Random Ryker

Hangin' with Cosmos.

And of course, hugs for Cosmos.

Ryker likes to imitate the dogs actions.  Here he is rolling/scratching his back like Chacon.

I stuffed him in a pillow case one day and tossed him on the bed, drug him around the house, and carried him like a sack of potatoes.  He wants me to do it all the time now and brings me pillow cases even if he has to take the pillows out to get one.  That was a bad idea on my part....I'm now too pregnant to be tossing him around for as long as he wants me to.  Dad can't get home soon enough....I'm getting much to boring for this kid!

The beginning of July when my Mom was visiting, Ryker said he had to pee and my Mom put him up at the toilet.  Now he always wants to pee in the toilet.  We were planning on waiting until Seth was home and I was on maternity leave so the daycare didn't have to help and we would both be home to help him in hopefully a crash course that wouldn't take too long.  Instead, he wants a pull up on every night when we get home and he's basically potty training himself.  His favorite place to pee is the grass!  Luckily he doesn't ask to use the toilet at daycare or make me pull the car over when we are out and about.  I'm too pregnant to be dragging him into places to find a toilet.  I know I keep using that as an excuse, but we're in survival mode right now.  We're not trying to have any great accomplishments (or my lawn would look a little better), just make it a couple more weeks until Seth is home.  Then it will be smooth sailing for us.  I'm plenty used to being without Seth for months at a time, but I'm not going to lie, this time around I'm more than ready for him to be home so I can put my fat feet up at night!  I'm just lucky Ryker is such an easy going guy.  Hopefully potty training will be a snap once I am ready!

Drinking lots of fluids so he can pee and flush more.  He loves the flushing!  We've had to have a few talks about over flushing and how he shouldn't put toilet paper in the toilet just so he can flush.

We eat outside a lot.  Ryker always wants to and that way I don't have to clean up.

 

He got a sweet hand me down backhoe and dumptruck from his buddy Jake.  He loves to dump stuff.

After a day with no naps at Grandma and Grandpa's, this is what he usually looks like 2 minutes after he gets in the car.  I guess I am not as exciting as them.

He went through a weird phase where he didn't want to sit in the tub.  For three weeks I tried everything to get him to sit, even bribes.  I finally put a towel down and told him it was a seat.  Then he had to have the towel for about a week until Grandma Z showed up with a sweet "squirter" that took his mind off the towel. 

Is it weird that he always asks for hard boiled eggs? 

Seth's New Baby

So our baby is still on track to be born around October 4th.  Seth, however, is in the throws building a new boat with our friend/business partner, Pete. 

I wish it was being built closer so I could check it out once in a while.  It's pretty amazing that this massive metal pig is going to float.

 

Beating the Heat

We've had some pretty hot weather this summer and Ryker is a hot kid as it is. You can thank your Dad for that, buddy.   You have many years of soaked Tshirts to look forward too.

Ryker chose the bowl of the watermelon, probably because it was the biggest.  He had a few "triangles" too though.  He loves to point out the shapes of everything now.

He knows how to get all the juice out.

He played with this cool eye mask for about an hour.  It has been in my closet for years since I got it free at a store.  I put it in the fridge the other day thinking that I might use it once I start retaining water from this pregnancy and my face starts to swell up to twice it's size.  Ryker pulls it out of the fridge all the time and plays with it. 

He loves the octopus sprinkler, but he calls it a crab.  He likes to catch the individual legs and spray the dogs.  He also likes to chase them around the yard with his squirt guns.

He waters the yard most nights for at least a little while.  He really likes to drink from the hose and have the dogs drink too.  There are usually two of them drinking from it at the same time.  At one point Cosmos was drinking closest to the nozzle, then Ryker, then Chacon.  Yep, Ryker was downstream from Cosmos.  Utterly disgusting, but he was very pleased with them all drinking at the same time.  He's tried to get them all in there at the same time again, but it hasn't worked out for him. 

Painting outside in the shade.  He's realized that outside, I let him paint anything.  Rocks, paper, the table, the batting tee, leaves, trees.....you name it, it's fair game.  We did have a talk about the house and dogs being off limits though.  The dogs because he attempted to paint on Chacon and the house because I'm sure he would have thought of it sooner or later.

One last story regarding the hot weather.  Ryker now knows the word naked.  He tells a lot of stories, but they are lacking some key pieces and are sometimes hard to follow if you aren't seeing what he is seeing.  A few weeks ago he comes running into the shop and says "Steve naked."  I started laughing, but went out to see why he would say that.  Our neighbor was mowing his lawn with his shirt off.  There is a gradual hill that divides our properties and he could only see him from the chest up going by on his riding lawn mower.  I explained that Steve just had his shirt off and was probably wearing pants.  When we went in the house later, he looked out the window, which is a birds eye view into their yard and said "Steve shorts, no shirt."  Yep, buddy, that sounds a lot more accurate.

To Run or Not to Run?

We decided to attempt another track meet because he had so much fun last time, until the actual races started.  I decided beforehand that I would gage whether or not to actually enter him in a race once it was closer to starting time.  We went an hour early and met Audrey and Abby there.  Ryker was immediately drawn to the sprinklers and it was 90 so I figured, have at it kid.

You're shorts get a little saggy when they are soaked!

After he was good and wet, we decided to do a little bleacher climbing and listen to the music.

He liked the very top row and yelled "Mom come" and "Abby come" until we all joined him.

They turned the sprinklers off, but don't worry, Ryker found another water playland.

Other kids kept coming over trying to get in the water and their parents would grab them and tell them no.  Guess I was setting a bad example.   

Final verdict: he didn't run.  He was having such a good time that I couldn't take the chance again.  He even sat and watched a few of the races while he ate Abby's snacks.  Next year he'll be smokin' fast and understand how to wait in line.

Kids are Best Fest

The City of Anacortes puts on a fabulous kids day.  Ryker loved every minute of it. 

I think he could have been a strong contender in the watermelon eating contest, but we just had a couple samples pieces instead.

This guy was on Seseme Street and Ryker actually sat down to watch him so I got a little rest from running after him.  The assistant is one of our friends.  He was less than thrilled to be picked from the audience, but it was highly entertaining for his wife and I.

Pleased with our second run to the watermelon table.

Our Farm

Okay so it isn't our farm, but we treat it like it is.  The owner's let us cruise freely and spend as much time as we'd like.  Every Friday we go pick up our produce from our CSA, check out the animals, and cut flowers.  Ryker used to cut flowers, but now he cuts the dirt clumps.  Much more of a challenge as some are really hard.  At least he's not thowing them.  We spend at least an hour there each week and sometimes go for the special events.  We haven't made it to a "work party" but do attend the events like the ice cream making day!  Ryker loved the home made raspberry ice cream. 

This is a 14 year old pig.  It might be Ryker's favorite farm animal.  He always wants to give it "treats" because one day another member of the CSA fed it some raspberries.  It is more of a pet pig and it will eat from your hands, but I really don't want him to think it's okay to stick your hand in a pig pen.  The lambs and sheep, perfectly fine.  Heck even let the turkey peck you; not the end of the world, but I've seen some pretty mean pigs and that's not an animal I want him interacting with unless we know it is nice.

He loved the lambs when they were little, but now that they are grown, they aren't as interested in him and don't come to eat the grass he puts through the fence as often.

The ducks often roam freely and he loves to follow them around, but he really loves it when they are swimming in their tank.

Liz, Colton, and Ryker cutting flowers.

Colton getting a good wiff of the sweet peas.

Ryker digging in to the peas.

Now lets talk about the food....Delicious!  We get a wide variety of stuff and it has been awesome, especially since I'm pregnant.  I'm eating things that I normally woudn't buy (kale, rainbow chard, fava beans, currants, kohlrabi) or take the time to prepare.  I'm still pretty short on time but they gave us a cookbook on how to prepare everything and I have a friend at work that is quite a chef that gives me the scoop on the easiest, fastest way to prepare things.  I don't think anything will top the strawberries as Ryker's favorite, but he is rather fond of the sugar snap peas that we are getting now.  I haven't had them since my Grandma's garden and they are GOOD!  I haven't had kohlrabi since the days of good ol' Marj either, but she always grew the green variety, where the ones we get here are purple.  I don't think I'll be able to go back to store bought califlower.  The califlower is spetacular and I never thought I'd be saying that about califlower.  It's not like it is one of my favorite vegetables or anything, but it tastes so much better FRESH from the garden.  Yes, I've tried to grow a garden, but I'm just not dedicated enough to care for it properly (or organically like the crazy hard workers at Riversong Farms) and I would never plant the variety of produce I can get there.  For $13 a week, it is well worth it.  I was spending more than that on boring sub par produce from the store each week.  Plus, we get to have an outing at the farm each week where Ryker has been learning a lot and meeting lots of new people.  When he's older he'll be able to attend the work days which I think will be a valuable learning experience for him.  For right now though, we're sticking with the cider and ice cream making days. 

What am I going to do when winter comes?  I've frozen some things, but nothing close to what we'll need.  Maybe Seth will can some stuff when he gets home. Oh wait, Seth only cans pickled beans that are so hot that no one can even eat them!