The Calm Before the Storm

It's been a fun week :) Last weekend we celebrated my Mom's birthday and went to a friends wedding. My Mom watched Tyler and he was playing with our nieces and I got a text message from my sister that the girls were playing dress up with him ha ha! I think the Phillie's shirt looks really good with a tutu :)



Helping Grammy open presents



This is Dave and one of our friends showing off their dance moves at the wedding...hysterical!



We clean up nicely when we want to ;)



On Wed. night we had a snow storm! Dave went to the Y and our Jeep ended up breaking down in the parking lot when he was leaving...just as the they were closing early because of the snow. This was at 6:30 and by 7:30 it was a blizzard outside! I had to go get him so our friend Juli came over and gave me her truck and watched Tyler for us and put him to bed while I went to rescue Dave - thanks Juli!! Thank goodness because we waited in the parking lot until 9:30 for the tow truck to come and it was so crazy outside and kind of freaky being the only ones in the parking lot in the middle of nowhere! With tears in our eyes we watched the Jeep get lifted up on the truck bed not knowing if we'd ever see her running again...she's 11 years old!

We finally got home and woke up the next morning with no power and 16 inches of snow on the ground! Our power was out for about 3 hours, but last winter we went a whole day with no power and heat with a one month old - 3 hours was cake! Next, it was time for clean up...I heard lots of commotion going on in the garage and apparently when Dave went to start the snow blower he pulled the start cord right off (he's so beefy)! The commotion was him kicking it which resulted in a hurt toe :) So he shoveled for over 4 hours that day and Tyler and I watched him from inside.

That morning we both noticed that Tyler wasn't acting like himself and figured we'd better call the doctor. Off we slid in my car to the doctor and we were right he had an ear infection :( The only positive thing about this doctors trip was we're being sent to the ENT doc next month so they can check him out. He's had 5 ear infection since September! Our lives have been very calm lately we were due for some craziness! Oh yeah and our toilet broke that day too, but Handy Manny fixed that one right away :) The snow sure does look pretty though!



This is before the plow comes through and leaves us with huge snow banks everywhere. Poor Tyler can't even see Barclay anymore when he looks out the door b/c the snow piles are too high! He's going through withdrawal...





That's our chiminea under there



This weekend we got the Jeep back (she's purrin like a kitten) and had some friends over yesterday for some Mexican food and margaritas. It was a fun time and was a good end to our week! Today we went to get Tyler some real sneakers because he's kicked things up to a slow run and while we were at the mall we stopped by the photo booth for our family picture lol! Notice in the 2nd picture down...all Tyler was concerned about was drinking the Auntie Annie's lemonade! That's after he ate all of our pretzels...we're so glad he's eating since he's been on a hunger strike from not feeling well!

Allergy?

Tyler had to get an allergy test done because he developed a rash all over his body a while ago while taking Amoxicillin for an ear infection. The doctors didn't think it looked like a typical allergy to medication, but couldn't rule it out so we had to get him tested to make sure. Thankfully, he ended up not being allergic!

I was pretty much doing everything but standing on my head and doing cartwheels down the hall to entertain this kid while we waited in between doses of medicine and needles. I'm so thankful that last month we had the skin tests (which involved the needles) because I think he's starting to put some things together about the doctor and would run the other way when the nurse would come in the room and would wave bye bye to her ha ha! This is some of the stuff we did for the 6 total hours we spent at the doctor's office...in addition to running down the hall with no pants on and running around the waiting room staring at people - he inherited this staring from his cousin Adam :)

Sat in the window watching the cars go by



Played with all the toys Mommy brought with us





Made our first drawing!



Light breakfast and no eating after 10 am...this means at 4:00 when you're given the OK to eat there's no time for hands you just throw the ravioli from the bowl right down the chute! He was starving and ate them in record time!



And we finished the day off with a car ride through the grocery store. This is the first time he ever sat in the car and he drove it like a pro with hands on two wheels. Wish I drove the cart like a pro - I obviously need some practice with this recent cart upgrade. We must have crashed in to about 5 things...the front end on that puppy is big!! Now I know what my friend Erica was talking about when she said it was hard to go from driving a Cavalier to driving a Tahoe :)

The BIG ONE!

This dude is a party animal! By the end of the weekend he was running on fumes because we celebrated for 3 days that we ALL made it through the first year :) Before we get to the party pictures here's some fun facts about this one year old...

• Favorite word is uh-oh
• He will blow you a kiss if you ask him to and a few weeks ago at the doctor's and he blew a kiss to the nurse as she left the room…first time I ever saw him do that - really cute!
• Gives his stuffed animals hugs and says “ahhh”
• Points at my nose and says “nah”, then immediately goes for a quick swipe at my face...we need to work on that one :)
• Loves kicking the ball around the house and will walk over and kick it when we ask him to...maybe he'll be a natural at soccer...or at least that's what Daddy is hoping for :)
• When you start singing “Ring around the Rosie” he either turns in circles by himself or grabs your hands to turn with him, but we usually don’t make it through the entire song before he falls down (that’s his favorite part of course!)
• He loves music and will dance to anything…for anyone who ever saw my Dad dance he has clearly inherited his moves. I’m sure my Dad is looking down on us smiling because we always made fun of him about his signature bend the knees slightly and sway back and forth dance move and it now lives on! Tyler is making his Pop Pop proud!
• Uses anything and everything as a drum (future Tommy Lee ha ha! Side note: I think Tommy Lee is totally hot, but that's a blog post in itself!)
• Has 8 teeth and possibly a ninth coming in, but we no longer stick fingers in his mouth to check because we don't like getting bit
• Likes to give hugs to his friends at school. There’s only one girl in the class and his teachers tell us he likes to hug her (we're thinking of skipping the normal things you teach your kid and moving straight to teaching pick up lines).
• Last week he had a head on collusion (literally) with his best friend Wyatt (we're told the follow each other everywhere). They went to hug and hit heads instead…resulting in both of them falling to the ground and being sent home with injury reports - the treatment listed was TLC
• Has mastered how to drink a Capri Sun while we hold it. When every other kid at the party is drinking one, the one year old is sure to want in on it :)
• AND...he has switched to drinking milk and no longer takes a bottle! We weren't really pushing for him to be off his morning bottle, but our nieces were here all weekend and both mornings he didn't want his bottle so we took it as a cue and we're DONE!

Friday birthday!

Taking Sugar cookies in for his class, but he sat on them
before we even left the house.

Enjoying the cookie - I'm told they all loved it!


Party with my sister and the girls. He had A LOT of sugar that day so the mini banana muffin was his cake - the real deal was coming the next day :)


Opening presents


Testing out a new toy


Tyler's other best friend, Barclay the dog, who lives across the street
brought him over a birthday card.


Getting all cleaned up for his party the next day



Saturday - Party day!

My cousin made this super awesome cake! Thanks April!


The only shot we have of his birthday shirt it says
"Does this shirt make me look 1"




Digging in! He was a little hesitant at first, but then got the hang of it. The picture below does not look like he was hesitant :)












The kids had a blast sleigh riding in the backyard


Not enjoying the birthday hat


Family picture at the end of the night we were all ready for bed!


I left him in his birthday suit for about 30 seconds at the end of the night and he felt the need to mark his territory on the bottom of our couch :)



Sunday - relax!

We decided to go sleigh riding and play outside...it was a big hit!

A look back

Since I didn't start this blog until Tyler was 4 months old and we're almost at the BIG UNO I thought I'd take a look back from the beginning...can you tell I'm the second child with the amount of pictures I take? :)

The day I found out I was pregnant...obviously I didn't quite know yet in this picture and wasn't planning on climbing that day, but my nephew asked if Aunt Beth can show him how to get 'er done! I think I know why Tyler is a climber :)



7 weeks in the belly



20 weeks in the belly



28 weeks in the belly



35 weeks in the belly and very smooshed they say this is his profile...not sure where they see that at :)



Finally here!



11 days old



One month old (had to include the first blizzard picture)





2 months and celebrating St. Patty's Day!



almost 3 months



4 months



5 months



6 months



7 months



8 months



9 months



10 months



11 months



351 days