, I have something to look forward to :)

I had my first celebration on our camping trip.  On Tuesday I was off of work, so Ryan and I went to see my friend, Carrie, and her new baby boy, Blake!  He is precious!  Ryan was really sweet with him.  He patted him softly and said "soft" :)

I went back to work on Wednesday and my birthday was on Thursday.  I woke up to this drawing by my coffee pot:

Jenny took me to lunch at our favorite Mexican joint. Yummy!

The three of us went to eat at Carrabba's for dinner.  Always so good! My birthday dates:

Our family picture:

We decided to go to Galveston Friday night. Ryan had never been on the ferry before and he did not like it at first! 

He got a little used to it by the end of the ride but still seemed uneasy. 

We ate dinner at our favorite place The Spot.  It was Ryan's first time there:

We stayed at the Harbor House down by The Strand and it is right on the water. We LOVED staying there!  We had a corner room and were right on the water so we got to watch all of the boats go right by our room!  It was really fun! We slept with the curtains open because I wanted to be able to look outside if I woke up.  There was a full moon and it was beautiful! 

When I woke up about 7 the next morning, I glanced out of the window and saw this:

It was the coolest thing! It was sitting still, turning in a circle to get in the correct position to dock.  We saw all the people out on their balcony and doing their morning jog around the track on the top deck.  Ryan really loved watching all of it too.

This is a picture of our hotel.  We were on the third floor in the corner room:

This is the view out of our window of the cruise ship and the Elissa...a sailboat from 1877. 

We were a block from The Strand so we walked and shopped a little.  At the end of the street is the Railroad Museum.  Since Ryan is so into trains we thought he would like this.

The museum was badly damaged during Hurricane Ike due to standing toxic salt water.  The water was 5-6 feet deep in the lobby of the museum.  This blue tape shows how high it was on the trains:

Michael's grandpa brought him to this museum when he was 12 and Michael said he has good memories of it.  It was kind of sad to see how dilapidated some of the trains were.  Apparently, there were several large exhibits at the hotel and those were all destroyed. 

The lobby of the museum was beautiful!

They have life size "people" in the lobby that represent "the ghost of travelers past".  Ryan held one of their hands:

We went of a short train ride that they offer at the museum.  Ryan did not like it!  Too bumpy, loud and scary.

We ate lunch on the seawall:

and shopped at Murdochs:

Ryan wasn't scared on the ferry ride back.  He sat on the center console and enjoyed the ride:

The January weather was very unseasonable.  There were people on the beach in their bathing suits and people in the water.  It was actually very enjoyable...even though under normal circumstances, I would have been mad about the spring weather!  We had a perfect trip :)

My birthday continued until the following Tuesday, when Alecia took me to dinner.  I love birthdays! 

Ryanisms

Here are some random thoughts and memories about Ryan:

He loves his race track.  He yells "DO, DO, DO!!!" (go, go, go!) as they race around the track :)

Ryan used to say "wa-ree" for water. Now he says "wa-doo". That's a little bit closer!

We had a speech therapist do an evaluation on him.  His main problem is that he doesn't say the ending sound of most works: "bi tru" (big truck), "ou" (out), ect.  She was actually impressed with how well he speaks because of his walk delays.  According to the people we have talked to, most often, kids don't progress in their speech if they are working hard on walking.  It usually comes after they have mastered walking.  She actually said it was incredible how well he talks!  But she does want us to work with him on making those ending sounds.  She did a standardized test on him and told the lady she was with "that was the easiest test I have ever given to a kid his age!"  He kept repeating after her whatever she wanted him to.  Good boy!!

I know I write all the time about how sweet Ryan is, but it is just really true!  He still says "hi!"and "bye" to everything.  We were playing upstairs last night and I was "chasing" him around through the bathroom past the bathtub. Every time we passed it up, he would stop and say "bye bye wa-doo" and blow kisses to the water that had already gone down the drain. And he always is real dramatic about the kiss and loudly sas MMWAAAHHH!!!

In the restaurant tonight, there was a little boy who passed our table who looked at Ryan and said hi and waved as he was walking by.  Ryan was so excited and started waving and saying hi!!  Kids are so sweet and innocent.  It's really amazing to watch. They have no prejudices, no insecurities. They are just friendly and sweet.  Wish we were all more like that...including me!

Ryan will "hug" you by putting his head against you...any part of you, including your calf.  He leans in and says awwwwww.  Precious. 

A few weeks ago, Michael found a monster truck rally on tv.  I couldn't believe Ryan's reaction to it!  He was so ecstatic!  He was bouncing around in circles yelling GO BIG TRUCK! GO BIG TRUCK!  I literally sat there with my mouth opened not believing what I was seeing.  It was too funny!

We will point to Michael's truck and say who's truck is that? Ryan will say RyRy's truck!

Lately, Ryan has started saying "no" to a lot of things.  The problem is, it's in this REALLY sweet voice...."NoooOOOOO". I am trying to get him to say "yes" more.

Ryan says "o-tay" instead of "ok".  It makes me think of Little Rascals:)