Firetrucks and Police Cars

These are two of Tyler's favorite toys these days. He loves he big red firetruck. His new thing is standing on the seat. He even tries to stand on the steering wheel. He loves to roll his little police car around the house. It has these cool buttons on top that make all of the siren noises, Tyler loves to push those while he rolls the car around the house.

Busy Busy Busy

Wow this has been a really busy week.

My Mom came into town on Sunday for a week of work in Dallas and then a week of fun with her favorite Grandson:) On Sunday Tyler and I went to the airport to pick her up, we had lunch, went to my favorite mall (to kill some time) and then we to a get together that was kicking off the conference that my Mom was in town for. She wanted to show off the little bundle of cuteness to all of her coworkers. On Monday, Daddy left for the week making me a single Mommy. I wasn't worried though. Tyler is a great baby and so easy to take care of. On Tuesday we drove out to Dallas to meet my Mom and a couple of her coworkers for Dinner. I was trying to get back into going to the gym but that didn't really happen. I only made it three days out of the week. I need to do something, I am more then ready to loose this last little bit of baby weight and get back to my old skinny self. The rest of the week Tyler and I hung out and I worked a bunch. I think ended up working about 30 hours that week. On Friday, Tyler and I picked up Grandma then we picked up Daddy and went to lunch. We finally had our little family back together;)

Needless to say I was so busy that I didn't get to take any pictures, so this is a pictureless post.

15 Month Appointment

Tyler had is 15 month doctor's appointment today. In the words of my pediatrician he is perfect and I couldn't agree more. He is up to 24 lbs 7 oz and 31 inches (50% for both). My little guy is growing like a weed. You got two shots today and your finger pricked to check your iron levels. You took the shots like a champ. You didn't even notice them because you were too busy playing with the band-aid on your finger. She does want me to go ahead and get you a potty (which I have been thinking about doing for a while). Not to start potty training yet but just to get you used to sitting on the potty and if you go great we will do the potty dance but if not no big deal. I will wait until your at least two but probably closer to three before I really start to push the issue.

Happy 15 Months!

You are 15 months old today. I know I say this every month but every month you just impress us more and more and we fall even more in love with you. I love watching your little personality develop and lucky for us you are going to have a big one.

Some of the things that you have accomplished this month are:

1. You have finally learned to say Daddee!! This one makes your Daddy so proud. Now you love to babble Dadadada.

2. You are turning into the cutest little comedian. Whenever you do something that makes us laugh you will do it over and over again just to make us laugh. Sometimes I just laugh at you for fun because I love hearing your cute little giggle and your face is so proud when you are being funny.

3. You say there all the time when you are handing us stuff. You are the greatest little helper you love to pick stuff up off the ground for me.

4. This past month you have really started to play with your toys. I can see your little imagination working sometimes.

5. You love to play with your big legos. Every day you bring me the bag so I can open it for you. You love to dump them out and then put them in the bag. You also like to hand me the blocks to build things for you and then you add on to my buildings. You have mastered the single block.

6. This past month you have really started to talk. I still don't know what you are saying half the time but you do and that's all that matters.

7. You finally like the daycare at the gym. Now when I drop you off you walk to them and no longer cry when I leave you. This makes me so happy, I hate leaving you when you are sad.

8. When you get really excited you run in place.

9. You also love to run in cricles now. Its really funny to watch you get dizzy.

10. You love to brush your teeth. We always brush your teeth at bedtime and when I am done I let you continue to play with the toothbrush. Now whenever you see your toothbrush you bring it to me and when I tell you to get the toothpaste you do. You are one smart little cookie:)

11. You are starting to understand us more and more. You know when its nap time, breakfast time, lunch time, you know when to "help" pick up your toys, byebye and to brush your teeth, just by us saying the phrases.

My dear boy you are growing way too quickly and I really wish I could just stop time. But since I can't I will remember to cherish all the moments that I have with you! Your Daddy and I will continue to fall more in love with you ever day.

You were trying to get in your stroller all by yourself.

You are not in this photo but I love it. It perfect winter landscape.

Drum Roll Please.....

We have made a decision. This is the wood that is going down in our house. Now I just need to go buy it.

Snack Trap

I found (actually I found them a while ago) these snack traps for cheerios and other small snacks. They are little containers that have lids on them that kids can stick their hands in and pull out the snacks without making too much of a mess (notice the too much part). I love these things they allow Tyler to feed himself without sitting at the highchair and they entertain him for about 30 min when needed. This is also the only time that Bailey will let Tyler within 5 ft of her without growling at him. I don't really know who likes these more Tyler or Sammy and Bailey.

Here are some pictures of the dogs following Tyler around to clean up after him. I think Tyler drops extras on purpose:)

I LOVE Him:)

This post is going to be dedicated to the random cuteness of Tyler. I took some pictures of him today while he was playing and he was just full of cute smiles.

Decisions

First I want to apologize for being a really bad blogger. We have been so busy lately.

My Grandfather is coming into town in about 3 weeks and then my Dad is coming in about 4 weeks to help lay wooden floors in our house. We are doing the living room, dining room, and office hopefully. I never imagined that picking out floors was going to be so hard. We have spent the last two weekends visiting different stores. Luckily we both like about the same thing, now we just have to figure it out. So for the past two weeks this is what we stare at all day.

Today I got even more samples but they are not in the picture. I took these in the morning.

Naked Boy

Tyler loves being naked and I love watching his cute naked butt run around. Here are some pictures from before bath time today. Blackmail pictures are the best:)

Terrific Tuesday

Tyler and I had a great day today. We went to the gym, I worked, then we ran some errands and Tyler got his 2nd haircut. Daddy needed a haircut and while we were waiting for him, I decided to go ahead and get Tyler's done. I wasn't sure about it because this definitely was not a kids hair cut place but the girl was really nice and assured me that she cuts kids hair all the time. Tyler did great (of course), he sat there like such a big boy and let her do her thing.

Here are some random pictures of Tyler playing on his favorite chair.

Tyler doing one of his new tricks. He thinks the chair is a slide.

Tyler and his firetruck.

My two pathetic dogs.


My cutie pie:)

Blocks

Tyler got some Mega Blocks for Christmas and he LOVES these things. I thought that we would just put them up for a while and then bring them out when he was about 18 months old but he already seems really interested in them. He is still learning the concept of blocks but he is picking up on it alot faster than I thought he would. He likes it when I build things for him and then he adds on additional blocks. He also likes to dump the whole bag and then either throw them across the room or put them back in the bag. This behavior I expected but I didn't expect him to already know how to stack them on top of each other.

Daredevil

Here is video of my little daredevil in action.

I am a mix of one of "those" Moms

So there was this discussion on my message board yesterday and today about being one of "those" Moms. To some of them "those" moms are moms that are doing things completely differently than they said they would when they were pregnant. They said they would breastfeed, make the baby food, not let them watch TV, never lose their tempers, teach their baby sign language, have the baby weaned from the bottle at 12 months, etc. I think you get the point. I did not respond to this post basically because it got pretty nasty if you didn't fit into their definition of being one of "those" moms, they assumed you were saying you are perfect and that is not the case at all. This post really got me thinking about what have done for Tyler and what I am proud of. I didn't really have any of these expectations for myself when I was pregnant. Somewhere in the process of it all I think I found a happy medium or at least one that works for our family.

I did breastfeed and I am extremely proud of it. I am very proud that I made it to a year and pumped at work for 9 of those months. I made all of Tyler's baby food and I worked full time, and yes I am very proud of this too. For the first year of my baby's life I knew exactly were most of his food was coming from. I always feed him a fruit or vegetable with every meal, yes I feed him chicken nuggets and let him have sugar but I make sure he gets the nutritious stuff too. I did have him weaned from the bottle and the boob at 12 months but this was really only because he is such an easy baby and never fought it. I have lost my temper with him and I think if you say you have not lost your temper or gotten extremely frustrated with your little one at one point you are lying. I am not proud of this and I don't do it often but yes it has happened. Tyler does know a couple of signs but that is not because of me, that is all thanks to daycare. Tyler does not watch TV but that is not because its never on, its just because he has better things to do. There were some other things mentioned but these are just the ones that stood out to me.

Do I think that every mom has to do it my way? Of course not and I don't think anyone should think that. If everyone did everything the same, who would I go to for advice? I can't say that I know a "bad" mom. Everyone I know takes great care of their family and does what is right for them. What we do or don't do is not what makes us great moms, it is all about raising a loving, happy and healthy child. How ever you get there is your decision and it is the right decision for your little one even if its not the way I would have done it.

So Proud

Tyler has learned to climb up his Spider Man couch onto the chair. He was so proud of himself when he got up there. He has also learned how to get down, he walked right off the chair. Luckily the spider man couch was down there to break his fall. He thought it was so funny, got right up and did it again. Oh boy are we in for some fun trips to the ER, I can just see it in our future.

Silly Kiddo

Here are some silly pictures of Tyler playing around in his ballpit.

I love the look on his face in this one.

New Year's Resolution

Tyler doesn't know it but his New Year's resolution is to get rid of that paci. I was going to do it earlier but then I found out I was going to Atlanta, so I decided to wait until we got back. I figured we have to do it sometime, so we might as well start the year out right. Tonight is Tyler's first night going to bed without it. Wish us luck.

Bye Bye Paci