Memorial Day Weekend 2010

I love long weekends and what a great weekend this was! We had close to perfect weather all weekend and had a great time hanging out with the family. Aunt Erika and Uncle Richie decided to make a last minute trip up to NY on Saturday and we couldn't have been more excited to hang out with them! We spent the day on Saturday at Grandma and Papa's house having a barbecue, trying to build things out of "Better Blocks" (i think we need to give those to Richie since he was the only one that made anything halfway decent) and playing with some sparklers that Erika and Richie brought.

We even sang Happy Birthday to Grandma a few weeks late although I am not sure why Grandma got one candle in a cookie for her birthday while Ryan got 8 candles in his "half-birthday" cake.

I always say this the day after Erika and Richie leave but I miss them already and really wish that they lived closer. I had so much fun telling stories and laughing with them until my stomach hurt on Saturday night after the kids went to sleep.

Sunday morning, we headed over to Omi and Poppy's house for another barbecue. Since it was pretty warm by 9 am, we decided to fill up the kids pool so that it would have time to warm up by the afternoon. I don't think the bottom of the pool was covered with water before Dylan climbed in, clothes and all, and Ryan stripped down and jumped in too.

The water was ice cold and I am not sure how the kids could stand it but they had a ton of fun - there are no pictures of Ryan because he insisted on swimming in his underwear. The boys played for about two hours in the pool - driving their cars through the water, splashing each other and just jumping in and out, or in Dylan's case diving in and out. Once it seemed like they were getting cold, we dried them off and they went to go play on the swings.

Even though they were busting out of the seat, they were cracking up laughing and holding on to each other like best buddies. When I went to take them both out, Ryan said "I am just going to 'lax in my swing by myself now" so we took Dylan inside for a nap, gave Ryan a neck pillow and 5 minutes later......

we found Ryan like this. He slept like that for about 45 minutes until his neck pillow fell off and then he came inside and went back to sleep on the couch. While the kids napped, Omi and I challenged Poppy and Jay to some Sequence and I am happy to say the ladies were victorious!! Overall, it was a very relaxing day which culminated in Dylan getting another haircut. His hair grows very quickly and sometimes the sides look crazy. Jay has been asking me for a long time if we could cut it with the clippers and I have always said no. Poppy has always done a great job cutting Dylan's hair but because Dylan doesn't really sit still, it is really hard to cut it with scissors. I finally gave in on the buzzers this weekend and I have to admit - it was much easier, faster and I think that it came out great! Thanks Uncle Brian.

We woke up to another day of a cloudless sky on Monday and decided to see if we could get tickets to the Yankees game. Stubhub didn't fail us and we got some cheap seats in the upper deck and headed down to the stadium for Dylan's very first Yankees game.

The Yankees played the Indians and as the Yanks took the field and Andy Pettitte took the mound, Dylan was in total awe - the stadium was loud, the field was bright and we brought food a plenty - there was enough going on to keep him distracted, occupied and happy for the first 5 innings.

Ryan on the other hand, did not care at all about the game and would not still. Every 5 seconds, he was "very very thirsty", "very very hungry" or wanted to sit where Dylan was sitting.

Around the 5th inning, he was on the verge of falling asleep and sat on my lap for the next two innings. Both boys though did get up to sing YMCA and Take Me Out to the Ball Game.

Going in to the 7th inning, the score was 2-1 and then A-Rod hit a Grand Slam followed by a homer by Cano. As you can imagine, the crowd went wild.

By the end of the 7th, the score was 8-1 Yankees, the kids were pretty cranky and we were all hot so we figured we would head home and beat the crowds. Ryan fell asleep on the subway before we hit 125th street, Dylan fell asleep in his high chair while eating his dinner and the Yankees won the game 11-2.

This was a great weekend to kick off the summer and hopefully the rest of the summer will bring more fantastic times - Happy Memorial Day

Happy Birthday Dylan

Happy 1st Birthday Dylan!! I will write more tomorrow but here is a little sneak preview. When Jay and I got home today, we invited Uncle Michael over to have some birthday cake with us. After Dylan opened some of his birthday presents (which Ryan cared about more than Dylan), it was time for cake. Obviously the cake was a bigger hit than the presents!!

Dylan - we hope that you had a wonderful birthday. We love you so much and can't wait to see what fun things the next year will bring!! xoxxoxoxox Happy Birthday little boy!

Subway

When you go out to eat, do you ever think about what is going on in the kitchen? Who makes your food? Is it clean back there? Well, wonder no more!! If you are a frequent visitor of Subway, this is what might be going on in the kitchen:

The other day, Jay went to get the car inspected across the street from Subway and left the boys with mom while he talked to the guy - when he came back, he found this. I think Ryan must have been sucking in his stomach because he is not that skinny.

Dylan, Where are you?

It has been a very long time since I put up a video so here is a short one until I can get some more up

Grilled Cheese

Grilled Cheese has always been a big favorite in our house - for a long time, Ryan asked for it everyday for lunch.

Last week, Dylan got try grilled cheese for the first time and loved it - he finished a two slices of bread, two slices of cheese sandwich in half the time Ryan did.

I think that Dylan must have been afraid we were going to take some of the sandwich away and decided to double-fist when he only had two pieces left.

What did Dylan do when he finished his sandwich? Started eyeing Ryan's - haha, that boy sure can eat!

Dylan and the Cheerios

The following story was told to me by Uncle Michael 

"Friday when I visited, Mom took Ryan to go to get us lunch and left Dylan there with me and said she would be back in 20 minutes. She showed me where the cheerios were and told me if he was hungry to give him some. As soon as she left, he started crawling around and went to the kitchen, so I took the cheerios and made him follow me. Anytime he would start crawling away, I would just hold out my hand with a few cheerios and he would come right back like a dog. I did that for 40 minutes until mom came back, and not once did he make a peep. He is a very good baby. "
 

"Snowmaggedon"

That is what the local news was calling yesterday.

For days, all that was on the local news were reports of a massive snowstorm that would hit Tuesday night. Last week, we were supposed to get a major snowstorm and nothing happened so we were skeptical that this would be the real deal. On Tuesday afternoon, before the snow even began, city schools put out an announcement that they would close on Wednesday due to the snow. By the time we went to sleep on Tuesday, there was still no snow. When we woke up though, there was already snow on the ground, maybe 2 inches, and it was still really coming down. Jay had the day off so I went to work and Jay bravely took the kids on the bus so Ryan could go to school (guess NY Kids club doesn't believe in snow days). We thought about keeping Ryan home, but we had made Valentine's cards for all of his classmates and since he only goes on Mondays and Wednesdays, he really wanted to go to bring them. I told him he could bring them on Monday but he wanted to bring them yesterday - sadly, nobody else brought him any and when Jay picked him up, Ryan said "I gave everyone a Valentine and nobody gave me anything at all". Uggghhh. So sad. To make him feel better, Jay promised when they got home, they could go out and play in the snow (and I made him a Valentine's card while I was at work so he would have something too). Luckily, once Ryan got outside, he quickly forgot about the Valentines and was all about sledding!

Because we don't have a sled, we had brainstormed Tuesday night about what we could use if there was a lot of snow. Last time it snowed, we had to keep borrowing a sled from someone else and since Ryan was not exactly patient, we needed a different plan. Jay came up with an idea of using a cookie sheet. I said we should take apart Dylan's exersaucer and use the bottom. Jay went with the exersaucer and it was by far the fastest sled on the hill! The boys stayed out for a little while, but it was still snowing pretty hard and since it was hard to watch Ryan on the hill and Dylan at the bottom, Jay took them inside and when I got out of work (early, yippee!!!), we met Uncle Michael and Jasmine and went back out to play. One guy kept asking us, "Did you put wax on the bottom of that sled?" - I thought that he was kidding at first, except he kept asking. Another lady said "Is that what I think it is?" haha.

We stayed out for about an hour and had a blast watching Ryan go down the hill - each of us took a turn going down with Ryan and Michael was daring enough to steer the sled over a mogul, although I think Ryan really liked going down by himself the best.

(see Jay in the two-toned jacket? He was the spotter to stop the sled from going in the street. No cars were really on the road, but we always had the spotter just in case)

Dylan was so good while Ryan was sledding - he just sat in the stoller and took in the scene and even seemed to be rooting for Ryan to go faster.

About 10 minutes before we went in, we put Dylan in the snow - even though it has snowed a few times this winter, this was the first time that both Jay and I were home to see him play in it. The second we put him down, he started crawling around and trying to pick the snow up. In the end, he kept rolling onto his belly and kept putting his face in the snow, trying to eat it.

Doesn't this picture remind you of the boy Randy in A Christmas Story?

(zoom in on the picture above for a close-up of Dylan's face, hahaha)

Dylan even tried going on the sled, which he loved (only on a little part of the hill)

We finally headed inside because the snow started to get heavy again and had some hot chocolate (which Ryan doesn't like, so strange) and baths to warm up. It was still snowing when we went to bed and in total, we got a little over 10 inches of snow. I have a feeling it is going to be a very snowy winter, especially since they are predicting more snow for this weekend.