Ry's Big Day

All About Ryan

Names: Ry, Ry-Ry, Little Man, Bud, Little Buddy, Cuddle Bug, Captain Cuddlepants, Captain Sleepypants, Ryan O., Rhino.

Favorite Activities: cuddling, drawing, playing PBS kids, watching movies, playing with Lego men, playing on the playground, following sissy around, dancing, singing, playing with trucks/cars/trains/planes, taking pictures, having his picture taken.

Favorite Foods: fruit, fruit snacks, cookies, cake, brownies, chips

Major Accomplishments this year: potty-training, increased speech and motor abilities, learning the alphabet, increased counting

Major Memories this year: 2nd degree burns on his hands from the toaster oven, going to Dinosaur Tracks, visiting the Eric Carle Museum, Getting to be a Sunbeam and join Jr. Primary at church, visiting the beach, helping with some clean-ups for Green-up Day and at the beach

The Many Faces of Ry

Probably for the past two months sissy has been helping Ry prepare for his big day. Which in actuality has meant mostly that he was totally confused about what "his number" was (how old he was). Finally the big day came. Mostly it was just a regular day around the house for the two of us. For his dinner he requested pizza (despite all of the encouragement to pick either chicken nuggets or corney dogs from sissy) followed by the rice-crispy treat cake. Now that he's four he's gearing up for being 5 because sissy has already informed him that he's got to be 5 before he can start Kindergarten and he is definitely excited about that one.

Making Tracks

One of all of our favorite adventures lately was a trip to Holyoke, MA to see some dinosaur tracks. It's so funny because it's just this random spot alongside of the road (the tracks were uncovered by the workers building the road) but it's one of those things that just seems so unfathomable - to be seeing and walking on things that are millions of years old. There really just aren't words for it. Anyways, it was a beautiful day and the kids had a blast. It was all the more fun because it's also a kind of family history site for us. Mark's uncle was the paleontologist that came to the site and identified and studied the tracks there. We enjoyed spotting them and trying to follow them and seeing the different sizes and shapes, and of course Ry even got in touch with his inner-dino.

Looking for Blue Sky

Actually today it is miraculously peaking through the clouds... but if by any chance you're just hanging on the edge of your seat wondering what in the world the Ostrom's have been up to since no matter what kinds of promises I've made that this blog still stands virtually untouched in the new year... well, let's see

First of all you have to take into account that even though Spring has technically arrived, VT is still a little slow recognizing this and we really won't get that memo here for about another month. We tend to hang on to our winters here for a good long while. Which pretty much means that end of January through April – unless you’re an avid skier or snowboarder - we're just all waiting for the snow to go away. Even the kids have had it because it only takes about a month or so of it just being too cold before they realize that playing outside really isn't so much fun if you're turning into a popsicle and that they’ve pretty much exhausted all the indoor toys, movies, and computer games.

But anyways, I'm working on eliminating the result of such "leisure time" and we're down to usually only one punching/kicking/pinching fight a day, so I feel like I'm making progress with them. Actually I have to thank Mark. My birthday present was a month long family pass to the rec-center which went nicely with the free swimming lessons there that Alicia had gotten through school this year. So basically we've spent A LOT of time down at the rec-center this past month. Both kids have really been working hard on developing some good water skills and have definitely enjoyed the change of scenery. Now that it's starting to get some sunshine and warming up a bit I'm even having a hard time getting them to take advantage of it because they just love going and hanging out there for a while after school. Hopefully the coming of spring will help to lesson their resentment when that month is over.

All in all, we've really only had two adventures that will definitely require their own blogs when I get some time, but not much family wise has been happening. If you are a bit curious about some of our day to day stuff and don't mind my rantings and ramblings you can check out my other blog at http://snatchesscratchesandpatches.blogspot.com/ which is mostly just my random thoughts on life, being a mom, and writing.

V-Day Meltdown

For Valentine's this year we all had a family fun project (actually really I did get the instructions off the Family Fun website - it's one of my absolute favorites!) But really... I remember making these in a muffin tray when I was being babysat with one of my friends at her house - no really I remember it because I thought it was the coolest thing ever and when I saw this Valentine's version I knew that I had to try it.

Step 1: Fill up tray with unwrapped broken crayon bits

Step 2: Bake in oven at 250 degrees for about 10 minutes or until melted

Step 3: Let Cool and Enjoy!

Alicia then took the ones for her class party and we taped them to cardstock and wrote out "Happy Valentine's Day" - simple, cost free, personalized, ultra cute, and so much fun. Really you should have seen the looks on the kids faces when we popped them out of the cookie sheet. They loved it and each got to keep their own special one. Besides that, we got to use up a significant portion of my broken crayon supply - don't worry, they're working on refilling it.

January In Pictures

Since I haven't exactly been having much luck keeping this up to date I thought I would do a quick review and update that should get us back on track (well except for the Christmas Pics that are still hiding somewhere)....

we've had art projects

we've had fun in the snow

we've played trains
and basketball
we've had haircuts
and hair styles
we've explored animal tracks
we've cleaned lots and lots of windows (by choice... really)
and as usual we've been a little naughtyand a whole lot of nice
other than that it was a lot of the usual, ups and downs with sick, books to read, editing to do, school, drama, computer games, movies and lots and lots of loves.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

Like I mentioned in my last post, Saturday after Thanksgiving was crazy and Sunday we didn't make it home until 9 and by then we were all still just not able to even think about trying to get ready and head to church so we rested. That night Mark and the kids decided we should really do something with our day so they brought out the Christmas tree and set it up. Not that you could really tell they were excited, I think they were still pretty worn out.

Decorating the tree a few days later was much more to their joy...

Ryan was proud to help - he created his own little corner of Christmas on the tree... we ended up having to spread some of them out a bit though.

Alicia was happy to find her special ornamant from Grandma with the reminder of our Christmas there two years ago.

Both kids begged to be allowed to sleep under the tree from then until Christmas... we comprimised and said they could have Christmas Eve.

Fall Update and Thanksgiving Adventure

Since it's almost Christmas I figured I should update on where the rest of fall went after Halloween. In reality most of it was just wet. All in all we had a pretty quiet but fun fall. For Thanksgiving we drove over to NY to visit with Grandma and Grandpa Ostrom. It was a good visit with a yummy dinner. We even had fun braving Black Friday and got to enjoy a nice lunch at FoCastle Farms. It was the trip back home that really began our adventure. There was a light snow but hey - we live in New England by Thanksgiving weekend you just kind of expect it to be part of life for the next 5 or 6 months. We left at about 2 in the afternoon because I was supposed to teach in Primary on Sunday and we still had some shopping and cleaning etc. that we needed to do that evening. We were driving merrily along (I think the kids had fallen asleep) and started climbing the mountains when we reached our first accident. After waiting for probably about 20 minutes in traffic that was more stop than go Mark decided to try going around the mountain instead -so we managed to turn ourselves around (did I mention that we also happened to be pulling a trailer we were getting from Mark's parents). A little while later down the road there was another accident. This time though it was just slowing a bit so we kept on going and thought how lucky we were since it seemed to be a bad day for accidents. Thankfully we stopped and filled up at the next town we came to and kept on our way home. It must have only been 4 or 5 PM by then because we didn't stop to get food even though it was close to eating time. After we had been out of the town for bit and into the middle of nowhere we came on our 3rd accident of the trip. This time it was a solid line of cars at a stop for as far as we could see and the only ones that seemed to be coming from the other direction looked to be ones from up ahead that were turning around. Probably over an hour after being pretty much stopped it was getting dark, the kids were up and hungry (thank goodness for the distraction of portable DVD players!), and the roads were getting slick with ice. We had inched close enough to see lights from the emergency vehicles but never actually saw them. At last we cheered as we cautiously edged our way back up to a crawl and then a fraction of the actual speed limit. Probably no more than 5 miles beyond where we had seen the lights traffic stopped once again. It was just too much after nearly 6 hours on the road on what should have been a 2.5 hour drive we were still over an hour from home and stopped with the roads just getting worse. Finally we crept up the road enough to a motel that proclaimed a resteraunt. Perfect - a bathroom, dinner, and sleep. We pulled off the road and up the hill to the sanctuary - and got stuck. The weight of the trailer was just too much for the van with all the ice. I ran Alicia up the hill to see about a bathroom and check out the place. Turns out the people that were running it had had it for less than 2 months and were in the process of a major rennovation so no food. We were out of options though so we asked if they happed to have any rooms left. We got their very last room - one that under any other circumstance they would not have offered. It did have a fridge and microwave but the television and phone didn't work and there was no internet. It all worked out okay though, the kids were just glad to be out of the car and in addition to sharing some of their own food with us they talked a pizza place into delivering for pretty much the whole motel - most if not all were in the same position as us. The next morning one of the other guests we had met the night before helped Mark with the van and tailer and we headed off into a morning that was clear, bright, and beautiful.