This past week, we had a wonderful 4-day visit from my college roommate (and one of my favorite people in the world), Susan. Ryan loved her, and, in the course of showing off for her, did a somersault on his own for the first time (then proceeded to do about 20 more in a row).


He's very proud of his new achievement!



He's still doing the fake sleeping thing when he manages to get hold of a pacifier during the day....




...but he can't even keep a straight face when I "catch" him :-)



Playing with his balloon from the haircut place:



Lately, he's been deciding at random times throughout the day that he wants to leave the house and go somewhere. He finds the nearest pair of shoes, puts on one or both of them, walks over to the baby gate at the stairs leading down to the garage, and says "bye-bye." (He sometimes also gets mad and has a tantrum when I tell him that it's not time to go bye-bye.)



In 2 months and 2 days, Ryan will be 2 years old -- so hard to believe!

The fascination with headwear and footwear continues.

Random cute pictures

Ryan sharing his milk with his wooden pull-along frog:




Rubbermaid totes are a popular hangout around here lately.






"Alba" the giant cat with his tiny new friend -- an adorable stray kitten who has been hanging out on our deck:






Ryan is only allowed to have his pacifier for sleeping, but sometimes he finds one laying around in the living room and puts it in his mouth while he's playing. When I tell him that we need to put the pacifier away until it's time for night-night, he shakes his head and says "no," then climbs onto the nearest chair and lays down like this (pretending he's sleeping):



Other than "no," Ryan's current favorite word is "beep-beep!"

Ryan and I attended a family reunion this past Saturday. He has the distinction of being the first Taiwanese-born member of the Italian side of my family. He is also the only family member (and probably the only child of any ethnic background) who would push away a plate of homemade pasta and meatballs. Apparently he was saving his appetite for the plentiful desserts. I love how he looks so small behind the pile of cake.







He seemed to instinctively know which of the taps was age-appropriate for him (or maybe it was the underlining on the sign that tipped him off).



He had fun playing in (and pouring the water out of) the baby pool. He also found another baby's sunglasses on the bottom of the pool and decided to wear them.











He got to walk around on the trampoline while the big kids were eating dinner -- unfortunately, the basketball hoop inside the trampoline wasn't toddler-height, so he amused himself by hurling a paper plate around instead.







He also enjoyed watching the bocci tournament, and it wasn't long before he intervened -- he just can't stop himself from chasing a ball, even after we showed him that bocci balls are way too heavy for him to lift.








A visit to Grandma and Grandpa's isn't complete without a trip to our favorite local ice cream place, where we went on Sunday. I now have an excuse to order the gigantic chocolate waffle cone with two big scoops of ice cream since Ryan eats half of it :-)



Hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa's house:



Trying out Aunt Liz's shoes -- they were a bit large (and way too pink!!!)

One Year as a Family!

One year ago today, Ryan joined our family. We will be celebrating our first Family Day, as we've decided to call it, with a trip to the zoo and dinner at our favorite Taiwanese restaurant. We were initially disappointed that our work schedules would not allow us to have this day-long celebration until next week, but it's actually worked out well since Ryan refused to take a nap today (he normally naps for 3 hours) and became increasingly crabby as the day went on. I was able to take him to have some portraits done earlier today before he had his big meltdown. (We're also going to have some of the three of us done soon.) Here are some of our favorite shots:














And our very favorites:










We can’t believe it’s been a whole year since we first met our beautiful son in Taichung. Here is a look back at July 9, 2007, and the following days in Taiwan:

























We love you, little guy!