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.  :-)

 

Pictureless October

I almost always have my camera in my purse. But somehow this month I have forgotten it over and over again. It's been a pretty fun month though. I LOVE fall! I love the beautiful colors and the sound of leaves crunching when you walk, and I'm almost always ready for sweater weather by the time October comes around.

And we've gotten to do quite a few fun things this year. We went to Sever's Corn Maze for the first time a few weeks ago. That place is awesome! We did not give ourselves nearly enough time to enjoy it all. Lesson learned. We will not have plans for later the same day next year. They have a huge (I mean HUGE) corn pool to play in. Tyler sort of love/hated it. It's so deep that it was really hard for him to walk in so he would get a little frustrated. But he loved jumping in the corn and running around the hay bales that surrounded it. There were also a lot of animals, which Tyler of course loved. And the bird room. I am completely freaked out by birds, so I waited outside. But Carl and Tyler loved being surrounded by creepy birds flying everywhere. There is so much to do there that we didn't have nearly enough time to do everything we wanted, but it was a lot of fun!

The next weekend my brother, Jacob, and his wife, Laura came to visit. While they were here we went to Como Zoo. We go to the MN Zoo fairly often, but we never go to Como. They have totally different animals, so it was a fun change. And at the end we all rode on the carousel. Tyler had a blast all day that ended blissfully with Chipotle (his favorite!) on the way home. That was a couple weeks ago and he still keeps talking about Laura. Sorry Jacob. He might talk about you, but since he says your name differently every time, I really don't know.  :-)

We also got to go to Tyler's friend's first birthday party. And we've had some fun weekends in the leaves at home! I actually took pictures in the leaves, so I'll put those up later. :-)

Tyler is growing like a crazy dude. Seriously. He's getting so grown up! I realize that I have a new favorite everytime I write on here. But this is adorable. He loves reading his Bible and lately he goes in and gets it off the shelf or he just askes for it. He calls it his Bye-bee. So cute. So we've been reading lots of "bye-bee" stories everyday. The amazing part is that he actually sits through them now. They're kind of long so he used to lose interest and look at other books while we read to him. Now he asks for it and usually sits through the whole story. I love it!

And here are a few random pictures, just because.

 A little blurry, but proof that my son is a complete goofball.

 

So excited to paint!!!

Why waste your time painting one paper at a time when you have two hands?

Whoever came up with a playdough tool set is a genius. Genius, I tell you.

Reading in his pile of puppies.

The Big 18

My baby is a year and a half old now! He was 18 months on Wednesday and I cannot believe it. It's craziness.

So in honor of his half birthday, here's a little Tyler update.

Top 10 words that come to mind when I think of Tyler:
     - Energetic                                    
     - Fearless                             
     - Hilarious                                
     - Sweet
     - Talkative
     - Loving
     - Cheeseball
     - Adventurous
     - Active
     - Happy

Currently he's in his room (where he's been for an hour) making silly noises, squealing, laughing, singing and talking non-stop instead of napping. I decided to take him out for a special lunch since we had a very crazy morning and he was soooo good and oh-so-deserving of a fun treat. So we went to Wendy's and had a Frosty for dessert. Note to self: Never give Tyler ice cream before nap time. I'm not sure sleep is anywhere in his near future. Oops.

Tyler talks all the time. He rarely stops, actually. Fortunately Carl and I are almost fluent (but not quite) in Tylernese. Surprisingly few others are. :-) Here are a few of the things that make us laugh:
  
If he sees a picture of my sister or hears her name he starts barking. (His way of talking about her  dog)

He introduces "Mommy" and "Daddy" to every single person we see anywhere. Ever.

At Target the other day the cashier was talking to him. He's usually very friendly when we're checking out, but this time he was ignoring her. Finally, when she just kept talking to him he looked right at her, shook his finger and slowly said, "No, no, no."

He points one finger in the air after anything he thinks is fun, funny or delicious and says "One more!"

He also says "One more" to ask permission to do something again. Usually when he thinks he's being funny. Ok, he's right, he usually is being funny.

He fearlessly climbs things that he's much too little to be climbing and then looks down and says, "Mommy, careful." But if we ask if he's being careful he always says no. At least he's looking out for someone's safety - I guess that's a start.

Carl rarely does this, but occassionaly he's taken his phone out during dinner and Tyler shakes his finger and tells him "No, no, no." I'll admit, I'm pretty proud of teaching him that one. :-)

One of his most commonly used phrases is, "Good to go!"

If he sees or hears a baby, he has a pretty realistic (and loud) fake baby cry. Yes, I'm the person with the crying child in my shopping cart all the time, but it's almost never real! He's always copying some one else.

He heard me say "Carl!" once and ever since he thinks it hilarious to call him Carl instead of Daddy.

The only time Tyler gets to watch TV is for the few minutes it takes me to cut his nails every week and a half or so. So when I tell him or ask him if he wants to cut his fingernails, he takes off running to the stairs yelling, "Vee vee!" Who knew getting nails cut could be so exciting? :-)

Tyler has been singing The B-I-B-L-E song lately. It just doesn't get sweeter than hearing his little voice singing, "E i e i e, Buh buh!" as throws his little arms up in the air. :-)

I was not really a fan of this game - all I could think about was Tyler's little head hitting the floor. But they were having such a blast that I took a picture before I stopped all their fun. And in Carl's defense, they were barely moving and I was standing right by Tyler the whole time.

Fun at the library!

At Applebee's a few weeks ago - This is his "I can't believe they just gave me sugar!" happy face.

We just love this boy. :-)

More of the Dells

These are just a few more pictures of Tyler enjoying his time in the Dells. He could totally handle living at The Wilderness hotel. :-)

"Cheese!"

First time bowling!

The Hagen boys

Taking after Uncle Jeff and Uncle Jacob on the drums!

Tyler said "One more" every time he saw one of these carts. He loved riding on them!