Lake Boys

We're very fortunate the Collins and the Riggins live close by at the lake so our families get to see each other on the weekends. Here's a photo of the four boys last weekend and another old picture that was taken two years ago.

L to R: Charlie Collins (3y9m), Jake Riggin (almost 5),

Cade Riggin (3y8m), Ryan (2y5m)

Jake Riggin (almost 3), Cade Riggin (1y7m),

Ryan (4m), Charlie Collins (1y8m)

Last weekend I tested Ryan on the kayak with me and he did a good job of sitting still so I think we'll give that a shot next time we're down. Rather than jumping in the pool by himself, he tried to jump in onto his floatie. He made it once and the other times he looked like he was on a wipeout reality show. He gave it a good shot though and it was pretty entertaining to watch.

Oh, and Ryan said the cutest thing this week. He sat down to the table to eat his snack, picked up the remote and said, "I watch Royals game." I'm sorry I missed getting it on video because it was ridiculously cute. Unfortunately it was 5:30 and there wasn't a single game on TV. He happily watched Nascar instead but got all upset and yelled, "it's gone!" when they went to commercial.

Worth the Wait

Since our last post, we got the pictures from Ryan's 2-year photo shoot (which we got around to at 27 months, but hey, we were late with the newborn and 1-year pictures, too so at least they're evenly spaced:). Ryan was in a bit of mood that night and finally began to show his true spirit after Todd and I started playing him and our friend Mark (www.markjacksonphotography.com) did a great job of going with the flow and getting some sweet pictures that capture his true personality at this age. Several of our favorite pictures are below and the first one is the famous Ryan Sandwich which he asks for quite often; and with that cute little face and those blond locks, we could never say no.

Ryan's been in the water several times this summer, but turned into a little fearless fish over the Fourth of July weekend. The combination of playing with older kids and wearing a different style of life jacket allowed him to jump right in (literally) and naturally start to kick and use his arms. On Saturday morning the big kids were jumping off the dock so he joined in climbing up the ladder, then walking around the slip and jumping in the water to us. Sometimes he latches on for a free ride and other times he pushes away saying "get back" so he can swim on his own. On Monday, we visited the Varone's lake house where there was a water slide which he immediately got on and went down by himself, then went down another 20-30 times. I wish I was kidding but I'm not. It was an exhausting weekend. He's very capable but he's still only two so every time he got out so did one of us to follow behind him and make sure he was safe. He has way more energy than we do, however, when we got in the car to leave the Varone's that afternoon, he fell asleep 2 minutes into the ride, with a Wheat Thin in his mouth. We tried to get a picture but our laughing woke him up long enough to take the Wheat Thin out and immediately rack back out.

Since we had 4 1/2 days at the lake together over the Fourth, we decided to officially potty train. He's not a pro yet, but he's doing really well and is in regular underwear when he's awake. He's starting to tell us when he needs to go which is great that he's making the connection, but he's stubborn and doesn't want to try unless it's on his terms. He's actually far more successful with #2's and has been going on the potty since the 2nd day of training without any accidents. He has less control when it comes to peeing and we still have 1 or 2 accidents a day but he's getting better.

We're not sure what happened to our little baby, but now there's a toilet-using, dock-jumping little man running around our house. He just gets more and more fun everyday!