Happy THIRTIETH Birthday Carl!

Yesterday Carl turned 30. It was a bit of a blow to him since he thought he was turning 29. I thought he was kidding when he told Tyler that and I called him a liar. He wasn't kidding. I should have broken the news to him more gently! The good part about that is he thought I was still 29 too. Now that I think about it, I really shouldn't have told him at all.

We had all kinds of fun things planned. Tyler and I were talking about it and scheming for days. I can't even begin to describe how excited Tyler was for Carl's "Happy Birthday." It was adorable. We promised Carl could sleep until 9, so as hard as it was for Tyler to wait, we finished making the cake and breakfast, and made a quick Caribou run before he finally got to wake Daddy up with balloons. He ran into the room talking about the balloons, yelling "Happy Birthday," and telling him to get up.

 

Then we ate breakfast and headed off to the Science Museum for the morning! I knew there was a lot of kid-type stuff there, but I wasn't sure if Tyler was quite old enough or not. But there was a lot for him to do and we all had a great time!



 

Captain Tyler, driving his boat. This was probably his favorite part of the day.

Tyler couldn't be bothered with pictures. He was very busy driving the boat!

After the museum we went home so Tyler and Carl could take their naps. Then we got back into the car and went to Buffalo Wild Wings. Carl is obsessed with that place. He would eat there weekly if he could. Daily, even. He suggests it every single time we talk about eating out, and most of the time he gets shut down. Because I like it, but not that often! I couldn't really say no on his birthday though.

This is happiness.

 

I think Tyler might actually like it as much as Carl. He talked about it non-stop after we told him where we going, and he ate a pretty amazing amount of food. He just got back from sledding and saw this picture, so now he's running around yelling "Buffalo Wings" all over again. :-)

 

Then it was back home for cake.

 

The cake was a monster. But you have to go big for 30, right? Tyler was waiting for this part all day. He could not wait to sing Happy Birthday with his shakers. He'd been practicing. And he was really good. :-)

 

Don't worry, he didn't eat the whole thing. Not even close. It was the size of his head!

 

We are so thankful for Carl and everything he does for our little family. He is a great husband and a great Daddy. We love you Carl!

That's My Boy!

Tyler cracks me up. He really does. I feel like there is always a new "latest" thing that he is getting into or doing that helps my life stay completely crazy. And I love it!

The new latest:

Taking his diaper off. All. The. Time.

The very second he goes potty he strips off his pants, unbuttons his onesie, and takes off his diaper. In Kansas his changing pad and diapers were in a corner on the floor so after he stripped he would go lay out his pad, pull out some wipes and a diaper and say, "Mommy, diaper!" But at home he usually takes it all off and just goes back to playing in the nude. You can find him running around with no pants on about half the time lately. It's mostly funny. He knows that he has gone potty and he's doing something about it, so I would say that's a step in the right direction towards potty training!

The problems come when the diapers are either not just wet, or it's at nap time. Then it can get a little messy. I have to check on him often while he's going to sleep at nap to make sure he's fully clothed. For a couple weeks, he was never wearing a diaper when I checked on him. Sometimes he took it off three or four times before he fell asleep. Now he's gotten better and I think he really does only take it off when he knows it's wet. But I have found him sound asleep without one on and a pile of clean diapers laying next to him.

This is just Tyler being Tyler. And making quite the fashion statement. :-)

 

 

Since Tyler loves doing everything we do, I have looked for a toy shaving kit for him, so that he can shave like Daddy. His current morning routine involves putting in his contacts, putting a head band on like I do when I wash my face, putting deodorant on (if I ever have white streaks all over my legs it's because he helped me put it on too), brushing his hair with my make-up brushes, and putting in his invisaline like Daddy. He loves it when Carl helps him pretend to shave. So I thought he would love to have his own little razor in his bathroom drawer, and maybe even stop trying to steal Carl's. Turns out they are impossible to find. Literally impossible. But as I was walking through Target the other day I noticed a new shelf of bath toys and one of them was a bath shaving kit. Score!

 

It's been a huge hit so far. He thinks he's such a big kid!

 









Putting It Back Together

When it rains, it pours. And it has been pouring at our house! Right before we left to go to the Dells we noticed our hot water heater had broken. There was nothing we could really do about it except pray that it didn't leak everywhere while we were gone. Thankfully, it didn't. But we did have to take freezing cold showers and boil water for Tyler's baths. We got back from the Dells and couldn't get anyone out there until after Tyler and I had left for Kansas. So Carl had to take parts of two days off of work to be here while they first came to check it, and the next day to replace it.

The next day when I talked to Carl he told me our fireplace was broken and he couldn't figure out how to fix it.

The next day when I talked to Carl he told me that his laptop (his very new laptop) was broken and he couldn't even get it to turn on.

The next day when I talked to Carl he told me that his car had broken down and he was pretty sure it was done for.

I'm not kidding. Things just fall apart when I'm not home I guess. :-) Since then he has figured out the fireplace and gotten it working again, and while he's not convinced his computer is "fixed" he did get it to turn on and can use it. But we are probably in the market for a new car. We were planning on getting a new one soon anyway - his really did need to be replaced. Now we just have to do it... now.

Anyway, like I had mentioned in a different post, the trip home from Kansas completely wore me out. I finally got my act together and managed to unpack and start to feel like I could get some things done around the house and BOOM. Tyler woke up Wednesday night throwing up. So we moved Tyler's mattress out to the living room so I could help him in the night and I (tried) to sleep on the couch next to him. And I spent Valentine's Day doing five loads of sheets, blankets, pajamas and stuffed animals. I told Carl I felt like the worst wife ever. I had three goals for that day: To write a really nice card for him, to make Valentine's Day cupcakes for us to have that night and to deliver to our neighbor, and to look cute. I did not have time to write a card, I did not make cupcakes and I barely got out of my pajamas. I was still wearing my glasses, had no make up on, and I'm pretty sure I smelled like puke when he got home from work. Oops. Happy Valentine's Day Honey. :-)

He still got me flowers, from him and my babies. And after Tyler went to bed we ordered a pizza and watched TV. We didn't even really have the energy to find a good movie!

 

On Friday I got sick. It was miserable, but thankfully it didn't last too long and by Saturday morning I actually felt ok-ish. Tyler was still really lethargic and not himself and we were both exhausted, so we made the best of it by getting Finding Nemo and having our first ever family movie day. We only got thrown up on and all had to change clothes once. :-)

Sunday we all felt great, and Carl never did get sick. He was a fabulous husband for those few days and took great care of us!

And yesterday was Valentine's Day at our house. Better late than never, right? We finally got our "cuppy cakes" as Tyler calls them so cutely.

 

I am so thankful to all be healthy again, thankful that we don't get sick like this often, and so excited to be getting out of the house this week! Days like those make us appreciate the good ones so much more.

Our Week Away

So last Tuesday Tyler and I got on a plane and headed south to see my parents. It was us taking advantage of the last time Tyler can fly for free and the fact that there's just one of them for me to get through the air port. Next time we'll probably be driving.

I won't lie, I was a little nervous about Tyler and the plane. I knew he would be excited to be on an airplane and I knew he would be pretty distracted by everything going on in the airport. But the flight was at nap time after an already busy, crazy weekend. The last time he flew was over a year ago so this was a whole new ball game. His ability to sit still for more than two seconds is not always stellar. But he did amazing! Thankfully there was an open seat next to me so he could sit in his own. Although when the plane took off it kind of scared him and he flew into my lap and sat there for most of the flight anyway. But he was happy and a good listener and loved everything about the airplane. Especially the pretzels and juice they brought him. He kept calling the flight attendants nice. :-)

He loves reading magazines, so I brought him his own Parenting magazine. He's learning how to take good care of his puppies. :-)

 

We had such a fun week with Papa Joe and Grandma Ronni (who he has just started calling Ronni most of the time. Oops.) It was warm, so we got to go to the playground and the zoo while we were there! He got up every morning and asked Grandpa for eggs. He baked muffins and a giant cookie. He even got to go to Nav Night. He was so excited about Navs (even before he knew what it was) It starts after his bed time so we only stayed for the music and then went home. But he still starts dancing and talking about the music if we ask him about Navs.

 

Such a helper.

We've missed playgrounds!

Checking out the peacocks and flamingos.

He's cute when he runs.

Proud of his HUGE cookie.

Reading with Grandma.

Orange Leaf with Papa Joe!

It was 60 degrees outside, but Tyler found the stash of hats and mittens and entertained himself for a long time. Maybe he was missing Minnesota?

 

 

We found out the day before our flight home that my brother Jeff was flying in to Kansas City 45 minutes before we flew out. As it turned out, he even flew in on the same plane we were getting on and we saw him at the gate. Even if we hadn't known he was going to be there, we would have practically ran into each other. I walked around the corner from security right in front of him as he walked off the plane. And he would have seen my parents watching us through the window. So as a bonus, they got to hang out with him for a couple hours after we left.

 

Like I said before, Tyler did amazing on the first flight. I should have prayed more for the second one! We didn't have a seat open next to us and when the man sat down by us, Tyler started telling him "No," and "Go." He cried for a lot of the flight, saying, "Home," and "No airplane!" And because of the one year old on my lap and my pregnant self, I couldn't reach our bag of fun stuff so we were just stuck with the two books we had out at the beginning. The poor boy was so ready to be done traveling.

 

Somehow that trip exhausted me a ridiculous amount, so when we got home I was pretty much useless for a few days, I can officially say that our suitcase is finally unpacked and our laundry is done, but it took three days!







Life In Fast Forward

These last few weeks have been moving at an extremely fast pace. Well, not really this week. This week has been more about catching my breath from the ones before.

Carl spent the last week and a half of January working a ton. He was in until 11 or 12 every night, including time on the weekend. It was rough. He's been laughing at me because I told him I was so worn out tired and when he asked why I said it was because he had been working so much. Not really what I meant, but it is how it came out. But not having him around in the evenings was tiring for me too! He usually came home for dinner and then went back to work right away. Then finally on Thursday night (February 1) he got to stay home. And we spent the evening giving Tyler a hair cut and packing for a weekend in the Dells!

I know I don't need pictures of every hair cut, but they're always so cute I just can't resist.

 

We spent the weekend hanging out with four of my college friends and their husbands/boyfriends. It was great to see all of them at once!

 

Tyler loved every part of the trip. And surprisingly, he slept like a champ, which never happens at hotels. Early mornings, but at least he went to sleep without any trouble, and took great naps!

 

He talked about the water and being in the hotel non-stop (he still is). He loved riding the "boats" on the lazy river and gettting soaked by the big bucket with Carl. He even got to go down one of the big family water slides! We couldn't tell him ahead of time that we were going swimming because as soon as we mentioned it he would strip off all his clothes and find his swim suit and swim diaper!

 

My little love bug. :-)

 

We got home Sunday night, and right away Monday morning we were off to a Birthday party. Tyler has been singing Happy Birthday ever since!

They took the bed out of Bronson's room and filled it with 500 balloons for the kids to jump and play in. What a fun idea!

 

Then on Tuesday morning I had MOPS and afterwards Carl dropped Tyler and I off at the airport for a week in Kansas! There are off course, lots of pictures coming soon from our fun week Papa Joe and Grandma Ronni!

A Little Mess, A Lot Of Fun

I don't know about anyone else's kids, but my little man loves to play outside and run and climb and be active. So cold winter days where we're stuck inside get a little old for him. Thankfully he loves his art projects and they keep him a little distracted when he's bored with his toys and anything else near the floor where he belongs.

So this time we broke out the shaving cream and paint.

He was so excited to get it out, but once he saw it he was a little unsure.

Eventually I talked him into touching it.

This is after he realized it was actually kind of cool.

And then he loved it.

There is nothing better than watching him get excited about something new. :-)