RAZ-ma-taz

ryan's 4th birthday party

ryan will be 4 in a week (which is insane!!) but since we're leaving town for a month tomorrow, we went ahead and threw her birthday party early so that she could celebrate with her friends here.  we had it at a bounce house and the kids had an absolute ball.  tomorrow we will arrive at mimie and tom-tom's where she will have another birthday party and then we'll be at gigi & papa's on her actually birthday and we'll have yet another party then.  what a whirlwind of celebrations!  we got some cute pictures from today so without further ado...

<no explanation necessary, but she thought it was VERY cool to see her name so big>

<ryan holding court with her boys & a quick snack break>

 
more party pictures here... 

Laugh!ng P!zza

ryan had a blast tonight!  we took her to see laugh!ng p!zza and she LOVED them!  they were great but mostly, she's just a huge fan of music and so sang and danced her little heart out.  she also got their autographs on a poster, a magnet, and a CD so she's all crushed out.  we didn't realize they were on PB$ until they started singing a song that we all recognized which was pretty cool.  Click on the video below to hear part of the song(and check out ryan's level of crowd participation ; ).  oh, and btw, cooper had a ball too.  it was definitely past her bed time but she rocked it.  i believe there will be many concerts in our future... at bedtime tonight, ryan let me know that she would love to see m!ley cyru$ next, oy!!

<ryan and her classmate abby who we ran into lounging in the front>

 

<band and kids rockin' it>

and here's the video...

thankful feast

ryan's class had their thankful feast today.  mel and i volunteered to bring a dish - steamed broccoli.  not very exciting because there are several kids in her class with severe food allergies so there aren't a whole lot of options.  there was vegan, gluten free mac & cheese, black bean cakes, pumpkin bread and fruit salad as well.  it was really cute to see the kids waiting patiently to be served.  the school brought out their best china and some of us parents served the teachers and kids.  ryan and her boy brenden sat next to each other of course and i caught them eating off of each others plate a couple of times and caught brenden feeding ryan a blueberry.  it's really ridiculous how cute they are together.  today was met with major sadness.  tomorrow is ryan's last day of class for the year since we'll be traveling for the next 5 weeks and today was brenden's last day at the school.  he is moving to the mountains about 2 hours away and so is transferring to a new school.  ryan cried on and off all day yesterday about not being in class with him anymore and she was just so so sad; truly heart breaking!  the good news is, his parents and us are committed to getting them together regularly, we're going to shoot for once a week.  we'll meet in the middle sometimes, they'll drive down sometimes (they still have their house here) and we'll go up sometimes so we're looking forward to that but it certainly won't be the same for them since they're use to spending 3 hours a day together/5 days/week.  mel and ryan made a memory book that she and Brenden will draw in and pass back and forth and it seemed to help ease some of ryan's sadness.

here are some cute pictures of them from todays feast.

after school today we went to the park together.  they ran and played and laughed and had a ball.  after a while they all (brenden's brother nolan was with them too) got hot so they took off their over shirts.  the boys proceeded to take off their short sleeve shirts too so ryan followed suit and we had 3 topless munchkins frolicking about in the 65ish degree amazing weather (we were at their neighborhood park btw and were the only ones there).  next of course they tried to take their pants off but we moms put our feet down on that one.  explained that we didn't want to have to clean out dirt from tooshie cracks, nice right?  anyway, not long later brenden ran over to report that he had to pee.  we looked around and realized their was no bathroom in sight so his mom suggested he find a tree.  brenden took care of his business discretely and it was nolan's turn next.  he was a little less discrete, he dropped his pants to his ankles, which piqued ryan's curiosity immediately so she went over to get a closer look.  when he saw that she was interested, he turned around in mid stream and gave her a show.  she immediately turned to shannon and i who were all the way across the tennis court from where they were playing in the trees and declared that she too was going to pee-pee standing up and proceeded to drop her pants to her ankles!  i got up and flew across the court, helped her pull her pants up and explained that girls don't pee standing up.  she said, "why not mama, if i just pull my vag!na out like this i should be able to pee-pee without getting any on my pants.  i laughed and totally understood her desire to try but explained that logistically it was highly unlikely that she would clear her clothing and therefore just not something we were going to try. 

needless to say, it was a very funny/fun day! 

cavities

ryan paid a visit to the dentist today.  this office was AMAZING!!  from the front office staff, to the hygenist, to the super cool dr. rosenthal.  this was ryan's 4th visit to the pediatric dentist, but her first visit to this practice/doc.  she's never been comfortable with the idea of someone else brushing her teeth, much less doing any of the number of things dentists/hygenists like to do.  unbelievably, this team made her feel comfortable and she did awesome!  they cleaned, scraped, suctioned, and even x-rayed with very little objection.  they were supportive, encouraging, understanding and firm. 

unfortunately they found 3 cavities.  this news was devastating to me.  mel and i are meticulous with ryan's teeth and it made me feel like an absolute failure.  our poor baby girl is petrified of needles as it is, the thought of her having to endure them in her mouth is overwhelming.  we take oral health very seriously so have already scheduled 2 appointments to have all 3 cavities filled.  we had 2 choices, enamel colored or the silver fillings.  both have their pros and cons but in the end, we're going with the silver even though cosmetically they are anything but appealing because they will last for the lifetime of her baby teeth while the others would likely require replacements which seems crazy!  so, her first appointment is jan. 4th and i am holding my breath.  so, we will not tell her that she has cavities, we'll leave it to dr. r to handle that morning per his suggestion.  i took some fun pictures of her in the chair.  this was her first time having x-rays and she did a great job of holding still.  

 

 

dirt and worms

if we could summarize ryan's 2nd year of pre, pre-school in three words they would be "dirt and worms".  she has spent the better part of the first half of this year digging for worms and bugs with her boyfriend, brenden.  and now, thanks to her school picture, we have those memories forever documented.  at first, amy and i didn't notice the worm and we actually hadn't planned on buying this picture (there was another pose that was better).  however, after the photographer pointed out the worm, there was no way we could not buy it.  all i know is that when i was a kid, we marched single file into the library and sat down on a stool in front of a blue curtain for our school pictures.  i think it's pretty darn cool that ryan's school went a more alternative route and really tried to capture the kids in their element.

Coo-Coo in a TuTu

"stop looking at your hair Ryan, it looks great!"

We're @ karate right now and the kids are running. Ryan is obsessed with looking at herself in the mirror which is slowing her down considerably. Her coach just totally called her out which got a good chuckle out of the parents since she's the only girl in class. Since she was called out she's totally focused and is running faster than she's ever gone. What a trip!!

chipped tooth...

so yeah, this is what i was greeted with upon arriving at school today to pick ryan up.  evidently, there were a couple kids on the monkey bars at the same time all thinking it was their turn next and a little push later, ryan's mouth met the bar and did not fare well.  though i guess we should be thankful because it could have been a whole lot worse!  coincidentally, we already have a dentist appt. scheduled next week for a cleaning so hopefully the dentist will be able to smooth out the jagged edge painlessly. 

when her teacher described what happened i was less than understanding, i mean i realize accidents happen but i just think the monkey bars are the most dangerous thing on the playground and as such there should be a teacher present when there are kids on them at all times.  i realize there's only 2 of them but there needs to be stricter rules and i made my opinion very clear.  hopefully, they heard me; i don't think there should be more than one child on those things at a time, it's just way too dangerous.  like i said, we're very lucky that she only chipped her tooth, but i'm still not happy about it.

anyway, so that's the big news in our home this week.  oh, and speaking of teeth, cooper got 2 new ones on tuesday; she now has 4.  

happy pride!!

what a weekend!!  we spent the entire day at piedmont park with friends to celebrate pride and it was amazing!!  the weather couldn't have been more beautiful after several days of rain and gloom and our girls loved the 6 hours of fresh air.  the parade was llooonnnggg but ryan danced her little heart out for almost the entire thing.  when she wasn't dancing she was standing, waving oscar's rainbow flag and yelling "happy pride everyone!".  she will be in many many strangers pictures; almost every time i turned around people were snapping pictures of her.  between the dancing, the flag waving and the general adorableness, she  was an excellent subject!  as usual, christi and i got teary eyed when we saw the pflag people and a couple others but i don't remember which ones.  isn't that ridiculous?

a couple people have asked why pride was in october this year rather than june when the rest of the world celebrates.  the rain was so bad in atlanta this year that they didn't allow major festivals in to risk ruining all of the grass.  ironic of course since we had several days of rain leading up to today.  there were spots that were quite muddy as you'll see in some of the pictures of the kids but mostly it was fine.

anyway, i don't know what possessed me, but i took a couple hundred pictures during the parade.  here's a link to our personal pictures.  and here's a link to the parade pictures for those interested...

sneak peak:

 

Happy Halloween!!

it has been raining and nasty for the last several days which is a real bummer for halloween and pride but unfortunately there's nothing we can do to change it so we went with it.  ryan was an awesome trick-or-treater, super sweet and appreciative of all the treats and rearing to go.  between the rain and the steep hills in the neighborhood we were in, the group only lasted about 30 minutes.  she was sad to think that was all she was going to get so rather than disappoint, we drove into another neighborhood and gave her the opportunity to hit another 15-20 houses which was just what she needed.  she had a couple pieces of candy which she was thrilled about and all was good in her world.  cooper hung in for a little while but was not a fan of the cold mist that just relented so i hung in the car with her for the last part while mel and ryan trudged on.

last night i went out to a huge pride party with some really good friends and had an absolute blast.  since the last time cooper got sick, she has been waking a couple times at night between when she goes to sleep and typically when we do around midnight so mel decided to stay home rather than have someone come over to babysit.  it was a bummer because we rarely go out and pride only comes once a year so it would have been nice to have my wife with me. ; (  it was nice hanging with all my old pals though and was fun rolling in at the insanely early hour of 3am!!

looking forward to spending time at the park tomorrow for pride and hopefully hanging there long enough to see the parade!

without further ado, here's some cuteness from today (before & after):

more here...