Happy Birthday Carl!

For Carl's Birthday this year he wanted to two very specific things. He wanted to go mini golfing and have Papa Murphy's pizza (whatever kind he wanted) while watching the movie of his choice.

So yesterday we had it all planned out. We were going to go to the aquarium first, then eat lunch and then mini golf. We got in the car at Tyler's nap time so that he would sleep on the way to the Mall of America. And we just figured we would stop somewhere to eat in the car so that he'd get to sleep longer. We wanted to have as much time as we could between his naps. It was going to be perfect timing.

Did you know that babies don't always follow the plan?  Shocker, I know. Tyler sat in the back seat roaring like a dinosaur, talking and giggling all the way there, wide awake. So we stopped at Pot Belly and ate in the car. Then we drove the rest of the way there. Still awake. Still roaring.  So we changed our plan. No aquarium. Stop at Caribou for something to drink and so Tyler could eat lunch. Then mini golf.

Thankfully, Tyler is pretty awesome. We were a little worried that it was going to be a disaster of a day, but you never would have known he hadn't napped. He had fun, we had fun, and it was still a great day. When we left I think he fell asleep in his car seat before I had my seat belt on. And when we got home he kept sleeping for two hours with Carl on the couch. That was probably his favorite Birthday present.

One More Month!

I can't believe I'm saying this already, but Tyler is eleven months old today! What?! He has grown up so fast it's ridiculous. The other day after his nap I went in and I swear he grew a noticeable amount in just an hour!

We know from being at the hospital last weekend that he is 18 pounds, 5 ounces. He is just as adventurous as ever and always on the go.

Here are some of his favorites:

- Pushing the shopping cart instead of riding in it
- Walking/running everywhere he goes
- Books! He looks at books and carries them around everywhere
- Roaring like a dinosaur
- Goldfish Crackers
- Getting chased around the house
- Splashing in the toilet
- Opening his diaper pail
- Pushing his Little People tractor around the living room

Here are some of our favorites:

- When he brings us a book to read him
- His dinosaur roar
- His fish face
- Watching him walk with his arms up in the air
- His sign language
- Listening to him laugh - the most beautiful sound on earth
- When we ask what an elephant says and he throws his arm up in the air
- Every single other thing he does
Oh, and my absolute favorite of the moment:

When he nods his head yes and shakes his head no. He's usually pretty serious when he nods yes. But I guess the questions we're asking are pretty important. Are you hungry? Yes. Do you want to eat? Yes. Do you want more? Yes. Are you thirsty? Yes. You get the picture.

The no is the funny part. Sometimes he just shakes his head no really fast. But the best is when he turns so he is looking over his shoulder and then gets this cute little smirk on his face, shakes his head and runs away, laughing over his shoulder. Usually to these questions. Can I have a hug? No. Can I have a kiss? No. Can you cuddle with me? No. Let's go change your diaper. No. Can you wave? No. Show them what a dinosaur says. No. Smile for the camera. No. Can you sit still for a picture? No. It's funny every single time.  :-)

 Curls!

 Bath Time

 Ready For The Pool!

First Snow Adventure

Ty's First ER Trip :-(

Wow. Last night was not exactly what we had planned it to be. We were going to have my brother over for fish tacos and then we thought maybe we would watch a movie. Carl didn't have to work today so we were treating it like an extra Saturday.

Tyler was completely healthy, happy and normal. We had no reason to think anything was wrong. In fact at church yesterday, it was the first time since Christmas that he didn't cry when we dropped him off at the nursery!

Then in the early afternoon he felt a little warm. His temp was around 100. After his nap his temp went up a little more and he started to get a little bit needy. And then after dinner he completey lost it and when we took his temp it was almost 106 degrees. Panic. I've never actually felt panicked before. I'm usually pretty calm. But I'm not going to lie, we both panicked a little bit. I tried to call the after hours nurse line, but I couldn't hear anything over Tyler's uncontrollable crying. We decided we needed to bring him in, but not really thinking straight I just kept standing there, a little unsure of what to do next. It was kind of crazy.

Anyway, we drove to the hospital (quite quickly), with Tyler crying like we've never heard before all the way there.

We were in the emergency room for about three hours. They put the little toe clip on him to check his oxygen and continued to monitor his temperature. A few minutes after they got us settled into a room they told us they were going to move us to a different one. A nice quiet room for Tyler so he would be away from all the noise. I'm pretty sure that was code for, "You're still screaming baby is disturbing the other patients." He was the noise.

Tyler cried and cried and cried for quite awhile. When he finally calmed down he leaned up against me on the hospital bed and just stared, eyes kind of glazed over, and didn't move or make any noise at all. Sidenote: Tyler has a new favorite book about dinosaurs. Carl has been teaching him to roar like a dinosaur when he reads it. At one point during this time while Tyler was completely miserable and out of it, Carl asked him what a dinosaur says and that poor, miserable, sad and adorable little boy made the tiniest little dinosaur roar. It was pretty much the cutest thing ever. Also the most heartbreaking. After about 45 minutes of not even moving (which if you know Tyler at all, you know this has never happened before), he fell asleep. Of course a few minutes after he fell asleep they needed to wake him up to give him medicine.

Once that started to kick in, he perked up a little bit. His fever was still at about 103, but that was amazing compared to what it had been! And he started to act like a little more subdued version of his little cheeseball self.

Eventually they tested Tyler for RSV, Influenze and Strep Throat, but the tests all came back negative. He did have an ear infection though. He had an ear infection about a month ago, and this definitely didn't happen, so I don't know why it was different this time. They told us that he is just a child who is capable of spiking extremely high fevers when fighting infections. And if it ever gets to 106 he will be sent to the Children's Hospital. Hopefully that will never happen! They put him on an antibiotic and sent us on our way.

So thankfully, it turned out to be nothing serious, but the drive there was pretty scary. Seeing those numbers on the thermometer was scary! Honestly, with the possible exception of my emergency c-section, I've never been that scared in my life.

After we found a 24 hour pharmacy and picked up Chipotle, we came home and put Tyler to bed. Then we ate our dinner at 10:30, while listening to Tyler moaning in his sleep over the monitor. I think he moaned all night. :-(  It was so sad!

Today he was very needy and got loved on all day. But his fever was gone and by later this afternoon he was completely back to normal. Whew!

This is Tyler towards the end of the ER visit, when he was starting to feel a little bit better. What a trooper!

Adventures In Nap Land

Tyler is generally a good napper. He takes two naps that are about an hour and a half each. Give or take a bit. His afternoon one is often closer to two hours. He has his days or weeks where he gets really off, but for the most part, that is his schedule.

For the past two weeks, he has been trying to confuse me. For several days he just skipped naps. Naps that he needed. There was one day that he didn't take any naps at all! The boy has got determination. Then after a few days, he realized he needed his naps and got back to normal. Now this week, he has decided his crib is really more of a play pen than a place to sleep. Every day this week, for at least one of his naps, but usually both, he spends the first 45 minutes in his crib talking, squealing, laughing, growling and barking. Yep, Carl taught him to bark like a puppy. After 40 - 45 minutes of playing and having a great time, he starts screaming at the top of his lungs. Because usually by this point he is finally realizing that he's tired, but he's thrown his entire entourage overboard. His entourage includes a puppy, a tiger, a blue teddy bear, his sleep sheep, his socks, and three pacifiers. So I go in and put everything back in his crib and his socks back on his feet, lay him back down and he falls asleep within seconds. Yesterday when I went in there, he had thrown all of those things out, and his pants!

A couple of days ago when I went in there I noticed this:

In case you can't tell, they are tiny teeth marks. And they are all over the inside of his crib. I asked my mom if we used to chew on furniture and she said, "That's why we can't use lead paint."

Ok, so these are my old thoughts on lead paint. I understand that it's not safe for kids, so obviously no one should use it, just in case. But what kind of child eats paint?

Well folks, I think I have my answer. My kind of child does.

My new thoughts on lead paint? Keep that horrible stuff away from my baby! Don't let him anywhere near it. He will eat it, lick it, suck on it and scrape it off with his three tiny teeth/very efficient paint scrapers!

What a boy.

(Yes, he is trying to climb over the gate while chewing on it.)

Oh, Tyler. I love you, you sweet little trouble maker.  :-)

Happy Day After Valentine's Day!

I love Valentine's Day. I think it's a little cheesy, but I like cheesy.

Yesterday I spent a lot of my day getting ready for Valentine's Day. I would have tried to get ready earlier, but last week Tyler chose not to believe in naps and I didn't get much of anything done. So yesterday I made my gift to Carl, and Tyler's gift to Carl. So I spent every last second of nap times, cutting and gluing.

This was Tyler's:

And this is how we accomplished it:

A big thank you goes out to Pepperidge Farm and the creator of Baby Goldfish Crackers, for making this project possible.

When Carl got home from work, our plan was to get a heart shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's (because we love cheesy!), watch a movie and eat Red Velvet Cheesecake.

Unfortunately, we decided to wait until Tyler went to bed to eat our pizza. Carl got to Papa Murphy's at 8:15 only to find out that they close at 8. What?! Who knew? I was slightly disappointed about the loss of our heart shaped pizza. I had actually been pretty excited about it. But thankfully, Jets Pizza (our absolute FAVORITE) saved Valentine's Day with amazing (although not heart shaped) pizza.

And the cheesecake was delicious.

Annnd, I got beautiful flowers and chocolate from my super amazing husband.

Now, just because I always think my attempts at taking pictures of Tyler are funny,  this what it took to get that first picture of him. I had this really cute idea in my head of how cute he was going to be with all of the cut out hearts. It didn't really go as planned. He started fully dressed. At one point he was down to just a diaper and he ended in his onesie.

Long Time Coming

Well, this is only about a month late...

We had another Bible Study Baby Shower way back in January. This time it was for Chris and Bethany. I'm so late on this post, that little baby Kipton is already almost two weeks old. Congrats guys!

 The Girls (minus sleeping Brooke)

The Guys

Kipton is the fourth Bible Study Baby since last February, and number five will be in here in April! I think it's amazing that God orchestrated it that way. We went from a study of five couples, to a study of five couples with babies in just over a year!

I've decided to call it the Bible Study Baby Boom. I'll be sure to get a picture of us all with our little ones after baby Johannes makes her appearance.  :-)

I am so excited that we get to begin this stage of our life with all of these great couples, and I love that Tyler will soon be calling all of those other sweet babies his friends. It's going to be adorable to watch them all play together someday soon. So fun!