Gingerbread House!

This year we decorated our first annual gingerbread house. This will definitely be a tradition from now on. It was so much fun!

 

Spreading frosting takes lots of concentration!

 

Tyler's favorite part was sneaking bites of candy and frosting. He loves his sugar!

 

Our gingerbread house might not win any awards for artistic ability, but we had lots of fun. If you could see it closely you would notice that most of the gumdrops are half eaten. It was next to impossible to get Tyler to put one on without taking a bite out of it first. :-)

I love this picture especially much because when we told Tyler to smile, he reached up and put an arm around each of our necks and pulled us in closer. Heart. Melted.

Random

These didn't really fit in any other post, but I was just looking through pictures and thought I'd post a few from the last month.

 



Dinosaurs at the Minneapolis Convention Center

At Chuckee Cheese with Daddy

First snowy day!

He loves wearing our shoes!

Watching bears at the zoo with playgroup friends!

Bedtime Adventures

We decided awhile ago that with a baby coming, we'd like to move Tyler out of his crib soon so we can buy him a big bed instead of another crib. We were planning on looking at new beds right after Christmas. But apparently, Tyler didn't really agree with our plan and started climbing out of his crib a few weeks ago. Thankfully he never really got hurt. He bumped his chin on the way down once, but other than that he's a pretty brilliant little climber. The first time he did it was in the morning when he woke up. He woke up a little early and I still wanted to take a shower, so I gave him some books and left the door open a crack. When I was finished he was still really content so I decided to quick get a couple of things done while I could. But then I started hearing his door. And as I stood looking down the hall and thinking, Can he really reach his door from his bed?, he opened the door and walked out with a very proud little grin on his face. It was hilarious. We had to wait a couple of days to convert the crib to a toddler bed, because Carl had things going on in the evenings and I would have just broken something. It was a little hard to sleep or get anything done knowing he could just climb out! I went in to get him after his nap one day and he was just sitting on top of the railing of his crib with one leg on each side. He is so dangerous!

Finally we had a chance to make it into a big boy bed. He was so excited!

 

Since this wasn't exactly our plan, we didn't have time to find a gaurd rail, but it's pretty low to the ground and we put pillows next to it just in case. He didn't fall out the first night, but we did find him like this when we went to check on him.

 



He was so proud of himself in the morning when he woke up. He didn't even get out of bed on his own. He waited for us to come in and get him!

He has rolled out a couple of times since then, but the pillows padded his fall and he didn't even wake up.

Those first few days were wonderful. Amazing. I couldn't believe how great he was doing! But I had been warned by people that their kids did well at first and then not so much after awhile. So I was really holding my breath, hoping that he would continue to do that well. He did not.

I don't have a picture of his nap on day 3, but it looked very similar to nap #4. And 5, and 6, and 7 and every day since, and possibly what it will look like for the rest of my life?

 

As you can see, by day 19, the only thing that has improved is his ability to get into mischief more quietly!

 



He finds things to stand on and turns on the lights, empties his dresser drawers, pulls apart all of his socks, and pulls every book off his shelf. We put baby locks on his closet, so he can't get in there anymore, and we unhooked his lamp from the wall switch so he can't turn that on either.I have tried everything! I've gone in everytime I've heard him get out of bed, I've completely ignored the noises and sat in the living room stressing out and hoping he runs himself to sleep, and I've tried sitting in there with him until he falls asleep. That is apparently the only way he naps now. At night it took about a week and a half for him to ever get out of bed, but now he also does this at bedtime. Thankfully at night, he usually just shoves books under the door for awhile and then gets in bed and goes to sleep. But naps are ridiculous.

So, our little switch from a crib to a bed has been less than fabulous. He used to sleep from 8-8 and nap from 1-4. Now he doesn't fall asleep until closer to 9, is up around 7, and only naps for 45 minutes to an hour! This was my biggest fear of this transition. Losing my amazing little sleeper. Any advice? I am taking any and all from anyone. :-)

He will still be getting a real bed, (with a gaurd rail) in January. So I don't know if that will help or hurt things. But I feel like it can't get a lot worse. Right?...

I do have to say though, that he is still as adorable as ever. Yesterday he actually fell asleep right away and I went in to see if it was really true. And I could smell right away that he had a poopy diaper. And he had gone into his dresser, pulled out one of his cloth diapers and layed it out to be changed before he went to sleep. So sweet! And so sad that he had to fall asleep that way!

The Best Month of the Year

Again, this post is from November, so we didn't just put our tree up - it's been up for awhile. The blog is just a little behind. :-)

I love decorating for Christmas. I love how cozy our house is with all the lights and I love Christmas music! This year we had a few bumps in the road and we aren't quite put together, but we're close. Carl tried to put the lights up outside a few weeks ago when it was warm, but there was a fuse problem and he spent all his time trying to fix it and they aren't actually up yet. Tomorrow!

Then we we put our tree up, we had another problem. The top third of our prelit tree didn't light up. Carl tried everything. He checked every bulb. He replaced the fuse. He drove himself crazy. And two days later, when we still had our Christmas boxes sitting around he cut out all the lights and restrung some new ones. And then we could decorate the tree. Tyler kind of enjoyed the boxes sitting around. They made great diving boards. There was a box right in front of the couch and he kept standing on it and falling forward onto the cushion. Great times for a one year old. It was very nice to get them back out to the garage though!

It was fun to have Tyler taking part in our Christmas traditions this year! Last year he was too little and we did most of it without him. But this year, he helped put up both of our trees. We have a big tree upstairs with nice, matching ornaments. We decorated that one after bedtime (two days later). But we also have a little one downstairs with all our other ornaments. Tyler LOVED helping to hang the ornaments on that tree and he talks about the "baby" tree all the time. He's also very proud that he knows what the ornaments say. He points to the ones with his name and says, "Me!" and he points out the ones that say our names. He also likes to tell us about the one with penguins and the key and few other favorites.

And then, time for Crepes. Another tradition that Tyler was happy to take part in. And this year, for the first time, I convinced Carl they would be better with a filling and fruit then just plain sugar. He still claims he likes the sugar ones, but he's wrong. They are way better with a delicious filling and strawberries and bananas. Tyler and the baby agree, so it's 3-1. :-)

Decorating the Baby tree!

Little Baker

Ok, so I wrote two posts right after Thanksgiving. Actually the same day as the last post that is up. But our ancient computer decided it didn't want to let me put pictures on it and so until we had a chance to mess with it, I had to wait to put them up. So this post and the next one are old, but they're here now!

Tyler has enjoyed helping me cook for awhile. But usually he's helping with dinnner and nibbling on onions or other random things. Right before Thanksgiving he helped make a pumpkin pie and discovered the true joys of baking.

Is it too early for Christmas Cookies? I say no. If I'm being honest, I've been wanting to make them since before Thanksgiving. But I held off. We put our tree up on Sunday, and on Monday Tyler and I got to work. I made the dough while he was napping, but he did all the rest of the work himself. Actually, it kind of impressed me. I thought he would help for few minutes and move onto the next thing. But he wanted to do it all. He cut out every single cookie by himself. And if I tried to help he told me no with great passion. He rolled the dough (I had to force him to let me help with that part), he chose the cookie cutter he wanted and he found the perfect spot on the dough. I put them on the pan, but he put on the sprinkles and frosting until he had to go to bed.

It was hard work, but this was worth the wait!

 

 

Highlights

I think the only way we could really describe the last few weeks, would be with one word. Craz-tastic. They have been really fun, but really busy, and a little exhausting. So here are some highlights for you.

I surprised Carl with a night away in Eau Claire. I asked him to take a half day off of work and be home by noon so I could have eye and hair appointments. But when he got home I told him to get in the car and we drove to Eau Claire. We stayed at the Metropolis and took Tyler to the water park when we got there. Then we dropped him off with Jacob and Laura for his first night away from us ever. I was sooo nervous about how he would do without us, but as it turns out, he didn't really care and he had a great time with his aunt and uncle. But he was happy to see us when we picked him up! :-)

The next weekend we went back to Eau Claire and stayed at a hotel with my parents. We had an early Thanksgiving dinner at Jacob and Laura's house, played lots of games and took Tyler swimming.

We re-learned, for about the millionth time that Tyler is a complete daredevil. He was frighteningly brave at the swimming pool. In the past he's shown at least a little caution. I don't know if it's because he was overtired or if he just got braver. But he was CRAZY. He had fun pretending to swim and jumping off the side. When he jumps he squats down and looks like he's going to jump, but them he really just falls forward face first into the water. And loves it. And he also spent a lot of time walking down the stairs until the water was up to his chin and then yelling. "Deep!" and giggling.

After two nights in Eau Claire we came home and my parents stayed with us for five nights. We had a lot of fun with them here. But not a lot of sleep. We played 500 every night, and I might add that the girls dominated. Of course. :-)

We went to Colfax on Thanksgiving Day and spent it with Carl's parents, great aunt Verna, and Matt and Janelle.

And on Friday we hosted Thanksgiving for the Jacobson side of the family.

This week has been equally busy, but I do feel like I'm finally catching up. Our house looks like Christmas and we are ready for December!

Pumpkin Party!

These pictures are from the day before Halloween. But I had too many things I wanted to post around that time and these got missed. However, I love them, so I'm posting them now.

Helping Daddy dig out the pumpkin guts!

Tyler prefered to stir the pumpkin mush than touch it.

 

Having so much fun painting his pumpkin!

 

For the record, last time I painted with Tyler, Carl thanked me for doing it when he wasn't home, because he doesn't like the mess. And yet he started this:

Face Painting? 

Painting is so much fun.

 

This last one has nothing to do with pumpkins. But it cracks me up every time I see it. Lately Tyler is really into wearing ties. He gets this belt out of my closet a lot and asks for his tie. Doesn't he just look like a little man in charge?

Pajamas have never looked so classy.

And Then There Were Four

I can't keep it in for a second longer. Tyler is going to be a big brother! We are so excited that God has blessed us with another sweet baby and we cannot wait to meet this new little one! I am a little over 12 weeks and due May 17, but I'll be having a c-section about a week before that. This time we'll know exactly what day to expect the big appearance. Unless of course it decides to come early.  :-)

Our happy little family with our 4 pumpkins :-)

 

Tyler loves to talk about his baby and kiss it. He also comes up to me at random times to point at my tummy and say, "Baby, gentle".

We had two early ultrasounds. When we went in for the first one Tyler saw the screens in the room and said, "TV. No, no, no." He doesn't get to watch TV at home yet. But the second time we went in he saw them and said, "Baby!" right away. Last week we got to hear the heartbeat. When the doctor was listening for it, Tyler lifted up his own shirt to see if he had a heart beat. Now if we ask him what the baby's heart sounds like he tries to imitate it.

This morning we got to have a third ultrasound! New Life Family Services came to church to teach a lesson on life to the middle schoolers and they did a live ultrasound for them. Guess whose baby they used! I thought it might be a little wierd to have an ultrasound in a huge room of people, but I did it for two reasons. One of course is that we got to see our baby! :-) But also, I am passionate about unborn babies. I think they have a right to live the life that God gave them and that no one else should be able to make that decision. I think it's amazing that they taught a lesson about the miracle of life right from the beginning to kids because they are growing up in a world where people will tell them it's just tissue, that they aren't babies yet, and that the mother gets to decide if that life is valuable enough to keep. I'm so excited that I got to be a part of that lesson. There will be kids in the room that are either faced with an unplanned pregnancy someday or will no some one who is. And I hope the image of our baby jumping and wiggling and sucking it's thumb, and it's little heart beating will be something they remember.

So when I got there they did a prescreen with me first just to make sure everything was ok before they did it live. The baby was really active! And when it first started it looked like it was on it's knees praying. So sweet! It was also fun because there was a lot of time and we could just watch for awhile. Then we went over to the big room and they had me completely blocked off from everyone while the baby was up on the big screens in front. It was so fun to hear the kids reacting to the different movements and things the baby did. At the end the nurse and I went up front and they got to ask questions. Middle schoolers are funny. They had some really good questions though - mostly for the nurse and a few for me. And they wanted to pick the name for the baby. They thought they should get to vote on it. :-) They all thought it was pretty cool. It was so fun to be a part of such a special and important lesson!

Our baby, star of the show!

 

It's a picture of a picture, so it's not great quality, but it's the picture that shows the baby praying. I think it's cute!

Wedding Adventures

Last night we went to Carl's cousin Isaac and his new wife Amy's wedding. It was at the Van Dussen Mansion in Minneapolis and every single part of it was just beautiful. From the beautiful bride, to the decorations, and the dance, everything was really nice.

In the past, Tyler has always done surprisingly well at weddings. Usually all of the people and everything going on is enough of a distraction for him. This time was a bit different of a story though. Because it was in a mansion, there wasn't anywhere to take him to run around and get his energy out. So during the ceremony we were just in the back in a little hallway, but there wasn't even a door. There were other kids back there too, so it wasn't just Tyler, but I felt pretty bad about how noisy it got. I was told you couldn't hear it in the front, but I know Carl could hear it in the back!

But let me tell you. When the dance started, Tyler was in his happy place. The dance was in the carraige house. We were upstairs most of the time but there was a balcony so Tyler could see the dancing below. He had so much fun looking over the railing to watch the first dance and the father daughter dance (which was awesome). And then after he danced for awhile he hit his overtired point. When it gets past Tyler's bed time he doesn't get crabby like normal kids. He goes completely crazy. He loses all common sense and just starts doing crazy and overly adventurous things. And he thinks everything he does is funny! So when it got to be about 8:30, he started climbing on chairs and purposely trying to fall off backwards, trying to slide off headfirst or trying to jump off. The boy is hilarious. He is very lucky that we watch him closely so that he never gets hurt doing his crazy stunts. And sometimes we're just lucky that we're quick. But tired or not, he had a lot of fun and probably would have liked to stay much longer than we did!

This is the only picture that actually turned out. At least we got one!

This was my attempt at a second family picture. Carl didn't even make it in before Tyler was trying to climb over my shoulder and off the chair.

Dancing, or preparing to jump? Actually it was probably both.

I know exactly what he's doing in this one. He's about to slide off head first, laugh and do it again.

This is Carl's cousin's little girl. She told Tyler, "You sure look handsome." She was so sweet. She really wanted to play with Tyler. But he was so busy crawling between chairs, climbing, jumping and "scaring" people by yelling "Boo!" that he didn't have a lot of time to sit and chat.

Also, Tyler provided a lot of entertainment for that couple sitting behind him. I'm going to guess that it was about 25 times that he climbed up on that stool, got right up next to their heads to say "Hi" before he turned around and jumped off to me, laughed and did it again. Again, he was lucky that I was watching him because he would have jumped if I was there to catch him or not!

Carl's brother Matt and our sister-in-law Janelle came for the wedding and stayed at our house. So Tyler got to have a lot of fun with his aunt and uncle and loves the new truck they brought him! He's been saying their names over and over again since they left today - "Na and Nina"!

The Dragon Who Thought He Was An Alligator

As you all know, Tyler loves dinosaurs. So when we found this cute little dragon costume, we thought it would be perfect for him. And it was. We tried it on him at the store and he was so excited he could hardly stand it. The funny thing is, he didn't think it was a dragon or a dinosaur. He thought it was an alligator. He stood in the mirror of the dressing room making great big clapping motions and saying, "Chomp, chomp". Which is what he does when he sees alligators.

So we brought his little alligator costume home for him. He's tried it on and worn it around the house quite a few times since we bought it. If we ask him if he wants to try on his alligator costume he gets really excited and runs to his room to get it out of his closet.

So needless to say, yesterday was a very exciting day. Carl's work has trick-or-treating for all of the empolyee's kids every year. I think that's so fun that that they do that! So after Tyler's nap we got his costume on and went to Daddy's work. That was a lot of excitement in one little trip. He got to see Daddy, he got to see Daddy's work, he got to go in the car, he got to wear his costume and he got candy! It did not take him long to get the hang of finding the bowls of candy as we walked around. And for the most part he was really good about taking one piece. Although we did catch him sneaking two a few times.  :-) And then of course all of Carl's friends kept telling him to take more, so when we got to that area he tried for several handfuls. I'm pretty sure Tyler could have walked in circles around that place for hours, he was having so much fun!

I forgot to bring extra clothes for our Bed Bath and Beyond stop. He didn't seem to mind. :-)



We hadn't really planned to take him trick-or-treating. We were just going to go to a couple of our neighbors houses so they could see him in his little costume. The first one we went to actually had bought him a little present for when he stopped by. So sweet! Then Carl took him to "two more" while I got dinner ready. Two more turned into more than just two because Tyler was having so much fun. After a couple houses he even started saying "Dee-do-dee" (trick-or-treat) as he walked up the driveways. And we have absolutely no idea where he learned this, but Carl said that everytime they passed someone on the sidewalk Tyler said, "Boo!".

As soon as we finished eating, Tyler went to find his pumpkin bucket and ran to the door saying, "More".

This morning the first thing I heard on the monitor was Tyler talking about pumpkins. He calls them puppies. Which is really funny because that's not what he calls puppies. Then as soon as he got out of bed he ran out to find his "puppy" bucket and headed for the door again. All he's actually eaten is a few M&M's. But he's been carrying his bucket of candy everywhere. I have a feeling I'm going to be finding candy in wierd places all over the house for awhile.

Leaves, Leaves and More Leaves!

We have a lot of leaves at our house. A lot of leaves. We have huge trees in our backyard and when the leaves fall our whole yard is a pile of leaves - every inch of it. Usually they insist on being the last trees in Minnesota to turn colors and they finally decide to fall the day before it snows. And that just leaves a big old mess for spring. This year they did wait until every other tree was pretty much empty before falling, but it didn't snow yet! So we got to finish cleaning them all up. And it was fun. I say that, but I didn't do anything except play with Tyler in them. Although Carl got a new leaf blower this year so he might have had just as much fun.  :-)

Tyler liked throwing them in the air and helping put them in bags, but he wasn't a huge fan of being in them. He doesn't like it when it's too deep to walk through them. Understandable I guess.

Tyler loved helping Daddy! One handful at a time...

He aslo liked hanging out in the trash can.  :-)