Some Fun Ones

I was just looking through pictures and had a to put a few up.

Tyler loves to walk instead of ride in the stroller.

Talking to Grandpa Joe and Grandma Ronni. Gotta love Skype! :-)

Just looking cool in his Sunday best.

It's taken longer than expected because there are so many fun things to get into in the bathroom, but Tyler finally discovered the cabinet we keep our toothbrushes in. The upside of this: It keeps him out of the toilet, from unrolling the toilet paper and from trying to reach Carl's razor. The downside: Well, we are apparently sharing our toothbrushes with a one year old. I swear he can sense when the bathroom door is left open and it takes him about 0.2 seconds to run across the house and get them out!

 He also loves lifting Carl's weights! He goes into our room and tries to lift them often.

Hanging out with Daddy after work!

 And these are a couple of my new favorites.

Feeding Myself!

It's a messy job, but somebody has to do it!

 Sometimes it's frustrating...

But mostly it's fun...

And it's always messy!

Danger Is My Middle Name

Are words even necessary? He has no fear. And often no common sense. As you can see in the picture with the towel over his head right before he ran into a wall and bounced off. I probably shouldn't have been taking pictures.

Skinned Knees and Springtime!

 I've always loved spring. But this year I love it a billion times more. It is so fun to watch Tyler exploring outside. He can't wait to go outside each day. Rainy days are going to be tough at our house. When Tyler wants in to a room he knocks on the door. He stands at our front door knocking on it often, wanting to go outside. If I tell him to get his shoes, he gets so excited and actually goes and gets them! If he sees me start to get my shoes on, he starts running in place, he can't even contain his excitement. I have to stop telling him we're going outside before I'm 100% ready to go out or he completely loses it. I'm a slow learner though. I keep asking if he wants to go outside and then telling him he needs his diaper changed or something like that first. It never goes over well.

I love living so close to a park! We can run over there anytime we want without packing anything up, getting in the car or even worrying about a stroller. Tyler walks most of the way through the park by himself. We usually only have to pick him up when he's trying to get away from us. That park is going to be our second home this summer. Or maybe our house will be second to the park. We've been spending every possible minute we can outside!

Happy Easter!

We hope you all have a wonderful day with your families.

And we hope that you take some time to reflect and be thankful for the amazing sacrifice that was made for you, so that you can truly live.

And Marcus and Aanna, we hope you get a baby for Easter. Tyler is ready to meet his new friend.

What a little stud.

A Cold Day at the Zoo!

Last weekend my good friend, Sarah, and her husband, Matt, came to visit. We don't get to see them very often. The last time was their wedding in November, so we were excited to hang out with them for a whole weekend.

We spent lots of time playing cards and taught them Settlers, they grilled amazing food for us, we went out to The Cheesecake Factory (yum) and we went to the zoo. I think it's safe to say the zoo was Tyler's favorite part. Or maybe it was a close second to his new zoo toy they gave him.

It was great to see them and the whole weekend was a lot of fun. Thanks for driving all the way here guys!  :-)

12 Months and Not a Baby!

So I already wrote a short book about the birthday we celebrated here last week. But now I'm finally writing about the Birthday Boy!

We had Tyler's 12 month check-up last Tuesday. He was pretty good for it! They had to do a little finger poke to check his iron and check for lead. I was ready to cry when she was getting ready for it because I know that hurts! But my little man didn't even flinch. He just watched with a very curious look on his face. He started to get a little annoyed when it took awhile to get the blood they needed. But he didn't care at all about the poke. He is much tougher than his Mama!

He is 19 lbs, 4 oz (5th percentile), and 29 inches tall (60th percentile).  I love Tyler's doctor. We really didn't know how to choose one when he was born. But the doctor who was on rounds in the hospital seemed really great so we stuck with her. She always lets him touch anything she is going to use on him. He gets to touch her light and her stethoscope so it doesn't usually bother him when she starts the check-up. Not all doctors are like that! When we went in for a sick visit the doctor we saw was abrupt and not nice at all, but that's a story for another day. :-)  Anyway, this time she let him walk around the room playing with her tools while she talked to me. It was pretty funny watching him walk around the room in just his diaper, with a stethoscope as long as he is! He pretty much acted like he owned that room.

We've had a lot of favorite things with Tyler this month! I have loved every single stage he's gone though, but they just keep getting better. In the past few months it's been fun watching his little personality take shape. And one thing is for sure. He is funny! He loves to make people laugh. His sense of humor is so fun. This past week he learned to make faces and he has been experimenting with them constantly. He's made fish faces for months, but now he furrows his little brow and looks confused, or he looks at us with a hilarious face that I can't describe, but it pretty much says, "You are crazy."

I've sat aiming my camera at him, trying to catch some of these faces and I haven't gotten any yet. But I did almost get his cheeseball smile. I just missed the part where he squeezes his eyes shut as tight as he can.

He also learned to clean and he loves it. Actually he's been spending pretty big chunks of his day "cleaning" our house. These are the things I love most. Watching him learn things on his own, without us teaching him. We definitely never taught him to wipe everything clean. But he does it with anything he can find. He finds his wash cloths and cleans. He pulls our hand towels off the stove and cleans. He emptied a kleenex box and cleaned with all of them. I have caught him wiping clean the floor, his high chair, his bike, his toy box, his diaper champ, the coffee table, the windows, the walls, his carseat, and even the table, booth and walls at restaurants.

His bike has never been outside, so I'm not sure how it got dirty, but apparently it was. :-) We love this. It is cute and funny every single time. And it is probably getting to the triple digits for the number of cleaning projects he has taken on in the last week.

Besides cleaning, he loves to brush his teeth. Well, I guess that's cleaning too. We have a very clean child. He also has been spending a lot of time just figuring things out. Trying to put lids on things, or trying to learn how to make the water come on. He is definitely his father's child. He would rather figure out how something works than enjoy the cool things it does.

And he LOVES his Daddy. It is heart melting, really. He has been crying when Carl leaves for work the last couple mornings. He even made him late for work one day because when Carl said goodbye, Tyler got a book and handed it to him, signing "please". Of course Carl couldn't say no to that. :-)And he gets sooo excited when he hears the garage door open at the end of the day. He runs as fast he can across the house to the door and waits for Carl to come in. Precious.

Tyler, it has been the fastest and most exciting year of our lives. You are our adventure finding, thrill seeking, lovable, sweet and funny little ball of energy. You are our constant source of entertainment and our little love bug. You make us laugh and you fill our hearts with joy. We race to be the first to go in your room and get you in the mornings and we can't go to bed at night without going into your room to check on you and tell you we love you one more time. You are such a blessing to us and we love you so much!