Last weekend we got together with two families from our local Taiwan adoption group at the "children's museum," which is basically a big indoor educational playground for kids of all ages.

Ryan had a blast in the 3-story climbing structure (although he was only able to get to the bottom two of about ten levels).




Playing the piano with Sarah:




Playing with blocks:



Baby Kai wasn't able to participate in most of the activities, but he enjoyed hanging out in his sling and watching the bigger kids:



Checking out the curiosity cupboard:



Racing cars down the tracks:




Playing at the birdseed table (Daddy seemed to enjoy this activity too).





Watching the ball travel through the maze:



Naturally, Ryan also wanted to go down the slide over and over. The warning sign stating that it is a "very fast" slide was no joke! And to get to the slide, you have to walk through a room whose floor is at a 45-degree angle, which was very disorienting and much more difficult to navigate than you might think!





Taking a break:




His favorite part was, of course, the trains.




He laughed and clapped every time the train went down the hill:



"All done!" (and in dire need of a nap!)

A friend of ours recently sent us these two beautiful pictures of Ryan that she took during our outing to the pumpkin farm last month. Thanks, Marie!

Big Boy!

It seems too good to be true, but Ryan practically potty-trained himself in the past week. He started wanting to go in the bathroom and sit on his potty all the time, and he almost always "produced" at least a little something. We've had him in pull-ups temporarily for convenience and he's been keeping those dry, so he'll be graduating to underwear later this week. I bought him a few packs yesterday -- Thomas, Kung Fu Panda (which, of course, he calls "mama"), and Elmo. His waist is so small (many of his 12-month pants still fit him, except for being capri-length) that I was worried we wouldn't be able to find small enough underwear -- the smallest size available is 2T-3T -- but the dryer seems to have done a good job at shrinking them down to size.

Here's Ryan inspecting his new underwear:






After I opened the package, he tried to put a pair on over his jeans:





We're so proud of our big boy!

This is what 5:30 p.m. looks like when Ryan skips his nap:



Ryan chowing down on his favorite new junk food -- cheese curls:



Toddler hockey!





(Ryan wants to wear his Mater (from "Cars") shoes ALL the time -- even with his sleeper.)

Ryan's Write-In

Ryan is proudly wearing his "I Voted" stickers after casting his ballot (twice)...




...for write-in candidate, Thomas the Tank Engine. He doesn't look very optimistic, does he? Neither are we.

Playground Pics

We've had several warm days lately, so we've been spending lots of time outside before the winter weather comes. Ryan's favorite outdoor activity is going to the playground. He especially likes the slides.