Week in Review

Last weekend started off with Uncle Richard coming to visit! There was lots of Kung Fu'ing between him and Tyler and running around the house like crazy. There was also lots of Jack and Ginger consumed by Dad and Uncle Richard which evolved in to handstand and backbend competitions at 11 at night. I think we may have some future gymnasts on our hands. Very impressive. Good times!

Sunday was a bummer with the news of Joe Paterno passing away. It's strange that for a man most of us have never met, we all somehow felt connected to him. He led a great life, did great things for many people and for PSU and there's lots of happy people in Heaven greeting him. Dave was sitting on the couch watching TV on Sunday and Tyler walked up to him and said "What's wrong Daddy", Dave replied with "JoePa passed away Tyler" and Tyler's response was "Oh". Not that he even remotely knew what that meant, but he somehow knew that Dave was sad.

I was in Target and picked up a Joe Paterno magazine to put in Tyler's keepsake box for when he's older. I got home and realized I'll have 2 kids in a couple weeks so off to Target I went to get Zachary his own magazine along with a Tupperware to start his collection of things. Zac's begins with JoePa.



Monday brought with it a call from daycare that Tyler had a 102 fever. I got the call as I was waiting to go in to my preggo appt. So I had to finish my appt., run back to work and then go get him. Timing of things always happens like this. We've been on quite a streak of not having any sickness or having to come home early from school, so it was only a matter of time before our luck ran out. I picked up a very warm, sleepy boy and after one dose of Advil he was back on his feet playing with Catherine and Joseph that night. Because he had a fever he couldn't go back to school for 24 hours so he got to spend the day home with Dad.

I've been saying for months now that I need to clean our hardwood floors because I never get the chance to. I came home from work and Dave had cleaned our floors on his hands and knees with Old English furniture polish. Let me just say, I'm very grateful to have a husband who cleans and helps and doesn't need to be asked to do things. He's wonderful! But after watching Tyler fall about 5 about times in one hour and making me think he was going to start crawling again as he was losing all confidence in his walking abilities (and me having to hold on to things to just walk around the house) I had to put him back to work and put a coat of Mop n Glow over it because we were going to kill ourselves on the shiny slippery floors! Our floors look great though :) I found this on the Old English web site:



Aunt Jill, Sydney and Alex came down on Friday night and we had pizza fondue night! This is something my Mom used to do with us when we were little and we loved it! Only difference is we use to eat it off of this bright orange 1970's platform on wheels. Now, we use the coffee table. Sydney managed to get in to some red long lasting lip stick and came out of the bathroom looking like a Lady of the Night. Jill and I couldn't get it off her lips and the next morning had to go online to find how to get it off. Olive Oil did the trick!





No matter how many times I see them wear these glasses I laugh hysterically! When Tyler got these Dave laughed at the sticker on them that said something like "For Play only" and he even commented about how funny that someone would actually use them for real when working. One day I found a pair of these "play" glasses in the laundry room and found out Dave had been using them when drilling something in to the floor becasue he couldn't find his real pair. If only I could've got a picture!



Alex, Tyler and I were then off to Harrisburg to visit Erica. If Grammy comes down during the week to watch Tyler Sydney usually comes with her. When Dave and I went to the hospital tour they came down and Alex couldn't because she had school. She gets upset that she doesn't have alone time with us. So, Alex stayed with Tyler and I and we had a great trip on Saturday, got home late Saturday night, we slept in Sunday morning, made some pancakes and then off to drop Alex off so she could go to a birthday party! When I dropped Alex off I realized I hadn't even combed her hair that morning. Maybe that's why God gave me boys. I don't usually get around to combing my own hair let alone someone else's!



This is Tyler's new cheese face



A few quotes from Alex:

I was trying to zip Tylers jacket and he kept sitting on the ground. Alex said "Tyler stand up" and he did. She turned to me and said "I really know how to train kids.

I asked her if she was going to come and help take care of the baby. She said "Yes, cause I know how Uncle Dave is". Trying not to laugh I said well what do you mean by how Uncle Dave is. She said "Oh, he has to go to work and stuff". I wasn't sure what kind of response I was going to get!

Tyler and I finished off our weekend by going to see Anastasia the shark at a local pet shop. It was a big hit and he loved watching her and looking at all of the fish in the store. We plan to go back for shark feeding night!

2 year update

I haven't done an actual update on Tyler in quite a while. I've been wanting to write one since November, but just haven't had time to sit down and write it. So, here's an update (in the form of randomness) on things I've made note of over the past few months.

I mentioned before that he's a talker. Finally something that he inherited from me. So, a lot of this stuff is around what he's been saying lately.

At his parent/teacher conference back in December his teacher told me he's always asking"What you doing Corrie?". Then he started asking us this all the time. He's really inquisitive and always wants to know what's happening all the time (another handed down from Mom trait)

One night I was on the phone with Aunt Kris and I said "Shut Up, no way. Who would pay $70 for Spiderman sheets!". Well, the next day at school when Dave picked Tyler up they said he's saying "Shut Up". When I heard him say it, most times he would use it in the context I used it in. I opened a book one day and said "Look at those big elephants!" and he got excited and responded with "Shut Up!" Thankfully he seems to have moved on from using this word and we totally have to watch what we say!

The same week he was saying Shut Up, he was also telling them "No Cigar". As if we're closet cigar smokers or something around here. We figured it out that our neighbor smokes smokes cigars and if Tyler tries to touch it he says "No Cigar Tyler".

As you may have seen in a video I posted a few weeks ago, "Ok (otay) Mommy" is one of my favorite phrases he uses.

He says C'mom guys or C'mon girls (when he's calling Alex and Sydney)

He picks up his instruments and says to us "Music Time Everyone!" - must be what his music teacher says at school

One day while he was in the bath he told me "Run Forrest!" - no idea where that came from

Tyler doesn't like to do things for us when prompted. Like say the ABC's or count, but when we put up our Xmas tree, he walked around it and counted from 1-15 (or five-teen in his words). We didn't know he could count that high and his teacher told me he sings the ABC's with his class every morning. This morning he sang most of the song with me, so we're getting there :)

Tyler told me "Love You mommy". Totally unprompted. Melted my heart. He says Love You in response to us saying it, but this time he said it by himself.

He picked up an empty beer bottle in the garage and said "mmmmmm...delicious". Dave and I just looked at each other and laughed.

Says "Amen" after his prayers at night and then he repeats after me and says "Thank you God for my family".

He refers to himself in the 3rd person all the time. "Ty be right back", "Ty needs diaper changed", "Ty ok", "Ty help Daddy fix".

Before we switched to a bed, he would yell "Hey You" in the morning when he woke up. Every since he was little that's what I would say to him. We were in Lowe's the other day and he was yelling "Hey Guy" to some random guy.

He can name and identify basic shapes and colors.

He hunts in our house. With his little broom in hand waving it around and says "Where's that bison?" or "Where's that alligator?". Pretty random animals to hunt for, but oh well maybe one day if we go to Wyoming or Florida we'll actually find one. We might have to stick to deer and bear for now.

The other day he said "Mommy's hair is wet" when I got out of the shower. He also told yelled to me "Mommy, Daddy is going pee!" Just in case I needed to know I guess. He also told me to "Take that coat off." and has said "Excuse me Daddy" when Dave was in his way.

Loves to watch movies. Some of his favorites are: Toy Story, Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda, Nemo, The Gruffalo, and lately Garfield, which surprises us because it's not really animated it's a pretty normal movie, but that's the one he asks for the most now a days. We're thinking about taking him to see an actual movie pretty soon.

Favorite TV shows are Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Little Bear and sometimes Sesame Street, but he hasn't been asking for that one as much lately.

He knows Mommy and Daddy's names are Dave and Beth. He doesn't usually call us by our first names, but a few times when he has to say Mommy too many times he's followed it with Beth. He also knows his last name. So, this make me feel good that if he was ever lost or something that he'd probably be able to identify who he is and who we are.

His teachers think he's funny because he's like sponge and whatever they teach him to say he'll say it. That's how he learned our last name. It's always amusing to see what he's going to say to us when we pick him up!

On to some other things...

We had his 2 year appt. this week and he's 27 lbs. 9 oz. (45th percentile) and 35 1/2in. (75th percentile) and the noggin is still the 95th percentile at 20 in. We recently switched doctors so it would be closer to our house and he knows his doctor is Doctor Tomaine and was calling him by name when we were there - really cute! Everything checked out good at the appt. and we can switch to whatever type of milk we'd like now. I think our friends are upset because they use to love coming to our house and drinking whole milk. It was a treat!

He loves pretty much any type of fruit. Not really in to veggies though, but I'm determined to start working on that with him. He eats really well though and still loves cheese, yogurt, pierogies, pizza, chicken nuggets/fingers and lots of other things.

And lastly, the big boy bed is starting to get a little use. He still moves to the floor and sleeps behind the door after we leave the room, but when we go to bed we put him in bed and there's been 3 nights this week where he stayed in bed all night and didn't go back to the floor. Other nights he wakes up at some point in the night and goes back to the floor. No crying or fussing though so we let him be, we've just added a camping pad to the Spiderman sleeping bag for some extra padding.

Some nights Dave will leave the room, wait for him to go to the floor and then will have this conversation as he stands outside the door.

Dave: Tyler you should go in to your bed.
Tyler: No
Dave: Why don't you want to sleep in your bed?
Tyler: Cause
Dave: Are you comfortable?
Tyler: Yes

Short and sweet answers and that's usually the end of it. If I were to stand outside the door and talk to him he'd start crying and yelling for me. It's weird that Dave can sit there and chit chat with him and I can't. When I asked the pediatrician about the floor sleeping he laughed and said no biggie, he's just showing his independence by sleeping on the floor.

And more randomness...

I'm signing up for the Warrior Dash in June with my sister and cousin so I can get my butt back in to gear.

Apparently, Jill informs me that I'm also doing the Wilkes-Barre triathlon with her in August, which is an Olympic length one. We'll see how it goes trying to train while getting use to life with 2 kids, but for now I'm keeping it in my plans to do. Nothing like a little motivation to get back in the groove for sure!

Had to go to the Monday yoga class this week, it was a different teacher and she had us do this "mmmmmm" thing. I don't think I'm the "mmmmmm'ing" yoga type and did everything I could to not laugh and look at Amy because I almost lost it.

We did a hospital tour this past week. Everything has been fine and dandy with pregnancy and as I stood in the labor and delivery room and listened to the nurse explain things it hit me like a ton of bricks - I have to actually GIVE BIRTH TO another baby...yikes! Dave stood there and made inappropriate jokes to me about the delivery table and recalled things that went on during Tyler's birth. Thanks Dave! Good thing is I know how sweet the reward is after you've fought the battle this time! :)

On the way home from the hospital, we both had a little panic moment talking about how fast can one of our Moms make it to our house and what we'll do with Tyler until someone gets here. Thankfully Aunt Juli is down the street and I've officially put her on call even though we have a few weeks left! We realized since my water broke last time, we never had to count a single contraction or wonder should we go to the hospital now or not. Yeah, now we're starting to think of these things. It's getting closer and I'll be asking my doc about the contraction timing thing tomorrow.

We finally got some snow! Just a few inches, but enough for the kids to play in and have some fun! The neighborhood boys were out making their snow park and they moved in to our yard too this time. Tyler didn't want to try on his skis yet so we didn't force it, but he loves watching the boys in the yard. Watching then haul their rails, ramps, and shovels through the yard makes me look forward to the day when my boys are out there doing the same thing!

The big guy turns 2!

Tyler turning two has made us feel like we really have a little boy on our hands. Maybe it's because he actually talks to us, no more trying to decode what it is that he wants. He's a blabbermouth! You never know what he's going to say next and I'll save some of those quotes for another post. He's funny, runs around like a nut, pretends he's a superhero and is always fixing something around the house. This age is lots of fun and he's really growing up!

He started off his birthday by jumping on Gram's couch, then followed it with a birthday donut while we picked up his cake at the grocery store. Then had a nice long afternoon nap at Grammy's house and went on to have a party at Aunt Jill and Uncle Kevin's house this year (thank guys!). For a few weeks, we would ask Tyler what he wanted on his cake and he consistently answered Big Bird, Elmo and Cookie Monster every time. So, after finding a cake that had Elmo and Big Bird on it I went on a hunt for a cookie monster figurine and finally found one - phew! Life was grand for this little guy and he got to celebrate with lots of family and friends. It was a great day!

On Sunday, our neighbors Catherine, Joseph and their Mom came over with a cake they made for him and brought some presents. So we got to have a little party with them too! Something was wrong with our camera, so I didn't get any pictures, but they made a really cute, super yummy cake!

He also got to celebrate with his class last Thursday and we brought in chocolate chip cookies for the munchkins. That was his last day of being in the toddler room at school and today he moved up to the 2 year old room. He's the only one that moved up so far, but his friends should be moving up soon. Tomorrow, they'll be having ice cream for his birthday so he could celebrate with his new class and friends - the birthday fun continues!











I live with 2 superheroes...not just one :)

Bump Watch: 33 down, 7 to go!

Only 7 to go. I can't believe it...this pregnancy has flown by! Not much to update on. Still feeling really good. Had a doctor appt. this week and I'm still measuring on track. This is the week that I started measuring big with Tyler. The baby is definitely growing and it's possible that he's 3 feet tall because when he kicks me I feel like he's in my throat and I think I feel body parts being moved around :) And speaking of throat, this little guy is sitting just like Tyler did he's really high and at times makes me feel pretty out of breathe. I think I can feel that he's head down, but then the next minute he's flipping somewhere else. He's a mover for sure! I've gained 35 lbs. so far and I think it's about the same amount as I gained with T at this point. Sometimes I think I might be starting to waddle a bit, but it's not a full out waddle yet. Hoping that for the next 7 weeks I can keep saying I feel great!

32 weeks, 3 days



This morning, Tyler and I have off and are relaxing around the house and getting ready for his party tomorrow. And 2 years ago to this day/hour, I was officially in labor and frantically walking around the house waiting for Dave to come home and go to the hospital so Tyler could make his appearance. Maybe it's the pregnancy hormones, but I write this with tears in my eyes that my baby is going to be 2 tomorrow. Feels like just yesterday that I was standing on the curb with a newborn in a car seat waiting for Dave to pull the car around to take Tyler home, not knowing what the heck this crazy adventure would hold for us. Now, he's the head handy man in the house.

Photo shoot

Yesterday we had Tyler's two year old pictures taken. We made it through half of the session and once they started bringing the props out he really didn't want to pose anymore. He was really in to the bear and went and drug him in to the studio himself, but mostly wanted to tackle and wrestle it. I think some kung fu panda moves were even pulled out on the poor bear. Fire truck wasn't a great option either because he just wanted to play with it and not sit on it and then some how ended up breaking one of the wooden ladders on it leaving the girl puzzled as to how he managed to pull it apart. Got some good pics though...here's the cutie pie!

The new big boy room

It's been a little over a week and the transition has been a little bit rocky. Tyler is really good with adjusting to new things and always has been, but we didn't know what to expect with moving him to a bed. When you unleash them from the crib you just don't know what's going to happen. The first few nights were actually pretty good. Then we had one night where he was up in the middle of the night and after that knew we needed a game plan because we're not ready for 3am wake ups just yet and we're soaking up our last few weeks of sleeping through the night. At 3am our minds just weren't working as to how to get him back to sleep without having one of us sleep with him (which we don't want to do). He's spoiled us. He's always been an awesome sleeper (hear that my little Zachary...follow in those footsteps please). After only one night of a 3am wake up, he then decided that he didn't like the going to bed part, so we pulled out some Supernanny skills to get him to actually go to bed and they worked. Once he was sleeping he was good.

Next up was a few nights ago when he decided that sleeping behind the door on the floor was going to be his new thing. That's where we're at now as I write this. No crying, no fussing, no yelling, but as soon as we leave the room he grabs his two pillow pets and sets up shop behind the door and goes to sleep. We've decided (with numerous calls to our moms and sisters for advice...thank goodness for them) that getting sleep is more important than where he's actually sleeping. If he's content on the floor then let it be they say. We move him in to bed when we go to bed and sometimes he stays there other times he gets up and goes back to the floor. So, we put a nice shaggy rug by the door and tonight the Spiderman sleeping bag was there too. Dave's Mom says Aunt Kris and Aunt Amy both slept on the floor a lot just like this. Good thing is he tells us he loves his bed and he's shown no interest or said anything about going in to his crib in the other room. We'll get there, I know we will, and Gram DePolo reassures us that he won't be going to college sleeping on the floor :)















Holding on to the title of King of the house for a few more weeks before he has to share his throne

Christmas and New Years 2011

Our Holiday recap told in pictures...

Sharing oplatki on Christmas Eve



Sampling the plate of food left for Santa and his reindeer





When we asked Tyler what he wanted to write to Santa he told us "Come In" so that's what we wrote :)



Saying bye to Pee Pee the Elf



The calm before the storm



We weren't sure if Tyler really got it or not that Santa was going to leave presents for him, but his face was priceless when he saw all of his presents!





Eating some peanut butter cups from the stocking before he even made it downstairs...it's Christmas...anything goes :)



Checking out what Santa wrote



We didn't forget about Zachary this Christmas. Tyler never had one of these, but we got Zac Sophie the Giraffe...my coolness factor at the playground has just sky rocketed.



First pair of skis from Uncle Ryan and Aunt Juli...now all we need is this weirdly mild weather to break and give us some snow!



The rock star with all his new toys!





After we opened presents we were off to Grammy and Pop-Pops. An intense game of Operation was going on here.





Then off to Aunt Kris and Uncle Andy's house to visit Dave's family. Fun on the trampoline with cousins...





And Dave and his sisters doing some Christmas car bombs...



Banging some pots and pans to ring in the new year. Here's a video for you too



We had New Years Eve dinner with Uncle Ryan and Aunt Juli and then hung out at Karen and Ben's house with a fire in the back yard and projecting the Phish show from Madison Square Garden that night on to their house. Good times and I stayed up until 2:15 :)



My attempt to make Tyler Mickey mouse pancakes...it can only get better from here. The first Mickey I made looked like a blob. I think the lack of sleep affected my pancake drawing ability :)



And finally, New Years day Aunt Jill, Uncle Kevin and the girls came down to hang out. We played played in the yard, they helped us take down all of our xmas stuff and we brought all of our bins of baby clothes down from the attic to start working away on getting those organized. We got a lot accomplished...thank guys!



Tyler is in to tackling right now. Here he is saying "Blue 42"



Then tackling Alex :)



Other than holiday stuff there's been so much more going on around here. Re-doing the baby's room, Tyler's room, our laundry room and a bathroom. Why we tackle everything at once during the holidays and 2 months before I'm about to have a baby I'm not sure, but we're on the home stretch and it's looking good. And we now have a boy who sleeps in a bed. No more crib, he's moved on to a double bed. Updates and pictures to come :)