PLAYING TRUCKS

 Ryder, my sweet little independent Ryder.  My boy who has always played trucks all by himself for hours has suddenly discovered the joy of playing with others and now he incessantly asks, "play with me?" over and over all day long.  I'm definitely a "hands on Mom," but I can only handle playing trucks for so long, so when the neighbourhood kids and by neighborhood kids I mean girls, came knocking the other day to see if "Ryder can come out to play?" I sent him out with his bucket of trucks. Of corse he is only 2 years old and the neighbors range in age from 3-10 years old, so I wasn't just gonna send him out without spying on him! I struggle all the time with the fine line of letting go and hanging on, but 2 just seems a little young to be outside running around with the neighborhood gang without some kind of adult supervision. So every few minutes Peanut and I walked outside to spy on him.  The first time, I expected to find Ryder playing trucks by himself next to the group of kids while they played one of their more complex games, but to my surprise, I found all of the kids gathered around his bucket, choosing trucks to play with! Ryder looked so proud to be sharing and so happy just to be a part of the group.  They made up some racing game and were playing so well together that when it was time, I had to drag Ryder inside for dinner.  The next day, after they got home from school, the kids all came knocking again, only this time Ryder and I were on a dog walk.  As we came up the street the girls spotted us and started yelling, Ryder! Ryder! His chest puffed out with pride and excitement as he ditched his Mom to go play! They all ran to our house, grabbed his bucket of trucks off the front lawn and headed to the soccer field behind our houses to race trucks down the hills.

Hard for me to get pics of all the kids without looking like a creeper...

Ryder is seriously obsessed with trucks. It never ceases to amaze me how he never ever, ever gets tired of playing trucks.  He would play all day if he could. Sometimes he does.  Everywhere he goes, he brings trucks with him.  Every friend he meets, he gets them to play trucks with him and if you ever ask him, "What are you going to do today?" He'll inevitably answer: Play trucks!

Everyday, after nap (if he takes a nap, he's been trying to give that up, but I am desperately clinging to it) Ryder looks out his window to see if the "neighborhood kids" are outside. If they are not, he will play trucks by himself or I will get to play with him. Sometimes Marty is home and he can play too. Marty is better at playing trucks than me. I'm good at making play dough, which I did the other day. Marty made jumps for Ryder's monster trucks!

He plays trucks in the front yard, in the dirt even when it's cold outside.

 He plays trucks in the house. Everywhere in the house, his favorite locations are: on the train table (no trains or tracks on Ryder's train table, only trucks, on the stairs, in the bathtub(with no water in it) in our ensuite bathroom while I'm getting ready in the morning and right under the jolly jumper. You should see our house, every square inch is covered in trucks!

 When he is not pushing his trucks, he's pretending to drive them!  Notice that Peanut is always a part of the action. She actually loves watching and listening to Ryder play trucks. I wonder if she will play trucks when she gets bigger or if she will have her own obsession...

 Sometimes, when he's really lucky, Ryder gets to play with real trucks!!

 

 Ryder's imagination amazes me. He comes up with all kinds of scenarios. Most of them panic situations that involve the need for a fire truck or a tow truck. He plays loud and he plays intense and it makes him sooo happy!

Kiss your babies, count your blessings and get down on your knees and play trucks every once in a while!

6 MONTHS

Peanut is 6 months old! 

She weighs in at 19 pounds and is all cheeks! She had her first taste of solids (rice cereal) Friday (on her 6 month birthday.) Ryder wanted to be the one to feed her, so I handed him the spoon and he promptly handed it to her..she did put it in her mouth (ofcorse she did, she puts everything in her mouth,) but it came right out again! She cried. Eventually, we just left the bowl and spoon on her tray and let her eat as much as she wanted.....I'm sure something actually gets in.  We've been doing this twice a day, once at breakfast and once at supper. I always start by trying to spoon some into her mouth (everyday we get a little more in) then we just let her "play" with her spoon and bowl while we eat. It's messy, but seems to be working....

 

Ryder insists on eating his breakfast on her tray with her. Today, she dumped his mini wheats all over the floor.  She's quick. He's gotta be quicker!

She started sitting while she was still 5 months old, but she is not interested in rolling over yet. She hasn't even tried.  She has finally begun actually jumping in the jolly jumper instead of just hanging there and she giggles and giggles and giggles! She laughs at Scout when Marty has her all riled up and she's barking and growling and trying to wrestle with him and she laughs at Ryder when he grabs her and wrestles her to the ground. I always holler at him to "be gentle" but when he finally lets go of her and I see her face, there is a huge smile spread all across it and she's giggling!

The first 6 months have flown by! I am so glad I have 6 more at home with this sweet little angel!!!

Kiss your babies, count your blessings and don't blink!

 
 

SALES MEETINGS

Marty had sales meetings last week. They were here in our own city, but I knew he'd be gone late at night as big long drawn out dinners are always a part of sales meetings, so I figured why not head to Mom's for a few days?!
We left early Tuesday morning planning to come home Thursday, but we were having so much fun, we decided to stay until Saturday...well, Ryder was having to much fun anyway. Peanut came down with a horrific cold (Ryder eventually caught it Saturday) which definitely affected my own fun factor. Having a sick baby sucks! It breaks my heart that she can't breathe properly and because of that she can't eat properly or sleep properly, so therefore neither can I.  I spent the 3 or 4 days we were at Mom's in a sleep deprived fog. So glad Mom was willing to pick up my slack. She played endless hours of trucks with Ryder, who very recently discovered how much fun it is to have someone play trucks with him, (he used to prefer playing trucks by himself and would infact protest against anyone interfering with his game.) He hammered us day in and day out with, "play with me. Play with me? PLAY WITH ME!!!" Thank God, Mom was there to entertain as I couldn't put poor Peanut down without her protesting very loudly. Mom cut up apples for horses (Ryder adores feeding them,) chased cats (Ryder loves cats,) cooked for us, cleaned up after us (with the help of Scout and Tucker ofcorse,) drove us around, and got up early with Ryder in the mornings!
Ryder loves Mom and he loves the animals, but what he loves most are the toys! There are endless toys spilling out of the toy room upstairs.  What Ryder doesn't know is that almost all of the toys up there are over 30 years old!! Mom kept sooooo many of our old toys it's insane! What is mostly insane is that all of them still work and still look great! She has soo many fisher price toys that used to be ours, people and vehicals and a school house, an airport, a castle, all of our old trucks, horse trailers, horses, play dishes, puzzles and leggo. I am sure she has dolls too but those arn't in the playroom yet. I bet they'll come out when Peanut gets a little older.  
Ryder walks in the door to Grammy's house and beelines it up to the toy room.  He refuses to nap, sleep or do anything but play, play play. It's like he has never seen toys before! 

There are also toys for Peanut to play with.

WE always spend time loving Grammy's horses!

 

I love this pic. Ryder is my little horse whisperer and Maverick is sooo good with him!

 

There are always plenty of "chores" to help Grammy with like lawn mowing and moving heavy stuff with the quad.

 

Ryder adores cats! We don't get to close to very many when Scout is around (she loves cats too, ha ha)

 

Mom found this amazing garage sale where they had nothing for sale but thousands of Hot Wheels. An older couple had been collecting them for years. They were all still in the packages. No one had ever played with them!!! I am not sure who was more excited about that sale, Mom, me or Ryder! We were all in awe and while Ryder was very focused only picking one package to open right then and there at the sale, Mom and I were a little less  disciplined, buying several for birthdays and Christmas..if I can wait that long to give them to him!

Peanut doesn't get to ride the mower, or the quad, but she gets to hang out lookin' cute!

 Thanks, Grammy for all the fun at the farm!  We are back in the city now and have been playing "catch up" since we left.  Monday we had some grocery shopping to do. On the way home, Ryder randomly says: "Mommy, Daddy can't go grocery shopping because he is a man!!"  What??? Ha ha!! Where did he come up with that?? We always talk about who is coming with us when we go places. He always asks: "Peanut coming? you coming? Daddy coming? Scout coming?" And I usually answer with, "Daddy can't come cause he has to work at Bacardi. Scout can't come cause dogs arn't allowed..." so I guess he made up his own reason why Daddy couldn't come this time. 
 

Here's my little Peanut, cute despite her runny nose and puffy eyes. She's still not sleeping well, but I've got a humidifier up there in her room now, so here's hoping she and I both get more than an hour of sleep in a row tonight!

Kiss your babies, count your blessings and send your husband grocery shopping with the kids once in a while so the kids know he can do it even though he's a man!!

MONSTER TRUCKS

Today, Marty took Ryder for a Father/Son outing to the Monster Trucks! They left the house armed with protective ear muffs and loads of enthusiasm! As much as I hated to miss seeing Ryder’s wide eyes when he planted them on his first real live Monster Truck, I was excited for Marty to have this special “date” with his son.  (I also did not want to take Peanut there as I expected it to be a very LOUD event!)

Marty and Ryder met some friends at the truck rally and the boys had a fantastic time together…until it got too hard to sit still.  The attention span of a two year old couldn’t quite handle the whole event.  Marty was bummed to miss the “best part of the show” but Ryder couldn’t stop talking about all the big, loud trucks hen he got home. 

Ryder and his little buddy wearing their ear muffs.

 Pop corn!

 sitting with Dad

Buddies!!!

(Thank you to Will's mom for taking pics of my boys for me!)

 

Ryder enjoyed his first Monster Truck show but Peanut has been experiencing her own "firsts" lately too!

Riding with Mama!

 First time in the swing at the park!

 Ryder LOVED swinging with his sister! LOVED IT!!

 First time sitting by the barn all by herself, while I went to catch Uncle Dirt!

 Being cute..not her first time, but I included the pic anyway! :)

The three of us (Ryder, Payton and I) experienced our first neighbourhood BBQ. It was actually the soccer wind up party, but the whole neighbourhood was invited. They had bouncy castles, magicians, the fire trucks, the ambulance even the police were there letting kids sit in the squad car!  Ryder loved bouncing. He bounced and bounced and bounced, but it turns out he's started being "scared" of mascotts and strangers.  There was a guy in a bear suit with police gear on walking around high fiving kids, handing out sheriff's badges. Ryder spotted him from the bouncy castle and wigged out. He started yelling that he wanted to go home! What??? When did this start?? He wouldn't go near the fire trucks, either! What?? He's obsessed with trucks and all the sudden he won't go near the real things??? Oh well, he had one hell of a great time bouncing and bouncing and bouncing!!

 Oh yeah, he got to "fish" too!

 

Summer is almost over, but it's been a great one full of firsts and fun!! 

If Scout had eaten this popsicle, it wouldn't have been her first one! Ha ha!!

Kiss your babies, count your blessings and never stop having "firsts."

NUMBER TWO

Soo, Saturday evening Ryder shit in the tub. 
To be fair, while in the tub, he did tell me he had to go "potty." I yanked him out of the tub, put him on the pot, which kinda scared him cause it was really slippery since he was soaking wet, but he sat there like a champ and pooped! Yay!!! I put him back in the tub when he was done and went to see how Nic was making out with Payton. (Nic was visiting for the night and had just removed Peanut from the tub and was getting her in her jammies.) I came back to the bathroom to find Ryder standing in the tub, telling me there was something in the water..yep there was! A big turd! Ewwww! This was the first time this had happened and I was grossed out!! I tried to contain the urge to gag while I hauled him out of the water. I got Ryder dried off, helped him into his jammies, sent him to play trucks and  pulled on some rubber gloves.  With a brave face, I reached in and and attempted to snag the floating "treasure."  I dropped what didn't fall apart in my grasp into the toilet, the rest I swooshed down the drain, then scrubbed the tub with Lysol. I survived that little adventure, but damn, it was gross!!!!
Ofcorse, I took a picture of it, but for once I have used discretion and will not subject you to the same pic I texted to Marty who was out partying that night!

Before things went "sideways" in the tub Saturday night, Payton had been in there with Ryder. They've been tubbing together and both of them LOVE it! Giggles fill the bathroom!

 

It's been really fun watching Ryder and Payton play together, ride together and laugh with each other.  Ryder is soo loving. He is always hugging and cuddling Payton.  If she starts crying, he's the first one to say, "shh, shh, shh." Everymorning when he sees her, he greets her with the following words, "Good morning beautiful." My heart melts...I'm not making this up. I don't pose them together hugging, Ryder is sincerely this hands on cuddly and loving!

Tonight, we hit up Costco. Marty wanted to put Peanut in the cart. I insisted that she was too small. He insisted she wasn't.  He was right. I cried. When did she grow up?? When did she get so big? I need another baby! Mine are all grown up!

She loved her ride in the cart! 

Ryder, reaching for a sample.

Again, I didn't pose them like this. Ryder just kept hugging Payton in line. Everyone kept saying, "awww, you gotta get a pic of that!" So I did! I love these two!

 

Speaking of Peanut growing up....

Ryder has quite a sense of humour and he loves to laugh out loud, saying, "that's funny."

 

He's also decided he isn't afraid of touching worms anymore.  Infact, he's started collecting them and bringing them into the house.  The other day, he brought a bunch of worms into the house. He set the container on the couch after trying to mix them in his mixer in his kitchen and followed me upstairs for naptime. When I cam downstairs after reading stories, I discovered that the worms were not happy in their new little home of Ryder's snack container. They had crawled out and were making themselves comfortable on the couch.  I had no idea how many worms there were to start with, but I threw the ones I did find back into the grass.  Later that night, I found two dried up worms on the floor behind the couch.

 

  

My number one child has stolen my heart, and so has child number two!

Kiss your babies, count your blessings and if you get a chance to love two or more (children) do!!

 

SEPTEMBER LONG WEEKEND

Marty had an extra week of holidays this year (perk of working at the same job long enough is you eventually earn more time off, yay!) So we decided to spend a week in Kelowna visiting his folks.  We hoped for sunshine and lots of time with Grampa and GG. WE got both!

This became Peanut's favorite spot..on Grampa's shoulder.

 Grampa got lots of smiles too!!

 Grampa and GG live in a huge beautiful condo that has a great lake view and lots of great places to play trucks!

 They also have a boat!! We took one evening cruise on the boat. Ryder loves to go "faster Grampa, faster!"

 The evening was sooo warm and beautiful that Trish, Marty, Angel (the dog) and I just had to jump into the lake!

We got in a beach day and even Peanut got into the lake...a little bit anyway!

She preferred to spend her time in Grampa's arms!

 Marty's Dad had hung onto this raft for 20 some years. Marty remembers floating in it when he was 10 years old!

 Marty's Family also has a cabin at Chain Lake. We got to spend a day and a night up there with Marty's Aunt and Uncle.

There were lots of great places up there to play trucks too!

 There are also Barber's Chairs on the deck! How cool is that?

 Giving Dad a hair cut!

Marty and his Dad got to take Ryder fishing on the lake...secretly, I think Ryder liked the whole "digging for worms" part the best of the whole adventure! :)

 The only life jacket at the cabin was this little once piece gem!

 Think he and the worms will float? LOL

Hangin' with Grampa and GG at the cabin.

 Auntie Darcy and GG and Peanut

 The crew!

Exhausted after all the fresh air at the cabin!

 

The girls!!

 WE had a fantastic holiday being spoiled by both Gramp and GG., comfy beds, yummy food, lots of laughs and sunshine! Thank you! Thank you!