Model T Party

Right in our back yard is the Collin County Farm Museum.  We have never been to this farm, but they hosted a Model "T" Party the other weekend and we decided to check it out.  They had LOTS of tractors, some from a really long time ago -- like this one.

They also took everybody for a ride in a real Model T!  Ryan was so excited that he could ride in a car without a roof or a booster seat.  It was pretty neat!

Tooting the car horn!

This has been one of Ryan's favorite books lately and he kept saying that he was riding in the "rattletrap car" while we were taking our spin in the Model T.

Playing the pump organ!  Aside from the car ride this was one of Ryan's favorite things!

We also got to make our own tea.  Ryan made an orange, mint, rosemary, apple blend.  It was, um, interesting.  He didn't think it was that great!

Then we had a nice picnic lunch on the farm.  It was nice and shady. 

View from the farm -- it almost doesn't look like TX!

International Day

Each year Ryan's preschool hosts an "international" day.  The idea is that you bring a food from the country of your ancestors, make the country flag and dress in the traditional dress of that country.  This whole idea goes over Ryan's head a little, but he has fun picking out one of his favorite foods to bring to school.  He wanted chocolate chip cookies this year, which fortunately, were invented in MA, so he dressed up as USA.  He had a flag that was the US flag on one side and the MA flag on the other.  The kids parade around the school all dressed up.

Butterfly Festival

Each year the Kiwanis Club hosts a Butterfly Festival at our local mall and Ryan loves to go and see the butterflies.  You get a Q-tip with some juice on the end of it that the butterflies really like.  This allows you to pick them right up and you can put them on your shirt/arm/nose -- whatever!  It is neat because you can actually see the butterfly unroll it's proboscis to drink some of the juice.

This is the third year that we have done this and this year we got to do something really neat -- we got to release some of the butterflies.  The butterflies are raised by a person in FL and then brought here in wax baggies in a cooler.  The butterflies are just folded in half in these wax baggies and when the guy gets here he just opens up all the envelopes and the butterflies fly out.  To release the butterflies you just opened the package and the butterfly would fly out.  If you look closely, you can see the wings of the butterfly that just flew out of Ryan's package by his left elbow.

Mother's Day 2013

For Mother's Day my mom sent me some chocolate covered strawberries -- which we all love!

Ryan's gift that he made at school.  Yes, he signed his Mother's Day card "Max"!

We also went out and had a yummy dinner at Macaroni Grill and I got a picnic blanket from Bed Bath and Beyond!

Star Party

We were actually at this park for a star party.  However, we got no pictures of the star party, but lots of pictures of the park!  We brought Diary Queen to the park and then played while waiting for it to get dark.  Once it got dark, there were about 5 telescopes that were set up.  They were BIG telescopes and we could see the moon, jupiter, and saturn.  It was a little bit difficult explaining to Ryan what we were seeing, why it was so small and why it didn't look like what he sees in the books.  You could see the craters on the moon, but it was only a sliver of moon that night and since it was such a small crescent it took Ryan a while to figure it all out.  Jupiter looked like a ball as did Saturn, but you could see two of it's rings.

This park is called Hope Park and had actually just opened that morning.  Hope Park is a park where children of all abilities can play together.  It is meant for typically developing children to be able to play along side kids who are in wheel chairs and use walkers and have other disabilities.  The land was donated by the city, the money was raised by a group of parents and then the park was built during a week long community build.  It is an amazing park.  

There is all of this plus so much more you can't see in this picture and the only place Ryan wanted to play was the sandbox!

After awhile he finally did decide to go check out the rest of the park and he loved it.  The pictures aren't great because apparently I am not a good photographer of moving objects.

Jump walk

Walking the tight rope

You slide along on your back using the metal bars to move yourself along.

Musical Instrument!

Monkey Bars he could reach himself -- he was so excited!

Tunnel slide

Crawl spaces

Ball Race

Spider web

You stand on this and use your hands to rotate your self around.  Like a stand-up sit and spin.

Swing you can lay down on!  Ryan wasn't too sure about that!

See Saw

Strawberry Picking

We went and picked ourselves some yummy strawberries!

Ryan picked for about an hour and then he was done.  Our box wasn't totally full, so he and his friend from school went back to our car to play with some toys Ryan had brought along!  Of course this was his favorite part of the day!

Cottonwood Arts Festival

For the past several years, we have gone to the Cottonwood Arts Festival.  They have art from LOTS of artists, but they also have a really neat children's area.  Last year they had canvases set up for the kids to paint on and Ryan loved this activity.  He has been talking about it reguarly for a year.  Needless to say, he was very excited when he learned that it was almost time for the festival and couldn't stop talking about painting another picture.  Fortunately, they had this activity again this year and he asked for his colors and sat right down and started painting.  He must have been planning this painting for the past year because he acted like he knew what he was doing.  We were amazed at his picture!

Last year's picture is on the left and this year's picture is on the right.  The 3 people are Ryan and his friends.  Ryan is in the middle.  On the left is his friend G, who has curly hair in real life as well as in the picture.  G is jumping up and down.  On the right of Ryan is his friend A.  Ryan and A are giving a high five.  The blue is the sky, the green is the grass, and the orange is the sun.

Painting a pot.

Finished pot on his bedside table.

Trike-A-Thon

Each year Ryan's school has a trike-a-thon to raise money for St. Jude's.  The kids all look forward to bringing their bikes to school!

Here they all are catching bubbles to use to clean their bikes!

Getting ready!

Go!

Popsicle time!

After doing several laps they kids put their bikes away and then sit down and get to have a popsicle.