Halloween 2010

Reagan was the princess Belle from Beauty and the Beast and Ryan was a Bat (same costume Reagan wore at 1.5). I was a half man, half woman and Cam was a Vampire. We had a really fun Halloween party for all our friends and their kids. It went from 4-6 and then everyone headed out trick-or-treating, some on their own, some in groups. Reagan ended up going with her two girlfriends, Emma and Olivia, who were Sleeping Beauty and Princess Tiana (princess and the frog) respectively.

Ryan: "She won't give me that!" Reagan: "ha ha, he can't reach it!"

Princess Tiana (Olivia), Sleeping Beauty (Emma), and Princess Belle (Reagan)

Most of the adults at our party dressed up, I really encouraged it and it worked! We voted and Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty (Erika, behind me, next to Cam) was our winner! You can see the woman side of my outfit mostly here, but not Cam's (black clothes, red cape, slicked back hair, trickle of blood that had worn off already ... that was the extent of it :-))
Cam and I went to an old friend's party in our same costumes the previous night.

Earlier in the week, we dressed up for music class (same Bat costume for Ryan and Reagan was a Turtle - had to wear the $3-clearly-homemade-thrift-store turtle costume we found!)

Ryan Words

Ryan has recently gone from calling Reagan "Nee Nee" to calling her "Eggan". He calls himself "Eye-an" instead of "Ein" now too. He made a recent and obvious switch over the last week to pronouncing things better, but skipping the first sound a lot more often, like"eep" for sleep. We rub his back before he goes to sleep and he always says "ub-ack" when it's time for that. He's in love with his Croc shoes, "ock oohs". The list goes on and on, it's pretty funny and really hard to understand when there's no context and he starts talking about something at random.

October Beach Day!

We're in what's probably our last heat wave around here (to make up for the coldest summer on record I guess) so we went to the beach! It was warmer than the day we went in June, totally perfect weather, no sweatshirts needed this time.

We planned to get there at 10:30, but ended up almost 2 hrs late due to Ryan waking up with an infected penis ... which has never happened before ... so of course it happened the one day we planned a beach trip. Saw the doctor at 9:30, who of course advised against sand play, then hemmed and hawed about it with Allison, who was car pooling with us, and decided to triple layer him on the bottom half and be extra careful since we couldn't bring ourselves to not go after all the lunch and beach packing. I picked up his antibiotic on the way out, gave him the first dose and kept it in the cooler. It all worked out and I managed to keep him sand free down there .. mission accomplished. We had another doctor check this morning and it was already looking much improved by last night, so no mommy guilt about the beach trip... yay!

Here's Ryan and Jack playing monster trucks in the sand. There is a strange thing with boys and vehicles that I don't get. Ryan sleeps with cars or trucks in his hands like they're teddy bears. He also hugs a teddy bear though :-) At least 2 of my friends with boys also talk about them sleeping with their cars in the bed.

Jack, Ella, Ryan, and Reagan playing in the sand

Daddy Weekend

While on my girlfriend getaway cruise, Cam and the kids had a lot of fun. They went to the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, to a park with peacocks and a big hiking hill, and dinner at our friend's house (whose Mom was with me on the cruise).

Ryan told me over the phone all about how they saw mama peacocks but not any baby peacocks:

"Hi Mommy! baby peacock ... nooooo .... mama peacock" He said it clear as day, it was hilarious.

A roller coaster building exhibit at the science museum:

Sprinkler Fun

warning: shrill 4-yr old girl screams ahead

Swimmer in the Making

After swim lessons all summer, check out Reagan's skills:

Tarantulas

Cameron has been trying to find the Tarantulas on Mt. Diablo every fall (mating season when they are supposedly everywhere, crossing the roads, etc. I say "supposedly" because I will never be witnessing this for myself). Well, on September 18, he saw 6 of them. Here's a perspective of their size relative to Cam's size 12 bike shoe.

In case that's not creepy enough for you, here's some video: