Holidays = Busy Time!

Lately Rya has wanted to take all of her clothes off when she's around the house. I don't really care- I'm just glad she doesn't want to take them off in public. She likes to strut around in her diaper and her high-heeled play shoes. It's ridiculous and cute all at the same time.

I mentioned in a previous post how she loves to try on everyone's shoes. It's so cute to see her clomping around in Daddy's shoes.
Rya has many "friends". One day, Grandma Barbara put them all in one place and we couldn't help but take a picture. At times, she attempts to carry all of her "friends" in her arms.
Thanksgiving was wonderful as always. We went to Modesto on Wednesday night and were able to visit with family Wednesday night and again on Thursday afternoon. We did the Modesto Turkey Trot 5k as is our tradition. Jason is constantly amazing me with his athletic abilities and did so again Thursday. Jason has been having some health issues which doesn't make running super comfortable, but he wanted to do the race anyway. The top three finishers in each age group are awarded a prize. The good thing is the race is not huge because it's in Modesto, but the bad part is the age groups are 10 years instead of 5 as they normally would be. Jason wasn't expecting anything, but thought he would try to run without pushing himself too hard. There was a 12 year old boy running near him the whole time and he started to slow down before the finish. Jason slowed down and encouraged the kid to keep running. He ran with him until the finish. Isn't that the sweetest thing? The kid thanked Jason and noted that he didn't think he was going to make it. So, not only did Jason not feel well, he also slowed down a bit to help a kid finish and he still managed to get third in his age group with 6:17 minute miles. This is why I have a love/hate relationship with Jason's athletic abilities. I'm just so insanely jealous that he doesn't have to try hard to do well. I'm very proud of him and his prize: a beanie. :)

Rya loves her cousins! We surprised the girls on Thanksgiving morning by telling them we are going to Disneyland next week! Rya was far more excited than the other girls and talked about Disneyland all the way home in the car. We are so lucky to have a generous mom to take all of us to Disneyland for Christmas! The girls are going to have a blast!

We were supposed to go to Apple Hill on Saturday morning, but the rain kept us from going. We decided to go to breakfast and Artbeast instead. Rya loves her BFF, Addison, which is great for us because we love Addison's parents! The dads and their girls.

A few years ago we went to Apple Hill and cut down a tree per our normal tradition, but we had a bug problem with the tree and have since been getting our tree from Home Depot. Rya loves the tree!

Halloween

Age two is supposed to be terrible, right? Lucky for us, we haven't had too many terrible moments. There is, of course, the ever-present problem of sleep deprivation. Why, oh, why can't my two year old sleep through the night? I hope it's the molars. One in, three to go. If she's not sleeping after that, I don't know what we'll do. It's hard to be upset with her in the morning when you wake up to this kid:

Halloween festivities this year included painting a pumpkin to look like Bert. Rya loves Sesame Street and her Monster Mash book. In the book, Ernie paints his pumpkin to look like Bert. When we went to the pumpkin patch, we found a pumpkin with an elongated shape that was perfect for Bert's head. Plus, knives are dangerous for tiny kids so paint seemed like a much better option. Jason drew the outline and we (very reluctantly on my part) let Rya do the painting. Being incredibly Type A, I had a difficult time letting go of the picture in my head. Painting outside the lines wasn't in my plan. After Rya finished painting, Jason cleaned Bert up a bit.

We trick-or-treated with our normal crowd in East Sac before returning to our own neighborhood. Rya only lasted about 10 houses before she told us it was time to go. Not much was happening in our neighborhood. There aren't too many young kids around and our street is dark. Rya went to our next door neighbor's house, but we stopped after that. We weren't home the whole night, but in the time we were home we only had 7 kids trick-or-treat. The rest of the candy went to school so we wouldn't eat it.

Below is Rya and Maya in their matching poodle skirts. I don't sew much, so I was pretty proud of these skirts. I made the skirts and the poodles with a bit of help from my mom. It cost about $10 to make both of these and the cheapest skirt I found online was $20.

Before we went trick-or-treating we stopped by Grandpa and Kathy's house. Rya was not happy after her nap and even more perturbed about me putting on her outfit. I literally had to hold her down while she kicked and screamed. She was hysterical in the car and very upset the first few minutes we were at their house. What better to make an upset kid calm down than a dog? Becky came out to play with Rya. As I mentioned in previous posts, Rya thinks animals want to chase her and play with her. She spent a good deal of time getting close to Becky and then running away thinking Becky would chase her.