Halloween Cookie Decorating Playdate

I love October! There are so many fun Halloween-related things to do. Today we had 5 of Colin's TPG friends over for a Halloween cookie decorating playdate. It was fun watching which cookie shape each kid picked and which colors they wanted to use as frosting. It was also fun to see how some kids (like Colin) wanted to just eat the toppings straight-up, while others wanted to actually decorate their cookies with them. Eli had a great time just sitting in the baby bjorn and watching all the big kids do their thing.

You know it's October in the Ring household...

...when this guy starts popping up in the cupboards.


Thanks for the scare this morning, sweetie! ;P

Eli Sitting Up - A New Milestone

Eli has hit a new milestone! He can sit up on his own for a short period of time. I was starting to think that the extra large diapers and the half diaper across his tummy were going to hinder him from reaching some of these early milestones (he still has yet to roll from back to front, although I think he's getting close), but I guess I was wrong. Go Eli!

Down he goes!

2009 Race for the Cure

This morning, we headed to downtown Toledo so I could run in the 2009 Northwest Ohio Race for the Cure. All my boys came to cheer me on and it was so encouraging to have them there. It's been almost 2 years since I last ran in a race and this was a great one to get back into it. Even though I can't really stand big crowds, it's impossible to not get energized and excited when you're surrounded by Race for the Cure participants. I ran with my friend, Jen, and we had a great time swerving in and out of the crowd. I'm still amazed at how dense the pack remained throughout the entire race. It's unbelievable how many people have been affected by breast cancer. I love the passion for the cause.

ETA: My official time was 27 minutes, 53 seconds. My pace was 8 minutes, 59 seconds/mile. Sub 9-minute miles! (Hey - I'll take it.) :)

Jen and I before the race.

The boys before the race.

The boys and I before the race.

Jen and I waiting in the crowd as the last 5 minutes ticked by before the race.

Finishing strong - the last 1/10 mile.

Not sure what our official time was yet, but we know we hit our goal of under 30 minutes.

A Visit to Grammy and Poppy's and a Side Trip to Plymouth Orchards

On Saturday, the boys and I headed up to Ann Arbor to visit Grammy and Poppy. Colin was very excited and woke up around 6 AM, and immediately wanted to leave. Much to his chagrin, he had to wait for the rest of us to get ready. Once we were finally on the road he showed us that he has officially started the dreaded "Are we there yet?" mantra. His version, however, goes something like "Me see Poppy's house? Mama see Poppy's house?" It was cute the first 5 times.

While we were in the area, we also made an impromptu trip to Plymouth Orchards and got the requisite pictures of the kids posing as the worm in the apple. Now, Chris and I had just been discussing how we felt that as much as we love MacQueen's Orchard, we wished it was a little more like Plymouth's because Plymouth's has more for the kids to do such as the big cutouts to stand behind for pictures and the farm animals. Apparently, we were mistaken. According to Colin, Juice-Man trumps all. The kid was so disappointed that he couldn't see Juice-Man and he kept trying to dodge in every open door he saw to try and find someone making juice. We tried to explain that we only see Juice-Man at our orchard at home, and we tried to distract with the animals, but he wanted nothing to do with it. Thankfully, he still enjoyed his donut and cider. Which brings me to an observation I made about the two orchards. I've decided that Plymouth definitely has the better cider, but MacQueen's donuts win, hands-down. Yum!

Raspberries Ready, My Little Thug, and a Cute Baby

As I mentioned in a previous post, one of Colin's favorite activities is to go in our backyard on a daily basis and pick raspberries from our little bush. Every day (usually several times each day) he looks out the window, sees more red berries and announces "raspberries ready!". I truly do appreciate the child's enthusiasm to eat and can't help but indulge his obsession. On one such day, I had Eli outside with us and couldn't resist taking some shots of the boys enjoying one of the last summery days of the year.

Another fascination Colin has is with a particular red stocking cap we have. Even though he usually argues with me when it comes to wearing hats in the summer, he will go and find this stocking cap and choose to wear it as an accessory for the day. Apparently the kid is willing to forgo comfort for fashion - the temperature was around 80 when he wore it to the zoo.

Lastly, I wanted to post some cute pictures of Eli in his exersaucer. I love that he's such a happy baby.

Colin's Music/Movement Class

Before Eli was born, I started enrolling Colin in a gymnastics class at the YMCA. He was a little tentative at first but ended up loving it. After Eli was born, we finished out the class he was currently enrolled in and didn't bother signing him up for anything for the summer because I figured he'd be too busy playing outside to be interested. Well, with Fall arriving, I decided to enroll him in another class at the Y. I also felt like it would be a great opportunity for he and I to spend some one-on-one time together. Since they don't have a kids zone at the Sports Zone where Colin took his gymnastics classes, I decided to enroll him in something music-related instead of leaving Eli 1/4 mile down the street at the Fort Meigs Y kid zone or carrying him around in the Baby Bjorn. So, for the past 3 weeks, Colin and I have been attending a music and movement class on Thursdays at the JCC. I have to admit, I had high hopes for the class because Colin *loves* music and we had such a good experience in gymnastics. Unfortunately, the class isn't as great as *I* had hoped it would be, but at least Colin looks forward to attending every week. Of course, that could also have something to do with the fact that his buddy, Sam, also attends the class. The pictures below are from last week's class which Colin especially enjoyed because they played Playhouse Disney songs for the entire class. Strangely, the more Colin enjoys the music, the less he listens to the teacher and the more he prefers to dance on his own or run around the studio. Hmm, maybe I need to rethink that gymnastics class.

The class starts with some stretching.

Next, the kids were given a balloon and a paper plate and were told to bounce the balloons on the plate, down the mat. Um, I don't think I have the coordination to do that let alone a 2 year old...


Next, the kids play follow-the-leader and pretend to be different animals. Colin has actually gotten a little better at this over the last couple weeks.


Now the fun begins - Imagination Movers songs!!


Getting stamps at the end of class is one of Colin's favorite parts. He really looked forward to this in gymnastics too.


Hurrying through the gymnasium to pick up Eli.