Thanksgiving 2009

Today we drove down to Illinois to spend Thanksgiving with the Rivera family. Everyone was there including our cousin, Marcus, from Texas, our other cousin, Ava, and Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma Ruiz. For the first time ever I can say I didn't enjoy all of the food because I am feeling a bit under the weather, but Lily made up for it by trying everything on her plate. Mom tried her best to get a picture of the four cousins, but I never did cooperate. Lily enjoyed giving Great-Grandma knuckles and tons of hugs, and I enjoyed playing with all of Ava's toys. We have lots to be thankful for in our world!

Welcome Home

We had a great time last night with a ton of friends. Mom and Dad had a welcome back to Wisconsin party and six of our friends (Lacey, London, Brady, Tyson, Jack, and Manny) decided to come party with Lily and me too. As you can see from the picture, the dinner table seems to get more and more crowded every time we have people over. We love hanging out with friends in our world!

2 Year Check-Up

I had the pleasure of meeting our new doctor, Dr. Hagerman, today for Lily and my two year check-up. My exact quote upon entering the office was "Don't like doctor", but Mom said I had to give the guy a chance before I said something like that. In actuality, he wasn't all that bad until he convinced Mom and Dad to give us the flu and H1N1 shots. Don't they understand that shots hurt and I don't like stickers (aka band aids). As for our stats, I rang in at a whopping 31 pounds 13 ounces (85%) and I'm 34 inches tall (35%). Lily came in at 27 pounds even (55%) and she is 33 1/4 inches tall (30%). From the looks of it I think we are following in Mom and Dad's footsteps in regards to our height and weight. Dr. Hagerman referred to Lily as following a fairly average growth curve, and I think the term he used for me was "linebacker". He said there isn't much fat to be found though which I must say I'm pretty proud of. We're turning into big kids in our world!

Arizona Visitors

Uncle Larry, Aunt Pam, and Braden flew in from Arizona to spend a long weekend with us. We think they brought the warm Arizona weather with them because it was in the 60's all weekend which is unseasonably warm for this time of year. We didn't mind though because it meant we got to spend more time outside. Mom cooked chili Friday night to welcome them, and our friend, Jack, and his parents joined us. The table looked kind of funny with us four kids taking up a whole side. Saturday was spent enjoying the outdoors. It was our job to teach Braden how to jump in the leaves, but I'm not sure we succeeded. I also helped Dad do a little yard work, and I discovered that if I drive my cozy coupe while holding my lawnmower I now have a riding lawnmower. Dad should try that sometime in our yard, it would make things go so much faster. We spent the evening in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, taking in the sites and doing a little shopping. After an action packed day, Lily and I were dirty so a hot bath was in order. Braden decided to join us, but I'm not sure that was such a good idea. He must have thought we took up too much room because he peed on my leg. Eeew! Sunday we headed to Illinois so that the adults could go to the Bears game. We kids hung out with Gigi and Pop Pop, but we almost didn't make it there thanks to Lily. She decided to throw up in the car on the way there. It must have been a big deal because a police officer pulled up behind us with his lights on to make sure things were okay. Apparently they were since all Lily did was jump up and down and wave at him...I guess throwing up does her body good?!? After all of the excitement we headed home last night and then took it easy this morning. We took Braden on a tour of Marquette's campus and he and I both scored basketballs from the gift shop. We are definitely pooped out and we are wearing our cool new pj's that the Riveros gave us for our birthdays to bed tonight. We love visitors in our world!

Wild Animals

We have all sorts of wild animals in our backyard at our new house, but our favorite by far are the deer. They visit us at least three days a week and at all different hours. They are quite daring and often come right up to our back porch which is really cool. Wrigley doesn't like it so much, but we love it!

Halloween in Detroit

We made it to Detroit around dinner time Friday night and we have to apologize, but Mommy wasn't able to get a picture of us on our birthday. We took plenty of pictures on Halloween though, which just happened to be the same day as Zee's wedding. We stayed at a really cool hotel where one whole wall of our room was windows that looked over a river and this place Mom and Dad kept calling Canada. We made it through the wedding ceremony with a little assistance from Mom and Gigi, and I made sure to borrow Lily's video camera so that I could tape the action. After the ceremony we went to this huge party that was 72 floors up in the air with lots of food and dancing. That is definitely our kind of party! The carrot sticks with ranch dressing and the gelato were a hit with both Lily and me, and we even tried eating a lemon. Everyone cheered us on, but everyone failed to mention it wouldn't taste very good...thanks guys! Of course we didn't forget about Halloween itself. We each received a huge pumpkin full of treats that will probably last us until next Halloween, and we changed into some pretty cool pajamas. We made it until 10:30 Saturday night, and passed out as soon as our heads hit the bed. Birthdays, Halloween, and a wedding made for an exciting three days in our world!

2 Years Old

Happy birthday to us! We are two years old today, and wow what a great year it was. We have grown so much in the past year that I'm not sure we can fit all of the excitement into one post. We are on our way to Detroit, Michigan, as we speak for Daddy's friend's wedding. That makes six states we've visited in our short two years we've been in existence. As for the rest, if you haven't been blessed by our presence in a while, we'll fill you in on all of the details. We are talking up a storm. The doctor said to shoot for 2 word phrases by now and we blew him away and prefer to use 3-5 word sentences. You can understand Lily better than me, but trust me I get my point across. Our vocabulary is so big Mommy stopped counting the words a few months ago. Again we like to use big words like helicopter, microwave, and caterpillar. We can count to 20, although we both skip "16" a lot. It's not really an important number right now anyway. We can say our ABC's and we both know a few colors. Lily's favorites are pink, green, and brown; mine lean towards blue and red. We're also pretty good at shapes having mastered circle, star, triangle, heart, oval, and square. We're both enjoy coloring and love making circles. I still like to organize the crayons a little bit more than I like to color though. We can sing quite a few songs like the Itsy Bitsy Spider, The Farmer in the Dell, and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. We love entertaining Mommy in the car with our beautiful voices as I'm sure she would say. As for size, our official stats won't come out until November 11 when we go for our two year checkup, but I'm currently in a 2T or 3T depending on the outfit, and Lily is still hanging onto 18-24 month clothes and also fits into some 2T stuff. The length of pants is always a pain because I think we both were blessed with Mom's short legs. Other than that we are enjoying every minute and we can't wait to see what will happen this year. We love being two in our world!

Change Is A Good Thing

Before moving into our new home, Mom and Dad decided that for the first time ever, Lily and I would be separated, and we would each get our own bedroom. They painted our rooms for us and have slowly decorated them, but they are still a work in progress. We don't mind though and it has worked out fairly well so far. During the day we love playing in our rooms and we definitely know whose room is whose. The first night in the house Lily actually told mom she wanted to sleep in "Lily's room" not "Ryan's room". Good thing because I really didn't want to share my crib. We do question where the other is at times, but Mom always reassures us that we are both taking a nap or we are both going to bed. Sometimes I wonder though if Lily doesn't convince Mom or Dad to let her stay up late while I'm sleeping. One thing that didn't change upon our move was we both still slept in cribs. If you remember, I climbed out of my crib for the first time this past May, but Mom's glares and firm words kept me under control for the most part...until Monday. I just couldn't help myself anymore, and that night I climbed out and I did it again yesterday at nap and bedtime. Thus, if you look at the pictures you'll see I no longer have a crib. As of today, I now have a toddler bed, and let me tell you, if I would have known how much fun it is to jump on it I would have kept climbing out in May. Mom's goal was to make it until we turned two, and all I have to say is good trying mom, and you still have Lily in her crib. Toddler beds are cool in our world!

Fall in Wisconsin

Fall is a lot different in Wisconsin than it was in Arizona, but we knew just what to do when Mom raked some huge piles of leaves today...run, throw, and jump! We also enjoyed filling up Dad's wheelbarrow and Lily loved climbing this crazy tree in our front yard. Mom tried to get me to climb it, but I'll admit it, I was a little scared. We found an apple that had dropped off of our apple tree so we hid it in the woods for the deer that come and visit. We hope they find it soon because we love watching them. The craziest thing happened too while we were outside. A bunch of kids dressed in costumes came up to us and asked for candy. Good thing Mom had some because the vampire didn't look very happy. I guess they celebrate Halloween a little early in our neck of the woods. We are loving fall in our world!