First Christmas!

We had a really fun first Christmas with Tyler and Santa was good to all of us! He enjoyed playing with all the wrapping paper and bows and has tons of new toys to scatter around the house.

We got to have our first Wigilia as a family and break oplatki with him on Christmas Eve. Pretty cool to start showing him our traditions :)





Santa was almost down a cookie and Rudolph almost didn't have a carrot - caught in the act :)



Checking out all the presents. He even feasted on some wrapping paper, which we didn't know he was doing and had a green mouth :)



Playing with his favorite new toy.



The aftermath...complete with Cheerios thrown all over the floor.



Wearing new Elmo papucies (that's what I've always called my slippers...it's the polish word for them)



Testing out the new Quad



Hanging out...



He loves the deer at Aunt Kris and Uncle Andy's house so she took it off the wall so Tyler could pet him. We all had about 10 turns lifting him up to touch the deer - he was one happy dude! I'm hoping Tyler is a hunter one day so I can always get deer jerky :)



Teaching about the finer things in life...like how to eat Reddi Wip from the can :)



We didn't have a white Christmas, but we had a white day after Christmas! Getting ready to go in the snow.



Hating every part of getting ready to go in the snow. I had to snap a picture :)



Once we finally got outside things were better and we got in some rides around the house and down the hill on the sled.

Santa

Visiting Santa at the mall



Tyler's first winter program at school. He was a reindeer and was the only reindeer that didn't take his antlers off :)



Santa gave him a pretty cool present when he visited after the program! Opening his first present by himself :)



On our way to an Ugly Sweater Christmas party



Finishing off the week with a little holiday drink - sitting on Santa's lap was very stressful!

11 months

I can't believe this is the last monthly update! At this ripe age Tyler's favorite thing to do (other than walk circles around the house) is to climb stuff. He tries to climb the gates we have up, climbs in the fridge or freezer as soon as we open it and has scaled our stove...feet off the ground on the handle of the bottom drawer hanging on for dear life! We think he might be rock climbing with us soon!

Over the last month he's really starting "talking" more and says mama, dada, baba and uh-oh and does a great bark to talk with the dog next door :) He has a few other words he uses a lot like dat, dah and ah-ah (still trying to figure out what those mean) and sometimes we think he says Hi and hat, but we're not sure about those yet. It's getting a little easier because he has started to point at what he wants and he's beginning to understand more stuff we say to him.

He still loves his little blankie and goes to bed with it every night and it's always hanging out of his mouth when we check on him. Only problem is the thing smells so bad. I swear I wash it every other night, but it doesn't help. Last week I tried to buy a replacement and he give us this "you must be kidding me that you think I'm going to fall for this" look. So, back to old blankie and mommy gagging when she smells it.

He's getting really funny and makes us laugh all the time. The other day when friends were over I was picking him up and his foot got caught in my shirt and pulled the front of my shirt down. I guess he liked our reaction because for the next 5 minutes he would walk away and come back to me and pull the front of my shirt down and laugh. I had to remind him that Mommy doesn't need to be giving free shows to everyone :)

Here's some pictures...

Will they still say No if it's actually my toy touching the tree?




Whoa people...what's happening...

Firsts

Our first "first" was last Friday night when Dave and I went out to dinner and to go see a band with some friends. The band we went to see was called the Legwarmers and they play all 80's and music everyone was rocking their 80's gear - it was great! It was the first time we had a non-family member babysitter watch Tyler and we all successfully made it through the night phew! We still kind of cheated though because it was one of the teachers at day care that he loves and she's also an EMT so she's more qualified in the safety department than we are. As we drove away I told Dave I was happy we were leaving him with 911 :)

Next up was decorating the house for Christmas. Dave was super pumped about his first time putting lights up on our house and has been talking smack with a friend all week about how they're lighting their houses. So, in the wind and cold he put up the lights.



When he was done we turned them on and went out for a while thinking we'd come back to a lit up house and we came back to this below.

No lights - blown fuse. Stringing 10 strands of lights together will do that.



So...after a a long night with a very focused man making drawings of the roof and how he will re-work them in the morning and making numerous phone calls to friends who told him it didn't matter how many you strung together (I think it was sabotage)...we got lights the next day and they look great! Next year we'll do more outside...baby steps :)



Then came the xmas tree. This is the first time we have a real size tree. Tyler did his fair share of helping out and we got the tree up by 10pm. By 8am Sunday morning we had our first (and only) broken ornament. Trying to get the christmas card picture of him standing in front of it was hysterical because he doesn't stand still. We picked the best picture out of the 190 we took and called it a day with that.



After the 100th "no" in 10 minutes we think he finally got it that he's not allowed to touch the tree.



I went to my first cookie swap and brought home lots of yummy cookies! Tyler really liked these Hungarian cookies called kipfels and they look complicated for a non-baker, but I'm told they're easy to make. Peanut butter cookies are suppose to be easy too and mine always look like communion. Dave was gone for work this past week so another girl who lives down the street and is one of his teachers at day care watched him for a little bit while Mom had a few hours out - we're getting to be pros at this babysitter thing :)

And finally, last night we had our first bloody lip when Tyler smacked in to his rocking horse.

Say Cheese!