Rylan's 10th Birthday!

Rylan came back from Grammy's 2 days before his birthday, so we quickly made plans for a fun party. We invited our good friends the Foxes and some neighbor kids and played water games in the back yard.

 

This was our water gun relay

 

 We also played water balloon volleyball, water balloon toss, and a pass the water game where the kids each had a cup and had to pass the water over their head to their teammate behind them.  I didn't get pictures of these events because I was in the thick of it playing with them, and Scott and Grammy were making the pizza inside!

I have a tradition with my kids that when it is their birthday they help me make their cake, but Rylan being the super old 10 year old said he wanted an ice cream cake, and I didn't know how to make one, so we went to our favorite dairy and ice cream shop to buy one.

Rylan is a sweet tender kid who loves to read comic books, do cub scouts, swim, play catch with the football, ride his bike, play with friends, dancing, music, electronics and to tease his brother and sister!   He is trying to find a passion, he decided to not play soccer this fall, and wanted to play flag football, but I didn't sign him up in time and it got full, so he chose to try fencing for his fall activity.    He gets to choose a instrument to play in his 4th grade band this year. The teacher is letting them try out any instrument he wants and he narrowed down his favorites to be violin, cello and trumpet.  He has found a violinist on YouTube named Lindsey Stirling and he listens to her on the Ipod Touch all the time and I have even seen him play "air violin" in his room when he thought I wasn't looking! We will see what he chooses, or what is available to play in his band/orchestra.

 

We have been letting Rylan stay up later a couple nights a week and we can really see his little personality come out.  He is trying to be grown up, but still loves to snuggle his mom.  He hates homework, and studying but loves school.  He gets really into days when they are encouraged to dress crazy.  This day was a fashion show and he was going for the sporty look

 

 

Hilarious!  This day happened to be about 95 degrees but he still wanted to wear the long sleeve shirt and thick, long soccer socks!

Rylan has one good classroom friend Megan who lives on our street, but he doesn't really talk that much about other kids at school.  There are some neighborhood boys that he plays with but they are a year older than him and now go to the middle school.  I was snuggling him one night and we were talking about what he does at recess and he says that sometimes that he plays with Megan but when she is playing girl things he doesn't really play with anyone.  Then he confessed that he kind of likes to be alone, but that sometimes it bothers him and that he doesn't know how to make friends. I know that he is friendly, and no one has been mean to him, but he just doesn't know how to strike up a conversation with someone.  We checked some books out at the library about the subject and we are working on it together. He has no boys in his church class, but about 6 girls!  Plus all of our family friends we hang out with have girls that are his age!  In a couple years he might not care much about that!  We love you Rylan, you are such a sweetheart and our family wouldn't be complete without you!