Apple picking

Today, we went today to Fishkill Farms with Omi to do some apple picking. Last year, Ryan, Jay and I went apple picking with my family and had a great time, so I was really looking forward to doing it again this year. I love fall and I think that besides football and trick-or-treating, apple picking is one of the most fun fall activities. For the first 45 minutes we were at the apple orchard, Ryan clearly did not agree. He loved the orchard last year so I am not sure why he wanted no part of it this year - he was so adamant about not participating that he didn't want anyone else to either and spent 20 minutes yelling at me "mommy, drop it" every time I picked up an apple.

I finally got him to see the light when I said that we should hide from daddy in a tree and throw apples at him.

Reason #541 why I love my husband: He lets us peg him with apples.

Reason #542: He knows how much I love a "good" family picture everywhere we go and will do anything to help me get one, including bribing Ryan.

Once Ryan had that dollar tucked safely in his pocket, he was all smiles the rest of the day and even ate his fair share of apples and apple cider donuts. Yummy!

And in true Ryan fashion, no matter where we are, he always is able to find the messiest thing to play with. In the dictionary, right next to the word boy, I think they should put these pictures:

Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

Ryan loves to read books. We read him books every night before bed and recently, if he is too wild or not listening well, we tell him to go in his room and read some books to have quiet time. He either sits in the rocker and reads the books or stands in front of his toy box and puts the book on top to read it. For a long time, he really just made a mess and didn't do any reading. Then after a while, he would sit and look at the pictures in the books. More recently, he seems to be trying to "read" them himself. I love hearing him from the other room reading the books, and I love standing in the doorway watching him. Usually, I can not tell what book he is reading based on what he is saying, but sometimes it is very obvious (examples below)

"Crib Out"

Elizabeth called me today to say something crazy happened. Ryan fell asleep lying on Elizabeth so she took him in his room and put him in his crib so he could take a nap. As soon as she put him down, Ryan opened his eyes, so Elizabeth quickly tried to sneak out of the room and closed the door, hoping he would go back to sleep. A few minutes later, much to her surprise Ryan came walking in to the room and said "Crib out". Considering that Ryan has never even tried to get out of his crib before Elizabeth was shocked. Jay and I were shocked too and needed to see the proof when we got home.

I really hope that Ryan doesn't try to get out on a regular basis. He went right to bed tonight without trying to get out, but I am pretty sure I am going to wake up in the middle of the night with someone screaming in my face "Wake up mommy".

Videos

I never think that the quality of these videos are good enough (anyone have any suggestions on how to make them better?), but apparently some of my readers like them. Both of these are recent but there are not stories to accompany them - they are just good examples of Ryan's personality lately.

The first is Ryan on the phone with Grandma and before any one comments, the oven was off and no, I normally do not let him play with the oven.

The second video is Ryan playing in the sprinkler and acting in his typical ryan way: nuts!!

End of Summer fun

Both Jay and I had off today for Labor Day and it was beautiful out - what a perfect day for the end of summer. We decided to stay in the city but head over to my favorite park on the west side - on a clear day, you can even see the Statue of Liberty from there. We didn't realize it would be so warm out though and when we got there, the sprinkler was on and we had no bathing suit for Ryan. Luckily, I had brought extra clothes with us in case he got sandy so we just let him run and have fun.

After the last time we came to the park, I knew there is often a battle in the sandbox for the shovels and pails, so we brought Ryan's from home so that he wouldn't have to wait for a turn.
He was more than happy though to "trade" his pail with another kid for the no-wheeled truck below that he pushed around for hours.

After a day of fun in the sun, sand and sprinkler, we said goodbye to summer and hello to fall. The summer sure flew by, didn't it?