The Yankees sweep the Sox

Last night, for the first time in 24 years, the Yankees completed a 4 game sweep of the Red Sox. Of course, our household was thrilled and I think the sweep was due in no small part to the Yankees having the most adorable fans in baseball.

This weekend also marked Dylan's first time on the swings. Just like Ryan, Dylan loved the swings from the second he sat down. I really didn't push him too much (and had to confine Ryan to the neighboring swing so he didn't "help" me push), but Dylan did like it and smiled the whole time.

With summer almost over (it sure did fly by), hopefully we will get a few more weeks of warm weather, continued success for the Yankees and a lot more time to play on the swings!

Friday Funnies

Haven't done these in a while but Ryan is seriously funny lately, and in this case, looks DO count for something.

The bigger Ryan's vocabulary gets, the funnier he becomes - I really don't know where he gets this stuff.

Recent Conversations

1. Me: "Ryan, please don't do that, you are going to break it" (while he was bending a playdoh cover)
Ryan: "Mommy, I'm not breaking it, I'm collapsing it"

2. Ryan: "Daddy pushed me in my belly?"

Me: "Why did he do that? Were you bad?"

Ryan: "I love you so much mommy" (fyi, he was being bad)

3. (out of the blue conversation)
Ryan: "Gamma, you a bad boy"

Gamma: "Why Ryan?"

Ryan: "You broke my baseball plate all in pieces, all on the floor" (it was true and I guess Ryan is holding a grudge about it since it happened about a month ago)

4. Ryan: "I have to take a nap now?" (he calls all sleeping, even at night, a nap)

Me: "Yes Ryan, it is bed time - it is dark time now so we have to go to sleep"
(next morning at 5:30 a.m., tap tap tap on my head)

Ryan: "Mommy look, look (while twisting my head off). Its not dark time, its blue time. I wake up from my nap"

5. "Mommy, I love your necklace" as he played with it. It broke 2 seconds later (not his fault, it was a cheap necklace) and he said "I really so sorry mommy, you have a band aid? You have tape? I'll fix it". When he realized it couldn't be fixed, Ryan said "Mommy, I don't like your necklace. Take it off"

Funny statements

"I need some munkshons" said when we went to Dunkin Donuts, talking about munchkins

"I like this. It is so tasty"

"It was an ax-sink" (an accident)

"I have good havior" (I have good behavior, lol)
"Look mommy, I nuts!" while jumping from couch to couch

Cupcake maker

Betty Crocker better watch out!!! Ryan and I made cupcakes on Saturday and had a blast. We had four different types of cake batter and I let Ryan pick - well, great minds think alike because Ryan picked the same mix I would have picked: Rainbow Chip Yellow cake. Unfortunately, I didn't make sure we had all of the ingredients first and soon discovered we had no oil so Ryan (in his shirt, apron, and underwear) and I headed over to our neighbor "DeeDee"'s house to see if she had any. As soon as she opened the door, Ryan said "We making cupcakes and we have no oil - you have some?" - when she said no, Ryan walked the rest of the floor, banging on each neighbor's door asking if they had oil. Nobody did but I realized the chocolate cake didn't need oil so I convinced Ryan we should make that instead (he was an easy sell)!

We sat down together and cracked the eggs, poured the water and the mix and very quickly, we looked like we partook in a mud bog: Someone decided they needed to mix faster - can you guess who?? Ryan's legs and my arms were covered and I even found some behind my ear about an hour later. Before we "mixed" so much that we ran out of batter, I decided that lumpy cupcakes would be better than none so we put the batter in the pan, put the pans in the oven and got the "decorations" all set up:


When they were done, I let Ryan do the decorating while I licked the batter bowl.

I guess Ryan started to get hungry after a while (as you can see him drooling over his cupcakes above) and decided he rather decorate his mouth than the cupcakes.
**Disclaimer: the above pictures are not posed. I would recommend not eating anything with sprinkles that we may offer you**

Finally, after I realized there were more sprinkles on the floor than on the cupcakes, we decided it was time to put our decorations away and try out our cupcakes.

The verdict - the cupcakes were kind of dry and not so good, but the decorations were delicious!!! So far, Mr. Mischief has eaten 2 1/2 and when I say he ate 2.5, I mean ate the icing off 3, ate half of one and gave the rest to me. Next on our baking list: a rainbow chip gingerbread boy (ryan's request)

Geographic Tongue

**Warning: Crazy Photos Included**

Ryan has a Geographic tongue. Yes, it sounds totally made up and we had never heard of it until we told the pediatrician that we thought Ryan's tongue looked funny at his 3 month appointment. It was then that she told us about Geographic Tongue. She explained that the top of the tongue is covered in papillae. When someone has geographic tongue, their tongue had red patches on the surface of the tongue bordered by grayish white. The papillae are missing from the reddish areas and overcrowded in the grayish white borders (I had to look in wikipedia for a good explanation). It is common and true in Ryan's case that the small patches may disappear and reappear in a short period of time (hours or days), and change in shape or size. Geographic tongue does not go away, but in the case that it someday does, I started to take some pictures of Ryan's to show him when he is older. The doctor promises me that it doesn't bother him at all but sometimes, it looks so horrible, I don't see how it doesn't hurt. Here are some pictures just from the past month:

When I ask Ryan if it hurts him, he always says no and matter of fact, he thinks that it is funny to look in the mirror and check out his "circles". It would figure that my wild and crazy boy has such a crazy condition. Well, I guess he will always have a good answer to "Tell me something unusual about you"

4 months

4 months - man, the time has just flown by. My little baby, although he was never that little really, is now 16 pounds 7 ounces and is 26 1/4 inches- the ped. said that is near the 90th percentile for both. Dylan is so tough - he had to get 4 shots this time and didn't even cry for the first 2. The doctor said he looked great and couldn't believe how blue his eyes still are.

Ryan, who came along for the appointment, had a pretty funny interaction with the pediatrician when she first came in the room:

Dr. P: "Hi Ryan, who is that, your brother?"
Ryan: "yes, that my bruda"
Dr. P: "What's his name?"

Ryan: "Dylan"

Dr. P: "Do you love him?"

Ryan: "I love him SOOOOOO much"

haha, it was so adorable.

Dylan has really changed a lot in the past month. Very recently, he started cooing more and is even starting to have a little laugh. Also over the past month, Dylan has been rolling non-stop!! As soon as he lays down on his back, he tries to roll over. Over the past week, he has even started to try crawling!!! He tucks his legs under his body, picks his butt up in the air and tries to push off. He has moved a little bit a few times but once he figures out how to use his arms too, I will be in big trouble - time to start cleaning up the toys on the floor I guess. For the time being though, he seems to enjoy being in his exersaucer which we recently took out of the closet. Of course, it needed to be tested out first by the original owner :-)

(and for old times sake, here is a picture from the first day that Ryan used it 2/24/06)
When Dylan finally got his turn, he had to listen to instructions from his brother how to use each attachment, although he seems to like the things he can put in his mouth best. It is now one of his favorite places to hang out :

Brotherly Love

I am really loving how much Ryan and Dylan love each other and how they interact with each other. Whenever Dylan sees Ryan, he completely lights up and stares at him the whole time Ryan is in the room. Ryan too seems to be more interested in helping to take care of Dylan. Ryan has done a few funny things recently with regard to Dylan:

1. When Dylan cries, Ryan always tries to make him feel better. He always wants to hug him, even though his idea of hugging is pretty much laying on Dylan. Ryan always says "make him hold my hand" as he tries to wrap Dylan's fingers around his own. He loves to sing him songs and read him books and there have been times when I have left the room for seconds and come back to find Dylan completely covered in toys, books or trains.

As much as Ryan doesn't like to hear Dylan cry, he equally loves using it as an excuse to get out of trouble. Ryan will be getting in trouble and even though Dylan will be sleeping or sitting quietly, Ryan will interrupt me to say "Mommy, Dylan crying, he so sad, you go" - haha.

2. Ryan has nominated himself as the caretaker of all of Dylan's pacifiers announcing "Mommy, Dylan need his podifier" and "Here Dylan, eat it".

3. We went shopping a few weeks ago and I fed Dylan in the car before we drove home. As I was burping him, Ryan said "Mommy, I do that. Throw Dylan back here. I catch him. I need to pat him." Another time he said "Give me Dylan. I carry him over there. He need take nap"

4. At Aunt Erika's house, he got right in Dylan's face and said "Dylan, you trust me? You trust me?". I have no idea why he asked that and Erika and I were laughing too hard to bother asking.

5. Although Ryan is spoiled rotten and gets toys, books etc all of the time, he is VERY jealous of anything Dylan gets. Any time we put Dylan on his playmat, Ryan says he needs to lay down too. Almost every morning, he wants to sit in Dylan's papasan chair and tells me to move Dylan over. The funniest thing though was we got Dylan a teething ring recently and Ryan said he need it. We told him no, he couldn't have it because maybe Dylan was getting teeth and if his mouth hurt, the toy would help him feel better. Ryan thought about it for a minute and then said "ouch, my tooth hurts. Dylan, you share that"

I could go on and on with recent random stories but the point is, I love these boys and they love each other- they are too funny and crack me up everyday. I really need to be better at blogging so the 4 of you reading this can crack up at their antics everyday too.

Happy 4th of July

The 4th of July was a super fun and exciting day so get ready for picture overload (and this is narrowed down to my favorites).

After having breakfast at Erika and Richie's house, we headed over to Frankie's for some Go-Kart rides, bumper boats and arcade games. We let Ryan pick what he wanted to do first and of course, he picked go-karts as soon as he saw them. After some initial disappointment over not being able to ride in a black car (only the yellows were 2-seaters), he got all strapped in and announced he was going to race Richie. On your marks, get set, race...

Ryan was by far the littlest one in the cars and you couldn't even see his head over the steering wheel. I think he might have been a little scared by the sound of the car because Jay said he was pretty quiet most of the ride and held Jay's hand a lot - of course that didn't stop him from having a fit when he got off that he wanted to go again!! (Updated on 8/20: Ryan is still talking about the fact that Richie's car was blue, his was yellow and that Richie won the race)

Next, we moved over to the bumper boats. Richie, Ryan and I went on the ride and I would like to make the following points:

1. I told Richie not to spray me because I straightened my hair that morning and didn't want it to look crazy - he didn't listen.
2. I am the worst bumper boat driver ever - Ryan did much better than I did! He kept screaming "Mommy, Richie's behind you!!" lol
3. 5 minutes is a very long time to be in a bumper boat especially when you are terrible at steering and don't want to get wet.
4. Ryan does not make a good shield against water attacks (what kind of parent am I that I use my son as a shield? At least he liked getting wet)
   5. Did I mention I stink at driving a bumper boat? Even Dylan laughed at my lack of skills
   

After we enjoyed all of the outside activities, we headed inside for some games and other rides, specifically The Drop Zone. The Drop Zone is basically a free-fall/bungee jumping combination - you are pulled in a chair to the top of a beam and then dropped free-fall style and bounced thereafter like on a bungee. Ryan laughed the entire time and I think Erika probably laughed even harder just laughing at Ryan. "Eka, we need get off now??"
I think the ride operator felt sorry for us because Ryan once again threw a fit that he didn't want to get off so he let Erika and Ryan go again - I think that Ryan would have stayed bouncing all day if we let him. After a few hours at Frankie's, we headed back to the house to try to get naps in before the ball game since we knew it was going to be a long night. When everyone woke up, we headed over to the Durham Bulls Athletic Park to watch the USA vs. Guatemala minor league baseball teams play (we won 18-1!!). The athletic park is terrific - it is totally geared towards families (we were even able to bring the stroller in) and there are a lot of things for kids to do inside besides watch the game. When we entered the stadium, we were greeted by the Bull's mascot, Wool E. Bull and Ryan got very shy and didn't want to go near him. Later on, he told me that he wanted to meet "Wooly Bully" and he wouldn't be shy so I took him down to the store where Wooly was and Ryan still really didn't want the bull to touch him.Can't you just see him thinking "Get off me"? While we were in the team shop, I told Ryan he could pick something out and that he needed to pick something out for Dylan too. Ryan got this:

and Dylan got:I think Dylan kind of got the raw end of the deal. Ryan had excellent behavior for most of the game and was most fascinated by the vendors walking up and down the aisles. As each vendor passed, Ryan would say "I need a pretzel", "I need a soda", "I need lemonade" and finally: "I need....what's that" so I said "a funnel cake". Ryan's reply: "I need a fodo cake".

Finally, when the game was over and it got dark, we watched the fireworks display from the comfort of our seats and they were amazing - I guess that is what happens when you go to see fireworks in a state that sells them in the supermarket!!! The show was really long, was accompanied to music (gotta love Neil Diamond's America), and the kids loved them!
Ok, Dylan slept through almost the whole show but did open his eyes long enough to take a little peak, I guess thought it wasn't interesting and went back to sleep. Ryan gave the show 2 thumbs up though:
Thanks Erika and Richie for a great 4th of July - we had a blast and hope that next summer, we can come down again and see another game!