Ryan at 3

Ryan is three now and doing so much. Since he turned 3 he has started watching football with daddy. Now whenever he sees anything remotely resembling a football game on TV he asks if we can watch the Ravens. I've never really cared much about the Ravens. I guess any sports loyalties I had were established when I was young and the Ravens didn't exist then. There is something about your little boy rooting for a team that makes your heart a little soft for them. I guess the Ravens are now officially my NFL team of choice (if I had to choose).

Here are the boys watching football and drinking rootbeer floats.

He hiked all the way to this waterfall and most of the way back. That's quite a bit of walking for little legs.
He has also shown quite an interest in reading. I think he may be on the verge of starting to read. He wants to know what all the signs we pass say. He wants to know what words are in his books and he is getting pretty good at knowing what letters start words. He likes to sit and "read" his books all by himself. He also likes to "read" Lily stories from the books he has had since he was a baby. Just today he started saying rhyming words. I'm not sure he knew what he was doing when he did it, but he knows there is something similar about the words.




He is also starting to recognize and make patterns. The other morning I was in the other room and Ryan came running in to get me. "Come see my pattern, Mommy! Backwards, frontwards,backwards, frontwards." I went in and there were about 75 of his cars arranged in a line alternating frontward and backward. There were a couple planes and motorcycles thrown in for variety.

He is so much fun these days (when he is not being obstinate) cracking jokes and generally just being amusing. He is in big boy gymnastics now where he goes all by himself, but he likes to look out the window or come to the door and say "Hi mommy! I love you." or "I did it!" Curious George is his new favorite show and he belly laughs when he is watching it. He just loves that curios little monkey:-) I know how he feels because I just love my curious little monkey too:-)

Too Much TV?

Does it mean that Ryan is watching too much TV when one of his favorite songs is "Cha-cha-cha, Charmin"?

Or when I give him a little box of raisins he says, "Grapes and sunshine, that's all we need."?

Mental note: Only play cartoons from 'non-commercial' stations when I take a shower.

ROFL

You Are Marcia Brady

Confident yet kind. Popular yet down to earth. You're a total dream girl. You've got the total package - no wonder everyone's a little jealous of you.

What Brady Are You?

Well, they can't all be right! I thought sure I'd be a Peter, MAYBE a Jan.

The Lord is my Shepherd

I was saying prayers with Ryan tonight and he wanted to do "The Lord is my Shepherd." So I started ..."The Lord is my Shepherd"...then Ryan joined in and I stopped, secretly relieved because I couldn't remember the order of the verses.
"I shall not want, He makes me lie down in my bed."
I couldn't help it. I laughed. He thought that was fun. I went and got my Bible to look up Psalm 23 so I could say it right. I showed Ryan that it was right there in the Bible and he thought it was pretty cool. So I read it and he asked for another Psalm. I read some from another psalm that I noticed had this month's Bible words from his Sunday School class. He recognized the verse and said it with me. He giggled with delight and I thought 'Wow, he is really getting this.' I finished that Psalm and he wanted more. So I found a short one to read. Then he asked me to do Handy Manny from the Bible. I told him there is no Handy Manny in the Bible. He said, "You know, the Handy Manny song." Oh, I get it now. "No, Honey, these are psaLMs, not sonGs." Okay, maybe he doesn't get it so much. So I tell Ryan it's time to go to sleep. [remember how he thought it was fun when I laughed at his version of the Lord is My Shepherd] His reply was "The Lord is my Shepherd he wants me to not lie down in my bed. He wants you to get me some water." He really knows how to make me laugh:-)

My Little Comedian

Lily has taken to blowing raspberries on my arm. It's very cute and quite amusing (for while at least). Last night she started blowing on my arm and the boys started laughing. Zach was literally rolling on the floor. Ryan said, "Lily, toot again!" through his laughter. She turned around, looked at him and cracked a huge smile. Then she turned back to my arm and did more raspberries. They broke into even more uproarious laughter. She looked at them and smiled again. Realizing they were laughing at her she started giggling too. Then she turned back and blew more raspberries resulting in louder laughter and more 'Lily, toot again's. You can see the pattern. This went on for at least 5 minutes before I had to put an end to it.