Ryan's Fifth Concert

You just gotta love living in Austin, the live music capital of the world. :) At one year old, Ryan's already been to five concerts! His first was when he was 5 months old and we went to see the Remus Lupins a.k.a Wizard Rock. I can't really say that he was a fan though, maybe when he's a little older. Then, we went to go see Joe McDermott at Pottery Barn Kids and we were hooked! We've also seen Miss Staci there too. Ryan's other concert was at City Hall. At certain times during the year, the Austin City Hall hosts live musicians during lunch time. I can't remember who we saw perform, but they're on an animal CD that Ryan got for his birthday. It was some time of world music, it was very groovy.

Here a pics of Ryan at his second Joe McDermott concert at PBK. Yes, as you can see, he wasn't really into the music this time around, he was more into eating! Ryan is a big foodie. :)

The second pic is of Joe performing. The last two pics are of Ryan and his friend Ryan playing during the concert. They are so cute together!

First Year Pics

We took Ryan's first year pics a week and a half after his first birthday. We don't have the link to the online gallery just yet, so I thought that I'd post a few that we took ourselves. We took the pictures at Bella Mar, the newest park in our neighborhood. Ryan was in a really bad mood, so I'm surprised that we even got a few good shots. I'll the link to the pro pics as soon as I get them!

Head First
Ryan's newest favorite thing to do is jump into the ball pit head first. Yes, that is a foot in the second picture. :) Ever since Ryan started walking, he has an opinion about everything, especially where he's going. At the gym, Ryan likes to climb up the steps to the ball pit, jump in head first, manuever his way back into a standing position, look up at me so I take him out of the ball pit and place him on the ground and back up the steps he goes to jump back in head first. He's turned into such a crazy baby!

Zilker Park Kite Festival

We finally got to go to the Zilker Park Kite Festival yesterday. Every single year, I always tell Steven that we need to go, but for some reason or other, we've never been able to make it until this year. It was the perfect day to fly a kite. It was extrememly windy and it was neither too cold or too hot. We had a lot of fun just being out and being part of the mass kite flying chaos. We got to watch some cool demostrations like a kite flying team performing in sequence with music. Then we saw a guy who flew 10 kites at once. After snacking on some bratwurst with kraut and funnel cake, we took a stab at flying our new dragon kite from Costco. Costco really did time their kite sale because half the people there had Costco kites! Our dragon kite was really hard to fly (I nicknamed it Eeyore becuase it didn't seem to want to move), but once it was up, it flew pretty well. The last pic is only a glimpse of all of the kites being flown at one time. It was a lot of fun, but you had to watch out in case a kite landed on your head!

Bath Time!

We finally got some good bath time pics of Ryan Lion. Yes, in the last picture, he knows where to strategically place his dinosaur bath toy. :)

Yet Another Walking Video!  

Sorry folks, I just can't help myself.  Ryan walking is just too cute!  :)  

He really started walking by himself in longer distances on Wednesday evening.  To celebrate, we went big boy shoe shopping at Sandy's Shoes on Thursday.  We measured Ryan's feet in January for shoes for XinXin's wedding and he was a 5.  When we measured him at Sandy's, he was a 6!  The shoe guy said that he should be able to wear these shoes for at least 3-4 months, so let's hope that he's right.  The 6's are a bit big, so I think they'll last longer than a month.  We ended up with a pair of sneakers that are a Japanese brand.  They are gray and have velcro, which Ryan loves.  They are also machine washable.  I think they look really cute on him.  We also ended up with a pair of brown sandals that squeak!  I thought they were hilarious, so we had to get them.  When we first put them on Ryan, he started giggling when he walked and squeaked as you can see in the video.  Now we seriously need to get on the baby proofing bandwagon.  I feel so bad saying no to him all the time.  :(  

Everyone Loves the Birthday Scrapbook!  

As part of Ryan Lion's birthday party, guests got to make a scrapbook page for Ryan.  We included pics of all of the guests on their page.  We printed pics this week and I actually got a chance to sit down and scrapbook more pages yesterday.  Here's a video of Ryan looking at the scrapbook.  :)  

Definitely Walking!

Does This Officially Count as Walking?

Please don't listen to my horribly cheesy laugh at the end......  :)

Happy Belated Valentine's Day!!  

Ryan wants to wish everyone out there a happy belated Valentine's Day (belated mostly because Mommy didn't have time to blog)!  

Since the grandparents are in town, Steven and I got to spend Valentine's Day out on the town.  We haven't had a real Valentine's Day in a long time considering that we came home from the hospital on Valentine's Day last year and the years before were marred by busy season.  We went to the Alamo Drafthouse.  I know, I know, we went there for my birthday back in December, but it's such a great idea.  You get to watch a movie AND have a decent dinner, not to mention that we get home at a decent time (lame, I know).  Seriously, two birds with one stone.  We saw Fool's Gold.  I thought it would be a total chick flick, but it really wasn't.  It was more of an action comedy chick flick.  It's been the best movie I've seen in a long time, which wouldn't mean much except for the fact that I have Netflix and so that is a credible statement.  :)  If you're even the slightest bit into Matthew McConaughey, this is the movie for you.  One of my favorite parts was when he made a longhorn sign when saying the number two.  It was fabulous.  

Happy Belated Birthdays to Judy and Bristol!!

On Wednesday, February 13th, we surprised Judy with a party to celebrate her 28th birthday.  It was my first surprise party, and I have to say, it was a lot of fun.  Judy is 8 months pregnant, so we were a bit worried about what the surprise would do to her, but thankfully she didn't go into labor, although I don't think that she would have minded!  Thanks to G for organizing a fun event and of course, Vicente, who actually did all of the work.  :)  Judy and Bristol both share Valentine's Day as their birthdays.  The first pic is of the two of them blowing out the candle on the cake and the second pic is of Miss N enjoying the cake.  

Capital 10K

I've signed us up to walk the Capital 10K on March 30th.  Yay!  It's something that Steven and I have talked about doing again since we walked it almost 3 years ago right before our wedding.  We missed 2006 due to work and unfitness (is that word?  I know it's a bad excuse!), we missed 2007 due to Ryan's newness, so we're back on track for 2008.  Wish us good luck in getting back in shape enough to walk a 10K.  We've got like 40 something days left.  The last time we walked it, I felt like we were walking forever.  Let's also hope that Ryan can sit still in his stroller for that long!  

Some Pics from Saturday

The first pic is of Ryan Lion and his friend Ryan playing with Ryan's Radio Flyer walker.  I gotta say, they are too cute together!  The next pic is of the birthday boy and his birthday present from us.  It's a climbing castle.  We thought that he'd love it since he LOVES climbing, but guess what?  He doesn't even go near it!  Oh well.  That continues my tread of picking out toys that Ryan just thinks is okay.  He was sliding down the slide with Auntie Al on Sunday, so there's still hope.  The slide is a bit steep, but I think that he enjoyed it.  The next pic is of Ryan's giant cupcake.  It didn't turn out as well as the trial run, but Ryan seemed to enjoy it.  I definitely have tips for anyone who wants to make one.  The last picture is of Ryan digging into his giant cupcake.  He seemed to like the icing better than the actual cake, he even fed me some of his birthday cake.  Isn't he a sweetie?  :)  

HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY RYAN LION!!!

My little guy is now officially one year old.  I'm actually handling it a lot better than I thought I would.  :)  

Birthday festivities started out on Saturday with a birthday bash including all of Ryan's play group friends and our friends from high school, college and work.  Thanks to everyone who made the trip to celebrate with us.  It was nice to have all of the people that we love here to celebrate our little guy's big day.  We had guitar hero going on and a scrapbook station.  Despite everyone's comments about having to scrapbook a page for Ryan's birthday scrapbook, I think everyone really enjoyed it.  I think we definitely have some scrapbook talent in our little group of friends.  

Today we celebrated by having lunch at the Cheesecake Factory.  Kudos to our host who brought out a bread and banana tray for Ryan to munch on while we waited for our waitress.  We ended the meal with a fresh banana cheesecake.  It was really good, but can you really go wrong with a Cheesecake Factory cheesecake?  

Afterwards, we headed over to Ryan's first year doctor's appointment.  He weighed 22 pounds and 6 ounces (50th percentile) and was 30 3/4 inches tall (80th percentile).  He's turning out to be a big boy!  Ryan really did well with the doctor.  He let the doctor examine him on the table and didn't fuss too much.  The shots were a different issue.  He did the whole holding his breath thing, but started crying when he finally started to breathe.  We gave him tylenol before his shots and again before he went to bed so hopefully he'll be okay in the morning.  It seems like with each round of shots, his recovery time has gotten longer and longer, but he did do well with his flu shots, so we'll see.  

I'm still trying to figure out flickr to post pictures, so stay tuned for birthday pictures!  

Blah, Blah, Blah

Sometimes when I talk to Ryan he responds with "blah, blah, blah."  I try to not take it personally, but it sure makes me feel like one of the adults on Peanuts!  

Superbowl Sunday

Since it was the superbowl this past Sunday, we decided to take some football jersey pictures.  We know the superbowl isn't longhorn related, but being from Austin, this is all we had.  :)  Here's a pic of Steven and the jersey I got him for Christmas, Ryan's longhorn jersey and of course Button's good luck longhorn jersey.  If you're wondering, yes, that is Ryan sticking Button's paw into his mouth.  He is non-discriminatory when it comes to sticking things into his mouth!  

Butt Up?  

Okay, I've heard of sleeping on your back, side and tummy, but what about sleeping butt up?  Silly baby!  

Austin Children's Museum

After over a year of driving past and pointing out the Austin Children's Museum, we finally went between Christmas and New Year's with Miss N and Heather.  It was a lot bigger than I originally thought.  There was a ton of things to see and do (and put into your mouth as Ryan can attest to).  The first pic is of Ryan and Steven playing with some gears.  Ryan really seemed to like it, so we got him a gear toy for his birthday.  He's played with it at My Gym before, so hopefully he'll like playing with it at home too.  That's the bad thing about My Gym, it's such a source of toy ideas for Ryan!  The second pic is of Miss N playing the drums in the Austin Kiddie Limits exhibit.  She had fun jumping up and down and as a knitter, I adored her very cute knitted dress.  I actually have a pattern for a similar style knitted dress, now I just need a baby girl.  :)  The third pic is of Ryan and Miss N both playing with the guitar.  Ryan is still very ego-centric, so he just grabbed the stick from Natalie.  I can't wait to actually see him playing with other little kiddos.  

Ryan Reading the Sunday Paper

During a trip to Houston for Xin Xin and John's combined bachelorette/bachelor parties, we found out that Ryan has an interest in reading the Sunday paper.  It was neatly stacked on the couch and the next thing you know, he's read through everything and the paper's on the floor!  

Ryan is really funny when it comes to reading.  He loves flipping through his books, going through newspapers, etc, but he's not a big fan of being read to.  I try to place him on my lap and read a book to him, but he squirms around until he's standing on the floor.  He really enjoys turning the pages of a book and even chewing on the book, but not so much with the reading thing.  I guess it's just something we have to work on!  

Ryan Lion at 11 Months

Here's just a few pics of some daily Ryan Lion activities.  

The first picture was taken after Ryan learned how to open the kitchen cabinets (yeah, we *still* need to babyproof).  He got into his snack cabinet and pulled out a container of what I like to call baby cheetos.  They have the same texture of cheetos, but presumably they're better for you.  It's part of Gerber's finger food toddler line.  Anyways, he managed to open up the tin with his teeth and dug right in.  Of course, he got really excited and ended up dumping most of the baby cheetos on the ground where Carrie very graciously decided to help him clean it up.  It was a proud mom moment seeing her baby and dog both eating off of the floor together!  

The second picture is of Ryan helping out with his laundry.  We're still doing his laundry separately from our own because I like washing his clothes in baby scented laundry detergent.  :)  When it's time to do his laundry, he helps by pushing the laundry basket from his room to the laundry room.  Once the laundry is done, he pushes the basket to where we're going to fold his clothes and then pushes it back to his room to be put away.  Ever since grandpa got him a walker, he's really been into pushing things.  He likes to push all of his toys around his play room and he tries to push the furniture, etc.  It's been really cute until he started pushing his superyard xt baby gate out of shape!  

The third picture is of Ryan playing with his favorite toy of all time, the learning home from Fisher Price.  He plays with it every single day and he's finally learned how to put the balls down the chimney to make it sing!  He's clutching the lion that he got from Auntie Xin Xin's wedding.  He loves that lion.  He's got a ton of elephants, but this is his first lion and he absolutely loves it.  Whenever he sees it, he dives for it and stuffs it into his mouth.  Yes, those are baby leg warmers on Ryan and yes, I do know that he's a boy.  They're called baby legs and they make changing him a lot easier since you don't have to take off his pants.  I tried to get masculine colors, but for some reason, these look rather Richard Simmons-ish.  :)  It'll just be one of those things he probably won't forgive me for, oh well.  

The last picture is of Ryan Lion and Carrie.  The dogs' favorite place in the house is underneath Ryan's high chair when he's eating.  It's really quite amazing what they'll eat these days from broccoli to blueberries!  What's great about having dogs is that we NEVER have to clean up the floor after a meal, but it's a different story when we go out to eat.  :)  What's also nice is that you can always tell when Ryan is done eating because he'll just start throwing his food over the tray to feed the dogs.  I just don't know how people have babies without dogs!  He has recently started feeding the dogs and then laughing afterwards.  Silly baby!