Happy Birthday to Ryan

On Tuesday Ryan turned 2. We started practicing last week:
Me: Ryan, how old are you?
Ryan: Green!
Me: No, not what color is your shirt, how old are you?
Ryan: Red!

After a few days of practice he had it down pat in time for his birthday. He is officially 2 years old (instead of green years old).

We ended up doing the birthday party at Grandma and Grandpa Knight's house.

 The "party" involved some hats, blowers, sunglasses, and cake.

 Oh, and presents.

 He was happy to get many toys with wheels (and a helicopter, which he loves as much as anything on wheels).

 The girls have been obsessed with Frozen ever since they saw it in the movie theater in November. They've got big plans for their birthday cakes in October and November--one is going to have an Elsa cake, the other an Anna cake, so naturally they thought that Ryan should have an Olaf cake. He didn't object--he likes marshmallows, and though he probably would have liked something with cars, the marshmallows made up for the missing wheels.

Not quite as high quality as this cake I modeled it after, but good enough for a 2-year-old.

 I also made Olaf heads out of marshmallows for all the kids since I figured that was the piece of cake everyone would want. When we were getting ready to leave our house to head in to Grandma and Grandpa's house I sent Ryan out to the car (where the girls were already in their carseats) and told him to climb into his seat while I grabbed the keys and a couple other things. I came out to find that he had found the plate of Olaf heads and was quite pleased with my idea. Luckily I got out there quickly enough that I only had to replace one eye and a nose.

 One present arrived a couple days after his birthday, but Ryan didn't care. It's always nice to draw out the birthday excitement. And excited he was.

This train goes around and around and around. The kid loves it. I love watching him play these days. He is so into his cars, he will unload them one by one in a long line, then when they're all lined up, he sings "Clean up! Clean up! Evybody clean up!" and puts them back in either the storage container where they belong, or the back of the dump truck that they all fit into. Then he does it all again.

He is generally a happy kid, but has a stinker side. If Annie says "no" to him he either goes right up to her and hits her or pinches her, or finds something that will bug her (taking a toy she likes) and does that. Annie and Ryan both prefer to occupy the space the other one is in. Wherever that is. Especially if it's by Mom. They will go stand right next to the other one and push and shove until they're both crying. But after a timeout Ryan is always very quick to go and give a hug and say "sorry." In fact I think sometimes he pinches Annie or pushes her buttons just so he can have a timeout. He likes being like his sisters, including getting to have a timeout.

Ryan had his two-year check-up on Wednesday and good news: he's moved all the way up to the 5th percentile in weight. :) Up from 3rd, I think, at his last GI visit. He is 23 lbs., 5 oz. and 33.5 inches tall (27%). Progress. We have another GI followup appointment next month and I'm hoping that the doc will be happy with his growth and cut back the GI appointments to once a year max. With pregnancy and a new baby there are plenty of other doctor's appointments to go to in our immediate future.

Ryan is a smart little boy. He's a talker and speaks in full(ish) sentences a good amount of the time these days. When he sees Jacob in the morning with his lunch bag, he automatically says, "Bye, Daddy! Of (love) you!" Then he hops down from his chair (he's usually eating breakfast at that point) and runs towards the garage yelling, "Button! Garage!" He loves to push the button that opens the garage door. Since we recently got a new garage door that is a million times quieter than our other one was, Ryan thinks it sounds like the printer (which he loves to watch spit out copies) and always says, "Copies comin'!" When Ryan hears the garage door close around dinner time he yells "Daddy's home!" and runs to meet him.

When we get in the car and I haven't already told Ryan where we're going (and often even if I have told him where we're going), he's request as soon as we get out on the street, "Go Gampa's house!" If we're driving somewhere that is taking us past Kolb and 22nd St (by my parent's house), he starts giving me directions to go to Grandpa's house. "Go dat way!" And he can successfully navigate us all the way to their house from Kolb.

Ryan's favorite song is I Love to See the Temple (he often requests "Temple Song!"), but the girls have also got him singing "Let it Go" from Frozen a lot lately. He sings: "Eh ih go! Eh ih go! Eh ih go no mo!"(Let it go! Let it go! Can't hold it back anymore.") His favorite movie is either Baby Einstein (any with animals) or the Dora episode Stuck Truck. Most other movies he won't sit and watch for more than 3-5 minutes. Though today he did sit through a good bit of a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse movie.

Ryan is a bit of a showoff and lately has started telling us "Watch this!" He loves to have an audience and will do silly things just to get a laugh. Tonight we had the missionaries over for dinner and when they laughed at something he realized he had a good audience and yelled out "booty!" "toot!" Two of the words the girls have taught him to say that always makes them laugh. We love having our little silly boy in our family. Happy Birthday, Ryan!

Zoo Field Trip

The week before Spring Break Rachel's class had a field trip to go to the zoo. They got to go behind the scenes and see stuff they normally don't see. I went along as a chaperone, though there were so many volunteers that there were only two kids in my group.

After the behind the scenes tour where we got to pet a hedgehog, a ferret and a tortoise, and see the sun bear up close, the kids got to feed the giraffes, then we wandered around the zoo for an hour or so.

 After the zoo we went to the park for lunch and the kids played on the playground before heading back to school. Here's Rachel's class:

Ostrich Farm

 On our way back to Tucson we stopped at the Rooster Cogburn's Ostrich Farm. They have way more than just ostriches there. We were given a cup full of alfalfa pellets, and a few other foods for the various animals we'd be feeding.

They had donkeys,

 deer,

 goats (yes, those are goats sticking their heads through the wall, not mounted dead goats),

 ostriches,

baby goats,

 prairie dogs, ducks, and lorikeets.

 The lorikeets were my favorite. We had a little cup of nectar and when we held out our hand they landed on our arm, pried off the lid, and started licking out the nectar.

 Some liked perching on heads more than arms.

 Annie was okay with it for a little while, and Ryan didn't mind, but did want to see what was on his head.

Family picture:

 We also got to go on a Monster Truck Tour, which was pretty fun. We piled onto the huge truck and learned about ostriches.

 We saw the female ostrich on the nest, rotating the eggs to keep the yolk from sticking to the side.

We got to hold an ostrich egg ourselves.

We did some off-roading in the monster truck, and got to go fishing for ostriches. We clipped oranges to the fishing poles and the ostriches snatched them off the string.

Definitely worth stopping, instead of driving past like we've done so many times before.

The Phoenix Children's Museum

The Children's Museum in Phoenix was a ton of fun. The first (and last) exhibit was this huge three-story-tall enclosed play structure. The kids (and Jacob) had lots of fun climbing up really high.

 The fort room. Also had a half a dozen two-way mailboxes that kept Ryan entertained for a while.

 Rachel met a new friend who built a fort with her. The friend followed us around for a while.

 We went and did a St. Patrick's Day craft. Which Ryan promptly destroyed.

Shopping. Annie stocked up.

 Ryan hiding in a tepee made of old pants.

 In the car area they had three different race tracks to race cars down. The cars were PVC pipes with roller skate wheels on them and they went pretty fast. The kids loved them.

Ryan would wait for Annie to bring more cars, and they'd send them down the tracks.  Over and over.

 They also got to ride on some cool stationary vehicles.

There were several other exhibits that the children enjoyed, including a maze that wasn't really a maze, just a forest of hanging pool noodles that was fun to get lost in, or try to find someone else in.

On our way out we had to stop at the big caged playset thing once more. Annie found this maze and went through it 5 or so times. She was so proud of herself.