Little Paleontologists

Today during Lucas' tummy time, Ryan was very upset that I was paying so much attention to the little guy. I tried to get him to join in but he wanted nothing to do with it. I started to explain that Lucas needed tummy time so that we could teach him how to hold his head up and that way he'd be able to play trains sooner :) I then asked Ryan if he'd help me teach Lucas to hold his head up and eventually crawl, walk and talk. He said NO! and then ran out of the room. He returned with handfuls of dinosaurs and began to line them up next to Lucas. I asked him what he was doing and he said "teaching brother what my dinosaurs names is". Dinosaurs just happen to be Ryan's most serious passion these days and he knows each and every one of them by name. Yes, he struggles with Ryan but Metriacanthosaurus poses no problem for him. Anyway, he proceeded to tell Lucas each of the dinosaurs names and was very proud of himself for teaching his brother something new!

2 months old!

Lucas is 2 months old today even though it feels like we just brought him home from the hospital. The past two months have been amazing. Lucas is starting to hold his head up, make eye contact and (best of all) smile! Thankfully, the novelty hasn't worn off yet and Ryan still adores his baby brother. Although lately he's been showing a bit more jealousy since Lucas is demanding more of my attention. He sounds like a broken record as over and over I hear "put my brother down and play with me!" He has his sweet moments too though-if Lucas is crying Ryan immediately starts singing to him or tries to give him his binky. You can tell by the way that the boys interact that they are already best friends.

My intention was to get lots of pictures of the big 2 month pediatrician appointment. However, once we got there and I had to get him down to just a diaper it was all downhill. He HATES being naked so he screamed the entire time, even a bottle wouldn't calm him down. And then came the shots :( This morning I was thinking about it and I remembered that when Ryan got his shots he cried for a minute until I picked him up and then he was fine. Well, Lucas was another story. He cried & cried and there was nothing I could do to make it better, so then I cried. And to make matters worse, Ryan was so upset that his brother was in this condition that he started crying too!! Luckily Lucas has been sleeping most of the afternoon and I'm hoping Ryan isn't now scarred for life!

OK...so, our chunky monkey is now 11 lbs, 10.08 oz and 23 inches long. He's in the 50th percentile overall.

Soccer

Anybody who knows me knows that lateness is a huge pet peeve of mine. Since Lucas has joined us, I haven't been on time for anything at all. It's making me nuts! As hard as I try and as well as I THINK I prepare ahead of time, we're late every single day. Today, I was on my own with both boys and I was super paranoid that somehow we were going to be insanely late for soccer or miss it all together. So, I woke up extra early to prevent it from happening. I was successful in getting both boys fed, dressed and ready to go by 8:30am. The only problem was that soccer didn't start until 10:30. Better early than late right? Hopefully at some point I'll be able to figure this out!
Rather than sit around wasting 2 hours, I decided to head over to soccer anyway and let Ryan play on the playground. I know everyone now knows about his obsession with knights, well he also has a slight obsession with pirates. Needless to say, he loves this particular playground.

Ryan had his coach all to himself for the first half of the class. He was in heaven soaking up all the attention and praise!

After soccer we headed home for some down time. Ryan constantly wants to watch Go Diego Go. We have to carefully monitor his Diego time. I let him watch his favorite episode so he could help Diego rescue a blue morpho butterfly while I made lunch. He immediately asked if his brother could watch Diego too. Yes, I know 8 weeks old is a bit young for tv, but Ryan wanted to teach him about blue morpho butterflies...how could I say no?!?

As you can see, Lucas does not share Ryan's passion for Diego, butterflies or tv for that matter.

He was much happier just getting some attention

Stars & Strikes, Lucas and...Uh?

We've been promising Ryan that we'd take him bowling for a couple of weeks now, so we attempted to follow through on that promise on Sunday. We took the boys to Stars & Strikes only to find that all of the lanes were taken up by numerous birthday parties. Ryan was bummed for about 3.5 seconds until we told him he could play in the arcade instead. He found his niche with "the popcorn game", he played about 20 times only stopping to play skee ball once in a while. He racked up a whopping 213 tickets so we proceeded to the prize counter and got...a slinky. Yup, that's right, $30 goes into the machines and you get to leave with a 25 cent slinky.

Luke didn't get to play....but he's been busy with other things, like perfecting his smile!

OK, I know I've recently mentioned Ryan's stubborn phase so I won't get back into it, but lately every time I try to get him dressed his immediate response is "no, I'll do it myself". Yesterday I made the mistake of letting him wear his knight helmet to Target (yes, people stared!). Has everyone seen Big Daddy? Ryan reminds me of the boy in that movie-I now fear he will soon want to be called "Frankenstein" :)
Anyway, this morning I tried to dress him so that we could go shopping and as usual he wanted to do it himself. Here, ladies and gentlemen, is Ryan dressing himself. Don't worry, I didn't take him out looking like this!

When Elmo Grows Up

Last night we took Ryan to see Sesame Street Live:When Elmo Grows Up. Let me start by saying that Ryan is going through a stubborn/independent stage in which he wants things his way or no way. I'd been telling him about the upcoming show all week and his response every time was "I don't want to go, I'm too big for Elmo". And no, I've never told him that Elmo is for babies, so I don't even know where he got that from. So...ALL day Thursday he was being grumpy and each time I asked him what was wrong he said "I don't want to go to Elmo tonight". Several times throughout the day I thought about offering our tickets to someone else, but I decided to stick with the idea since he loved it so much last year. It literally took me an entire 25 minutes to get his Elmo shirt on and another 10 minutes to get him into the car! (Did I mention that "stubborn phase" is an understatement?!) Well, we got there and he had the time of his life!! The very second that the lights went down and the characters came out onto the stage he was up out of his seat dancing and clapping along with a giant smile on his face! I took exactly 3 pictures before I dropped the camera and broke it. I was very upset, but luckily we found Bennett & Alexander after the show and Apryl was kind enough to take some pictures for us so we had some proof that we were there! (Thanks Apryl)

Ryan's favorite place is DAC Kids Pirates Cove. Ryan and I have been there a bunch of times and we always come home and tell daddy how much fun it is. So, on Sunday we decided to finally show him. Now daddy is now a big fan too! He and Ryan played in the sand, jumped and of course spent plenty of time shooting balls out of the cannons.




A couple of weeks ago, Ryan saw an episode of Caillou in which Caillou & his mommy went to the zoo and saw the elephants. Well, ever since then every single morning when I go in to get Ryan from bed he says "mommy, can Ryan go to the zoo today and see the elephants just like Caillou?" So...today I took both of the boys to the zoo. I have to say, I'm proud of myself! I thought about bailing on the idea SEVERAL times, but decided I would have to do it sooner or later. I'm happy to report it was disaster-free!
Ryan was SO excited when he woke up today and I told him he was going to see the elephants...and with his buddy Landon! Of course, he had an amazing time with Landon, as he always does. The boys got along great and had a lot of fun!






Lucas literally slept the entire time! Even right through his first carousel ride!


Ryan visiting the elephants "just like Caillou"

And an extra special treat...a picture of Lucas with his eyes open :)

Grandparents Day

Ryan & Luke want to wish a very happy Grandparents Day to their Grammy, Papa, Grandpa & Grandma!! The boys got lucky in the grandparent department...they got four that think the world of them and enjoy nothing more than spoiling them rotten! Hugs & kisses to you all from your favorite boys in the world!

Catching Up

My apologies for the delay between posts....things are a bit hectic around here these days!
Our camera is broken...yes, again! So I broke out the backup camera this weekend and when I downloaded pictures off the memory card I found some old pictures I had forgotten about!
First up, jumping! I don't know what Ryan and I would do with ourselves if it wasn't for indoor inflatable play places! This time he got to go with his buddy Landon. Ryan thinks everything is ten times more fun with his friends by his side!


On Saturday we packed up the boys to go on a park hunt! We went from park to park to park all day looking for the perfect place to have Ryan's birthday party. It turned out to be much more difficult than I had anticipated. Some parks have perfect playgrounds but horrible pavilions, others were great except that there was no place for the trackless train to operate safely. I think we have now been to about 10 parks and have yet to make a decision! Ryan thoroughly enjoyed the "research" though.




On Sunday we headed to Marietta for the Family Festival. There was an entire kid friendly lot were there were moonwalks, games & even a toddler area. Ryan was in heaven!



Poor Lucas just sleeps through all of the fun stuff! This is a picture Dave took. I got this onesie for him to give to Lucas...for those of you that don't know, Dave is VERY proud to be Canadian and wants his boys to be too!