Thursday

I ended up taking some video yesterday of Tyler, so I thought that I would post a few segments. I was cleaning the kitchen yesterday when I heard the most intense jabbering he has ever done. After quickly grabbing the video camera (because the talking was so cute) and quietly sneaking into his room to record it, Ellie barked and gave me away (she was suspicous of me crawling down the hallway I guess). :( I tried a few more times to record him while he was unaware of my prescence but Ellie is just not good at sneaking around. I finally gave in and stood by his crib and filmed him, but of course the talking wasn't nearly as intense and animated. But, since I did get a few minutes of him, I am sharing. :)

Today is warmer, so that is good. Tyler surprised me this morning while eating some Cheerios and a banana, when he signed "drink" to me. I was so thrilled. Normally he signs milk when he is ready, and we have been working on drink to no avail. So when he did it, I was quite surprised. I started clapping for him, which of course got him to do it more. Hopefully, it will stick. We will see at dinner whether we can get him to repeat it. :)

Play class was fun and different today. Normally Tyler loves to sit and clap along to the songs, or explore the musical instruments/rattles that they put out, but today he wanted nothing to do with any of it, which meant that I wasn't able to just sit and chat with the other moms.

So I spent the circle times chasing Tyler around the baby gym. He was obsessed with trying to crawl up a steep slide, and then onto a window ledge. He wouldn't give up until I showed him a tunnel to crawl through (remember, the boy loves tunnels). It wasn't long before he discovered the other long tunnel in the class, which goes right into a play house. After he discovered this, he was done with everything else. He would crawl into the house, and talk to everyone through the window, and would then crawl out through the tunnel long enough to make sure I was still there before going back into the house. He did this over and over!

He even got another little girl to follow him through the tunnel, into the house and yell out the window with him. Just wish I had my camera.....

Other than that, Tyler and I have been in quite a battle today. It has officially been two hours and he still won't lay down for a nap. Normally, he eats lunch and goes down without a fuss, but today he is being a comedian. He is jumping in his bed, laughing when I come back in to lay him down, and just jabbering away. I think that I am going to give up on his nap once I post this so that he goes down easier tonight.




VIDEO

It is cold!

I have no new pictures to post right now, but will try to take some later today. I just wanted to say that it is cold! The weather has been cruel this week. Monday we had highs in the 40's and Tyler/I spent some of the day outside with the dogs (we even ventured up to the outlets...about 20 minutes away....to get Tyler some new shoes). My mind was thinking of spring.

Then Tuesday came, and we are cold again. I usually don't mind the cold, but after the gorgeous weekend and Monday, this is just cruel. The weather channel says that it is -14 right now, with wind chills in the -35's. Tyler is still not up and out of bed, and I don't blame him one bit (even though it is 9:30). I guess that he is staying under the covers today. :)

Carlie had her vet appointment yesterday. They took xrays of both knees and her hips. Her hips look good. Both knees have ligament issues (partially-torn), and then her left knee has a misformed knee joint and her patella was offtrack at the time of xray. The vet recommended surgery and so now Adam and I are trying to figure that out. The vet thinks that it is better to do the surgery now and correct these problems before arthritis sets in, but we are having a hard time accepting this, especially after watching Carlie run all over the house like a mad woman last night (she had some built up energy from spending the day in a crate at the vet's) and realizing how much energy she truly does have on a daily basis.

Harder to put your dog through surgery and the recovery when she is fine 95% of the time than if she was struggling more with her knees.

Well, if I get any pictures or video from today, I will post. Otherwise, we will be drinking warm drinks and staying indoors today. Hopefully, everyone else is doing well too!

Playtime

These pictures were taken yesterday. Ellie was ringing the bell all day long to be let outside (we have a bell on the door that the dogs ring to let us know when they need to go outside to potty). I don't know whether Tyler was picking up on my frustrations, or it was just a coincidence but when Ellie went to ring the bell he took off towards to the door to (using the walking toy you see in the pictures). Anyways, he walked straight into the door and just stood there. He stood there long enough that I was able to grab the camera and take a few pictures.

Some of the looks he was giving in these pictures make it look like he was tired of hearing Ellie ring the bell too, which is why I have to post them. :) I know though that it had nothing to do with Ellie, because the moment I turned the walker around he took off walking to the other side of the living room. :)

These pictures were taken yesterday. He got a new dump truck and has enjoyed pushing it around the house. It was yesterday though that it seem to click that the bed of the truck moved because he kept dumping things out when I would load the truck up with toys (I was sort of hoping that if I put all the small toys in the truck, he would help me clean up the living room by pushing the truck back to his room...wishful thinking, huh? ). Even though my hopes of cleaning up the living room (that has slowly become this week his playroom) didn't turn out, Tyler was still getting such a kick out of his new toy that I had to take a few pictures. :)

As for today, we had a a busy day. Tyler and I set out early to run errands, and then we drove downtown to surprise Adam for lunch. We hadn't called him to let him know, so I figured that he would already have plans, but I thought that I would give it a shot. As we were walking to his building, he was coming down the escalators with lunch in his hands. Who would have thought that we would have run into him like that! :) Tyler was pretty happy to see his dad, but was also pretty mesmorized by all of the people walking around.

It turned out that he had a meeting to go to and so he was in a hurry. But, not being able to turn Tyler down took a few minutes to eat lunch with Tyler before having to go to his meeting. It took Tyler and I lot longer to finish our lunch because Tyler was having so much fun watching everyone walk by and offering them his food (he likes to share). Most were getting a kick out of him and stopping to talk to him, so he was loving it.

When we finished lunch we walked around and did a little shopping, but before we headed to the car we called Adam again to see if he wanted to join us for coffee (I needed some caffeine since I am exhausted from the long teething nights this past week). Adam was free so he headed downstairs to meet us once more, and Tyler got a surprise visit from Uncle Bruce. It was too bad that it was an hour past Tyler's naptime because Tyler wasn't as chatty for Bruce or Adam as he has been lately. And I know that he had some good stories to tell them about all of the people we meet downtown because Tyler met a ton of people. If he wasn't chatting or waving at them, he was dropping his hat or coat so that people would stop and chat to him.

When we were done getting our coffee, Tyler and I headed home. I knew that he was exhausted, and sure enough we weren't in the car two minutes before he was sound asleep. He didn't even wake up when I was changing him and putting him into p.j.'s. Poor guy!!

I hope that everyone has a great weekend! It is supposed to warm up here so hopefully we will get out and enjoy the weather while it is here. Hopefully, you all can do the same. :)

Rearranging the kitchen

Tyler discovered a few weeks ago that he could push the kitchen chairs around while we cooked dinner. These pictures were taken yesterday when he decided to get busy rearranging again. He pushed a chair from the kitcehn table clear into our front hall.....laughing hysterically the entire way. I wish that I had had the camcorder handy, because it was funny enough to get me laughing too. It is times like those when I wish that he could talk to tell us what he is thinking. :)

You will notice too that he is drooling again like crazy since his tshirt is soaked. He just had his top teeth on each side of his middle top teeth break through, so I am not sure if the drooling is related to those teeth that just came in or whether he is getting ready to get have some more teeth come in. He was miserable with these last two, so I am hoping that he can be done for at least a little while.

Things Tyler Can Do At 12 Months

Tyler is currently teething like crazy. The two teeth to each side of his middle top teeth are starting to break through, and from the brief glances into his mouth, there are more to come.

I took this video last week, and thought that you might like to see a few clips from our day. As most of you know, Tyler is learning to sign. Two "clips" show him signing (and saying verbally) dad and dog.

Dad is signed by taping your thumb/hand against your forehead. Tyler does this by just tapping his head.

And we sign dog by tapping our hand against our leg (there are many ways to sign dog).

Otherwise, here is a look into five minutes of our day together. :) And notice that Ellie is in almost every clip. That is because she refuses to leave our side during the day. She likes to follow us around until we find a spot to stay for awhile and then she curls up against me in an attempt to get warm. She is definitely a dog made for warmer climates.

I hope that everyone is doing well!

Tyler playing with his house.

Here are some pictures from today. Tyler is downstairs playing with his house. He likes opening and closing the door, and playing with the mailbox. I think that the mailbox is by far his favorite, because he can sit there and open and shut the mailbox and chew on the mail for 5 minutes straight, which is an amazing amount of time in Tyler's world. He just discovered how to push the different button's on the radio to get different music.

Below he is telling me to ring the doorbell before I enter his house. Or at least that is what he was acting like as he pointed his finger at me and talked up a baby storm. I think that he was irritated because I was telling him not to touch the pictures on the shelf behind him.

And now Tyler is crawling through his house to come show me the mail he got today. :)

Just a few pictures...

Tyler deciding it is time to go upstairs for a snack.
Carlie telling Tyler to hurry up because she wants a snack too.

Wednesday

Well...I haven't really posted in awhile but that is because not a lot is really going on. Tyler is busy teething and has now been officially weaned from a pacifier for about two weeks now. He is signing up a storm these days, and loves to chase the dogs around the house.

The dogs are doing well, but I think that the cold is getting old for them. They are really starting to go stir crazy, which means a lot more barking. I have been trying to let them out more frequently as a result (otherwise I risk a headache) but they tend to only stay outside for five minutes tops before barking to come back in. We do play during the day, but it is just not enough compared to the running and sniffing that they do during the warmer weather.

Tyler discovered today though that he could take his favorite book, Hello Bee, and use the mirror inside it to reflect light so that "light bugs" are on the ceiling. We usually let the dogs chase a laser light, so this is the same thing for them except that the light is on the ceiling. The barking was unbearable, but Tyler was laughing so hard at how silly the girls were acting and the girls were jumping around like crazy (and hopefully expelling energy), that I just let them all play.

That was a good decision, because now Tyler is playing calmly with some toys and the dogs are sleeping.

I have a few pictures to post that are from the last week. Just pictures I took while playing from around the house. But at least it is something new to look at, right? :)

Professional First Birthday Photos

So today after reviewing Tyler's birthday and Christmas photos in an attempt (we took over 700 pictures last week...so "attempt" seems appropriate) to pick out what pictures I wanted to get printed, I realized that I didn't really have a picture that I liked for his birthday pose. And by that I mean a picture or two of him smiling, by himself, in non-Christmas pictures, where he doesn't have cake on his face. So, I had some coupons for a few free sheets (from a previous portrait gathering) that were tempting me, so after our play class we ventured to the store to get a quick picture taken.

Tyler is still recovering from a cold that he picked up from Iowa and his doctor's appointment yesterday. On a quick side tangent, Tyler's appointment went well yesterday. He weighs 22 pounds, 5 ounces and was 29.75 inches long. This puts him in the 44th percentile for weight and for height for whatever that is worth. He talked to the doctor and nurse nonstop again, and fought the doctor when he tried to look in Tyler's mouth (Tyler lets noone look in his mouth unless we have a toothbrush in hand...usually we have to hold him upside down to get just a peak to see whether he has any new teeth coming in). Needless to say, Tyler was not thrilled about the tongue dispenser approach. :)

Developmentally, Tyler is doing well. His doctor wants him to work on feeding himself with a spoon and not his hands, and work more on standing/walking but that he won't truly be concerned until Tyler is 15 months and not attempting either of these things. Tyler does like to control the spoon and try to feed himself, but given how messy he is we don't do that a lot....though we probably should....Otherwise, all was on schedule.

They had him scheduled to get three shots. After talking to the doctor and nurse we decided to delay one of the shots and go forward with the other two. I was glad that we only had two to deal with after the nurse started in with the first. Tyler has NEVER cried at any of his shots, yet screamed his head off, kicked, and had lots of tears with these two. It was hard to watch, but the nurse just said that I should be grateful that this the first time he has responded like this since most babies usually cry when they get their shots. So I bundled him up and we had some good cuddle time before heading on to his play class yesterday.

He moved up levels in his play class, so instead of being with 5 to 10 month olds is now in the 10 to 16 month old class. There were five babies there yesterday (including Tyler), and two of them were running around like wild (they are 13 months). So now instead of Tyler being the oldest in his class, he is in the middle of the pack and hence I am less worried about him crawling over babies who aren't yet mobile. And Tyler seemed to enjoy it more too because he would chase the two girls walking, and the two other girls would crawl after him (they other two girls aren't quite as fast as him). So later on in the session I will have to get some video of this new class for you to see. :)

Anyways, back to the reason for my posting......

So I wasn't sure if Tyler would do well at the photos or not because his little legs are sore from the shots (one is even bruised) and he is still battling the cold. He was great all morning so I thought that luck was on my side, but when we walked into the store he got real fussy. I was beginning to think it was a bad idea (we had to wait 10 minutes since we were a walk-in) and was about to leave when it was Tyler's turn. They assured me that if nothing turn out, I wouldn't be obligated to buy. But in the end it didn't matter. The moment they pulled out a ladder for him to stand on and started to talking to him, he started cheesing it up. He was smiling and laughing, and we had a hard time narrowing it all down to 8 pictures to send to the computer. So we ended up getting some GREAT pictures, and of course I couldn't decide which ones to get with my coupons. All that worry for nothing....

So here are the pictures that I had to choose from. I thought that you might like to see them. :)

Tyler Turns One Video

Here is a shortened video of Tyler's birthday. It probably doesn't need to be said, but we took a LOT of video of his birthday. :)

December Update

I just wanted to let everyone know that we took over 700 pictures and a lot of video over this last week. I will be posting as I get the time, and am able to sort through them. I need to post pictures from Christmas Eve until now, so be sure and look at all the December posts to make sure that you don't miss one (i.e. I post pictures from today and then later post some of Christmas). :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Well, we are back home as of this afternoon. After a nice eleven day vacation to Adam's parent's house we sadly had to leave today. The drive back was great. We had lots of blowing snow that at times made our visibility very low, but the dogs and Tyler were angels on the drive. I think that they all are pretty tired after a week at Grandma and Grandpa's house since the trip went so well, and now they are all sleeping.

As we pulled onto our street we realized that it had snowed a lot while we were gone, and although we had hoped that someone had snowblowed our driveway, it didn't happen. So Adam parked on the street, and went to work on clearing a path (it looked like we had about 6-8 inches on the ground), while I got the "children" into the house. Fortunately, all of the "children" promptly fell asleep, and I started a little cleaning to get ready for all the stuff we had to unload. When Adam finished up the driveway, we pulled the car in and started unloading. Yikes. The car was packed! You would think with a bigger car this year we would have more room, but we only filled it fuller. Go figure.

All in all we had a great New Year's Eve, and are enjoying today. We voted to watch a few bowl games and relax for awhile before getting too serious about unpacking. For some reason it is always harder to find the motivation to unpack than it is to pack for a vacation. :)

We hope that everyone else is having a great New Year's as well and we will post more pictures later.

Happy New Year!!