Zoe can read!
Last Monday the 21st of June, we were watching some kids show and the word "Howdy" appeared on the screen. Out of nowhere, we overheard Zoe say "Howdy".
The next thing we know, she opens a book and begins to read it! Her first books were the Dick and Jane books. She is now on to reading Green Eggs and Ham.

Zoe's 1st Ballet Recital:

-Ryder @ 15 Months-
Yes, I'm late posting it... if you'd sleep through the night, maybe I'd have more time/energy to devote to ya'lls blog!

Ryder has been saying "mommy" of late. He used to say "mamma" and has switched to "mommy".

We decided to put Ryder in a toddler bed. Kia saw him trying to climb up/over his crib so we decided it was time; before he succeeds and crashes to the floor. Anyway, I build his bed and we got it squared away. After 2 nights of fighting for hours to get him to go to bed, we decided to re-build his crib and put him back in it. Heres hoping he never succeeds in climbing out!

Zoe is learning to read. She has ALWAYS loved to read and seeing her beginning to figure it out is great.

I took Zoe to Grandmas house for dinner this past Tuesday night. We had a great time. Grandpa Steve (Pop-pop) built an awesome pond in the back yard and Zoe christened it by throwing in the 1st pennies (and 1 nickel).

Zoe also had her 4th Birthday:
So far she's had 2 parties and we owe her a 3rd. Its a Birdsong thing....















Me and Ryder at the park:













Current Events:

• The BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast - maybe it will be cleaned up by the time Zoe and Ryder graduate from College.
  
• Lakers vs. Celtics in the NBA finals. Its currently tied at 2-2. Rajon Rondo has emerged as a legitimate star. Kobe Bryant has answered any questions as to who is the reigning best player in the NBA... it's NOT Lebron James, not yet at least.
  

-In The Moment-
This past Sunday, I took Zoe to see “How to Train Your Dragon”. I wasn’t sure what to expect considering our last attempt at going to a movie (see HERE). The experience was amazing! We had an incredible time.
I have often thought, but never verbalized, that one of the challenges to being a parent is trying to be “in the moment”. And, I didn’t think it was possible. I thought that being in the moment was like the proverbial carrot being dangled in front of the horse… unattainable. From the moment they are born, it seems you are always trying to catch up and slow things down.

However, I theorized, if you constantly attempt to be in the moment, you’ll have brushes with it and that's the best you can ask for. Taking Zoe to the movie disproved my theory. You CAN be in the moment, if for only fleeting moments.
To Zoe, it was just a fun time at the movie. To me, it was a rare occasion where I was in the moment. And by that I mean, I was fully able to appreciate, embrace and bask in fatherhood. I left the theater thinking “this is what its all about”.

OK, I know its been a long time since I've posted...

Lots has happened since the last post...

Some milestones:

• Ryder is now able to climb onto and off of our couch
  
• I may have mentioned this before... but Ryder LOVES bananas. He calls them "Nana".
  
• He is super fast so we have to keep our eyes on him at all times.
  
• He like sot sing... in the mornings we put on BackYardigans while he eats breakfast and when the song comes on, he starts singing in his out of tune voice...
  
• We've put Zoe in a new Montessori and she seems to like it way more than her old school.
  

Here are some pics:
Here are the kids in their Easter outfits:



And here they are with the Easter Bunny:



and a bonus Zoe pic:

And the kids hunting for Easter Eggs at Uncle Rays house:




****
Incidentally, in the place we live there is a family of squirrels that has nested behind our kitchen cabinets. Our landlords have named him "Ole one eye" cuz one of his eyes is damaged. They also call him Nutkin. At any rate, they are burrowing further and further into our home and we've asked the landlords to come handle it. They are attempting to use "humane" means to catch and relocate Nutkin.

So there is a trap in the back yard with food inside it. Here is a picture of Nutkin and the trap (note the food in Nutkins mouth):

Zoe takes a spill and really hurts her nose!
Kia took her over to Uncle Ray and Aunt Leahs to babysit Jaydon and Riley. As they were playing, Zoe fell face first into a corner of a wall.

Here are pics:

Last night, Ryder was up from 1am to 5:30am, after sleeping through the night the night before. GET IT TOGETHER RYDER!!!

Anyway, he finally fell asleep at 5:30 and woke up at 7:30am. When I went in to his room to get him, he was standing in his crib. I turned on the light and before any words are spoken, he's in his crib pointing at his diaper bin. So I check his diaper and sure enough he had pooped.

Kia mentioned the night before that when putting him to bed she asked him "do you need a new diaper?" and he responded by pointing at his diaper bin.

Pretty cool stuff... If you're into that sort of thing (babies and poop).

Also... yesterday morning as I was leaving for work, Zoe wanted to give me a "hug and kiss" just like we do every morning. This particular morning, she ran over to me with open arms, and as we were going to hug, she stuck her pinky in my eye. It really, really hurt! In fact, it hurt all day.

Current Events:
The House of Reps has passed "Universal Health Care" bill. Its not quite universal, but a step in the right direction.

Last night, Ryder slept through the night and didnt wake up until 5:45! A big deal.

When I got up with him, it seemed as though he had crossed a new plateau as far as his development. He just seemed to be more confident and sure of himself. We used to notice these "leaps" with Zoe. You wake up one day and have a "new" kid.

For example, for the 1st time, we were able to put him and Zoe upstairs by themselves and they played together without us needing to be there. Normally, Ryder flips out and screams at us. But we were able to enjoy our coffee in peace.

Charlton and Deb stopped by today with their 3 month old twins. Wesley and Samantha:
Super cute babies who slept the entire time! Kia and I commented that our kids NEVER did that.

Ryder was Mr. Personality during the visit. They brought him a belated birthday pressent (a Spider Man ride along thingy) and Ryder loves it.

Ryder is beginning to form words.

For example, he and I were in the bathtub last night and he began to "knock" on the bathtub tile. I said "Say Knock, knock", to which he replied "kno, kno".

He will also repeat Momma and Dadda.

He will also sing. I'll make one of his musical toys play a song and he'll begin humming completely off tune, but its very cute.

He LOVES to dance too. When watching Yo Gabba Gabba, when they do a song, he starts getting his groove on.

Zoe just told me the following:
"You're my best Daddy, in my heart".

So sweet.

So for the past couple of weeks, Zoe has been occasionally asking me if she can shave her face like I shave mine. My usual response is, "Honey, girls don't shave their faces, only boys shave and only when they grow up"; and she ponders my answer and moves on to something else...

Well, yesterday Zoe decided to take matters into her own hands. She went into our bathroom (which is normal for her at this point) and proceeded to grab my razor and attempt to shave her chin. As you can imagine, it didn't go so well.

She took one "stroke", apparently sideways as opposed to down and cut her chin pretty badly. To make matters worse, my Razor is the type that has a button you push to enable the "vibration" feature (a useless feature in my opinion, I NEVER use it). So at some point she pushes the button and that freaks her out even more.

According to Kia, the fallout was terrible. Below is a picture of her cut, the day after:



Lesson learned: I need to put my Razor out of reach from now on.












Other news:

• Ryder is beginning to wean himself from nursing.
  
• It appears the worst of our 1st Winter back in the DC area is coming to an end. Temps are nearing 60 degrees, thank GOD.
  
• We have put Zoe in a new school. Its a Montessori and she likes it 100 times better than the old daycare we had her in. To use her words: "No more stinky Daniel and Abel!!!"... No offense Daniel and Abel, whoever you are.
  

Thought I'd post this for comparison.

Ryder @ 1 Year old


Zoe @ 1 Year old

Ryder is 1 Year Old!!!


Ryders Birthday was Feb. 26th. We celebrated it Feb. 27th.

Grandma came over to help celebrate.

Some notes:

• Ryder signed "Potty" the other day. I was trying to put him down for a nap and he wouldn't fall asleep. I'd give him his pacifier and leave the room and he'd take his pacifier and toss it out of his crib. This happened at least 7 times. Finally I went in to his room and he was laying down looking up at me signing "Potty". I looked and low and behold, he had gone potty.
  
• Ryder refers to his Sister Zoe as "Yaya". He'll scream out Yaya!!! When he wants to see her.
  
• We have Ryder and Zoe in daycare 1 day a week. Ryders "overseer" is a woman named Miss Fran. He seems to have taken to her well. It took a few weeks, but he seems to like her.
  
• Ryder has observed us all talking on the phone so much that he likes to imitate us talking on the phone. He'll grab his toy phone, put it up to his ear and start babbling into it.

Current Events:

• Kia and I went to see the movie Avatar today; we saw it in 3D/iMax. It was an incredible experience. The movie was fantastic and both Kia and I were blown away.
  
• The US lost to Canada in OT in the Olympic Hockey Gold medal match. Booo!!!
  
• A monster earthquake rocked the country of Chile. It was 8.9 on the Richter scale.

As I type this, I'm feeding Ryder his favorite thing in the world... Bananas.

He'll pretty much eat an entire banana. He's also a big fan of mac and cheese.

Ryder First Words
Ryder has been saying "dada" for a little while now. He has also said "Mama". Whether or not he is referring to US is up for debate. However, this past Saturday (the 13th of February) he said his first definitive word. Kia and Zoe were at Zoes ballet and me and Ryder were "kickin it" at home. I was practicing some sign language w/ him. I was trying to get him to sign "ball". So, he's watching me do the sign and I'm saying "ball". Rather than sign it, he said "ball".

Speaking of sign language, Ryder also signs for:

• Milk (when he wants mommys milk)
  
• More (when he wants more)
  
• All done (he signs this one frantically)

Current Events:

• We just survived one of the, if not THE worst snow storms in Washington DC area history. It was actually 2 snow storms, one after the other. 2 weeks ago, it snowed roughly 30 inches. A few days later, it snowed an additional 20". It was kind of cool actually because I had about 6 days off from work (paid).
  We did lose power one night. That wasn't so cool. Fortunately, it was only out for a few hours; although the temperature in our house got down to 58! We all huddled onto our couch to stay warm and slept that way.
  
• The New Orleans Saints won the Superbowl. They beat Peyton Manning and the Colts in a great game.
  
• There was a disastrous earthquake in Haiti about a month ago. Really bad.

One other newsworthy item:
2 Days ago, Ryder began to clap his hands. He'll pick up a ball and "throw it"; and by throw it I mean drop it, but after he throws it he looks at me and starts clapping.

A few updates:

• Last week, I was hanging with Zoe and Ryder in the playroom. All was going well. Out of nowhere, Zoe picks up a tool (I think it was a wrench) from the kid toolbox and throws it "to" Ryder. Well, it hit Ryder square in the face. Ryder, of course, immediately began to cry as I scooped Zoe up and punished her by sending her to her room for the rest of the morning.
  
• Ryder gave his 1st hug this past Thursday. Kia says to him "Ryder, give Zoe a hug!" And Ryder walked right over to Zoe and gave her a great big hug, with his head to the side and everything. He has since done it a few more times. Its the cutest thing ever. We'll have to get it on tape asap.
  
• Ryder has learend to wave to people.
  
• A few weeks ago, Zoes old friend Peyton was in town with our friends Beth and Mike. These are friends from Arizona. Peyton and Zoe were good friends when we lived there. It was great to see them. You wouldn't know it, but Beth is pregnant in this picture.
  
  
• Today we are going to Sophias 4th Birthday Party.
  

Ryders 11 Months old!

Last Saturday, Zoe had her 1st Ballet recital. It went well. She started out doing great, and then when she realized their was such a big audience she was overtaken by the moment and kind of "shut it down". Kia stepped in attempting to get Zoe to participate again and she eventually (by actually doing the ballet with the kids and talking to Zoe) got Zoe to re-engage. It was a great job by Kia and a super brave moment for Zoe.

Last Sunday, we went to the Baltimore Aquarium with Uncle Ray and his family. Here are some pics:






We have begun the "Sleep Lady Shuffle" with Ryder. He has been waking up at around 1am every night wanting to eat. For a while, we indulged him, but decided it's time for him to start sleeping through the night. So, we went out and bought an airbed and put it in his room. Kia has been staying in his room and implementing the "shuffle".
The 1st night (2 nighs ago) was rough. It seemed to me that he cried all night. But Kia said it wasn't that bad.
Last night was much improved. He only woke up once at 4:15ish.

Currently, he and Kia are in his room napping.

As I type this, Zoe is playing a game on one of our laptops, and I'm typing on the other. I just jinxed myself. No sooner than I typed that last sentence, Zoe swallowed a whole potato chip and it freaked her out (you know... the feeling of a hard potato chip in your throat).

Current Events:

• Dallas lost to the Vikings in the NFL playoffs. Daddy and Ryder were bummed.
  
• There was a massive earthquake in Port-au-prince, the capital of Haiti. It was absolutely devastating; especially to a country that was already on the verge of devastation.