Evan at 11 months

Monkey is now an absolutely perfect nickname for our little man. He is absolutely everywhere. He climbs everything  walks, runs, slides, rolls, etc.... he's a super ball of energy!! Lawrence loves it now that baby brother can "almost" keep up with him!

Evan is so incredibly sweet, too! I always find him picking up stuffed animals and hugging and kissing them through out the house. He always leans in to hug and kiss us too!

New words:

•  "thank you"
• "apple"
• "Poppo"
• "Nonnie"
• signs apple and thank you, too

Loves to:  

• dance
• sing
• learning
• play with cars/trucks/balls
• take baths
• books
• play in the water and sand
• go down the slide
• swing
• ride in his bike

First hair cut

Love you to the moon and back Evan Michael!

Music to My Ears

Music and babies goes together like peanut butter and jelly and I rely on tunes for pretty much my whole day. My education and past work experiences help to make little silly songs come naturally and they work for my boys, so I do it ;)

I sing or play diff songs for a lot of different reasons;   transitions, play time, bedtime, bath time, clean up time, wash hands time, clean face time, get in the car time, tantrums etc........ I make some of them up, adapt some to other songs, and steal songs I hear from all diff places...

I want to remember these songs so here they are:

Wash Hands:(this goes to the tune of a "clap your hands song by, Caroline Peterson)
Wash wash wash our hands, wash our hands together
wash wash wash our hands wash our hands together
lalalalalalala lalalalalla lalalalalala lalalalalala

We use this for pretty much anything when we substitute the verb..... (Brush, brush brush our teeeth....)

OR

A,B,C,D,E,F,G, time to wash my hanies
I wash my fingers and I was,h my thumbs
I clean the germies til their all gone
A,B,C,D,E,F,G...look my hands are ALL clean!!!!


Bath Time: (from the Disney channel)
Let's take a bath, a bubbly, bubbly bath

Show Me Patience: tune frere jacques (when he gets frustrated or wants something now!)
Show me patience, show me patience, will you please, will you please
show me patience, show me patience
will you please
will you please
*** this one might be my all time favorite
1.because it shows ME patience too and
2. becuase L now sings it all on his own

Deep Breath (from Daniel Lion show....when mad, frustrated etc..)
When you feel so mad that you want to roar (rrrrr)
Take a deep breath, (breath )
and count, to, four.....1-2-3-4
** L does really well with this!

Clean After Meals:
A,B,C,D,E,F,G, time for mommy to wash me
She washes my hands and she washes my cheeks,
She washes my belly and she washes my piggies
A,B,C,D,E,F,G, THANK YOU MOMMY FOR WASHING ME! -or sometimes we say...LOOK MOMMY IM ALL CLEAN!


Teaching Names: (if you're happy and you know it tune)
L-A-W-R-E-N-C-E...that's me
L-A-W-R-E-N-C-E, that's me
L-A-W....R,E,N,C,E,- L,A,W,R,E,N,C,E...THAT'S ME!!

E-V-A-N-M-I-C-H-A-E-L...Evan Michael!!!  etc....

Lawrence Norwood, V-A-N-R-Y-N-4, Lawrence- Norwooooooood,
V-A-N-R-Y-N-4!

Evan Michael, V-A-N-R-Y-N etc.....

Bedtime:( Our cue/transition song, thats helps them know it's time for bed)
I See the Moon:
I see the moon and the moon sees me,
God Bless the moon and God Bless me
Shine down moon oh shine on me
Shine on somebody I would like to see.
Then, since we live away from family, sometimes we ask L to share someone he wished he could see ;)

Rock-a-Bye Baby (my version,atleast I think...I know Annie and Shannon had one too, so either I stole this and I think I made it up or I made it up... either way its better than the creepy original)

Rock a bye baby in the tree top,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock.
When the bough shakes the cradle will sway,
and our sweet baby will dream of this day.

Patty Cake (My Grandma Hennessey version)
Patty cake, patty cake, bakers man,
bakes the best bread in the land, first choice, fresh bread,
Yippe I yeah for Lawrence's bread

Patty cake patty cake oh so good,
you bake the best bread in the neighborhood,
first choice, fresh bread
yippie I yeah for Evans bread

Other song favs here:

• Three little monkeys swinging in the tree....Evan loves!! and snaps monkey every time!!
• Bob Marley
• Anything with a good beat...these boys love to dance

Other stuff I want to remember...just because :) 

• When L throws a tantrum he gives a verbal play by play, kinda hard to describe for example; when he  runs away because he's frustrated he'll run away yelling "run away, run away"  or if he drop to the ground.."fall down, fall down"
• Dancing
• "No my can't want to"
• nosies
• I love you sign and blows me a kiss every night
• "my gonna help me"
• "handzer-tizers"

They're Practically Ready to Move Out!

Well, not exactly, but these two are growing up way too fast for this Momma. Big things happening in the Van Ryn house.

This picture makes me tear up. He is just so sweet in every way.
Can I bottle up just a tiny bit, God? Please? 

Our big boy took this walker all around the park in the grass!!!

 Evan was just turning 10 months old when we were back in Illinois and he started taking his first steps, just a couple weeks later, he is walking all over the place. He is so proud and darling too. It's that stumbley, drunken walk and he has a great big smile every time!! We are ALL so proud of him!

Lawrence is officially potty trained. He still wears diapers for nap and bedtime, but is full fledged in underpants all day. Even, when we leave the house (yikes!!)

Now, I would be lying if I said we haven't had any accidents, last Sunday was pretty epic and we lost one of the good ones...RIP Lighting McQueen undies....but overall he's been rockin' it!! Also, "I get by with a little help from my friends"  I have some piotty training essentials in the bathroom and on the road with me to make the transitions little smoother....works for L :)

Here are some item musts that  help along the way.....

1. Potty Chair:  this is actually part of the singing potty/toddler potty thingy, but Lawrence prefers this guy. He stands for #1 and like this for #2 ;)   I prefer it too, think I've earned my "clean out toddler potty" badge after all my daycare experience! ...Amy is sending us a travel one for the car! A few months back I saw some I could use at the dollar store and wish I would have grabbed some....I'll check again!

yep, that's our toilet

2. Treats: I am not above bribing when it comes to the potty, especially when we are out!. It works for L!

3. Stools: This one is super cute, tall enough to reach sink, and has a perfect compartment to keep things on hand!

4. Disposal Stuff:   Another pinterest idea. Plastic bags in an old disinfectant wipe. Like to have this by our changing station and in the bathroom. Just easier to have the bags right there for messes!

5. Hand Sanitizer, Disinfectant wipes:   self- explanatory......

Here's, unfortunately what our bathroom looks like after a potty break....10 month old booking it towards the potty and all! 

Which brings me to the "Advise From a Rookie" portion:

A. If you can help it at all, try to potty train before a younger sibling can crawl well.....I have some pretty awesome maneuvers I have learned along the way....like accidental yoga positions that enable me to keep a two year old on the potty/sink stool, while keeping the babe away form the toilet!! This is not ideal, but I think God likes to challenge us a little long the way ;) 

B. Keep the guard on the seat (for boys of course) and if you forget, don't sit on the floor in front of him.....

C. Keep all said things above in bathroom...when you leave him alone for even a second...things get gross, fast!!

D. Extra EVERYTHING mentioned above in the car, plus a towel.....probably won't need the stools

Ahhh potty training.......I have a feeling that I will look over at him in pure satisfaction when he's like 17, he'll excuse himself (oh so politely ofcourse) to the restroom , and I'll sigh with a smile and think...yep I did that! ;)

January Mommy School Activities and Crafts

It's been fun making it a winter wonderland out here in the desert. For January we focused on all things winter and cold. Today, it actually IS cold, well Southern AZ cold. Its a high of only 51 today. 

 For our art today we made "Snowy Day" pictures. We used blue construction paper mounted to cardboard for durability. To look like snow we glued on salt, sugar, and tiny marshmallows.

 Then, we used jumbo marshmallow and cake pop sticks to make our own snowmen

While it was drying I had Lawrence dictate a story for our new friends. 

 Speaking of friends, all of our Mommy School buddies couldn't make it, so these arctic friends joined us instead. It was perfect for our "Where Do Yo Live" game. For this game, I just had L ask each of his stuffed animal and some little people animals where they lived..."where it's warm or cold?" Then, we separated them...warm friends on green paper and cold friends on blue paper.

 Next, we did an ongoing "Snowman Melt" experiment  Last night we filled three balloons up with water (one small, medium, and large)....yep found this on pinterest!! Then, we pulled the frozen balloons out and peeled off the balloon pieces. When we had our frozen snow/ice balls, we stacked them up to make a snowman. A little salt worked as a good "glue" to fix the ice/snow balls together. BRRRR... they were cold on our fingers.

Lawrence picked out some warm accessories and gave him some eyes, a nose, and arms too. His name is "Santa" 

We took him outside to help him melt.....surprised to see that it was so cold out!!! This might take longer than we thought.... 

Here is Lawrence's prediction...

 The books we have been reading this month...love Usborne!!!

 Last week we made "Sparkly Snowflakes" and did another melting experiment

Evan wanted to do art too :( 

 All the kiddos trying to melt the ice....So, the night befire I filled three small plastic tubs with water and toys. Stuck them in the fresezer over night and had the babes try three different things to melt the ice.... spoons, then, salt and finally warm water....

 They had a lot of fun  and got to keep the prizes they found too!!

10 Months and Two Years

Our Evan Michael is 10 months now. He is intelligent, ambitious, very active,  handsome, funny, mischievous, and a bit naughty, too. (he took his first "timeout"yesterday for hitting his brother in the head ,repeatedly with a toy bus)

• He's walking, climbing
• Says: Momma, Dada, Ball, Bubbles, Bye Bye,Up
• Growls for every animal sounds
• Understands all that we say and so many commands
• Gives kisses, hugs, and high fives
• Waves hi and bye bye
• Has 7 teeth, 4 on top and 3 on bottom
• Lawrence has been teaching him letters, today (1/31/13) Evan found letter D magnet on the fridge and said "dadadadadadada, dadadada" all the way to the shower where Larry was and started banging it on the door. Smart monkey ;)

Benny Two-Step turned two and we got to be there!! We always miss the babies birthdays and it make me so sad because, well the days they were born are the absolute happiest days of my life too!!

Happy second birthday Ben-a-min!! We love you!!!

  I was ofcourse thrilled too that Lawrence was there to celebrate with his very best bud. Turning two is a milestone, and Benny had a great party!!!