Gingerbread Train

It's the annual "Build A Gingerbread House Day" or in our case "Gingerbread Train". I remember making gingerbread houses every year during Christmastime. Melissa says she never did. Since she missed out, Melissa and I tried last year to build a gingerbread house. Needless to say, it almost fell over. We had to use a ton of frosting and use toothpicks to keep the roof from falling off, and it still looked terrible. This year she decided to build a train which was much easier. The boys have a great time building the train (actually just eating the frosting and candy). I think Melissa had the most fun. Check out the pics.

Here is Casey with his cheesy smile. He doesn't know how to smile like a normal person.

Here is another one of Casey.

And another.
Here is the train nearing its completion.

I finally got Ryan to look at me and smile.

I had to get Melissa in here, since she was the master architect.

I had this one so you could admire Ryan's teeth. I actually took Ryan to his first dentist appointment this week. He did really well. A little bit of crying and whining. Once the dentist told him there was a "treasure chest" of toys to pick from he was a perfect angel. No cavities!!

Here is the final masterpiece. Very nice!!

I had to add this final picture. Even after I bathed the boys and got them all clean Melissa was still working on the train. She was really trying to make sure every inch was covered with frosting and candy. Perfection!!!

Cardboard Boxes

Ryan is probably like most other little boys. He loves to climb inside large cardboard boxes. We should stop buying toys and just get a whole bunch of cardboard boxes to play in.

We have a pretty big cardboard box hanging around the house and Ryan keeps trying to climb inside of it. The problem is the box is really tall and narrow. Once he gets in, he can't get out.

Ryan started playing in the box again today and while he was trying to get inside I had an epiphany. I decided to build a small house for Ryan so he could easily get in and out of the box.

Check it out. I bet your jealous of my fine engineering skills. I first pulled out the handy dandy kitchen knife - useful for all kinds of things. I sawed out the door and stuck in a door handle and a peephole. It was a little dark inside, so I cut a small window on the side.

Now I'm sure your wondering why I taped a Huggies box to the back of the box. Well, Ryan doesn't play in slow motion, so the first time he got inside the house it just tipped right over. I taped the Huggies box to the back and threw a few heavy law books at the bottom. Ka chow! -it's not tipping over anymore. (I've been watching way too much "Cars". Casey loves it.)

Here is Ryan in his new house. He just loves it.Here is the small window.

Ryan just can't get enough of his new pad. He feels like royalty.

I'm pretty happy with the finished product, since it only took 10 minutes or so to make. Once Casey and Ryan start playing in it together I'm sure it won't last too long. At least if I don't make it in my current career choice I can always fall back on building playhouses out of cardboard boxes. These things would sell like hot cakes.

Going to School...

I think Melissa is on a blogging hiatus. She's on a kick and reading Harry Potter, so I thought I would post a few things while she is away. I know Kristin (Melissa's sister) has been waiting to see some new posts, so here you go.

Since Kristin started school again, I thought I would post a few pictures of Ryan at preschool. I know Kristin is probably learning some pretty cool stuff at college, but so is Ryan. Take a look.

What is more fun that learning how to bang two sticks together! Go Ryan! You're on your way to starting your own band.

Of course, what would life be like if you didn't know how to use scissors. I think he is a little too excited to be using those scissors. Watch out!

Now he is getting the hang of it!

Ryan is learning how to sit quietly and listen to the teacher. Amazing! Anyone who knows Ryan can see this is a miracle -- Ryan sitting still. I don't think he likes sitting. Not his favorite pastime. Oh, the kid in front is Ryan's friend Jake. He loves to play with Jake and if he doesn't get to hang out with Jake, we're gonna hear about it (with some screaming, of course).

Kristin, I know you have some cool roommates, but look at these guys.

I believe today was the Hula Party. Ryan never turns away good fruit.

And I couldn't finish this post without Casey. He wouldn't turn down a party that has food. He's daddy's little boy. We're foodies!

A few more years Ryan will be doing derivatives and taking Melissa's place on the couch to do some reading.

Preserving Marriage and Proposition 8

Down by the bay...

On June 26th my sisters and I took the 3 kids to the beach for the first time this season. Casey, thankfully, took a little nap while we were there so our trip could be a little longer. We picked a day that was quite cool. When we arrived at the beach about 10:30am it was about 67 degrees outside, and completely overcast. It didn't feel that cold at first and it actually felt colder after the sun came out, someone is going to have to explain that one to me later.

Here is Casey after he woke up from his nap.

Casey was a little afraid of the sand at first. I don't think he liked the way it felt between his feet. By the end of our 2nd trip to the beach a week later, he was covered in sand by the time we left. He did NOT appreciate me taking him into the surf to clean him up. But he and Ryan absolutely LOVED the showers. The ones for washing off your feet were the perfect size for Casey, he was very upset when we left.

Aunt Jenn had fun digging for sand crabs. Jenn held one in her hand for the kids to look at and Ryan actually touched one and said "OOOO, it's creepy." I'd never heard him use that word before. Then to my surprise he held it in his hand and thought it tickled.

When we were getting ready to leave Aunt Kristin and I were cleaning the sand toys while Aunt Jenn kept all of the kids warm in the chair with towels. Casey was perfectly content sitting on Aunt Jenn's lap until I walked up and wanted to take a picture instead of hold him, you can tell how he felt about my decision.

Too cute, I had to include this one.

We finally decided that it was time to go when my niece Payton wouldn't move from this position. When we asked her if she was cold she'd say "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

Oh, Casey...

Oh, Casey... what can I say? He is my little dare devil. Ryan, this may surprise some of you, is a rather timid child, he's quite cautious when it comes to trying new things. Casey, on the other hand, is constantly surprising me. He loves to climb and stand on anything he can and has even started pushing boxes, toys, and rocking puppies around to use as stepping stools. The picture below was taken June 6th, now he no longer feels the need to hold onto the handles. Man, they grow up too fast.

I love the baseball hat and diaper look on Casey. This kid is built tough, quite strong and that belly is not squishy. Can you tell that he's a good eater? Ryan is a little on the picky side and we've done our best to avoid that with Casey, so far so good. Although, he does have his moments, but what kid doesn't.

He is quite the little talker these days. He's 15 1/2 months old and has been saying some words for almost 3 months now. Sadly enough :) his first word was "watch," as in watch TV (or more specifically Disney's Sing-Along Songs). That was shortly followed by "Heigh-Ho," his favorite song from the show. I'd ask Casey what he wanted to do and he'd run to the T.V. and say "Yatch," then I'd ask him what he wanted to watch and he'd say "Ho, Ho" while bouncing up and down (dancing). He now says: baba, bath, cheese, out, where'd it go, kisses, car, bye bye, waffle, juice, more, all done and ball. He is following in the footsteps of his older brother by being a really good parrot, he repeats a lot of what we say, but the above words are the ones he can do without being prompted.

Casey is so cute when it comes to hats. He carries himself differently when he has a had on, it's a riot. I'm just thrilled that he actually keeps them on.

Casey always has the funniest facial expressions, and here is an excellent example of one.

Casey loves to play with any and all controllers/remotes we have in this house. When this picture was taken he didn't notice that we had given him ones that didn't work, now he knows the difference.

Tunnels anyone...

For those of you who don't know, Ryan is obsessed with trains. To take it a step further, he is obsess with trains going through tunnels. He likes to make tunnels out of anything we have available. In the picture below he has used 2 chairs, 2 stools, 1 leap frog learning table, one Little Tikes Tool Bench, and Grand Central Station of course. That's 7 tunnels, this time I think I put my foot down after he wanted it to go under the couch too.



For a long time, Casey was a great source of stress for Ryan when it came to trains. Ryan liked to build the train track while Casey liked to destroy it. I'm sure that Ryan is relieved that Casey has taken a liking to pushing trains instead of destroying track, although Casey does like to push anything that has wheels on the track even if it doesn't quite fit which does frustrate Ryan and says "Casey, it doesn't fit."

Ryan's favorite thing is to get both of our battery operated trains and have them run on the track at the same time, basically until the batteries run out. Now he only gets one with batteries at a time, which sometimes causes contention, but that's the way it goes.

Both of the remotes still make noise which is great because Casey thinks that he's controlling the train when it's really Ryan, everyone wins, especially Mom!

I guess this is only the beginning...

OK, so I know that I'm in trouble with many of you for taking a 3 month hiatus from blogging. My original excuse was that we didn't have anymore hard drive space on our computer, I guess that's what happens when you have a 2 GB card for your camera. So, now we have an external hard drive with plenty of space and my excuses are gone. I'm hoping that there will be a LOT of posts in the next few days so that my brother Daniel, who hasn't seen the boys since January will be all caught up before we see him on Monday.

I LOVE this video. Casey had been walking about 3-4 weeks when it happened (May 21st). He had tackled Ryan one time about 10 minutes prior to this video and so I had my camera in hand ready to go just in case it would happen again, I wasn't quite ready for what came next. Usually these matches don't last this long because Ryan becomes too intense very quickly, but in this instance he was "just trying to watch Caillou." It's a 3 minute video, but well worth the time and the wait, I hope (considering this happened 3 months ago).



I find it interesting that I never mention Casey's name during the course of the video. So, as you can see, Casey is my little instigator but he's a cutie. I can no longer assume that Ryan is the one causing trouble when I hear cries coming from the other room. It seems to be a pretty even split between my two little trouble makers. It will be interesting to see how/if the tables turn when Casey can hold his own.

Are you happy?....... Not Yet

So, I have a rule in my home that I don't deal with cranky children. (This obviously doesn't apply when they are sick or get hurt.) This rule typically comes into effect in the afternoon either on a "no nap" day or if someone wakes up on the wrong side of the bed. The following scene is the last in a series of cranky episodes. I was actually trying to get a video of Casey walking but I got this instead. Watch the door (or the doorknob) in the first part of the video. I told Ryan that he had to go to his room and that he could come out when he was happy.



Now that Casey is 1 year old he is becoming more and more dramatic. You can tell that he wasn't as upset as he sounded by how easily he is snapped out of the crying when Ryan opened the door. He also LOVES to play with doors, which he is doing in the background. But I think my favorite part is when Ryan almost breaks down again. He makes a nice recovery.

Uncharted Territory...

I have never let Casey explore the kitchen until this last week. I didn't want to have to deal with the possibility of him falling over and hitting his head on the tile. Just thinking about that hurts. So, now that he is an AWESOME walker (more about this to come), I feel better about letting him explore. I opened the cupboards that he's allowed in and let him go. At first he kept looking at me like "Is this some kind of trick? Are you just teasing me?" See, he's rather expressionless.

Then after a few minutes, this is the face I get. He was quite excited once he realized that I wasn't going to pull him away, but was still a little hesitant about what to touch.

My one mistake of this new adventure was letting him play in the refrigerator, as you can probably guess he LOVED it, and was quite put out when I made him leave.

It didn't take him long to find one of his favorite things to eat, yogurt!

Now every time he's in the kitchen he goes to the frig and whines, while trying to pull it open. I probably should have known better, but it sure was fun to see how excited he was to be able to explore a little.

Happy Birthday Casey!!!! Part II

Here are the videos from Casey's Birthday Party. I love how well Ryan listens in this first video.

Casey is such a funny little boy. I love the way he eats his cake. I wouldn't have guessed that he would eat his cake in such a way, but I can't say that I was surprised. Uncle Jerry said that his next step will be a Hot Dog eating contest.



I loved how attentive Ryan was while everything was going on with Casey. He was very patient in waiting until Sunday to give Casey his presents. Ryan would have surprised him on Friday night if we would have let him. We actually did the presents first since Casey was getting a little cranky and I was sure Casey would be happy with a cupcake at anytime during the evening. The video proved that.

I'm having trouble loading the last video, maybe it needs to be in a different post. Enjoy these for now.

Happy Birthday Casey!!!!

On Sunday, May 4, my baby boy turned 1 year old. (sniff, sniff) Wow, how time flies. He has been an absolute joy in our lives for this past year and I can't wait to see what he does next. We went into my parent's house for the weekend's festivities. Casey had a pre-party treat enjoying my Mom's famous frosting.

Special thanks to Mom and Jennifer for making, designing, frosting, and decorating Casey's cake. It was a cupcake cake. You put the cupcakes really close together and then frost it like a regular cake, which means more frosting! Yum!

Apparently opening presents is hard work.

Payton was ready and willing to show Casey how to play with the Little People School Bus.

I'm not sure if this face is happy or frustrated, you be the judge, my next post will have the video counterparts.

Again, you be the judge. :)

This is probably the first moment he had to himself since the presents were opened.

Entertaining the kids with fire while waiting for everyone to assemble.

Don't you love his gap-toothed grin!

Checking out his audience, waiting to make his move.

His hands came to his mouth and did not leave until the entire cupcake was consumed.

Apparently it doesn't matter how much dinner and cake you have, there's always room for ice cream. He also mastered using a straw over the weekend.

Stay tuned for the videos!