Ry Ry

I love this picture. He's been able to do the monkey bars for a few years now, but recently decided to love the monkey bars! For a long time he wouldn't try the swinging kind, and now he's all about them. It's fun watching your child do something they have learned or that they love! He is proud of the fact that he skips one when he first starts...and tries to skip two like some kids he knows...which I said ~ oh they must be bigger. Then I saw a girl his size skip two! Then he tried again and again, really hard! His arm just needed to be three inches longer. I am biased, and I think he tried so hard. I can't figure out how that girl did it, wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself! I might need to go measure her arm!

Ryan's new school had a Fun Run this week. Not nearly as well put together as our old school's Jog-a-thon, but fun nonetheless!

When I showed Scott the pictures that evening and he zoomed into this picture....

he saw this...

Can you see him as a much older kid in this picture?

We couldn't stop looking at our glimpse into the future!

We also noticed that his loose front tooth is thrusted forward with his running step. This tooth has been dangling. With all of his other loose teeth he has pulled them out as soon as he could. For some reason he decided this tooth ~ he wanted it to just fall out on it's own. It's gotten so bad.

It fell out Friday morning...but the inside fleshy part of the tooth stayed. So he had a gummy looking flap hanging down all day. I'm so sad I didn't get a picture of it. It looked so funny. He pulled the thing out on our way to see my Mom at Grandma Lee's in the bay area!

Play Ball!

I've heard our new little town loves parades! I'm curious after Baseball's opening day to see what other parades there are. The day started with a parade of baseball teams.

Here's the Iron Birds {Airplanes/fighter jets}



{Named after the Minor League team in Maryland ~ you might think we chose that team mascot since my parents are from neighboring Virginia and the Iron Birds feed into the Orioles ~ but it was luck of the draw! And I'm talking some serious LUCK! Other team names are ~ no offense ~ Mud Cats (Catfish), Iron Pigs (steel), Owlz, Sea Dogs (Sea Lions), and Lugnuts.}

Pretty cute team with flags with their picture, name and number!

Apparently some teams go all out! Here are the Pirates - in a real boat!

I got such a kick out of the crazy impressive floats, I just had to share!

This team won first place. This picture does no justice to how HUGE this sign was...apparently the real Red Sox have a famous sign that is called the Green Giant.
This is an extra large trailer, the children are more like 8/9 year olds and the coach was a tall big man. This sign was large.

This team was directly behind ours in the parade lineup. This lifesize horse cracks me up! It is made of paper mache! And was used last year and saved for this year. WOW. Some dedicated parents!

Here's Ryan and new bud Josh after the parade!

This is Ryan at our real first game ~ for some reason they had a week and a half of games before Opening Day.

Isn't his little black and grey uniform adorable? I love it!

Later after a boring official opening ceremonies, lunch and then game we played in the bounce houses! This league doesn't even charge for the bounce houses!

And this year, Kyle got to enjoy a little bounce house joy - though not nearly as much as he would have liked! He also got to go down the big bounce slide three times (only three because he had to be carried up the tall ladder). It was steep but he had fun and he wanted more!

I prefer last year's wrecking ball to this because the line was long and it was hard to pair up evenly matched contestants.

Sean said a few times that it was his best day ever...with candy being thrown at him during the parade (he got a ton) and free reign on bounce houses he was in heaven! He kept bouncing/hopping in line like he was doing a pee pee dance, every time I asked him he denied needing to go and said, "I'm just excited!"

We for sure had fun!

Irish green!

I love holiday's. What a fun excuse to do things out of the ordinary.






One year, I'm thinking 4th or 5th grade ~ I dressed up as a Leprechaun on St. Patrick's day. I put green glitter on my cheeks, wore a green hat, and shorts, but the perfect finishing touch were the pointy green things I taped to my shoes...Crazy little me!





Anyhow, we had our yummy dinner that wasn't entirely Irish, but lots of green. I made

*green shammrock biscuits that weren't fantastic - wheat flour isn't preferrable when making light and fluffly biscuits.
*Green mashed potaotes
*green dyed Squirt
*Green asparagus
*Mini Meatloafs with mushroom sauce.

Someday I might get the courage to make some sort of corned beef. I don't understand it and don't know the best way to prepare/cook it. I keep thinking I need to look it up on Wikipedia, but haven't done it. So if anyone knows a yummy way to tie in a real Irish meal, clue me in!

Here's our Rainbow Jell-o! Isn't it so pretty? Even though I didn't get a good slice to picture? I messed up on the green. We walked to pick up Ryan from school and I forgot about needing to finish my green layer so we stopped at the park too. By the time we got home, it had started to set in the pot before I had poured it onto the layered Jell-o! Oops.

At dinner we were talking about how we have some Irish Ancestors. So I say to the kids, "Do you know what Ancestors are?"


Ryan replied, "Well, what about An-brothers?"

I didn't realize ~ Scott figured out that when I said Ancestors he thought I was saying An-sisters. ~ Pretty funny!



And here's a few more pictures of our last trip up to the fun tree swing...since yesterday on our way home from school someone at the end our our street found a small rattlesnake in their yard and had brought it out to the street and burned it!

Coconut Ginger and Citrus Salsa

I've had a few recipes that I've wanted to make for a while...but I ended up combining them!

Instead of Sticky Coconut Chicken

or Halibut with Kiwi Orange Salsa

I made: Sticky Coconut Tilapia with Kiwi Orange Salsa

It was really yummy, but next time I'm going to make it with Salmon. I think the flavor of the coconut with the Salmon will be great!

Marinade:
1 cup canned coconut milk
1 Tbsp. minced fresh ginger
1 tsp. fresh ground pepper
1 tsp. red pepper flakes

* I used about a cup of coconut milk in the rice that I made and it was so yummy! Then later that week I made Hawaiian Haystacks(If you aren't familiar ~ rice, chicken, pineapple, green onions/reg. onion, tomatoes, cheddar cheese, cream of chicken as gravy...and used the coconut milk in the rice again and it was so great! Really revived the old Haystack!

Kiwi Orange Salsa
1 cup or more kiwi and orange ~ diced
1/2 up minced red bell pepper
4 tbsp. minced red onion
1 tsp. lime juice ( I used more)
snipped fresh cilantro to taste

We enjoyed this meal! We also had asparagus and salad. We were all in a happy place!

A perfect day with Grandpa!

We had big plans. The rain forecast vanished and we had a list...
baseball practice
yummy food ~ chicken burrito covered in Sour cream sauce from On the Border!
Yard work ~ take out big round bush that was annoyingly centered in our backyard.
Climb the hill behind our house.

We were so thankful the rain vanished because these events had been planned the previous Saturday and it rained. Oh how glad...just watch!

Well it had rained the night before...so baseball practice was crazy muddy. The face is a tough face ~ not sad as it might look. No...but my face might have looked like that after undressing three boys before they could get into my van for the second time in one week at this very baseball park. The kids think the mud is hilarious and fantastic.

Yard Work

Now you see the bush...

The boys had to help mash the clippings down...

And now it's gone! They had to hold up their "fish." Don't the roots look kinda like a Lionfish? Good work men!

Then it was time to climb the big hill behind our house.

Here we are on top next to the big log...I'll have to take a shot of the hill from far away...we see this log and Oak tree up there everytime we come home!

Almost at the crest of the hill!

Checking out the school on the other side!

Grandpa and the boys with a cool dead tree behind them.

Look what we found! My oh my! Someone had built a swing in a huge Oak Tree! Strong rock climbing rope attached to a huge strong branch! We couldn't believe our eyes! What a fantastic find! Of course we had to try it out!

I have so many pictures. I love them all!

Then Kyle could hardly take the waiting any longer...he wanted in on the fun too!

So then Scott decided he needed a go too. You can start to see in this picture how high they got on the swing! Seriously...it got crazy high! The tree is huge. The hill gives way. As a result, they were flying high! We had to keep saying, "HOLD ON TIGHT!"

And another high flying ride!

Having crazy fun! This boy might have loved it the most.

Weee!

Wish we would have discovered this swing a while ago! It's getting close to rattle snake season ~ so we won't be able to go up there for months!

Thanks for coming dad! We loved having you so much! The wrestling and playing was fantastic! Can't wait til next time!

EIGHT!

On the way to church someone said one or two and Kyle started saying numbers! I think he said three, five and six...so we started promting. What a crack up! The kid will say most of the numbers from one to ten if you say the number preceeding it. Eight is his favorite. He even points to fingers. We were so amused! Hope you enjoy! *The first one you is longer so I couldn't upload directly onto blogger ~ but I think it's better.

From 2010_03_07

Grandpa visit

We got lucky with a visit for two long weekends with my dad as he had business in San Francisco the week between! The first weekend rained more than we had hoped ~ for visitor style plans, but we made do and had lots of fun! Here we are at the park next to Ryan's school. He went with us on our usual walk to pick Ryan up ~ stop at the park and play for a bit ~ then scooter home. Here is Ryan showing Grandpa how he can do a circular swinging monkey bar thing.

Sunday was dry enough for a walk! We went a different route this time and found these beautiful spots!



Ryan likes to pick flowers for me on our walks.

Love visits from family!